Photodynamic therapy has been widely replaced by antiangiogenesis agents for the first-line therapy for exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD). There is a strong basis for predicting that a combination of photodynamic therapy and antiangiogenesis agents may address the relative disadvantages of each. By improving the rates of response, photodynamic therapy has the potential to reduce the frequency with which intravitreal injections of antiangiogenesis agents are required. Antiangiogenesis agents may augment the activity of photodynamic therapy by inhibiting its counterproductive upregulation of vascular endothelial growth factor. Clinical studies of this combination are being advanced in both AMD and in the treatment of malignancies.


Recent works have shown that neural networks are vulnerable to carefully crafted adversarial examples (AE). By adding small perturbations to input images, AEs are able to make the victim model predicts incorrect outputs. Several research work in adversarial machine learning started to focus on the detection of AEs in autonomous driving. However, the existing studies either use preliminary assumption on outputs of detections or ignore the tracking system in the perception pipeline. In this paper, we firstly propose a novel distance metric for practical autonomous driving object detection outputs. Then, we bridge the gap between the current AE detection research and the real-world autonomous systems by providing a temporal detection algorithm, which takes the impact of tracking system into consideration. We perform evaluation on Berkeley Deep Drive (BDD) and CityScapes datasets to show how our approach outperforms existing single-frame-mAP based AE detections by increasing 17.76% accuracy of performance.


A new protocol of the optical quantum memory based on the resonant interactions of the multi atomic system with a cavity light mode is proposed. The quantum memory is realized using a controllable inversion of the inhomogeneous broadening of the resonant atomic transition and impact interaction (on request) of additional short 2 - laser pulse resonant to an adjacent atomic transition. We demonstrate that the quantum memory protocol is effective for arbitrary storage time and can be used for new quantum manipulations with transient entangled states in the field-atoms evolution. The effect of the fast absorption and emission of the light field is predicted.


Background: The use of misoprostol in the management of first trimester abortion is an evolving clinical practice in most parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Objective: To determine the effectiveness and acceptability of misoprostol in the evacuation of the uterus in first trimester missed abortion. Study Design: This was a non-randomized trial. Setting: This study was conducted in the Gynecologic Unit, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital Bauchi, Nigeria. Materials and Methods: Consented consecutive patients with first trimester missed abortion were recruited in the study. Each patient was given sublingual misoprostol 600 µg to be repeated after 6 hours if abortion process was not initiated. They were followed-up after two weeks and offered contraceptive counseling. However, if active vaginal bleeding persisted, patients were reviewed after 1 week, scanned and offered surgical evacuation (manual vacuum aspiration) on confirmation of residual products of conception. Telephone review was conducted for patients who defaulted follow-up. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 16. P value was considered significant at a < 0.05 at 95% CI. Results: Sixty-one patients with missed abortion were managed between 1 st January and December 2013 with a mean age, parity and gestational age of 27.6 ± 5.6 years, 3.6 ± 2.3 and 7.6 ± 2.0 weeks, respectively. Fifty-six patients (92%) achieved complete evacuation. Mean interval between the first dose of misoprostol and abortion was 5.1 ± 2.2 hours and mean duration of vaginal bleeding was 5.9 ± 1.6 days (range: 3-14 days). Side effects were minor mainly nausea/vomiting, and all the patients with complete evacuation showed satisfaction with the method and preferred it to surgical evacuation. Conclusion: Misoprostol is very effective in the management of first trimester missed abortion in our setting and should be the treatment method of first choice.


The use of goat milk in dairy products formulation is being performed instead of cow milk, some features, including the present lower incidence of allergies. The production of fermented milk, yoghurt type, goats with the addition of probiotic cultures and fruit for saborizar the product can potentiate the beneficial health effects, and thus, the demand for this product by the consumer. This study was developed in order to prepare and characterize the technological, physical, physico-chemical, microbiological, rheological and sensory of a fermented goat added jelly Guava and probiotic cultures. The effect of the addition of probiotic lactic acid bacteria cultures on the quality characteristics of fermented milks were evaluated at the times 1, 7, 14 and 21 days, given the following treatments: CI (conventional yoghurt control), containing the starter culture comprising Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus; ILA containing the probiotic microorganism Lactobacillus acidophilus, co-culture with the starter; ILP, comprising the probiotic Lactobacillus casei subsp. paracasei, in addition to the starter culture; and IBB containing probiotic Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis in combination with a starter culture. All fermented milks tested showed good results as to the technological characteristics without undergoing syneresis, with good stability and high capacity of water retention. Samples slightly acidified during shelf life, perceived characteristic and well accepted in the sensory test, with notes whose hedonic terms ranged from "like slightly" and "liked". In general, it was observed that the addition of probiotic strains in the preparation of fermented milks did not influence the physical and physicochemical characteristics of the same (p> 0.05), noting only a reduction (p <0.05) the ash content in the sample IBB during refrigerated storage. The apparent viscosity of the samples remained high during the storage time, with greater influence (p <0.05) of the probiotic Lactobacillus casei subsp. paracasei. Thus, it was found that the preparation of a fermented milk with added guava jelly and probiotics is presented as a product with potential for investment in the dairy industry with functional properties, whose microbiological, technological, rheological, nutritional and sensory qualities were satisfactory.


The evaluation of cerebral hemodynamics has been a challenge for researchers and medical professionals, particularly in the study of intracranial aneurysms. In contrast to high-quality anatomical imaging, hemodynamic and functional assessments are immature and imprecise. We are describing a series of experimental and clinical studies focusing on the assessment of the intracranial hemodynamics in a context of IAs using different modalities like: computational flow dynamics, transcranial Doppler and digital subtracted angiography. We report form the most experimental assessment and the technical challenges that it could present to the latest clinical application of the flow assessment in clinical patients. The translational link between the experimental to the clinical work is clear and necessary because in both ways validation is required and necessary. We present different experiments and studies on the domains of fluids and vascular science to determine the results and propose recommendations to facilitate a better understanding of the subject.


Flow visualization is a vital component in the workflow of studying computational fluid dynamic simulations. Integral curves or streamlines are one of the most commonly used techniques to visualize flow fields and selecting a good set of streamlines is viewed as a challenge. Identifying a representative set of streamlines that captures the flow behavior can be achieved by either strategically placing seed points or selecting a subset of precomputed streamlines that exhibit desired properties. Over the past two decades, as desired characteristics and hardware resources have evolved, the approaches to solving the challenge have greatly varied. Primarily automatic techniques, these algorithms can be classified into density-based, feature-based, and similarity-based methods. In this report, we further subdivide each category to identify the strategies adopted by various researchers. We identified a total of 18 automatic technique strategies and 2 manual technique strategies. In addition to the qualitative and quantitative comparisons established by these works, we evaluate the strategies based on criteria specifically relevant to us, i.e., redundancy, regions of interest, and computation. We believe our classification and categorization reporting benefits future research endeavors with regard to in situ flow visualization techniques where seed placement and streamline selection will be key to successful flow exploration.


The author described a case of myasthenia and epilepsy in a female aged 36 years. The relationship between myasthenia and epilepsy was discussed. The additional factor which made the diagnosis difficult is bilateral deafness.


The idea of prevention in child welfare is not new. The prevention of substitute placement of children whether on a temporary or long-term basis has been a fundamental principle of child welfare we have held to for many years in Victoria. However, it is only in the last decade that this principle is actually being carried out in practice by a number of voluntary agencies. For many children placement is still commonly used as a solution it is easier to place a child than to promote change within many multi-deficit families.


Background: The prognosis of patients with osteosarcoma has considerably improved over the last 30 years, mainly due to developments in chemotherapy. However, almost half of the osteosarcomas do not respond to chemotherapy. Predictive markers for chemosensitivity at diagnosis are desirable. Patients and Methods: In order to investigate the potential of some chemotherapy-associated genes with respect to their predictive value for chemosensitivity, the mRNA expression of 8 genes was evaluated in the osteosarcomas of 45 patients and correlated to the histological response to neoadiuvant chemotherapy. Results: ERCC4, a member of the nucleotide excision repair system, showed a orrelation between expression and the histologically evaluated response to chemotherapy. The expression of the other investigated genes HER-2/neu, HSP 70, GST, DHFR, BCRP, ERCC1 and Mlh1 showed no significant correlation to response to chemotherapy. Conclusion: In our retrospective analyses, low expression of ERCC4 was shown to be related to poor response to chemotherapy. The potential value of ERCC4 as response predictor has to be investigated in a prospective study.


UNLABELLED
The aim of the study was evaluation of morphological exponents of chronic hepatitis C in naive HIV/HCV co-infected patients.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Investigation were performed in 61 patients with chronic hepatitis C, 21 HIV co-infected. HIV-HCV co-infected patients were included to group I. There were 7 females and 14 males (mean age 31.5 years). In group II there were 40 patients with chronic hepatitis C HIV-seronegatives. There were 22 females and 18 males (mean age 40.1 years). In all patients medical history, physical examination, some laboratory tests (ALT activity, HCV viral load) and histological examination of liver biopsy specimens were performed. In patients from group I HIV viral load and CD4 count were assessed.

RESULTS
Among HCV infected (group II) higher biochemical activity of the disease and more intense inflammatory changes and fibrosis in the liver were detected. In group HIV/HCV co-infected 2-times higher values of HCV viral load were detected. There were no connections with morphological liver picture and HCV viral load in these patients. There were no connections between the grade of immunodeficiency and advancing of morphological changes in the liver. So grading as staging were similar, independent on lymphocyte CD4 count.

CONCLUSION
In the light of performed investigations it was revealed that HIV not accelerate the natural history of chronic hepatitis C. The grade of immunodeficiency measured by CD4 count seems to no influence on advancing of morphological changes in the liver in naive patients.


We have previously described a simple yet effective liposome-based therapeutic vaccine, DOTAP/E7, which contains only two molecules, the cationic lipid DOTAP and a peptide antigen derived from the E7 oncoprotein of human papillomavirus (HPV) type 16. In the current report, we have improved the vaccine formulation by incorporation of E7-lipopeptide instead of the water-soluble native E7 peptide into the DOTAP liposome. The lipopeptide consists of an N-terminal alpha- or -palmitoyl lysine connected to the E7 peptide via a dipeptide Ser-Ser linker. The DOTAP/E7-lipopeptide vaccine exhibited an enhanced functional antigen-specific CD8 (+) T lymphocyte response in vivo compared to the previous DOTAP/E7 formulation. More importantly, the cytotoxic T cells induced by the DOTAP/E7-lipopeptide vaccine could efficiently eliminate an existing HPV positive TC-1 tumor. The antitumor activity of lipopeptide formulated in DOTAP liposome was more than twice as potent as that of native E7, likely owing to the increased peptide entrapment efficiency in the liposomal complex. Our results also showed that it is essential to have the dipeptide spacer sequence between E7 peptide and the attached fatty acid to achieve a full immune response. Overall, the improved DOTAP/E7-lipopeptide vaccine described herein showed a significantly enhanced therapeutic effect for the treatment of a cervical cancer model.


610 HBV-positive donors from the same period, of whom 83 were born in India or Pakistan, were asked about any other potential blood exposures. None reported self-flagellation. At the time of posttest counseling, no previous HTLV results were available for donors reporting self-flagellation or for their family members. Until the known modes of vertical and sexual transmission have been excluded by such results, the likelihood of self-flagellation as an infective risk factor remains unclear. Although India and Pakistan are not known to be geographic risk areas for HTLV-1, few prevalence studies are available (4), and HTLV-1 is commonly present in small geographic foci (5). In addition, a noticeable degree of transmission through communal self-flagellation would first require a raised prevalence of infection among the practicing group. We look forward to further research that may clarify the apparent link between self-flagellation and HTLV-1 infection.


Uterine myometrial smooth muscle tumors sometimes raise concerns related to their histopathological typing, and that especially for benign entities with areas of atypia. In this study, we analyzed a group of myometrial smooth muscle tumors in what it regards their differential diagnosis utilizing a panel of antibodies consisting of α-SMA, Ki-67, p16, p53, PR and bcl-2. The study included a total of 16 cases of cellular leiomyomas, five cases of atypical leiomyomas and six of leiomyosarcomas, which were all analyzed for age, risk factors, mitotic activity, cellular atypia and tumor staging. In cases of cellular leiomyomas, the immunophenotype was characterized by high expression of PR and bcl-2 and low expression of p53 and Ki-67. For atypical leiomyomas, PR, bcl-2 and p53 expression levels were highly compared with low levels of p16 and Ki-67. Leiomyosarcomas immunophenotype was characterized by high expression values of Ki-67, p16 and p53, and decreased levels of PR and bcl-2. The study indicated specific immunophenotypes among the uterine myometrial smooth muscle tumors analyzed. The antibody panel used here might be a useful for the complementary histopathological analysis of myometrial leiomyomas and leiomyosarcomas.


OBJECTIVE
Opioids and the Workplace Prevention and Response (OWPR) Train-the-Trainer (TTT) and Leadership programs were piloted to improve trainees' abilities to conduct opioid awareness training and to introduce policies and programs in their workplaces.

METHODS
The TTT (N = 54) and Leadership (N = 19) pilot trainees were administered voluntary pre- and post-training surveys and observed for discussion on knowledge and confidence regarding teaching and on workplace policies and workplace injury prevention related to opioids.

RESULTS
Percentage agreement with correct responses for all TTT and 10 out of 14 (71.4 percent) Leadership knowledge and confidence questions increased significantly from pre- to post-test.

CONCLUSION
We found some evidence that the OWPR TTT and Leadership training programs and materials were effective in improving trainee's abilities to conduct opioid awareness training and to introduce policies and programs to address opioids and the workplace.


Teaching is successful only when learning (a change in behaviour) is achieved. Diverse effective strategies are employable by teachers to facilitate students' learning within the formal context of climate change education (CCE), covering the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains corresponding to the head, heart and hands model. This quantitative study adopts a descriptive survey research design to assess teachers' expressed capacity building needs in order to ascertain gaps pertaining to effective teaching strategies related to the CCE-infused curriculum in Enugu state. A total of 410 in-service public secondary school teachers serve as respondents in this study, spread across four education zones within the study area. A self-developed questionnaire served as the instrument for data collection in this study. This instrument passed face validity and reliability tests (Alpha = .84). Descriptive statistics, mean, mean differences tests and exploratory factor/dimension reduction analyses were applied to analyze data. Overall, teachers expressed high capacity building need in most of the CCE strategies listed, irrespective of tested teacher variables. Also, the results show two underlying factors/themes under which capacity building needs on the listed CCE strategies are grouped – innovative, learner-centered/inclusive teaching strategies and the use of instructional materials/media. Inference drawn from findings is that learner-centered strategies/media are lacking in CCE, which would inhibit students' learning about climate change. If the current trend is disregarded, achieving holistic CCE as captured by the head, heart and hands model will be unattainable and with severe consequences on the future of the earth's environment.


Background: SARS-CoV-2 is a newly emerged coronavirus, causing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in December, 2019. As drugs and vaccines of COVID-19 remain in development, accurate virus detection plays a crucial role in the current public health crisis. Quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) kits have been reliably used for detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, whereas isothermal nucleic acid amplification-based point-of-care automated kits have also been considered as a simpler and rapid alternative. However, as these kits have only been developed and applied clinically within a short timeframe, their clinical performance has not been adequately evaluated to date. We describe a comparative study between a newly developed cross-priming isothermal amplification (CPA) kit (Kit A) and five RT-qPCR kits (Kits B–F) to evaluate their sensitivity, specificity, predictive values and accuracy.

Methods: Fifty-two clinical samples were used including throat swabs (n=30), nasal swabs (n=7), nasopharyngeal swabs (n=7) and sputum specimens (n=8), comprising confirmed (n=26) and negative cases (n=26). SARS-CoV-2 detection was simultaneously performed on each sample using six nucleic acid amplification kits. The sensitivity, specificity, positive/negative predictive values (PPV/NPV) and the accuracy for each kit were assessed using clinical manifestation and molecular diagnoses as the reference standard. Reproducibility for RT-qPCR kits was evaluated in triplicate by three different operators using a SARS-CoV-2 RNA-positive sample. On the basis of the six kits' evaluation results, CPA kit (Kit A) and two RT-qPCR Kits (Kit B and F) were applied to the SARS-CoV-2 detection in close-contacts of COVID-19 patients.

Results: For Kit A, the sensitivity, specificity, PPV/NPV and accuracy were 100%. Among the five RT-qPCR kits, Kits B, C and F had good agreement with the clinical diagnostic reports (Kappa≥0.75); Kits D and E were less congruent (0.4≤Kappa<0.75). Differences between all kits were statistically significant (P<0.001). The reproducibility of RT-qPCR kits was determined using a coefficients of variation (CV) between 0.95% and 2.57%, indicating good reproducibility.

Conclusions: This is the first comparative study to evaluate CPA and RT-qPCR kits' specificity and sensitivity for SARS-CoV-2 detection, and could serve as a reference for clinical laboratories, thus informing testing protocols amid the rapidly progressing COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19; nucleic acid detection; real-time reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-qPCR); cross-priming isothermal amplification (CPA)


This study investigated the characteristics of date palm fronds (DPF) for their use as a feedstock for fuel and energy production. The calorific values and elemental contents of the DPF samples were measured through proximate analysis, ultimate analysis and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. For proximate analysis, thermo-gravimetric analysis technique was used to identify the moisture content, volatile matter, fixed carbon and ash content. Ultimate analysis was used to determine the weight percentage of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen. In line with this, X-ray fluorescence was used to determine the percentage of sulfur in the tested samples. The results of the conducted study were compared with other biomass reported in the past literature. The fixed carbon content of DPF was found lower than the other biomass except rice husk. Ajwah DPF exhibited the highest carbon content of 14.1%, while Jeddah DPF showed lowest carbon content of 5.2% among all the tested samples. However, presence of the metallic elements in the samples, such as Mg and Na can cause problems in the thermo-chemical processing systems. KEY WORDS : Date palm fronds, Biomass, Proximate analysis, Ultimate analysis, Calorific value, Elemental content Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2016 , 30(3), 465-472 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v30i3.15


Abstract Background Emergency department (ED) providers frequently use fluoroquinolones (FQs) as first-line therapy for common infections in discharged patients. In 2016 the FDA issued a warning against FQ use for three common conditions: cystitis, bronchitis, and sinusitis. This study evaluated the effect of an electronic health record (EHR) clinical decision support alert followed by targeted provider education on FQ prescribing in the ED. Methods We performed a nonrandomized, single arm, pre–post study of FQ prescribing in target indications before (November 2015–October 2016) and after (January 2017–December 2017) implementation of an EHR alert at 19 hospital-based and free-standing EDs in the Charlotte NC area. Providers were alerted when a patient was discharged from the ED on an FQ with a target diagnosis (infections identified as being inappropriate for FQ) without additional exclusions (e.g., penicillin allergy) (Figure 1). Initial provider education on appropriate FQ use accompanied EHR alert implementation at all 19 participating EDs in November 2016. Targeted follow-up education was delivered in August 2017. We compared overall FQ prescribing rates in pre- vs. post-alert intervals using chi-squared tests. We compared FQ prescription volume following alert failure by indication for high alert failure diagnoses (ICD10 codes with ≥75 alerts) in Q1 2017 vs. Q4 2017. Results Target population ED discharges remained stable pre- and post-alert implementation (n = 37,975; n = 37,731). FQ prescribing decreased 53% from pre (n = 13,796, 36%) to post alert (n = 7,289, 19%; P < 0.01). While total orders avoided after alert firing remained low, the total prescriptions (i.e., alert overrides) dropped from 789 in January 2017 to 397 in December 2017 (Figure 2). The largest decrease was observed after repeat provider education in August 2017. Diagnosis categories with high volume alert failures decreased from 15 unique ICD10 diagnosis (n = 1,534 prescriptions) in Q1 2017 to 3 (diverticulitis, pneumonia, gastroenteritis/colitis; n = 419 prescriptions) in Q4 2017. Conclusion Effective EHR alert implementation combined with timely and targeted provider education on appropriate prescribing reduces inappropriate ED provider FQ prescribing by more than 50%. Disclosures L. Davidson, Duke Endowment: Grant Investigator, Grant recipient


OBJECTIVE
Increased muscle flexibility from static stretching is supported by the literature, but limited research has assessed the duration of maintained flexibility gains in knee joint range of motion after same-day static hamstring stretching. The purpose of our study was to determine the duration of hamstring flexibility gains, as measured by an active knee-extension test, after cessation of an acute static stretching protocol.

DESIGN AND SETTING
All subjects performed 6 active warm-up knee extensions, with the last repetition serving as the baseline comparison measurement. After warm-up, the experimental group performed 4 30-second static stretches separated by 15-second rests.

SUBJECTS
Thirty male subjects (age = 19.8 +/- 5.1 years, ht = 179.4 +/- 18.7 cm, wt = 78.5 +/- 26.9 kg) with limited hamstring flexibility of the right lower extremity were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups.

MEASUREMENTS
Postexercise active knee-extension measurements for both groups were recorded at 1, 3, 6, 9, 15, and 30 minutes.

RESULTS
Tukey post hoc analysis indicated significant improvement of knee-extension range of motion in the experimental group that lasted 3 minutes after cessation of the static stretching protocol. Subsequent measurements after 3 minutes were not statistically different from baseline. A dependent t test revealed a significant increase in knee-extension range of motion when comparing the first to the sixth active warm-up repetition.

CONCLUSIONS
Our results suggest that 4 consecutive 30-second static stretches enhanced hamstring flexibility (as determined by increased knee-extension range of motion), but this effect lasted only 3 minutes after cessation of the stretching protocol. Future research should examine the effect of other stretching techniques in maintaining same-day flexibility gains.


The dimple occurs by sudden pressure inversion at the droplet's bottom interface when a droplet collides with the same liquid-phase or different solid-phase. The air film entrapped inside the dimple is a critical factor affecting the sequential dynamics after coalescence and causing defects like the pinhole. Meanwhile, in the coalescence dynamics of an electrified droplet, the droplet's bottom interfaces change to a conical shape, and droplet contact the substrate directly without dimple formation. In this work, the mechanism for the dimple's suppression (interfacial change to conical shape) was studied investigating the effect of electric pressure. The electric stress acting on a droplet interface shows the nonlinear electric pressure adding to the uniform droplet pressure. This electric stress locally deforms the droplet's bottom interface to a conical shape and consequentially enables it to overcome the air pressure beneath the droplet. The electric pressure, calculated from numerical tracking for interface and electrostatic simulation, was at least 108 times bigger than the air pressure at the center of the coalescence. This work helps toward understanding the effect of electric stress on droplet coalescence and in the optimization of conditions in solution-based techniques like printing and coating.


The most crucial challenge in the functioning of the wireless networks is the efficient utilization of radio resources. A significant element of resource handling is power regulation. With increasing requirement of wireless data transmission services, it is essential to devise energy harvesting techniques for mobile devices. In this research, a new methodology has been proposed for distributed power regulation in cognitive radio, networks of CR are grounded on non-cooperation game phenomenon and pricing technique. QoS (Quality of service) of the user of CR is anticipated as a beneficial activity through pricing as well as dissemination of energy generating as an unbeneficial game wherein the consumers increase their overall efficacy. The price is defined as an actual function of transmission power to upraise the pricing of the most distant consumers. The proposed mathematical model shows that the proposed game model has a Nash equilibrium and is also unique. Furthermore, in order to make the proposed algorithm valid for green communication within the wireless network, the best response technique was proposed. Finally, simulation results showed that the proposed energy harvesting technique, grounded on a unique function of the utilization, reduces the consumption of transmission power and greatly improves the convergence speed; which are suitable for the vision of the 5G networks.


The past twenty years has seen UK Government aspiring to put greater power in the hands of local people. In England, the 2011 Localism Act and 2012 National Planning Policy Framework have created new opportunities for local people to influence development. The Welsh Government has taken its own stance: the Planning Act 2015 (Wales); the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013 commit local authorities to improving social, economic, cultural and environmental well-being. Alongside these top-down processes, there is an emerging strategy to further engage local people in influencing the quality of their places and the well-being of their communities. A critical review of two tools designed to facilitate the Place Planning process in Wales is presented. Both tools help to increase opportunities for local people to have a voice in the planning process, and for the people who know places best to influence their well-being. However, questions are raised about the capacity and aspirations of communities to help deliver Place Plans, and assess the pressures on overburdened, under-resourced local authorities. Importantly, the increasing role of community-led initiatives has consequences for the role of designers and the skills they can contribute to place-making and well-being.


This article presents some reflections on the data contained in the Portrait of Inequalities of Gender and Race - 3rd Edition on socioeconomic inequalities and poverty. Following a line of argument that, as categories of social control, gender and ethnicity shape regulatory frameworks of social opportunities, we present some data on inequality between men and women and between blacks and whites that illustrate the inequities of power associated with them. It is emphasized that these categories are fundamental to understand the production and reproduction of inequities of power that permeate Brazilian society


A model of hospital management, i.e. a state regional ophthalmologic clinic, was designed on the basis of the Republican Clinical Hospital for Ophthalmology of the Udmurt Ministry of Health. Apart from the basic typical elements, its structure comprises the research-and-production units (as finances sources) and investment technologies. Described in the paper are related components and an analysis of the medical-and-economic efficiency of using the above model.


Introduction:   Pleural effusion is a common clinical problem in developed as well as developing countries like Pakistan. Pleural effusions are grossly classified as either exudative or transudative. Tuberculosis, mali-gnancy and empyema are common causes of exudative pleural effusion, less common being pulmonary embo-lism and connective tissue disorders. Despite the mag-nitude of the problem, the exudative pleural effusion presents a common diagnostic problem. In the western countries malignancy and empyema are common cau-ses of exudative pleural effusion where as in Pakistan tuberculosis is the most frequent one. Objective :   The objective of this study is to observe the role of pleural biopsy in the etiological diagnosis of exudative pleural effusion. Design:  Cross - sectional study. Setting:   Institute of Chest Medicine, King Edward Medical University / Mayo Hospital Lahore. Material and Method:   One hundred and thirty diag-nosed patients of exudative pleural effusion (according to Light's criteria) were included in this study. Pleural fluid was sent for total leucocyte count, differential leucocyte count, biochemistry, Gram's staining and culture, AFB smear and culture, and malignant cyto-logy. Pleural biopsy was done in all the cases. Results:   Out of 130 cases of exudative pleural effu-sion, adequate sample of pleural biopsy was taken in 118 (90.7%) patients. In 12 (9.7%) patients sample of pleural biopsy was inadequate. Out of which 52 pati-ents (44.06%) had granulomatous inflammation most likely tuberculosis, 19 patients (16.10%) had mali-gnancy, 14 patients (11.86%) had chronic empyema and in 33 patients (27.96%) there was non-specific in-flammation. Conclusion :   Pleural biopsy is a valuable tool in the diagnosis of exudative pleural effusions especially in developing countries like Pakistan where more sophis-ticated investigations like thoracoscopy are not widely available. Key words:   Pleural effusion, Pleura, Exudates, transu-dates, Tuberculosis.


We propose a novel axis-symmetric modified hybrid permanent magnet (PM)/electromagnet (EM) magnetomotive force actuator for a variable valve timing camless engine. The design provides a large magnetic force with low energy consump-tion, low coil inductance, PM demagnetization isolation, and improved transient response. Simulation and experimental results confirm forces of about 200 N (in the presence of coil current) at the equilibrium position and 500 N (in the absence of coil current) at the armature seat. We compared our proposed design with a double solenoid valve actuator (DSVA). The finite element method (FEM) designs of the DSVA and our proposed valve actuator were validated by experiments performed on manufactured prototypes.


ABSTRACT Canine obesity is one of the top welfare problems of pet dogs. Owners are often unable to successfully recognize and manage their dog's condition, even with assistance from veterinarians. The aim of this exploratory study was to appraise people's perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors relating to canine obesity and weight management by analyzing comments made in online public fora and about online video clips. Data comprised 450 posts on 15 threads related to canine obesity from online discussion fora (www.petforums.co.uk, www.reddit.com, and www.mumsnet.com) and 637 comments posted about five videos published online (www.youtube.com). These fora sites either had a dedicated topic area or were entirely for discussions regarding pets. Threads and videos chosen represented a diversity of obesity-related topics, dog breeds, and a range of overweight severities. Data were anonymized and analyzed using thematic analysis. Four key themes emerged: (1) Balancing conflicting responsibilities – Individuals appeared to balance their responsibility in providing their dog with happiness, health, and love, and differences in emphasis placed on these impacted feeding habits and weight management; (2) Need vs. greed – Individuals felt compelled to alleviate perceived hunger in their dog, which made sticking to reduced food diets difficult for some; (3) Minimizing – Individuals varied in the extent to which they perceived excess body fat to be problematic, and language used to describe their dog's body changed when excess body fat was seen as an issue; (4) Control – Individuals' perceived control over their dog's body condition and food intake varied hugely, with some owners believing they had little-to-no control. Whilst such publicly available data need to be interpreted with caution, due to self-selection bias, this study provides valuable insight into factors that impact feeding practices and could impact compliance with weight-reduction programs. These findings can be incorporated into future research and behavior-change initiatives to increase engagement and compliance.


Marine Model Trout Farms: developments in marine RAS Economical and environmentally sustainable production of large salmonids in sea water has in Denmark been called for during some years. Based on the experience gained from the Danish Model Trout Farms in freshwater, a rather similar concept has been developed for farming of larger fish in sea water. This development and demonstration unit in commercial scale will during the next four years hopefully provide scientific and practical basis and support for further development in coming generations of Marine Model Trout Farms for large salmonids. The unit consist in the recirculation loop of one large fish tank, ø25 m, depth 4.5 m, i.e. tank volume some 2,000 m3; a drum filter (HydroTech); 9 separate pumps (Grundfos NB 150-200/224), 2 for each of 3 submerged biofilter-sections and 3 pumps bypassing the submerged biofilters, leading directly to the large trickling filter where the water from the submerged biofilters also enter. Each submerged biofilter contains 22.6 m3 filter elements (RK BioElements 750 m2/m3; RK plast) and the trickling filters contains 90 m3 (BioBlock 200, Exponet). From the trickling filter water is led directly back to the fish tank. According to fish stock, feeding level and water temperature the pumps can be individually turned on/off primarily in relation to oxygen need and consumption in the fish tank. In a 1 year batch production some 20 t of fish will be introduced in April and some 80 t are supposed to be harvested in December. End-of-pipe treatment is a two-step process. First, nitrogen is removed in a full-scale experimental set-up where sludge from the drum filter is hydrolysed and the VFAs generated used as energysource for the denitrification process in separate tanks/filters. Final polishing follows in a constructed wetland. For the first 2 years of operation production will be focussed on rainbow trout production, mimicking the typical Danish net cage farming cycle, where the cages are stocked with fish of 750 – 1,000 g in April/May and all harvested before Christmas weighing some 4 kg/pcs. During these two years important production parameters such as growth-rate, feed conversion and pigmentation will be compared to net-cage results and a full-cost comparison will be performed. After 2 years Atlantic salmon will be farmed in all-year operation. The project is supported by the Danish GUDP joint cooperation between research and industry, and the participants are: The North Sea Center (facilities); AquaPri (fish producer); Biomar (feed producer); Billund Aquaculture (system supplier); RK Plast (producer of biofilter elements) and DTU Aqua. Facts, Experience gained, facts and figures will be presented


We report a case of primary intraosseous glomus tumor in a 30-year-old man who was found to have an expanding, lytic lesion in the distal phalanx of his left thumb. The histological appearance was atypical in that areas of myxoid stroma resembled chondroid material. The unusual location and microscopic appearance caused diagnostic problems. Immunohistochemical studies, including strong positive staining for MSA and negative staining for keratin and S-100 protein, were helpful in establishing the correct diagnosis.


In a number of applications involving the processing of noisy signals, it is desirable to know a priori the noise variance. We propose here a method of estimating the noise variance from the autoregressive (AR) signal corrupted by the additive white noise. This method first estimates the AR parameters from the high-order Yule-Walker equations and then uses these AR parameters to estimate the noise variance from the low-order Yule-Walker equations. The method is studied for a number of examples of noisy AR signals and its performance is found to be close to the Cramer-Rao lower bound for high signal-to-noise ratios. It is also used in a speech enhancement application where its performance is studied for stationary as well as nonstationary noise conditions. The results are found to be encouraging.


Introduction Recently, compressed-sensing based algorithms have enabled volume reconstruction from projection images acquired over a relatively small angle 휃휃<20∘ [1]. These methods yield depth estimation of surgical tools, such as biopsy needles, with respect to anatomical structures. However, they are computationally expensive and time consuming, rendering them unattractive for image-guided interventions. Papalazarou proposed to apply depth estimation algorithms for multi-camera systems on projection data from C-arm X-ray systems [2]. Inspired by this work, we propose an alternative approach for depth estimation of biopsy needles during image-guided interventions, in which we split the problem in two parts (i.e. needle depth estimation and volume reconstruction) and solve them independently. Methodology The proposed system consists of three steps: (1) needle extraction, (2) depth estimation and (3) volume reconstruction. In the first step, we detect the biopsy needle in the projection images and remove it by interpolation. Next, we employ epipolar geometry, see Figure 1, to find point-to-point correspondences in the projection images to triangulate the 3D position of the needle in the volume. In the last step, we use the filtered projection images to reconstruct the local anatomical structures and indicate the position of the needle in this volume. We have adjusted the widely used Filtered Backprojection algorithm, such that it fits in the geometrical framework as proposed by Papalazarou [2]. Results For validation of the algorithm, we have recorded a full CT scan (180∘ + fan angle) of a phantom with an inserted biopsy needle. Using the full sinogram, a 5123 voxel ground truth volume is constructed. Next, all subsets of two images with angular difference 훿훿훿 of the sinogram are used for evaluation of the proposed algorithm. Finally, the depth estimation error is computed as the average difference between the estimated position of the needle and the position of the needle in the ground truth volume. The average error for different angles is given in Table 1. Conclusions Based on the results of this initial phantom study, we conclude that multiple view geometry offers an attractive alternative to time consuming iterative methods for the depth estimation of surgical tools during C-arm-based image-guided interventions


The concentrations of 99mTc, 123I, 67Ga, and 201Tl of the discharge water and the sewage sludge from Kurume Central Sewage Treatment Plant were determined once a week for 2 mo. The radiopharmaceutical doses injected into the patients for all of four hospitals that use nuclear medicines in the service area of the plant were also surveyed. Approximately 1.5% of the 99mTc, 1.5% of the 123I, 4.3% of the 67Ga, and 0.41% of the 201Tl of the injected doses were detected in the discharged water from the plant. The behavior of these radionuclides in the sewage treatment system was analyzed using a compartment model. The analyses suggest that the average residence times in storage tanks and drainage pipes before entering the plant were 9.5 h for 99mTc, 81 h for 123I, 120 h for 67Ga, and 480 h for 201Tl.


On page 5142 in the 20 December 2012 issue, reference to financial support from the Austrian Science Fund was omitted. The Acknowledgments should have read: "This work was supported in part by the ÖNB Jubiläumsfonds 14129 (M.M.), the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): P 22073 B19 (R.P.-G.), Clinical Investigator–driven grant 2010-03 (A.A., G.M., O.A.H., R.P.-G.), and the Help and Hope Foundation in collaboration with KIK Textilien und Non-Food GmbH Austria. This is a project of the international BFM study group."


For integers $s,t \geq 2$, the Ramsey numbers $r(s,t)$ denote the minimum $N$ such that every $N$-vertex graph contains either a clique of order $s$ or an independent set of order $t$. In this paper we prove \[ r(4,t) = \Omega\Bigl(\frac{t^3}{\log^4 \! t}\Bigr) \quad \quad \mbox{ as }t \rightarrow \infty\] which determines $r(4,t)$ up to a factor of order $\log^2 \! t$, and solves a conjecture of Erd\H{o}s.


The active construction of tall buildings in the UAE, as a result of the rapid growth of economy, goes in a fast pace and has not allowed enough time to study and realize the adverse impacts on the environment. This study assesses to what extent new tower buildings in the UAE, with specific emphasis on Dubai, are sustainable in its environment, under the harsh desert climate of the UAE. Several issues are investigated such as energy consumption, thermal performance, lighting design, and the potential use of renewable energy resources. How these issues are affected by the design of building form, envelope, components and systems is the focus of this study. The study depends on analysis of three case study office towers located in the UAE and are well known internationally. It concludes with some recommendations and guidelines aiming to help decision makers and designers in future projects.


The management of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection treatment differs from the common treatment protocol for other infectious diseases. Because culture- or molecular-guided approaches face several practical issues, such as the invasive procedures required to obtain gastric biopsy specimens and the lack of availability of routine laboratory testing in some places, H. pylori treatment includes the administration of two or three empirically selected antibiotics combined with a proton pump inhibitor rather than evidence-based eradication treatment. The efficacy of empirical therapy is decreasing, mostly due to increasing multiple resistance. Multiresistance to levofloxacin, clarithromycin, and metronidazole, which are commonly used in empirical treatments, appears to have increased in many countries. Mutations play a primary role in the antimicrobial resistance of H. pylori, but many different mechanisms can be involved in the development of antibiotic resistance. Determining and understanding these possible mechanisms might allow the development of new methods for the detection of H. pylori and the determination of antimicrobial resistance. A treatment based on the detection of antimicrobial resistance is usually more effective than empirical treatment. Nevertheless, such an approach before treatment is still not recommended in the Maastricht guidelines due to the difficulty associated with the routine application of available culture- or molecular-based susceptibility tests, which are usually administered in cases of treatment failure. The management of first and rescue treatments requires further research due to the steadily increase in antimicrobial resistance.


Melatonin is known for being beneficial in targeting liver diseases. This study aimed to investigate whether melatonin post-treatment is capable of rat carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-induced liver fibrosis reduction. Thirty-two male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into 4 groups: normal; fibrosis with CCl4 injection (1 mL/kg) twice weekly for 8 weeks; phosphate-buffered saline (PBS); and melatonin (20 mg/kg) for a further 4 weeks on cessation of CCl4. At the beginning of week 13, liver tissue samples were used for hematoxylin-eosin (H&E), periodic acid-Schiff (PAS), Masson's trichrome (MT), and Oil Red O staining, quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis of the matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), MMP-13, transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1), Bcl-2, and Bax genes as well as immunofluorescence (IF) of the first 3, and sera for measurement of aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), albumin, and hydroxyproline. Chronic administration of CCl4 followed by considerable increase in tissue disruption, macro- and micro-vesicles, collagen, lipid droplets (LDs), AST, ALT, hydroxyproline, TGF-β1, and Bax, and decrease in glycogen depository, albumin, Bcl-2, MMP-9, and MMP-13; however, the pattern was reverse when it comes to melatonin treatment (for all p < 0.05). Our results reveal the beneficial aspects of melatonin in treatment of liver fibrosis probably via inhibition of TGF-β1expression.


Introduction: since the 60's, the Cuban pharmaceutical industry has as one basic production line the obtaining of the bile acids and its saline derivatives from bovine bile. This process consists of bile saponification and further precipitation of the cholic acid that changed into magnesium salt through a reaction process with magnesium hydroxide. The final active substance is used as active pharmaceutical ingredient to produce tablets for treatment of gastrointestinal disorders and of malfunctioning of the gallbladder. Objective: to change the drying process currently in use by a spray drying variant. Methods: a technological drying process was set. Bench scale studies were conducted. The results were then compared to those of the traditional process. Chemical, physical and technological evaluations were carried out, for example electronic microscopy and infrared spectroscopy. Results: the results showed that the product obtained by spray drying was similar to that of the traditional process but with better physical and chemical characteristics. This helped in the further process of production of the finished form. Conclusions: based on the results, one may state that the technological process of spray drying for production of magnesium bile salts assures the quality of the final product and improves the work and environmental conditions.


The theory and practice of Irish name-giving has developed in many directions, and it is the purpose of this book to attempt to document, discuss and characterize some of the more significant of these. The author offers a comprehensive view of a field that is altering rapidly under pressure of wider social change but which nevertheless remains fundamental to the way we categorize and verbalize Irish culture. Divided into two parts, the first is a discussion of place names, proper names, brand names and nicknames. The author traces the changing patterns and fashions in the naming of things and places in Ireland starting with the name of the island itself. It is Ireland in common speech, Eire on official documents, and Erin and the ould sod in sentimental ballads. It has had dozens of other names througout history. The small part of the island that is still part of the United Kingdom is officially Northern Ireland; Ulster to the Unionists; the Six Counties or the North of Ireland to the Nationalists and British-occupied Ireland to the Provisional IRA. The neighbouring larger island is constantly getting confused between England and Britain. The two islands together are sometimes called "these islands" but never the British Isles, at least not when you're in the Republic, or should that be the Free State or Southern Ireland. Names are trouble, and not just place-names. There are brand names, nicknames, names of housing estates and popular forenames that all change and develop over time, according to fashion changes. These changes tell us much about ourselves, the sort of people we are and the way we have evolved over time. The second part of this book is a dictionary. Organized on a standard A-Z basis, it glosses such names as Aer Lingus, Celtic Twilight, Clonakilty Wrastler, Lambeg, Mount Mellory, Navan Man, NIPPLES, BIFFO, Old Mister Brennan and Pee.


Background: The olfactory bulbectomised (OBX) rat model is a chronic model of depression in which behavioural and neuroimmunoendocrine changes are reversed only after chronic antidepressant treatment. The cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2) inhibitor celecoxib has been shown to improve the depressive symptoms in patients with major depression. Methods: The association between blood and brain immunological and behavioural changes in chronic treatment with COX-2 inhibitor was explored in the OBX rats and their sham-operated controls. Results: The OBX group showed significantly higher locomotor activity than the other groups in the first 5 min in the open field. In the home cage emergence test, the OBX group showed a significantly shorter latency period compared to the sham group (z = –3.192, p = 0.001) but there was no difference between the other three groups. In the hypothalamus, the OBX group had a significantly higher interleukin 1β (IL-1β) concentration than the OBX + celecoxib group (z = –1.89, p = 0.05) as well as a significantly higher IL-10 concentration (z = –1.995, p = 0.046). In the prefrontal cortex, the OBX group showed significantly higher concentrations of tumour necrosis factor α (z = –2.205, p = 0.028) and IL-1β (z = –3.361, p = 0.001) than the OBX + celecoxib group, but a significantly lower concentration of IL-10 (p = –3.361, p = 0.001) than the OBX + celecoxib group. Conclusions: The results of this study supported the potential therapeutic role of the COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib. It is possible that the behavioural changes following the chronic administration of celecoxib to the OBX rats are associated with an attenuation of the increase in the pro-inflammatory cytokines in the brain.


Abstract : The acoustical significance of ocean surface dynamics is well known. Motivation for establishing the causal relations between these two physical processes has both underwater acoustic system noise reduction and oceanographic remote sensing objectives. The goal has eluded investigators because of the complexity of both the acoustic and oceanographic mechanisms involved. The work discussed here continues progression in spatial scales by utilizing a relatively deep water basin (The Tongue of the Ocean, the Bahamas) in a quasi-controlled environment which made a broadband measurement (40 to 4000 Hz) of the vertical directional spectrum of the ambient acoustic field. The 1-year data base of directional spectrum are dominated by local (fetch limited) water surface conditions over a wide range of environmental conditions. While the exploratory nature of the experiment limited the amount of supporting meteorological and oceanographic measurements made, the results give additional credence to the role of entrapped air bubbles and bubble clouds in the generation of acoustic ambient. Sea surface-generated acoustics is shown to be dependent on a fundamental nondimensional variable describing the air-sea boundary process and the rate of energy dissipation caused by wave-breaking in the gravity wave equilibrium range.


Let the light shine through: A transparent film of copper nanowires was transformed into an electrocatalyst for water oxidation by electrodepostion of Ni or Co onto the surface of the nanowires. These core-shell nanowire networks exhibit electrocatalytic performance equivalent to metal oxide films of similar composition, but are several times more transparent.


Complex tissues are composed of a large number of different types of cells, each involved in a multitude of biological processes. Consequently, an important component to understanding such processes is understanding the cell-type composition of the tissues. Estimating cell type composition using high-throughput gene expression data is known as cell-type deconvolution. In this paper, we first summarize the extensive deconvolution literature by identifying a common regression-like approach to deconvolution. We call this approach the Unified Deconvolution-as-Regression (UDAR) framework. While methods that fall under this framework all use a similar model, they fit using data on different scales. Two popular scales for gene expression data are logarithmic and linear. Unfortunately, each of these scales has problems in the UDAR framework. Using log-scale gene expressions proposes a biologically implausible model and using linear-scale gene expressions will lead to statistically inefficient estimators. To overcome these problems, we propose a new approach for cell-type deconvolution that works on a hybrid of the two scales. This new approach is biologically plausible and improves statistical efficiency. We compare the hybrid approach to other methods on simulations as well as a collection of eleven real benchmark datasets. Here, we find the hybrid approach to be accurate and robust.deconvolution, gene expression, microarray, RNA-seq


The article presents information from national and foreign sources on the significance of long QT syndrome on the electrocardiogram as a predictor of severe heart rhythm disturbances and sudden death. It considers the pathologic physiology of the present syndrome, the deficiency of intracellular magnesium plays an important part in its mechanism, which determines the therapeutic aspects leading to normalization of the QT interval


In this paper, we present BirdSLAM, a novel simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) system for the challenging scenario of autonomous driving platforms equipped with only a monocular camera. BirdSLAM tackles challenges faced by other monocular SLAM systems (such as scale ambiguity in monocular reconstruction, dynamic object localization, and uncertainty in feature representation) by using an orthographic (bird's-eye) view as the configuration space in which localization and mapping are performed. By assuming only the height of the ego-camera above the ground, BirdSLAM leverages single-view metrology cues to accurately localize the ego-vehicle and all other traffic participants in bird's-eye view. We demonstrate that our system outperforms prior work that uses strictly greater information, and highlight the relevance of each design decision via an ablation analysis.


ABSTRACT: Urban development has compromised the quality of physical elements offish habitat in low‐order spawning and rearing streams. In order to identify where priorities should lie in stream rehabilitation, field surveys of a number of streams were conducted near Vancouver, British Columbia. All of the streams were located in watersheds which were urbanized approximately 20 years earlier. The study watersheds ranged from 5 to 77 percent total impervious area (percent TIA). The urban streambeds were found to have less fine material and slightly higher values of intragravel dissolved oxygen than in rural streams. This improved gravel quality is attributed to the higher peak flows generated by impervious areas, and the reduced recruitment of fine material in the urban watersheds. Summer base flow was uniformly low when imperviousness was above 40 percent, evidenced by a decrease in velocity rather than water depth. Large woody debris (LWD) was scarce in all streams with > 20 percent TIA. A healthy buffer zone and abundant LWD were found to stabilize stream banks. The introduction of LWD is considered the most important strategy for stream rehabilitation. Stormwater detention ponds, in contrast, are concluded to have few hydrological benefits if constructed after a stream has reached its urban equilibrium.


Comparison of alpha-particle-induced soft error rates for 64K and 256 K DRAM devices from several manufacturers have indicated characteristic changes as the circuit density increases. In 64K devices bit-line-dependent errors form a more significant fraction of the total error rate. In contrast, 256 K devices exhibit greater cell sensitivity. Bit-line sensitivity increases by one order of magnitude and cell sensitivity by approximately two orders of magnitude between 64K and 256 K devices.


SummaryThis study reports the analysis of secondary metabolites of gentiopicrin, swertiamarin, and sweroside in shoot and root cultures of yellow wort (Blackstonia perfoliata), which were initiated from seeds, grown on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium. Shoot cultures of B. perfoliata were inoculated with suspension of Agrobacterium rhizogenes strain A4M70GUS and hairy roots appeared at the infected sites after 3 wk of inoculation. Tips of adventitious roots of B. perfoliata were grown on hormone-free MS medium and three clones of the transformed roots regenerated shoots spontaneously. Gentiopicrin, swertiamarin, and sweroside were detected in both roots and shoots of B. perfoliata in vitro and in vivo, but gentiopicrin was found to be the major compound. The concentration of growth regulator in the medium affected the production of secoiridoids in B. perfoliata in vitro, where the level of gentiopicrin was higher in plants grown in the presence of indole-3-butyric acid, but the presence of 6-benzylaminopurine was inhibitory to secoiridoid production.


Atoms can form molecules if they attract each other. Here, we show that atoms are also able to form bound states not due to the attractive interaction but because of destructive interference. If the interaction potential changes in a disordered way with a change of the distance between two atoms, Anderson localization can lead to the formation of exponentially localized bound states. While disordered interaction potentials do not exist in nature, we show that they can be created by means of random modulation in time of the strength of the original interaction potential between atoms and objects that we dub Anderson molecules can be realized in the laboratory.


The concentration of H+ ions as a function of L has been measured by the ion mass spectrometer on OGO 5. The data of June through November 1968 are presented. These data cover the local time region from 1400 to 2200 LT, which encompasses the bulge region of the plasmasphere. H+ ion density versus L profiles show that the plasmapause position in this bulge region is located between approximately L = 4 and 9 and is generally found at increasingly larger L values as the magnetic activity decreases. In almost all cases, the density profiles through the bulge region exhibit a 1/R4 dependence with radial distance and have a steep density gradient at the outer edge of the bulge. The plasmasphere is observed to fill itself out to large L values during quiet magnetic periods and to have its plasma peeled away from its outer parts during times of moderate to high activity. One aspect of this peeling process is the occasional apparent detachment and sunward movement of a portion of the bulge region. A very extensive depletion of plasma is seen to accompany large magnetic storms. During unsteady and moderate to high magnetic activity periods, the bulge profiles usually contain large fluctuations in density at or immediately outside the plasmapause. Many characteristics of the observed profiles are consistent with the profiles predicted by using a magnetospheric convection model, which treats the bulge region as part of the main flow pattern of the plasmasphere. In this model the changes in the plasmasphere profiles and boundaries are dependent on a modulation of the convection electric field across the magnetospheric tail.


We examined variation in the flowering phenology of Sacha Inchi (Plukenetia volubilis) plants monitored during an 8-month period with reference to a light gradient (20%, 52%, 75% and 100% of full sunlight), and related these results to photosynthetic features, growth and fruit yield. With strong phenotypically plastic response to light, relative growth rate and photosynthetic capability continually increased with increasing irradiance and their maximum values were much similar to those of the pioneer species. eywords: lowering ruit rowth hotosynthesis lukenetia volubilis Shade did not increase the apparent quantum yield and reduce the light saturation point and respiration rate. Thus, it was suggested that P. volubilis is a high-light demanding species. Shade delayed initial flowering date and decreased flower and fruit parts. An earlier initiation of flowering was associated with higher flower biomass and plant total biomass, in turn; the latter was positively correlated with fruit biomass across light gradients. These results suggested that an optimized crop management practice should be adopted to ensure that P. volubilis be grown under conditions with minimal shading.


Background To explore the clinical value of three-dimensional image reconstruction technology (3DIT) on preoperative surgical planning and perioperative outcomes in laparoscopic pyeloplasty (LP). Methods Data of 25 patients with ureteropelvic junction obstruction (UPJO) admitted to our hospital from January 2018 to January 2019 was analyzed retrospectively. All patients underwent preoperative enhanced computed tomography (CT) scanning. In the 12 cases in the 3DIT group, preoperative planning involved the use of virtual operation and morphometry based on reconstruction of the CT data into three-dimensional (3D) images. Surgery in the other 13 cases was performed with traditional CT examination. Demographic, surgical outcome, and postoperative parameters were compared between these two groups. Results Reconstructed 3D images clearly showed the spatial structural relationships between the UPJO and surrounding blood vessels. In all 25 cases surgery was completed with no conversion to open surgery. Preoperative 3DIT analyses resulted in significant improvements to mean operation time (107.76 vs. 141.58 min, P=0.024), mean time of dissociating ureteropelvic junction (UPJ) (11.26 vs. 19.40 min, P=0.020), and mean estimated blood loss volume (23.84 vs. 49.16 mL, P=0.028). There were no statistically significant differences in perioperative complications, postoperative hospital stays or postoperative drainage time. Conclusions 3DIT based on enhanced CT scans is of clinical value in the treatment of UPJO, as it can provide accurate anatomical information and reliable guidance for preoperative operation planning, and it facilitates image-guided LP.


The article considers the approaches to the individual-typical research of displays of features of the personality on the basis of A.I. Krupnov's system-functional model. The question of stability of the types singled out while studying various character traits is analyzed.


Rapid urbanization, population increase, modern lifestyle and economic conditions
raise the necessity for mobility, and consequently for transportation in the most
developed countries (Polat, 2012). Although public transportation is considered as one
of the most significant instruments of mobility, still people prefer travelling by the car.
A good public transport system can motivate people to shift from their own cars to
public transportation, declining, via this way, energy consumption, traffic density, car
ownership and environmental pollution. Yet, forming an accurate and of high quality
public transportation is a complicated task, since it deals with attitudes and perceptions.
Travel behavior is based significantly on individuals' preferences, attitudes and
perceptions of different modes (Gardner et al., 2008).
This thesis, therefore, aims to investigate people's attitudes towards different aspects
of public transportation focusing on its instrumental and symbolic-affective ones. A
grounded theory approach in combination with factor analysis and binary logistic
regression are applied. The results prove that positive attitudes towards the instrumental
aspects of public transportation lead to an increase in the use of this mode while people
seem to be indifferent towards the symbolic-affective aspects of public transportation
and their travel behavior is not affected by these factors.
Both policy makers and operators need to comprehend how passengers assess the
quality of service and adapt the service to the attributes to satisfy their needs and affect
a modal shift (Anable, 2005). In addition, advertising campaigns should promote the
environmental benefits of travelling by public transport by transforming it into an
environmental symbol, and thus offsetting the car as a symbol of status (Golob et al.,
1998). Last but not least, the car is promoted as a symbol of control, force, social status
and self-esteem (Steg, 2005). One solution is "De-marketing" the car by highlighting
the negative aspects of using it and decreasing the power of affective connotations
created by advertisements.
This thesis concludes that a positive image of the mode is not enough since individuals
may not choose that specific mode even if they have a positive attitude towards it
(Loncar-Lucassi, 1998). Habits, cognitive dissonance, direction of causality and selfinterest
motives are some of the factors having a strong influential power on travel
choice than attitudes.


Wavelength conversion of a 10 Gb/s 2.7%-duty-cycle return-to-zero (RZ) OOK (RZ-OOK) signal using XPM in a compact silicon nanowire waveguide (Si nanowire) and a detuned filter is successfully demonstrated for the first time. A 10-9-BER receiver sensitivity penalty of <;1 dB was measured for the converted signal relative to the baseline signal, with a filter-probe detuning of 0.6 nm. The system is numerically modeled and the results are shown to match well with the experimental results. The numerical model is further used to design an optimal filter that would eliminate filter-probe detuning.


In this paper we explore important issues that are raised when interpretation is dealt with by researchers using a vignette methodology. Researchers using vignette methodology often struggle with interpretation: how to interpret the responses when participants shift between discussing the vignettes as themselves, taking the perspective of the character in the vignette and commenting on what 'ought' to happen. We argue that by foregrounding a consideration of the method with an explicitly articulated theoretical position of dialogicality, issues inherent in the process of interpretation become a valuable addition to the research rather than an obstacle to be overcome. In the paper we discuss 'Louise' a young carer, detailing the various positions she takes in her talk about the vignette of Mary, a fictitious young carer, to illustrate how a perspective based on the dialogical theory contributed to the analysis of her various moves through different identity positions


The use of telecommunications in health care, education, and our daily lives has become a popular topic in both the professional and lay literature. The promise of the "Information Superhighway" and the expanded use of the Internet by other professionals have precipitated the examination of computer mediated communication as an instructional tool that transcends geographic boundaries and time barriers. This paper will discuss the development and implementation of a pilot project to foster collaborative learning experiences for nursing students between two schools of nursing in two different countries. The pilot is framed within the context of a Global Collaborative Learning Project in Nursing Informatics. A pilot project was initiated between the Schools of Nursing at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and the Hogeschool Holland during the 1994-95 academic year. Each school taught a nursing informatics course and assignments were designed to allow students from each school to participate in a collaborative learning experience. The presentation will highlight the outcomes of this pilot project and project future plans.


Since the 1980s, innovative companies all over the world have been holding a substantial cash balance on their books due to transactional, preventive, agency, tax-related and macroeconomic motives and by limitations in capital availability due to information asymmetry. Our research examines the determinants that influence the analysis of cash holdings of high-tech and non-high-tech companies. Financial information for 38,386 unique companies was obtained from the 2009–2017 Compustat database. The final sample version comprised 12,083 companies, of which 2,909 were innovative. We used the panel regression method, selecting the appropriate calculation model and a number of proxy variables. Our research confirmed the existence of innovative companies' significant cash holdings. Adding a macroeconomic factor variable (GDP growth) to the research model was justified for innovative companies only. In spite of the insignificant impact of GDP, increased GDP growth resulted in a decreased cash ratio for innovative companies. The authors also reveal the insignificance of R&D expenditures for innovative companies and prove that ranking companies by the amount of R&D expenditures and using this variable as innovation proxy was inexpedient. In addition, the authors confirm a positive relationship between growth opportunities, company size and cash ratio and a negative relationship between dividend payout and the amount of cash holdings. An understanding of the reasons for cash accumulation facilitates prudential management of cash holdings in companies. This paper contributes new evidence to the study of corporate cash holding, focusing specifically on innovative companies, which have not been examined separately in the past.


The purpose of the study is to ascertain the mediating role of job stress on the relationship between self-efficacy and internal service quality. The study is conducted on five different banks listed on Pakistan stock exchange. Branches are selected through simple random sampling. This study is based on branch level bankers in the city of Peshawar. A questionnaire consisting of 54 items was adopted to measure self-efficacy, job stress and internal service quality. The results of the study revealed that there is a significant impact of Self-Efficacy on Job Stress and Internal Service Quality. Furthermore, Job Stress had a significant negative influence on Internal Service Quality. However, the study finds out the partial mediating role of Job Stress on the linkage between Self-Efficacy and Internal Service Quality. A significant limitation emerges from the existing researches. Individual studies have focused on the relationship of self-efficacy with job stress and the relationship between stress and service quality from employee perspective. There is lack of research that seeks to establish the causal chain of relationship between the three variables. Not Longitudinal data, further studies may involve a longitudinal research design to evaluate how self-efficacy changes over time. Future research may also involve other institutions such as higher education and IT Industry. The study would help in identifying the current level of self-efficacy in banking sector. The study would help in devising strategies to further enhance the level of self-efficacy rather than combating stress to increase internal service quality.


A mathematical treatment of perturbed Friedmann models is given. Local existence, convergence and analytic linearization stability for the constraints for k=0, k+or-1 are shown. To prove this, special function spaces are introduced in order to invert certain elliptic differential operators. These function spaces can also be employed to formulate precisely some decomposition theorems used for the study of linearized perturbations (see Stewart and Durrer) where elliptic operators also have to be inverted. The results for the constraints cannot easily be generalized to the evolution equations. In particular one-parameter families which depend analytically on a parameter do not exist in general. This is a generalization of a result of Rendall (1990).


Abstract Until recently, studies regarding e-banking transactions have focused more on motivational factors that trigger the intention to accept and use the e-banking transaction, rather than the de-motivational factors that propel the action. However, in the developing countries like Sub-Sahara economies, the factors associated with the former have not been explored and are still rudimentary in the literature. Drawing from the Technology Threat Avoidance Theory (TTAT), the study seeks to examine the impact of online identity theft on customers' willingness to engage in e-banking transactions in Ghana. A quantitative survey of 393 valid responses from retail bank customers amongst two leading commercial banks in Ghana for the analyses. Results from the PLS-SEM showed that the research constructs; perceived online identity theft' positively and significantly predict "fear of financial loss", "fear of reputational damage", and "security and privacy concern" whilst the former has a negative mediated-relationship between perceived online identity theft and the intention to engage in e-banking transaction. This study is the first of its kind that has extended the application of the TTAT framework into the study of e-banking transactions. The study serves as a practical tool that will enable the banks in their quest to assess customers' restriction/aversion towards the use of Fintech while ensuring sustainable growth of e-banking transactions in an emerging economy context. The study is limited to only banking institutions in Ghana without considering other players in the financial sub-sector. Future research direction has been suggested in the concluding part of the paper.


We calculate the PCAC mass for $(2+1)$ flavor full QCD with Wilson-type quarks. We adopt the Small Flow-time eXpansion (SFtX) method based on the gradient flow which provides us a general way to compute correctly renormalized observables even if the relevant symmetries for the observable are broken explicitly due to the lattice regularization, such as the Poincare and chiral symmetries. Our calculation is performed on heavy $u, d$ quarks mass ($m_{\pi}/m_{\rho}\simeq0.63$) and approximately physical $s$ quark mass with fine lattice $a \simeq 0.07$~fm. The results are compared with those computed with the Schrodinger functional method.


The pulmonary vasculature has been frequently overlooked in acute and chronic lung diseases, such as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), pulmonary fibrosis (PF), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The primary emphasis in the management of these parenchymal disorders has largely revolved around the injury and aberrant repair of epithelial cells. However, there is increasing evidence that the vascular endothelium plays an active role in the development of acute and chronic lung diseases. The endothelial cell network in the capillary bed and the arterial and venous vessels provides a metabolically highly active barrier that controls the migration of immune cells, regulates vascular tone and permeability, and participates in the remodeling processes. Phenotypically and functionally altered endothelial cells, and remodeled vessels, can be found in acute and chronic lung diseases, although to different degrees, likely because of disease-specific mechanisms. Since vascular remodeling is associated with pulmonary hypertension, which worsens patient outcomes and survival, it is crucial to understand the underlying vascular alterations. In this Review, we describe the current knowledge regarding the role of the pulmonary vasculature in the development and progression of ARDS, PF, and COPD; we also outline future research directions with the hope of facilitating the development of mechanism-based therapies.


Circulation of the blood is a process controlled by physical laws. The same physical laws also determine the sites of atherosclerotic plaques. Our understanding of their role in atherogenesis is aided by a review of (1) the difference between a solid and fluid, (2) strain and shear or strain rate and shear rate as describers of motion, (3) the distinction between force as pressure and as shear stress, (4) the effects of viscosity and inertia on fluid motion, and (5) the nonlinear responses of blood and blood vessels. Moving blood affects the vessel wall principally through shear stress, the force due to its viscosity applied parallel to the surface of the vessel. Excessive shear stress occurs near the orifices of branches of the aorta, the arterial areas where atherosclerotic plaques develop. It is produced by a change in blood flow pattern at these sites. Arterial stiffening in diabetes reduces the ability of the branches of the aorta to dilate during systole, a motion that helps to control high wall shear stress. At wall shear stress levels under 400 dynes/cm2, a value only modestly higher than that normally achieved near the orifices of the major arterial branches, the endothelial lining of the arterial wall becomes disrupted, allowing entry of plasma proteins and lipids. Blood viscosity elevation in diabetes, linked to enhanced erythrocyte aggregation and reduced erythrocyte deformability, adds to the shear stress at the vessel wall, favoring increased lipid entry. Exposed to a high lipid influx secondary to excessive wall shear stress, the arterial wall must rely on physical as well as chemical means to remove the lipids. Subendothelial motion generated by diastolic arterial contraction and systolic expansion appears to cause plasmalemmal vesicle formation and dissolution, an event probably important in the removal process. The combination of arterial stiffening and hemorheologic disturbance adds to the burden of increased plasma lipids to favor the development of atherosclerosis in diabetes.


Competition authorities can identify a violation of the data protection rules when such a finding is necessary to establish an abuse of dominance under the competition rules. This is the main outcome of the judgment that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered in Meta Platforms on 4 July 2023. The judgment is the next step in the saga that started with the 2019 competition decision of the Bundeskartellamt (the German Federal Cartel Office) requiring Facebook (now Meta) to refrain from combining user data from different sources beyond its social network. The judgment provides a welcome confirmation that data protection standards can also matter for the interpretation of the competition rules. However, what is more remarkable and less expected is the general framework the CJEU sets out for coordination between competition and data protection authorities building on the duty of sincere cooperation and the clarity with which it evaluates the different legal bases Meta invoked for processing user data. The judgment can become a reference point for assessing the legality of personal data processing by powerful firms, but also leaves competition and data protection authorities with an assignment to explore how to coordinate their work in the future.


Convergence 9-Fall 2007 [1] 6 Engineers take embedded computing to new levels of precision in their quest for greater efficiency. Engineers take embedded computing to new levels of precision in their quest for greater efficiency. aving energy can be as simple as turning off the lights when you leave a room and as elaborate as the network of little machines in a modern control system. The typical automobile is controlled for fuel efficiency at several crucial points, including the fuel injection system, the exhaust, air intake, engine cooling, air conditioning and transmission. Among other things, sensors and computers control the mix of fuel and air, choose the most efficient gear and regulate the flow of engine coolant. Much more elaborate systems control jetliners and spacecraft, for stability and safety as well as efficiency. And the future promises much more of this technology, at higher levels of precision, interaction and complexity. Computation (CCDC) have long been working at the frontiers of control engineering. This field draws on the disciplines of mathematics, computer science and several


Abstract The absorption and fluorescence spectra of 3-aminobenzo-1,2,4-triazine di-N-oxide (tirapazamine) have been recorded and exhibit a dependence on solvent that correlates with the Dimroth ET30 parameter. Time-dependent density functional theory calculations reveal that the transition of tirapazamine in the visible region is π → π* in nature. The fluorescence lifetime is 98 ± 2 ps in water. The fluorescence quantum yield is ∼0.002 in water. The fluorescence of tirapazamine is efficiently quenched by electron donors via an electron-transfer process. Linear Stern–Volmer fluorescence quenching plots are observed with sodium azide, potassium thiocyanate, guanosine monophosphate and tryptophan (Trp) methyl ester hydrochloride. Guanosine monophosphate, tyrosine (Tyr) methyl ester hydrochloride and Trp methyl ester hydrochloride appear to quench the fluorescence at a rate greater than diffusion control implying that these substrates complex with tirapazamine in its ground state. This complexation was detected by absorption spectroscopy.


SETTING: This study was conducted among tuberculosis (TB) patients in a highly endemic Thai province.OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the association between different Mycobacterium tuberculosis lineages and clinical characteristics, especially mortality.DESIGN: We enrolled 1,304 TB patients registered from 2002-2011 with culture isolates whose lineages were identified by specific regions of deletion. Data on mortality within 1 year of follow-up were extracted from the registration system and hospital records. Mortality-associated risk factors, including bacterial lineages, as independent variables were analysed using Cox regression models.RESULTS: Of 1,304 isolates, 521 (40.0%) and 582 (44.6%) belonged to Indo-Oceanic and East-Asian lineages, respectively. Indo-Oceanic strains significantly increased the mortality risk compared with East-Asian strains (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 1.42, 95%CI 1.02-1.99) or modern lineages (aHR 1.49, 95%CI 1.08-2.06) in the 172 patients who died within 1 year after TB diagnosis. The former also caused significantly higher mortality than modern lineages among patients who died within 6 months after TB diagnosis (aHR 1.62, 95%CI 1.12-2.35). No significant association was found between drug resistance and death.CONCLUSION: In Thailand, the Indo-Oceanic lineage of M. tuberculosis increased mortality risk compared with modern lineages or the East-Asian lineage, the latter being considered highly virulent in previous studies.


It is generally understood and accepted that teacher quality is a key factor in promoting student achievement and success. It is also understood that teachers vary in their effectiveness. Articulating a clear definition of what it means to be an effective or high-quality teacher, however, has been somewhat variable in both practice and in the literature. For a variety of competing interests there is significant debate over the best means of holding teachers accountable for student learning. In recent years the common methods and results of teacher evaluation systems have been questioned. In response to the increasing political and accountability pressures is the application of value-added models (VAMs) as a means to identify effective teachers and schools. VAMs are a growth model that accounts for the effects of nonschool related factors on student achievement. The purpose of VAM is to control for nonschool factors that contribute to student growth and achievement. VA models attempt to shift the evaluation of schools and teachers away from input methods (credentials, experience, and teacher behavior) and toward output measures of improved intellectual skill and the achievement of students. The application of a data derived score for teacher effectiveness is appealing but should be used with caution and with complete understanding of what the VA score measures, what it actually reports, and an awareness of the statistical assumptions.


A nonsensical claim is hardly worth the trouble to contest as long as nobody except its author takes it seriously. In some circles, however, French philosopher Alain Badiou is heralded as a great thinker. Especially his emphasis on multiplicity should raise interest from the perspective of information management. So, can Badiou's ideas be put to practical use, there? After admitting that his perplexing obscurity prohibits responsible evaluation, this paper nonetheless proceeds to discuss Badiou's major work Being and Event. Constructive advice cannot be derived, but at least a general warning is sounded against irresponsible nonsense.


Oral cancer is a prevalent type of cancer in many countries. Although studies indicated that garlic extracts such as diallyl disulfide and diallyl trisulfide have anti-cancer effects, the chemopreventive effects of aqueous garlic extracts, S-allylcysteine (SAC), on oral cancer have not been studied yet. To this specific aim, we investigated the inhibitory effects of SAC on the proliferation and progression of oral cancer cells in both in vitro and in vivo models. In the present study, our results demonstrated that SAC dose-dependently inhibited the proliferation of human oral squamous cancer CAL-27 cells in vitro. The results indicated that SAC stabilized the adherent junction complex of E-cadherin/β-catenin and suppressed epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in oral cancer cells through suppression of MAPK/ERK signaling pathways. By study end (4th week), consumption of SAC (at doses of 5 and 40 mg / kg of body weight per day) significantly prevented tumor growth of oral cancer in a mouse xenograft model. Histopathological and immunohistochemical (IHC) staining results indicated that SAC could effectively suppress tumor progression including EMT of oral cancer in vivo. The chemopreventive effects of SAC were associated with decreases in cyclin D1 expression and suppression of Akt, mTOR, IκBα, and ERK 1/2 signaling cascades in tumor tissues. SAC consumption could inhibit the expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), Vimentin, and nuclear NF-κB p65 (RelA) proteins. These results suggested that SAC could act as an effective agent to prevent tumor growth, progression, and EMT of oral cancer. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 5428. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-5428


Techniques are described in which the intensity distribution of an ultrasound beam is measured with high resolution by means of the radiation reflected from a target whose effective backscattering diameter is smaller than one wavelength. Correlation receivers are used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the echo. As the target is scanned across the beam, the phase of the reference signal applied to the correlation receiver must be adjusted to compensate for changes in the time of flight of the ultrasound echo. The broadband beam intensity mapping technique employs a noise signal in which phase compensation is adjusted manually. The other technique, which is used with narrow band signals, applies a phase quadrature technique to achieve phase compensation.


Pericardial varices are rarely seen on CT and can be misinterpreted as mediastinal masses or lymph nodes. We report a case of a 38-year-old man who presented for routine liver transplant evaluation. On high-resolution computed tomography (CT), a cluster of varices was seen in the left cardiophrenic angle.


Previous study showed that East Asian mtDNA haplogroups, especially those of Koreans, could be successfully assigned by the coupled use of analyses on coding region SNP markers and control region mutation motifs. In this study, we tried to see if the same triple multiplex analysis for coding regions SNPs could be also applicable to ancient samples from East Asia as the complementation for sequence analysis of mtDNA control region. By the study on Joseon skeleton samples, we know that mtDNA haplogroup determined by coding region SNP markers successfully falls within the same haplogroup that sequence analysis on control region can assign. Considering that ancient samples in previous studies make no small number of errors in control region mtDNA sequencing, coding region SNP analysis can be used as good complimentary to the conventional haplogroup determination, especially of archaeological human bone samples buried underground over long periods.


Aspirin is effective in the prevention of cardiovascular events in high-risk patients. The primary established effect of aspirin on hemostasis is to impair platelet aggregation via inhibition of platelet thromboxane A(2) synthesis, thus reducing thrombus formation on the surface of the damaged arterial wall. Growing evidence also indicates that aspirin exerts additional antithrombotic effects, which appear to some extent unrelated to platelet thromboxane A(2) production. Aspirin can reduce thrombin generation with the subsequent attenuation of thrombin-mediated coagulant reactions such as factor XIII activation. Aspirin also acetylates lysine residues in fibrinogen resulting in increased fibrin clot permeability and enhanced clot lysis as well as directly promoting fibrinolysis with high-dose aspirin. The variable effectiveness of aspirin in terms of clinical outcomes and laboratory findings, which has been termed aspirin resistance, may be related to these additional antithrombotic effects that are altered when associated with common genetic polymorphisms such as the Leu33Pro beta(3)-integrin or Val34Leu factor XIII mutations. However, the clinical relevance of these observations is still unclear. Elucidation of the actual impacts of aspirin other than antiaggregation effects could be important in view of the widespread use of this drug in the prevention of thrombotic manifestations of atherosclerosis.


At first sight, the Kepler data of the A-type star KIC 5988140 mimics the
light curve of an eclipsing binary system with a superposed short-period variability of
type δ Scuti. It was attributed by the Kepler Asteroseismology Consortium (KASC)
to the working group "Binary and Multiple Stars", where we picked it up. We used
the high-quality space photometry supplemented by recent high-resolution spectra to
investigate the cause of the variability of this late A-type object. We considered three
different possible scenarios: (1) binarity, (2) co-existence of γ Doradus and delta Scuti
pulsations (the hybrid case) and (3) rotation of the stellar surface with an asymmetric intensity distribution (i.e. rotational modulation). We confirm the presence of various pressure modes of type delta Scuti. However, none of the previous scenarios is capable of reproducing all of the observed characteristics of the variations. Thus, the cause of the remaining light and radial velocity variations remains presently unexplained by any of the considered physical processes.


Purpose
The aim of this study is to investigate the benefits and weaknesses of OpenVPN to access Osiris.

Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a case study approach to describe a phenomenon. The data collected from observation of the real-world environment.

Findings
The benefits of OpenVPN are the following: librarian can access the Osiris and other resources remotely and safely; OpenVPN protects the connection when accessing the Osiris; and librarian can also manage Osiris systems easily to control access, monitoring the users efficiently. However, there are some drawbacks of OpenVPN, such as network infrastructure dependency, require stabile internet connection, configuration complexity, to arrange and configurate OpenVPN needs skills and knowledge on the related field, data protection and security breach.

Originality/value
The originality of this study is the use of OpenVPN to access Osiris that is managed by library. There are some variables to determine the benefits and drawbacks of the OpenVPN such as managing access, data security and efficiency. This study gives an original contribution to the use of OpenVPN in academic libraries.


Ethylene glycol ingestion, accidental or intentional, can be a life-threatening emergency. Assays are not available from most clinical laboratories, and, thus, results often require many hours or days to obtain. Enzymatic assays, adaptable to automated chemistry analyzers, have been evaluated, but they have been plagued by analytic problems. With an alternative method of data analysis applied to an existing enzymatic assay, a modified assay was developed and validated on 2 different automated chemistry systems. Compared with a previously validated method based on gas chromatography with flame ionization detection, the modified enzymatic assay showed excellent agreement on patient samples (y = 1.0227x -1.24; r(2) = 0.9725), with a large analytic measuring range (2.5-300 mg/dL [0.4-48.4 mmol/L]). Interferences from propylene glycol, various butanediols, and other related compounds were almost entirely eliminated; when present, they generated error flags rather than falsely elevated ethylene glycol results. This modified assay should make it possible for more clinical laboratories to offer ethylene glycol measurements.


I place on the table a selection from a large assortment of a peculiar description of concretions obtained from the Red Crag at Felixstow, in Suffolk. In 1842 I was much puzzled to account for the nature of these concretions. At a cursory glance one might almost be inclined to pass them by as waterworn pebbles, as they lie abundantly interspersed among the comminuted shells which form the upper parts of the cliffs. I found more than one eminent geologist disposed to agree with me in considering them to be rolled masses of London clay which had been indurated subsequently to their deposition in the crag. On my again visiting Felixstow during the summer of the present year (1843), I determined to give them a particular examination; and although a formation which has been so thoroughly worked as the crag is not likely to afford a casual visitor the opportunity of gleaning much of novelty, I believe I have satisfactorily ascertained the origin of these concretions, and have added to the list of crag fossils the petro-tympanic bones of at least four species of Cetaceans. These latter, I am persuaded, have been overlooked among the many concretions of this formation. They are, however, of a different composition, and closely resemble, in this respect, the silicified fragments of bone so abundant in this locality.