InAs lateral quantum dot molecules (QDMs) are grown on (001)-GaAs substrates. The self-assembled QDMs are formed in one continuous molecular beam epitaxial (MBE) growth via a thin-capping-and-regrowth technique. Lateral QDMs, each with 10-12 dots arranged in a specific pattern, are determined by the shapes of the underlying nanopropeller quantum dots (QDs). The nanopropeller QDs in turn are obtained by regrowth on nano-holes which have been previously created by capping the first InAs QD layer grown on (001)-GaAs substrate with a thin GaAs layer. The length of the propeller directly influences the number of QDs in a QDM. By varying the conditions for thin-capping, shorter or longer propellers can be achieved, allowing the number of QDs in each QDM to be controlled.


ABSTRACT In this study, composite materials were made from Carica papaya fibers (CPFs), as a reinforcing element in polypropylene (PP), polyester (P) and epoxy (E) matrices, using compression molding technique. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the input parameters with their output responses, specifically density and thickness. Various CPF reinforced PP, P, and E composite specimens with varied fiber orientations of 0°, 45°, and 90° as well as percentages of fiber contents of 10, 20, and 30 wt.% were prepared, according to the ASTM D 570 standard. From the results obtained, it was observed that CPF/E composites with fewer fraction of CPF and orientation of 90° exhibited less water absorption throughout the whole duration of immersion. Water saturated CPF/E composite specimen, designated as E8, with orientation of 0° and fiber content of 20 wt.% showed the highest tensile, flexural strengths, and Shore D Hardness of 119, 115 MPa, and 85, respectively. Also, CPF/E composite specimen (E7) with 90° and 10 wt.% recorded the lowest tensile strength of 32 MPa, and CPF/E composite (E3) with 90° and 30 wt.% showed the lowest flexural strength of 41 MPa. Hence, it was evident that optimum CPF reinforced polymeric composite can be used for some outdoor engineering applications.


This paper presents a new circuit realization of the space-vector pulse-width modulation (SVPWM) strategy. An SVPWM control integrated circuit (IC) has been developed using state of-the-art field-programmable gate array (FPGA) technology. The proposed SVPWM control scheme can be realized using only a single FPGA (XC4010) from Xilinx, Inc. The output fundamental frequency can be adjusted from 0.094 to 1500 Hz. The pulse-width modulation (PWM) switching frequency can be set from 381 Hz to 48.84 kHz. The delay time for the PWM gating signals is adjustable. This SVPWM IC can also be included in the digital current control loop for stator current regulation. The designed SVPWM IC can be incorporated with a digital signal processor (DSP) to provide a simple and effective solution for high-performance AC drives. Simulation and experimental results are given to verify the implemented SVPWM control IC.


The study explores relationship between technological orientations and demographics of bottom of the pyramid (BOP) entrepreneurs in Ghana. The study reviewed literature on the BOP concept. Based on the reviewed literature, hypotheses were developed for testing. Data was collected from 287 micro-entrepreneurs using a structured questionnaire. The data collected was analyzed using the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and regression analysis. The study found some relationships between technology acceptance, connectivity to networks and entrepreneurial demographics. This provides the information necessary for information communications technology (ICT) and technology companies seeking to expand to these new markets as top of the pyramid markets saturate.


In situ, high-pressure single-crystal X-ray diffraction experiments were performed on a feldspar with composition SrAl2Si2O8 (space group I2/c). The measurements were performed at 19 different pressures up to 7.9 GPa. The unit-cell parameters and the unit-cell volume show a strong discontinuity at 6.6 GPa indicating a first-order phase transition. The systematic absences clearly show that the transition occurs from I2/c to P21/c space group symmetry, as for the transition recently reported for a feldspar with composition Sr0.8Ca0.2Al2Si2O8. Our results suggest that the P21/c phase is softer than the I2/c one. Moreover, within the I2/c symmetry two pressure–volume trends are evident due to a volume softening above 4.2 GPa. The softening did not allow fitting the data to a single equation of state, and only the data up to 3.67 were fitted with a third-order Birch-Murnaghan equation of state. Based on our and previous experimental results we propose a possible composition-pressure stability field for the Sr-rich side along the CaAl2Si2O8-SrAl2Si2O8 join.


Human motion analysis attempts to understand the movements of human body using techniques found in various disciplines. The movements of human body can be interpreted on a physical level through pose estimation, i.e., static reconstruction of three dimensional (3D) articulated configurations, or on a higher more semantic level through action recognition, i.e., understanding the body's movements over time. It has a wide array of applications in the areas like gaming, sports analysis, security and surveillance, and healthcare. In the gaming industry, learning human action style and creating character animation from a repertoire of actions is very popular. Gait analysis is a crucial step in many biomedical applications as well as security, surveillance and biometric applications. A plethora of sensors are available to capture the human motion data in various modalities easily and in a very cost effective manner. The sheer amount of data produced by researchers, using such sensors, every day demand for human motion analysis methods that are computationally efficient. This thesis attempts to develop effective techniques, based on computer vision and computer graphics, to solve some of the important problems in application areas of human motion analysis. Specifically, three key application areas, namely, sports activity analysis, surveillance and security, and healthcare are considered. New methods for applications like human style sequence learning, gait analysis, gesture recognition,
and time series matching are proposed.

In the first half of this thesis, the problem addressed is learning and synthesis of structured sport activities with kickboxing as a case study. Monocular video data is used as input and human style sequences are investigated in order to identify higher level sequence style. Main idea is to learn the style embedded in action sequencing and transitions in between, and then to synthesize new sequences for virtual characters.
Widely popular computer vision techniques are employed to obtain the sequence of actions performed in the video and to train a model with this sequence to drive a virtual character. Furthermore, style information embedded in transitions are also obtained from video and is used to create style preserving realistic transitions.

In the second half of this thesis, high dimensional sensor data in different modalities is analyzed. Since human motion data is a high dimensional time series data, a novel shape aware multidimensional time series matching algorithm is developed and tested for a variety of scenarios like noise, missing data, different data modalities, small amount of training as well as testing data and different application domains. Firstly, processes for two new biometric systems, namely, gait and visual password are proposed towards surveillance and security. Secondly, processes for recognition of gestures and activities are proposed towards healthcare.

Extensive experimentations are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness and validity of the various techniques developed in this thesis. Performance of the proposed methods is compared with that of the state of the art methods used in the human motion analysis under best possible conditions. For this purpose, the results obtained are validated using some popular benchmark databases as well as a few in-house created databases. It is shown that, the proposed methods outperform the state of the art in most of the cases.


The basic theory of bi-stable oscillating loop control is first sumaarized using standard describing function concepts. The effective transfer characteristic of the hi-stable switch is defined in terms of the ratio of both amplitude and frequency of the control error signal to amplitude and frequency of the loop oscillation signal. The effect of variation in loop oscillation amplitude with low frequency control error amplitude is considered. The relationship between switch gain at control frequencies and switch gain at oscillation frequency is noted. The inherent insensitivity of the bistable oscillating system to variations in linear loop parameters is discussed. The effect of variation in loop gain of the bi-stable system is compared with the effect of equal variations in a similar linear system. The possibility of bi-stable loop oscillation at more than one frequency is considered. The conditions are defined which insure oscillation at the intended oscillation frequency. Analog simulation tests used to verify these loop oscillation criteria are outlined.


Advanced analytical techniques were utilized to investigate the intermolecular forces in several nanostructured materials. Techniques including, but not limited to, isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), variable temperature Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) thermal curves were used to study the fundamental interactions present in various nanomaterials, and to further probe the influence of these interactions on the overall behavior of the material. The areas of focus included self-assembly of surfactant micelles, polycation complexation of DNA, and temperature-dependent hydrogen bonding in polymeric systems. ITC was successfully used to determine the low critical micelle concentration (CMC) for a novel gemini surfactant with limited water solubility. CMCs were measured at decreasing methanol molar fractions (xMeOH) in water and the resulting linear relationship between CMC and methanol concentration was used to mathematically extrapolate to a predicted CMC at xMeOH = 0. Using this technique, the CMC value for the novel gemini surfactant was predicted to be 0.037 ± 0.004 mM. This extrapolation technique was also validated with surfactant standards. ITC was also used to investigate the binding thermodynamics of polyplex formation with polycations and DNA. The imidazolium-containing and trehalose-based polycations were both found to have endothermic, entropically driven binding with DNA, while the adenine-containing polycation exhibited exothermic DNA binding. In addition, ITC was also used to confirm the stoichiometric binding ratio of linear polyethylenimine and DNA polyplexes as determined by a novel NMR method. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) and zeta potential measurements were also performed to determine the size and surface charge of polyplexes. Circular dichroism (CD) and iii FTIR spectroscopies provided information regarding the structural changes that may occur in the DNA upon complexation with polymers. UV-Vis thermal curves indicated that polyplexes exhibit a greater thermal stability than DNA by itself. Variable temperature FTIR spectroscopy was used to quantitatively compare the hydrogen bonding behavior of multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT)-polyurethane composites. Spectra were collected from 35 to 185 oC for samples containing various weight percent loadings of MWCNTs with different hydrogen bonding surface functionalities. Peak fitting analysis was performed in the carbonyl-stretching region for each sample, and the hydrogen-bonding index (Rindex) was reported. Rindex values were used to quantitatively compare all of the composite samples in regards to temperature effects, weight percent loadings of MWCNTs, and the different functionalizations. In general, higher weight percent loadings of the MWCNTs resulted in greater Rindex values and increased hydrogen bond dissociation temperatures. In addition, at 5 and 10 wt% loadings the initial Rindex values displayed a trend that tracked well with the increasing hydrogen bonding capacity of the various surface functionalities.


Electrical conductivity of carbon fibers and carbon nanotubes provides the possibility of in situ strain monitoring and damage detection of composite structures by electrical resistance measurement. To exploit this property and use the material itself as a sensor in a structural health monitoring system a reliable contacting of the material is needed to enable electrical resistance measurement during operation. Due to its high potential for industrial automation and its excellent reproducibility, ink-jet printing serves as promising technology to print circuits and realize contacting on the monitored material. The study deals with a new structural health monitoring approach using inkjet printing of silver nanoparticle based ink directly onto the composites structure. Impact damages are introduced into adhesively bonded glass fiber reinforced polymer test specimens. A modification of the epoxy based adhesive films with carbon nanoparticles allows for electrical resistance measurements through the bonding. The introduced impacts are investigated using non-destructive testing methods, i.e. ultrasonic inspection, and light microscopy. Electrical resistance measurement shows the possibility of accurate damage detection and damage localization in one or two dimensions, depending on the conducting path designs.


The article is part of the special issue of the journal on Charles P. Kindleberger (CPK). By reviewing CPK's works the authors investigates the contributions by Kindleberger not mainly as a historian but as an economist. Kindleberger's theory of financial crises is reconstructed, drawing from the authors work in the field of economic history and history of economics. A typical structure of financial crises in seven stages is developed, and policy implications are drawn. The author presents his conclusions especially in terms of regulation of the banking and financial system. JEL Codes: G01, F02, H12, B31


To map the polarization state (Stokes vector) of objects in a scene, images are typically acquired using a polarization filter (analyzer), set at different orientations. Usually these orientations are assumed to be all known. Often, however, the angles are unknown: most photographers manually rotate the filter in coarse undocumented angles. Deviations in motorized stages or remote-sensing equipment are caused by device drift and environmental changes. This work keeps the simplicity of uncontrolled uncalibrated photography, and still extracts from the photographs accurate polarimetry. This is achieved despite unknown analyzer angles and the objects' Stokes vectors. The paper derives modest conditions on the data size, to make this task well-posed and even over-constrained. The paper then proposes an estimation algorithm, and tests it in real experiments. The algorithm demonstrates high accuracy, speed, simplicity and robustness to strong noise and other signal disruptions.


Abstract : Concluding remarks: This article recognizes that uncertainty and lack of objectivity exist as conditions under which many decisions relating to the allocation of resources are made. It does not presume to have developed a scientific theory which would eliminate such uncertainty and subjectivity. It does, however, provide a formalism which allows all projects and/or functions to compete for their share of resource allocation on a fair and equivalent, but not equal, basis. Thus, if any cheating, so to speak, is to be done all projects have an equal opportunity to cheat. This formalism can also be used by management in mechanizing such decision operations if these decisions are to be made more than once. (Author)


We use focused electron beams to create surface-patterned biotinylated poly(ethylene glycol) microgels to which molecular beacon probes are immobilized viabiotin–streptavidin binding. We hypothesize that immobilizing molecular beacon probes to highly hydrated microgels will maintain the high performance typical of untethered molecular beacon probes free in solution. Monte Carlo simulations show that the microgel mesh size resulting from focused radiation crosslinking is highly non-uniform and approaches infinity at the microgel–water interface. This structure is important because the extremely liquid-like environment at the diffuse microgel surface reduces the compromising effects that hard surfaces can exert on molecular beacon secondary conformation, accessibility of nucleic acid targets to the molecular beacons, and the efficiency of energy transfer between the molecular beacon fluorophore and quencher. We assess the performance of microgel-tethered molecular beacons using molecular beacons designed to distinguish between methicillin-sensitive and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. We show that each microgel presents approximately 11 800 such molecular beacons and that each molecular beacon on average occupies an area of microgel surface corresponding to an individual streptavidin molecule. The signal-to-background ratio we measure ranges from 40–50, substantially higher than many other surface-tethering approaches. Furthermore, this platform exhibits both low non-specific background and high specific fluorescence when the microgel-tethered molecular beacons are exposed to multiple targets, and it thus promises to lend itself well to high-sensitivity, self-reporting oligonucleotide based assays.


A method is presented for calculating the currents and winding patterns required to design independent zonal and tesseral shim coils for magnetic resonance imaging. Both actively shielded and unshielded configurations are considered, and the region of interest can be located asymmetrically with respect to the coil's length. Streamline, target-field and Fourier-series methods are utilized. The desired target-field is specified at two cylindrical radii, on and inside a circular conducting cylinder of length 2L and radius a. The specification is over some asymmetric portion pL < z < qL of the coil's length (-1 < p < q < 1). Arbitrary functions are used in the outer sections, -L < z < pL and qL < z < L, to ensure continuity of the magnetic field across the entire length of the coil. The entire field is then periodically extended as a half-range cosine Fourier series about either end of the coil. The resultant Fourier coefficients are then substituted into the Fourier-series expressions for the internal and external magnetic fields, and current densities and stream functions on both the primary coil and shield. A contour plot of the stream function directly gives the required coil winding patterns. Spherical harmonic analysis and shielding analysis on field calculations from a ZX shim coil indicate that example designs and theory are well matched.


SETTING
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is a middle-income setting with an estimated 1% adult human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) seroprevalence.

OBJECTIVE
To examine the cost-effectiveness of DOTS in Rio de Janeiro.

DESIGN
Cost-effectiveness analysis based on cost data and an epidemiological model based on programmatic outcomes from the Health Department in Rio de Janeiro, cost data from the retail market sector and epidemiological data from published studies.

RESULTS
The 10-year cost of a tuberculosis program treating a population of 262 000 based on self-administered therapy (SAT) was estimated to be $580 271 compared to $1047 886 for DOTS. The largest portion of the DOTS budget was for staff costs and costs incurred by patients, both at 28%. For SAT, the largest percentage of the budget was allocated to medication costs, at 34%. Upgrading from SAT to DOTS averted 1558 cases of tuberculosis (TB, uncertainty range [UR] 1418-1704) and 143 TB deaths (UR 131-155). The incremental cost effectiveness ratio (ICER) for DOTS was $300 per case averted (UR $289-$312) and $3270 per death averted (UR $3123-$3435). In terms of disability adjusted life years (DALYs), DOTS saved 5426 DALYs (UR 4908-5961). The ICER for DOTS was $86 per DALY saved (UR $74-$100).

CONCLUSIONS
DOTS is a highly cost-effective intervention in Brazil.


How crystals melt can be seen directly by studying size-tunable colloidal particles. Consider an ice cube melting in a glass of water. Ice cubes and any other solid objects almost always melt from their outer surface inward, and this scenario is well understood by physicists. What is less common, less well understood, but more intriguing is the case when a solid melts from inside outward (see the figure, panel A). Experimentally, this might be achieved by focusing an intense laser pulse inside a solid sample to locally superheat it. However, in such experiments, the sample melts extremely quickly, and it is difficult to determine exactly how the melting proceeds. On page 87 of this issue, Wang et al. (1) report the creative use of colloids as a model system to study the internal melting of samples in slow motion and with high magnification. They find that large agitations are the main driver of sample melting, rather than the formation of crystalline defects, contradicting some theoretical expectations.


Managers often experience problems with quantifying the value of reducing or extending lead time when assessing different sourcing alternatives. In practice, these decisions are often made considering only unit procurement cost, transportation cost, capital cost and storage cost. However, the lead time of suppliers highly influences a business' exposure to demand uncertainty. This can yield large monetary values that should be accounted for. This Master's Thesis presents a case study within the automotive industry to show the effects of exposure to demand risk when assessing different sourcing alternatives. Building on the work done in \citet{ProjectThesis2013}, the computer program is further developed to better fit real life applications. Extending the existing geometric Brownian motion and mean reverting process, a discrete ARMA model is incorporated allowing for more flexibility in connecting demand to demand risk. Additionally, new case specific variables are added to give a more holistic view of the sourcing decision. Kongsberg Automotive's plant in Hvittingfoss, Norway (KA), and their clutch servo produced for Scania is analyzed. A thorough assessment of KA's demand structure shows that the demand is stationary, normally distributed and best described by an ARMA(1,3) model. However, due to the similarity between ARMA(1,3) and the mean reverting Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, the latter is used for the case study because of its continuous nature. The mean reversion rate and demand volatility is found to be high. Utilizing the expected supply-demand mismatch cost and real options theory enables for calculation of the cost curve - an indifference curve showing the costs at which you are indifferent between lead times. Three components of the clutch servo is evaluated - the piston, piston rod and aluminum casting. Based on the cost curve, this thesis concludes whether KA should change their supplier for each of them. The cost curves show that the majority of demand risk develops the last week prior to delivery, and little risk is added at longer lead times. Therefore, KA should either acquire a short lead time to mitigate this uncertainty, or choose a long lead time to benefit from the low obtained procurement cost. An assessment of other sources of risk that potentially could alter this conclusion is also presented.


In the present study, four restorative materials were used for the restoration of endodontically treated anterior teeth and their strength were compared with that of natural teeth. 100 freshly extracted Maxillary Central Incisors were used. The teeth were restored with Pin-retained amalgam-core buildups, Dowel-post with Glass ionomer-Amalgam alloy combination Cast Core build up. The natural tooth showed the maximum strength. Though some of the restorative materials showed promising results, none of them is able to show strength anywhere near to that of natural tooth.


Background Health related quality of life is the functional effect of a medical condition and/or its therapy upon a patient, and as such is particularly suitable for describing the general health of children. The objective of this study was to identify and confirm potential determinants of health-related quality of life in children aged 4-11 years in the general population in the Netherlands. Understanding such determinants may provide insights into more targeted public health policy. Methods As part of a population based cross sectional study, the Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ) Parental Form 28 was used to measure health-related quality of life in school-aged children in a general population sample. Parents of 10,651 children aged 4-11 years were interviewed from January 2001 to December 2009. Results Multivariate and regression analyses demonstrated a declined CHQ Physical Summary score for children who had >1 conditions, disorders or acute health complaints and who were greater consumers of healthcare; children with a non-western immigrant background; and children whose parents did not work. Lower CHQ Psychosocial Summary score was reported for children who had >1 conditions, disorders or acute health complaints, boys, children of single parents and obese children. Conclusion The best predictors of health-related quality of life are variables that describe use of health care and the number of disorders and health complaints. Nonetheless, a number of demographic, socio-economic and family/environmental determinants contribute to a child's health-related quality of life as well.


Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) face proportionally higher costs than larger corporations when offering their shares to the public. An alternative to bank financing or an initial public offering is to raise small amounts of capital from the crowd, i.e. crowdfunding. During the past year, both the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) have either proposed or implemented changes to the regulation of prospectuses. The aim in both jurisdictions is to promote innovative forms of business financing. Changes in prospectus regulation should however not be at the expense of investor protection regulation. Non-qualified investors are generally seen as less sophisticated and in need of more comprehensive investor protection regulation than institutional and other qualified investors. In this article, the proposed changes to the EU prospectus regulation are examined in light of the newly adopted Regulation A and Regulation Crowdfunding in the US, with a focus on how the proposed changes will affect retail investors as well as SMEs and their ability to raise capital through crowdfunding. A conclusion drawn from the comparative study is that several safeguards intended to protect non-qualified investors in crowdfunding offers are present in the US but not in the EU. It is argued in this article that the changes proposed in the EU, making it easier for SMEs to raise capital on the capital markets, should be accompanied by more robust investor protection regulation.


Herein, C–N cross coupling methodology was developed for the synthesis of a diverse range of nitro-substituted secondary amines. A variety of strained, aliphatic, and aromatic precursors were effectively used, with low catalyst and ligand loading ratios resulting in product formation in good yield. This method can act as an alternative to nucleophilic addition reactions. To cross couple electron-donating, electron-withdrawing, neutral, and aliphatic primary amines with alkyl/aryl halides, a combination of RuPhos and TBAB was carefully tuned. Further, characterization of these molecules was carried out using FT-IR, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, 19F-NMR, single crystal XRD, and C, H, and N elemental analyses.


The paper identify, separate and classify hybrid structures in process control applications. Hybrid structures can be found in control algorithms and architectures as well as in formal descriptions of the physical behaviour of processes. To model and analyze hybrid structures, several approaches of hybrid modeling methods are known. The use of these methods to verify industrial process control applications often fails due to complexity and variety of the focused control structures. To reduce the complexity, first a standardized structure of hybrid function blocks for process control is introduced, which can be used as a design pattern for all process control blocks. In addition to this microscopic view to process control structures, typical hybrid control nets and typical hybrid control strategies are analyzed.


Background: Using community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles, the Canadian First Nations Diabetes Clinical Management Epidemiologic (CIRCLE) study documents the current clinical management of type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and complications in 19 partnering First Nations (FN) communities.

Objectives: To outline the lessons learned in developing and fostering community health partnerships, and demonstrate the feasibility of using CBPR in multisite research at a national level.

Methods: Investigators developed investigator-FN community partnerships from seven Canadian provinces, and research assistants were hired from each community to facilitate data collection. Research assistants randomly selected patients from each community's diabetes registry, and audited the charts of consenting patients from 2006 to 2009 for diabetes indicators in accordance with national diabetes guidelines.

Lessons Learned: Lessons learned in using CBPR on a national scale are outlined by highlighting challenges and facilitating factors associated with (1) building collaborative relationships, (2) culture and ethics, (3) collaboration and partnership, and (4) innovative avenues of data management and dissemination. Lessons learned include the need for a flexible research agenda, clear and mutually agreed upon roles, partnership from all community levels including Elders, regional coordinators managing several sites, and wide-scale dissemination methods.

Conclusion: The CIRCLE national CBPR multisite collaborative is unprecedented in Canada, and provides a feasible model for other studies. Using CBPR on a national scale exacerbates challenges commonly faced with single-site or multisite research, but the benefits provided in developing partnerships based on mutual trust and goals makes it of great importance.


Abstract. Supervised machine learning needs high quality, densely sampled and labelled training data. Transfer learning (TL) techniques have been devised to reduce this dependency by adapting classifiers trained on different, but related, (source) training data to new (target) data sets. A problem in TL is how to quantify the relatedness of a source quickly and robustly, because transferring knowledge from unrelated data can degrade the performance of a classifier. In this paper, we propose a method that can select a nearly optimal source from a large number of candidate sources. This operation depends only on the marginal probability distributions of the data, thus allowing the use of the often abundant unlabelled data. We extend this method to multi-source selection by optimizing a weighted combination of sources. The source weights are computed using a very fast boosting-like optimization scheme. The run-time complexity of our method scales linearly in regard to the number of candidate sources and the size of the training set and is thus applicable to very large data sets. We also propose a modification of an existing TL algorithm to handle multiple weighted training sets. Our method is evaluated on five survey regions. The experiments show that our source selection method is effective in discriminating between related and unrelated sources, almost always generating results within 3% in overall accuracy of a classifier based on fully labelled training data. We also show that using the selected source as training data for a TL method will additionally result in a performance improvement.


We applied a bulk AlN substrate to an AlGaN-based ultraviolet light emitting diode (UV-LED) and found that this combination enables high injection current, which shows the LED's potential for large ultraviolet flux extraction. Heat dissipation is an important issue for LEDs. Bulk AlN substrate has high thermal conductivity, a wurtzite crystal symmetry the same as that of nitride emitters, and transparency in the ultraviolet wavelength range. An UV-LED grown on a bulk AlN substrate shows output power linearity up to high injection current up to 300 mA, whereas a similar device grown on an AlN-template formed on a sapphire substrate only shows linearity up to an injection current of about 150 mA. It also showed very stable emission peak wavelength. For example, the emission peak shift is less than 2 nm in spite of the large injection current of 200 mA. Both findings are attributed to the heat dissipation afforded by the high thermal conductivity of the bulk AlN. This LED still suffers from internal absorption loss caused by the residual color centers in the AlN at present. However, further improvement of bulk AlN substrates will lead to high flux and highly efficient ultraviolet sources.


We detected in urine by HPLC two enzyme fractions of alkaline phosphatase (AP, EC 184.108.40.206), soluble and particulate, analogous to those in serum. The second fraction was eluted with high-salt-content eluent at the same elution time as high-molecular-mass, or particulate, AP in serum. AP characterization in urine from a patient with acute rejection crisis showed a greater sensitivity of the particulate form to treatment with L-phenylalanine, which suggests a higher content of intestinal-type AP in the particulate form. The soluble fraction showed a more liver-type AP behavior. Changes in the chromatograms after the sample was treated with 1-butanol and Triton X-100 support a membrane origin of the particulate AP. Urinalyses from patients with acute renal disease showed increased activity of soluble and particulate AP, with a relatively greater increase of particulate AP.


As the demand of high-speed stream processing grows, in-memory databases are widely used to analyze streaming data. It is challenging for in-memory systems to meet the requirements of high throughput and data persistence at the same time since data are not stored in disks. ARIES logging and command logging are two popular logging methods. In current applications, both ARIES logging and command logging are necessary. However, no checkpointing mechanism includes both the functions of ARIES logging method and command logging method. Besides, adopting ARIES logging method in an in-memory database creates high overhead. Command logging records redundant commands and has high storage cost. To address the above issues, we utilize order-irrelevant characteristics of data structure and incremental checkpointing concepts to devise a data structure based incremental checkpointing (DSIC) mechanism. DSIC mechanism is a very low overhead checkpointing approach while retaining the features of ARIES logging and command logging. DSIC mechanism reduces more than 70 percent logging time of the existing logging scheme and saves 40 percent storage costs of the existing logging scheme.


We report the investigation and implementation of a compact second harmonic generation microscope that uses a single-mode fiber coupler and a double-clad photonic crystal fiber. Second harmonic polarization anisotropy through the fiber-optic microscope systems is quantitatively measured with KTP microcrystals, fish scale and rat tail tendon. It is demonstrated that the polarized second harmonic signals can be excited and collected through the single-mode fiber coupler to analyze the molecular orientations of structural proteins. It has been discovered that a double-clad photonic crystal fiber can preserve the linear polarization in the core, although a depolarization effect is observed in the inner cladding region. The feasibility of polarization anisotropy measurements in fiber-optic second harmonic generation microscopy will benefit the in vivo study of collagen-related diseases with a compact imaging probe.


On October 1, 2010, the government of Pakistan shut down the supply route for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) after an incursion into Pakistan's territory by NATO forces, killing 16 Pakistanis in collateral damage. Two days later, militants torched 28 NATO supply trucks near Shikarpur in the southern province of Sindh. These events reflect the inherent tension both in Pakistan's counterterrorism strategy and in its relationship with the United States and its allies in fighting the war in Afghanistan. The future of U.S. military operations in South Asia depends on the convergence of policies between the United States and Pakistan, but since the war began in 2001, interpreting Islamabad's counterterrorism policy has been difficult. Pakistan's counterterrorism strategy in Afghanistan is rife with inherent contradictions, caught between an inclination to fight militant forces and yet having to partner with some to strengthen its future bargaining position. The policy flows out of Pakistan's multiple strategic requirements: its need to remain engaged with the United States, to save itself from the Taliban attacking the Pakistani state, and to fight India's growing presence in Afghanistan. Caught between these three issues, Islamabad's counterterrorism policy and objectives continue to lack clarity. At best, the policy illustrates the tension between Islamabad's need to protect itself against an internal enemy and its sensitivity toward the external threat from India. The primary flaw of Pakistan's counterterrorism policy, however, is that it is defined and driven by the military and that institution's strategic objectives. It is easier to use the military option than to address the problem of changing the basic narrative


Extreme heat is associated with an increased mortality and morbidity. National heat plans have been implemented to minimize the effect of extreme heat. The population's awareness and knowledge of national heat plans and extreme heat is essential to improve the community's behavior and adaptation. A general population survey was conducted in Lisbon and in Madrid to assess this knowledge. We used a questionnaire to interview passers-by. Results were compared between Lisbon and Madrid and between locals and foreigners, using Pearson Chi-square tests and Fisher's exact test. We conducted 260 interviews in six locations of different socio-economic backgrounds in each city. The most frequently mentioned extreme heat-related risk groups were the elderly (79.2%), children (49.6%) and babies (21.5%). The most frequently reported protective measures were increased fluid intake (73.1%) and avoiding exposure to the sun (50.8%). Knowledge about the heat plan was higher in Lisbon (37.2%) than in Madrid (25.2%) (p-value = 0.03). Foreigners had less knowledge of risk groups compared to locals. Heat plans were not widely known in Madrid and Lisbon. Nonetheless, knowledge of practical concepts to face extreme heat, such as certain risk groups and protective measures, was found. Our results were similar to comparable surveys where specific respondents' groups were identified as less knowledgeable. This highlighted the importance of addressing these groups when communicating public health messages on heat. Foreigners should be specifically targeted to increase their awareness.


Due to the particular geographical location and geological condition, Taiwan is constantly attacked by typhoons, flood, landslides, debris flows, and earthquakes. Those natural hazards had caused huge loss of lives and properties. To reduce the damages and losses caused by the natural hazards, an integrated and complete decision support system for decision makers is necessary. In this study, Safe Taiwan information system (SATIS), which includes two subsystems, response operation subsystem for staff members and decision support subsystem for commanders, is developed for preparedness and response of typhoon hazards. It is based on the WebGIS framework that the disaster information can be distributed via internet technology. When typhoon is approaching, response operation subsystem is used by National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction (NCDR) staffs to integrate real-time monitoring information, hazard models and graphical user interfaces to analyze and manage the disaster information such as the current position and possible path of typhoon, the spatial distribution of rainfalls, and potential areas of flooding, landslides and debris flows. The input data of this subsystem includes the basic maps, the real-time information of typhoon and rainfall issued by the Central Weather Bureau, the real-time water information from the Water Resources Agency, and the hazard maps indicating areas of potential landslide, debris flow and flooding made by NCDR herself to estimate endangered areas under the current typhoon. There are four main modules integrated into the subsystem including the rainfall monitoring and forecasting, the estimation of potential inundation areas, the estimation of potential landslide and debris flows, and the management of disaster information. The results of hazard risk analysis which include potential rainfall distribution, inundation and landslide risk areas, early warning messages, and total suggestion over the next 24 hours are finally demonstrated by decision support subsystem in the National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) and help the commander to make the right decisions in disaster preparedness and response phases. In the future, SATIS will integrate social and economic information into the assessment of natural hazard vulnerability. It can help the commander to know the high-risk areas and make the right decision.


ABSTRACT Violence in Africa for instance is pathological. Some forms of violence, particularly those perpetrated by the law enforcement agents of the state operate as an effective mechanism for order maintenance and stability. Some other forms of violence are usually in opposition to stability and calls for change. While the former is legitimate the letter is illegitimate. Violence plays an indispensable role in power acquisition and maintenance. Those who have the freedom which derives from the right to use legitimated violence are in a much better position to acquire or maintain power than are persons lacking this freedom to challenge it successfully. Any change which extends or restricts the boundaries of legitimated violence is likely to affect directly the distribution of power, thereby affecting the nature of social relations within and between groups. This relationship between power and violence is one major reason why it is important to understand the processes of legitimation and de-legitimation of violence. Legitimation and de-legitimation of violence having significant political and social consequences does not occur without advocates, justifications platform, and alteration of public reactions and conceptions. Using conflict and liberal perspectives to evaluate the occurrence of violence in social relation, this paper discusses peasantry/state power relations and power change in African context and the place of violence therein. It examined the quest to violently challenge the state authority and also the continuous push for order/stability and continuity by the state. Also, the paper attempts resolution to the contradictions arising from the use of violence either to ensure stability or change. Key words: Violence, Legitimation, De-legitimation, Law enforcement, Peasantry, State, Power relation.


Transforming growth factor- (cid:1) (TGF- (cid:1) ) plays a key role in osteoblast differentiation and bone development and remodeling. Collagenase-3 (matrix metalloproteinase-13) is expressed by osteoblasts and seems to be involved in osteoclastic bone resorption. Here, we show that TGF- (cid:1) 1 stimulates collagenase-3 expression in the rat osteoblastic cell line UMR 106-01 and requires de novo protein synthesis. Dominant-negative Smad2/3 constructs indicated that Smad signaling is essential for TGF- (cid:1) 1-stimulated collagenase-3 promoter activity. Inhibitors of the ERK1/2 and p38 MAPK pathways, but not the JNK pathway, reduced TGF- (cid:1) 1-stimulated collagen-ase-3 expression, indicating that the p38 MAPK and ERK1/2 pathways are also required for TGF- (cid:1) 1-stimu-lated collagenase-3 expression in UMR 106-01 cells. These inhibitors did not prevent nuclear localization of Smad proteins, but they inhibited Smad-mediated transcriptional activation. We have shown for the first time that Runx2 (a bone transcription factor and a potential substrate for the MAPK pathway) is phosphorylated in response to TGF- (cid:1) 1 treatment in osteoblastic cells. Cotransfection of Smad2 and Runx2 constructs had a cooperative effect on TGF- (cid:1) 1-stimulated collagenase-3 promoter activity in these cells. We further identified ligand-independent physical interaction between Smad2 and Runx2. Taken together, our results provide an important role for cross-talk between the Smad and MAPK pathways and their components in expression of collagenase-3 following TGF- (cid:1) 1 treatment in UMR 106-01 cells.


: No statistically significant difference in alkaline phosphatase levels was demonstrated in animals injected with the FBJ virus. However, there was a significant increase associated with the development of osteosarcomas in response to the iv injection of 1.0 uCi 90 Sr/g body weight into 11-18-mo-old Anl:CFl females. It was proposed that alkaline phosphatase determinations can be used as well as roentenographic analysis to detect 90Sr-induced tumors in mice.


Introduction With increasing numbers of patients diagnosed with ESRD, arteriovenous fistula (AVF) maturation has become a major factor in improving both dialysis related outcomes and quality of life of those patients. Compared to other types of access it has been established that a functional AVF access is the least likely to be associated with thrombosis, infection, hospital admissions, secondary interventions to maintain patency and death. Aim Study of demographic factors implicated in the functional maturation of arteriovenous fistulas. Also, to explore any possible association between preoperative haematological investigations and functional maturation. Methods We performed a retrospective chart review of all patients with ESRD who were referred to the vascular service in the University Hospital of Limerick for creation of vascular access for HD. We included patients with primary AVFs; and excluded those who underwent secondary procedures. Results Overall AVF functional maturation rate in our study was 53.7% (52/97). Female gender showed significant association with nonmaturation (P = 0.004) and was the only predictor for non-maturation in a logistic regression model (P = 0.011). Patients who had history of renal transplant (P = 0.036), had relatively lower haemoglobin levels (P = 0.01) and were on calcium channel blockers (P = 0.001) showed better functional maturation rates. Conclusion Female gender was found to be associated with functional non-maturation, while a history kidney transplant, calcium channel-blocker agents and low haemoglobin levels were all associated with successful functional maturation. In view of the conflicting evidence in the literature, large prospective multi-centre registry-based studies with well-defined outcomes are needed.


Speech perception requires the grouping of acoustic information into meaningful phonetic units via the process of categorical perception (CP). Environmental masking influences speech perception and CP. However, it remains unclear at which stage of processing (encoding, decision, or both) masking affects listeners' categorization of speech signals. The purpose of this study was to determine whether linguistic interference influences the early acoustic-phonetic conversion process inherent to CP. To this end, we measured source level, event related brain potentials (ERPs) from auditory cortex (AC) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) as listeners rapidly categorized speech sounds along a /da/ to /ga/ continuum presented in three listening conditions: quiet, and in the presence of forward (informational masker) and time-reversed (energetic masker) 2-talker babble noise. Maskers were matched in overall SNR and spectral content and thus varied only in their degree of linguistic interference (i.e., informational masking). We hypothesized a differential effect of informational versus energetic masking on behavioral and neural categorization responses, where we predicted increased activation of frontal regions when disambiguating speech from noise, especially during lexical-informational maskers. We found (1) informational masking weakens behavioral speech phoneme identification above and beyond energetic masking; (2) low-level AC activity not only codes speech categories but is susceptible to higher-order lexical interference; (3) identifying speech amidst noise recruits a cross hemispheric circuit (ACleft → IFGright) whose engagement varies according to task difficulty. These findings provide corroborating evidence for top-down influences on the early acoustic-phonetic analysis of speech through a coordinated interplay between frontotemporal brain areas.


Recently a model, which is equivalent to the scalar form of a G\"ursey model, is shown to be a nontrivial field theoretical model when it is gauged with a $SU(N)$ field. In this paper we study another model that is equivalent to the vector form of the G\"ursey model. We get a trivial theory when it is coupled with a scalar field. This result changes drastically when it is coupled with an additional $SU(N)$ field. We find a nontrivial field theoretical model under certain conditions.


Introduction MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are being increasingly studied in relation to energy metabolism and body composition homeostasis. Indeed, the quantitative analysis of miRNAs expression in different adiposity conditions may contribute to understand the intimate mechanisms participating in body weight control and to find new biomarkers with diagnostic or prognostic value in obesity management. Objective The aim of this study was the search for miRNAs in blood cells whose expression could be used as prognostic biomarkers of weight loss. Methods Ten Caucasian obese women were selected among the participants in a weight-loss trial that consisted in following an energy-restricted treatment. Weight loss was considered unsuccessful when <5% of initial body weight (non-responders) and successful when >5% (responders). At baseline, total miRNA isolated from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) was sequenced with SOLiD v4. The miRNA sequencing data were validated by RT-PCR. Results Differential baseline expression of several miRNAs was found between responders and non-responders. Two miRNAs were up-regulated in the non-responder group (mir-935 and mir-4772) and three others were down-regulated (mir-223, mir-224 and mir-376b). Both mir-935 and mir-4772 showed relevant associations with the magnitude of weight loss, although the expression of other transcripts (mir-874, mir-199b, mir-766, mir-589 and mir-148b) also correlated with weight loss. Conclusions This research addresses the use of high-throughput sequencing technologies in the search for miRNA expression biomarkers in obesity, by determining the miRNA transcriptome of PBMC. Basal expression of different miRNAs, particularly mir-935 and mir-4772, could be prognostic biomarkers and may forecast the response to a hypocaloric diet.


In this article, results of detailed numerical simulations are reported meant to provide a closure relation for the drag force acting on bubbles rising in a dense swarm. The formation of clusters of bubbles in a periodic domain and the effect thereof on the rise velocity and effective drag coefficient on the bubbles are studied. Using smaller bubble sizes than presented in our earlier work, we are also able to refine our correlation for the drag coefficient acting on bubbles rising in a swarm, such that it is applicable for a large range of bubble sizes. The simulations are performed with an advanced Front-Tracking model in which Lagrangian marker points are used to track the gas–liquid interface, while accounting for surface tension and substantial interface deformation. Simulations were performed using periodic domains to simulate rising air bubbles in water from 1.0 mm up to 6.0 mm in diameter. The effect of liquid phase viscosity was also studied to extend the range of validity of the drag correlation. For the 1.0 and 1.5 mm cases, strong horizontal clustering effects are observed. Especially, at high gas fractions, the bubbles tend to form rigid horizontal arrays, which have been shown to strongly increase the drag force acting on the bubbles in the cluster. For viscous liquids, the tendency to form horizontal clusters is lower, and even vertical clustering is observed. The bubble slip velocity was compared with the experimental results of Zenit et al., which agree very well taking into account the differences between simulations and experiments. Based on our simulations, a new drag correlation was proposed, taking into account Eotvos numbers ranging from 0.13 to 4.9, and Morton numbers in the range 3.8 ≤ − log Mo < 6.6, and gas hold-ups up to 40% (30% for Eo < 0.3). At lower values for −log Mo, the Reynolds number drops to the order of unity, and the correlation overpredicts the drag coefficient, which defines the range of applicability of the currently proposed drag correlation. The correlation itself describes a linear increase of the normalized drag coefficient as a function of the gas hold-up. The strength of linear increase is stronger at lower Eotvos numbers. © 2012 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 59: 1791–1800, 2013


Quick recovery of water services immediately after an earthquake is critical. This is to minimize hazards to environmental sanitation and consequent health problems caused by the lack of potable water supply. It is necessary therefore that water lifeline operators establish restoration strategies to deal with damage scenarios in their respective concession areas specifically during extreme seismic events. The recent 6.7 magnitude earthquake in Surigao City due to the movement of the Philippine Fault Zone: Surigao segment underscored this need. However due to the complexity of the network a systematic restoration sequence that minimizes restoration time and maximizes delivery of water service should be employed. In this research, the authors employed Horn's algorithm to determine the optimal restoration strategy of a pipeline network in Surigao City, Philippines. The repair sequence starts with the determination of a minimal spanning tree of the given pipeline network. The water source is designated as the root of this tree while the nodes represent the water demand at specific areas. The edges of the tree structure representing the pipelines connect the nodes. The assigned numeric value or weight of an edge (link) denotes the time to repair that specific pipeline. This value is a function of the length of the pipeline. The results show that an optimal job sequence may be carried out by considering maximal ratios of expanding family trees within the network. A least penalty function is a consequence of the optimal repair job sequence.


This project developed a protocol for the inaugural Instructional Software Competition of the American Dental Education Association (ADEA). The evaluation instrument was derived from the Guidelines for the Design of Educational Software developed by the ANSI-accredited Standards Committee for Dental Informatics. Eleven judges were calibrated in a conference call and rated a total of 30 submissions using a 66-question instrument. The maximum score was 204 points. The mean score of WWW-based programs was 106.7 points, and of CD-ROM-based programs 109.5 points. The summative review of the judging process identified several potential improvements, such as distinguishing between standalone programs and educational support material; increasing the number of answer choices on rating scales; differential weighting of criteria; and a more discriminative approach to judging formative and summative evaluations. We plan to improve the protocol by supporting the process through a Web-based application; calibrating judges with an online handbook; improving and adapting the rating instrument itself; using at least three judges for each program; and conducting a measurement study.


OBJECTIVE
To estimate whether a collagen-containing dressing could potentially afford the UK's National Health Service (NHS) a cost-effective intervention for the management of diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs).

METHOD
A decision model depicting the management of a DFU was constructed and populated with a combination of published clinical outcomes, resource use estimates and utilities for DFUs. The model estimated the incremental cost-effectiveness of a collagen-containing dressing plus standard care compared with standard care alone over a period of four months in terms of the incremental cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gained.

RESULTS
Treatment of DFUs of >6 months duration with a collagen-containing dressing plus standard care instead of standard care alone is expected to increase the probability of healing from 0.08 to 0.53 by four months and increase health-related quality of life at four months from 0.156 to 0.163 QALYs per patient. Additionally, treatment with a collagen-containing dressing has the potential to reduce management costs by 22% over four months when compared with standard care alone (from £2897 to £2255 per patient). Treatment of new DFUs with a collagen-containing dressing plus standard care instead of standard care alone was also found to improve outcomes for less cost.

CONCLUSION
Within the study's limitations, use of a collagen-containing dressing plus standard care instead of standard care alone potentially affords the NHS a cost-effective (dominant) treatment for both non-healing and new DFUs, since it improves outcomes for less cost. Hence, protocols should be established which enable clinicians to effectively introduce collagen-containing dressings into care pathways and monitor response to treatment.


The article presents the main theoretical ideas developed by Bruno Latour. The method of presentation consists in following the stories told by Latour which allow the author to better grasp the theory which otherwise resists demonstration. Latour redefines the very subject of sociology and transforms the notions used in the description and explanation of social processes. The article presents the paradoxes involved in this theoretical project.


PURPOSE
The authors examined the effects of both light and circadian phase on the synthetic activity of the dopamine producing enzyme, tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), in the retina of the Midas cichlid (Cichlasoma citrinellum).

METHODS
TH activity was assayed in the retina-retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) complex of fish entrained to cyclic light regimens. The animals were killed throughout cyclic light and continuous dark cycles and after light exposure following short-term dark adaptation to assess the effects of both diurnal and circadian phase and light exposure on TH activity. Variations in retina-RPE TH activity were compared with cone retinomotor position.

RESULTS
The authors report that TH activity was influenced both by light and by circadian phase. In both cyclic light and continuous darkness, TH activity fluctuated in cyclic fashion, increasing to peak values at night, declining through dawn, and reaching minimal values at midday. In continuous dark-adapted retinae, the peak activity at night was approximately sixfold greater than the minimum activity during the day. In cyclic light-adapted retinae at midday, the TH activity was 2.4-fold higher than that determined at the same time point in continuous dark-adapted retinae. Light onset enhanced the TH activity in previously dark-adapted animals by 2.2-fold at midday and 1.7-fold at dusk. Thus, retinal TH activity exhibits fluctuations of approximately sixfold in response to circadian signals and is stimulated approximately twofold by light.

CONCLUSIONS
These observations indicate that dopamine production in the retina is regulated both by light and by circadian phase and that there are cyclic changes in dopamine production during the 24-hr cycle both in normal light and dark cycles and under conditions of constant darkness.


In this paper we revisit some of the fundamental premises for a reinforcement learning (RL) approach to self-learning traffic lights. We propose RLight, a combination of choices that offers robust performance and good generalization to unseen traffic flows. In particular, our main contributions are threefold: our lightweight and cluster-aware state representation leads to improved performance; we reformulate the Markov Decision Process (MDP) such that it skips redundant timesteps of yellow light, speeding up learning by 30%; and we investigate the action space and provide insight into the difference in performance between acyclic and cyclic phase transitions. Additionally, we provide insights into the generalisation of the methods to unseen traffic. Evaluations using the real-world Hangzhou traffic dataset show that RLight outperforms state-of-the-art rule-based and deep reinforcement learning algorithms, demonstrating the potential of RL-based methods to improve urban traffic flows.


Previous studies have described that NF-κB signaling mediated by NFκB-inducing kinase (NIK) plays a critical role of the differentiation of osteoclasts. We aim to explore the role of IKKe in methylprednisolone -induced osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH). Methylprednisolone-induced ONFH mice model was successfully established, and subjected to micro computed tomography to detect the femoral head image of the mice. Bone marrow cells from experimental mice were collected and cultured. qPCR and immunoblot were performed to examine the possible signal pathways of IKKe involvement, and osteoclast-related gene expressions in IKKe+/+ and IKKe-/- cells in vitro and in vivo were examined. It was found that the levels of IKKe decreased in ONFH patients, and IKKe interacted with NIK in the NF-κB signal pathway to suppress osteoclasts via inhibiting the transcription of NIK. Furthermore, IKKe knockout promoted the osteoclastogenesis in mice model. Finally, IKKe knockout suppressed methylprednisolone-induced ONFH and pro-inflammatory responses in mice model. Our findings show a mechanism of IKKe inhibition of the progression of methylprednisolone-induced ONFH via the NIK/NF-κB pathway.


Backround and Aim: Chondrosarcomas are amongst the most common malignancies affecting the musculoskeletal system. Despite the fact that overall incidence of these tumours is relative rare, approximately 3 new cases are diagnosed each year per 100,000 inhabitants with a higher tendency to affect people above the age of 50 (1). In more advanced disease, adequate surgical resection margins are difficult to achieve especially when sites such as the pelvic compartment are affected. Surgical approaches tend to be limited to amputation of wide en-block resections with endoprosthesis of the femur leading to significant morbidity in patients. Our aim was to present a possible treatment alternative for future treatment alternatives in patients diagnosed with high grade pelvic chondrosarcomas using a biological allograft from a cadaveric donor which matches the patient's native femoral head. Materials and methods: We present a case of a 63-year-old woman complaining of pain in her leg which has been affecting her for over a year. Using a biological allograft from a cadaveric donor and the patient's native femoral head a wide en-bloc excision was performed to treat her central chondrosarcoma. Results: The patient was successfully treated using a biological allograft while maintaining her native femoral head. Unforseen aseptic necrosis developed two years following the procedure and was treated using a metal endoprosthesis. MSTS functional scoring remained unchanged following both procedures. Conclusion: Wide en-bloc excisions during the oncological treatment of pelvic chondrosarcomas using biological allografts and native femoral heads may be used without impairing care or functional outcome in the future.


In the year 2015, it is estimated that the number of new cases of invasive melanoma will be 42,670 in males and 31,200 in females.1 Melanoma is treatable with early diagnosis; however, more advanced disease has devastating outcomes. For the past decade, two chemotherapy agents, dacarbazine and temozolomide, have been the treatment of choice for advanced stage III or IV melanoma requiring systemic treatment. Interleukin-2 (IL-2) therapy has been used but with serious side effects. More recently, the focus has shifted to monoclonal antibodies and enzyme inhibitors as the main systemic treatment for advanced cutaneous melanoma. This literature review gathered several studies which looked at the use of monoclonal antibodies, and compared monoclonal antibodies to conventional chemotherapy to assess whether there is a significant difference in tumor response, sustained remissions and side effect profile. An extensive medical literature review was conducted with PubMed and Cochrane databases using the keywords: "monoclonal antibody," "melanoma," and "treatment." This list of articles was further narrowed by specific inclusion and exclusion criteria as well as reviewed for validity and quality using the GRADE system. Seven clinical trials were included in this literature review. One observational study evaluated the overall safety and efficacy of monoclonal antibodies, while another compared monoclonal antibodies versus placebo under the same variables. Three of the research studies were randomized clinical trials evaluating the safety and efficacy of monoclonal antibodies in comparison to chemotherapy. Two retrospective studies assessed patients from expanded access programs who did not meet criteria to participate in a clinical trial. All seven studies had similar inclusion and exclusion criteria and the patients were prognostically similar before starting treatment. Six out of the seven studies demonstrated superiority of monoclonal antibodies advanced-stage melanoma treatment. One study failed to demonstrate a statistically significant survival advantage over traditional chemotherapy. The use of monoclonal antibodies has been demonstrated to be a more specific and effective treatment approach than other therapies tried in the past. While monoclonal antibodies have demonstrated efficacy in first line treatment for advanced stage melanoma, further research is necessary to determine which combination of medications is most beneficial for these patients.


An unexpected challenge facing network operators due to high penetration levels of small-scale solar photovoltaic occurs when diesel backup generators are used to maintain supply to small network islands during maintenance. Most grid-connected small-scale solar inverters in Australia have no means of grid control and it is uneconomical to individually isolate each device within premises. Taking advantage of out of frequency protection settings of the inverters to disable output of distributed generation is one potential mechanism Network Service Providers are considering when operating the diesel generator. This is achieved by operating the diesel generation at a frequency above or below the inverter out of frequency settings. This paper investigates the potential impact of this operation on other connected loads, specifically 44 domestic appliances. The impact on electrical parameters RMS current, real and reactive power, displacement power factor, and current total harmonic distortion, as well as relevant actuation and operation are monitored for operating frequencies selected by the Network Service Providers to ensure solar inverters will either disconnect from or will not connect to the network, and for frequency variations expected on the modern network. The resulting parameters for each appliance are reported with only minor maloperation found for one of the appliances during testing.


This article investigates the individual, contextual and macro antecedents affecting online privacy concern in a unique framework. We use a dataset collected in 2010 that includes more than 14,000 Internet users from 26 European countries. Based on the APCO model, we examine the variables associated with the probability of being concerned about the collection of online personal data in order to draw policy and regulatory implications. The results highlight that all types of antecedents simultaneously affect online privacy concern. First, clear gaps are found based on income, age and gender. Second, individuals privacy perception has a significant impact on online privacy concern. Third, with regard to political ideology, far-left-oriented individuals are more concerned about privacy. Fourth, with respect to Internet use, the frequency of use has no significant link with online privacy concern, but an increased variety of use has a negative effect on individuals privacy concern. In addition, privacy protection and awareness are positively linked to online privacy concern, while trust appears to strongly reduce online privacy concern. Finally, online privacy concerns related to data collection vary across European countries due to cultural and regulatory differences.


United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Biosphere Reserves strive for a harmonious interaction between humans and nature. As landscapes provide suitable units to mutually address matters of conservation and sustainable development, this study aims to explore the potential and realized contribution of biosphere reserves for landscape governance and management. We emphasize the role of stakeholder participation and cooperation as an overarching condition for integrated landscape approaches. The regional focus is on Africa, where multiple drivers of global and local change currently significantly impact the landscape. The study's results are based on a literature review, which is complemented by four case studies from the biosphere reserves in Ghana, Malawi, South Africa, and Benin/Togo. Findings show that in biosphere reserves, stakeholder engagement is crucial to gain community acceptance, foster intersectoral cooperation, and provide management with more legitimacy. To strengthen stakeholders' capacities to mutually achieve conservation and development outcomes, international partnerships and research and education efforts proved to be successful. The flexible biosphere reserve approach to governance, which allows for integration with other land-management approaches, offers a suitable governance model for a landscape. Moreover, the biosphere reserve zonation concept can provide orientation to manage the "multifunctionality" of a landscape and address the associated trade-offs between different stakeholders' aspirations.


AIMS
Transcriptome patterns associated with acute myocardial infarction at the site of coronary occlusion are largely unknown. The aim of this study was to decipher the angiogenic, atherosclerotic, and inflammatory mRNA profiles in whole blood samples collected at the site of coronary occlusion in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI).

METHODS AND RESULTS
In five consecutive patients with STEMI, blood was sampled at the site of occlusion (local) and in the systemic circulation (peripheral) during primary percutaneous coronary intervention. RNA was extracted from whole blood samples. Among 221 genes involved in angiogenesis, inflammation and atherosclerosis, 24 were shown to be differentially modulated locally, by analysis with custom-designed DNA array technology. Validation in 28 distinct STEMI patients using real-time quantitative PCR identified seven out of these 24 genes to be consistently and significantly upregulated in local versus peripheral blood (p<0.05). Three genes were chemokine family members (CCL2, CCL18 and CXCL12), three genes belonged to the cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix family (FN1, CDH5 and SPP1), and one gene was representative of the lipoprotein family (APOE).

CONCLUSIONS
We identified a set of whole blood transcripts induced at the site of coronary occlusion in the acute phase of myocardial infarction. Resolved genes indicate a predominant role for chemokines, cell-extracellular matrix, and lipoprotein alterations in the pathophysiology of acute myocardial infarction and the initial response to myocardial injury.


Investments in healthcare are important in terms of formation of the health capital. The research aims to find out the role of the health capital in economic growth of a country.This study is based on the secondary sources of data. The study data were obtained from Human Development Report, Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Protection of Georgia. As a proxy indicator for measuring the health capital we used the life expectancy at birth, the general and initial illness rate, the general, maternal and children's mortality rate, outpatient referral rate, the state expenses on healthcare, the share of state expenditure in total expenditure on health and state expenditure on health as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product.The average life expectancy has increased in recent 25 years. The maternal and children's mortality rate have decreased, healthcare expenses have become higher and outpatient referral rate has also become more constant character. All these have a positive influence on the people's health and country's economic growth. However, the state expenses on healthcare and outpatient referral rate are far below the European level.As the health capital fulfills significant role in terms of the country's economic growth in a long-run perspective, it is advisable to promote the development of the primary healthcare system and taking WHO recommendations concerning state healthcare expenses into account.


The objective of this chapter is to review and critique the various strategies adopted in pursuit of the abolition of capital punishment and to proffer a model that is both evidence based and holistic in preparing for abolition and its aftermath requiring. In our opinion it is essential to such an approach that attention and resources are dedicated to improving legal services, prison and police practices, crime victims' services, humane and proportionate alternatives to the death sentence, the public and elites' knowledge about the death penalty and finally promoting a political philosophy that avoids reinforcing the myths of the benefits of capital punishment. The replacement of capital punishment and all its trappings should be addressed as a penal policy issue informed by reference to the wealth of available evidence. Paradoxically, abolition of the death penalty itself rarely leads to the improvements to the administration of justice that such a radical step would indicate and which abolitionists believe will follow the demise of the death penalty. Reliance by many abolitionists on the moral high ground can be counter-productive though that is not to deny that there is a moral and an emotional dimension. In this brief overview, we will address some of the most frequently cited justifications for the death penalty such as deterrence, retribution and incapacitation, as well as looking at the concept of abolitionism itself. Issues relating to the law, victims, public opinion, moratoria and alternatives to the death sentence will also be explored.


Although there has been a much debate on poverty in Pakistan in recent time, the discussion on inequality remained limited. Poverty and inequality are closely linked—for a given mean income, the more unequal the income distribution, the larger the percentage of the population living in income poverty. Thus, incomes at the top and in the middle of the distribution may be just as important to us in perceiving and measuring poverty as those at the bottom. It is, thus, important to monitor the whole income distribution rather than merely the bottom of distribution. The issue of income inequality in Pakistan has been important in the policy discussions since the early 1960s. Since then, a number of attempts have been made to estimate the income or expenditure inequality using the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) data. However, a perception of increasing absolute poverty in Pakistan has shifted the focus of studies from inequality (or relative poverty) to absolute poverty. Consequently, a number of attempts have been made by various authors/institutions to estimate the poverty in Pakistan in the 1990s. The debate on trends in poverty during the 1990s—an era of stabilisation and structural adjustment has been wide-ranging in Pakistan. However, there is no discussion on the changes in income distribution from the policy and institutional reforms. World Bank (2003); FBS (2001) and Kemal (2003) are only three exceptions. While the former two studies report Gini Coefficients in their studies on absolute poverty in Pakistan without explaining its variations over time, the latter study is a comprehensive review on the income distribution in Pakistan. It is this context that guided the author to evaluate the trends in inequality in Pakistan using the most recently available household data sets—PIHS 1998-99 and 2001-02. The results for the year 2001-02 are being presented for the first time, which should be useful to


I Bergman, N. A.; Anesthesiology, 1967, 28, 517. 2 Nunn, J. F., Bergman, N. A., and Coleman, A. J., British 7ournal of Anaesthesia, 1965, 37, 898. 3Sykes, M. K., Young, W. E., and Robinson, B. E., Brntish 7ournal of Anaesthesia, 1965, 37, 314. Prys-Roberts, C., Kelman, G. R., and Greenbaum, R., Anaesthesia, 1967, 22, 257. 5 Moya, F., Morissima, H. O., Shnider, S. M., and James, L. S., American Yournal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 1965, 91, 76. Barcroft, J., Researches on Pre-natal Life, Springfield, Illinois, Thomas, 1947. James, L. S., Weisbrot, I. M., Prince, C. E., Holaday, D. A., and Apgar, V., Journal of Pediatrics, 1958, 52, 379. SIR,-I have read Dr. H. L. Leaming's letter (4 October, p. 51) on awareness during anaesthesia, and would be the first to congratulate him on a very fine clinical record. However, his remark that "there is no justification or rational reason for administering a greater concentration of oxygen in the respired gases than that existing in the atmosphere" must surely be in doubt. Recent studies have demonstrated the existence of an intra-pulmonary arteriovenous shunt of some 10% during the state of general anaesthesia, and the effect of this added to the effect of ventilation/perfusion inequalities is to lower the arterial oxygen tension-a potentially dangerous situation. It is to overcome this fall in oxygen tension that has prompted anaesthetists to increase the cxygen concentration in the inspired gas mixture, and it is surely the difficulty in combining this with the problems of maintaining unconsciousness in the patient that has stimulated the recent letters on the subject in your columns.-I am, etc.,


Modern day enterprises exhibit a growing trend toward adoption of enterprise computing services for efficient resource utilization, scalability, and flexibility. These environments are characterized by heterogeneous, distributed computing systems exchanging enormous volumes of time-critical data with varying levels of access control in a dynamic business environment. The enterprises are thus faced with significant challenges as they endeavor to achieve their primary goals, and simultaneously ensure enterprise-wide secure interoperation among the various collaborating entities. Key among these challenges are providing effective mechanism for enforcement of enterprise policy across distributed domains, ensuring secure content-based access to enterprise resources at all user levels, and allowing the specification of temporal and nontemporal context conditions to support fine-grained dynamic access control. In this paper, we investigate these challenges, and present X-GTRBAC, an XML-based GTRBAC policy specification language and its implementation for enforcing enterprise-wide access control. Our specification language is based on the GTRBAC model that incorporates the content- and context-aware dynamic access control requirements of an enterprise. An X-GTRBAC system has been implemented as a Java application. We discuss the salient features of the specification language, and present the software architecture of our system. A comprehensive example is included to discuss and motivate the applicability of the X-GTRBAC framework to a generic enterprise environment. An application level interface for implementing the policy in the X-GTRBAC system is also provided to consolidate the ideas presented in the paper.


A specification model is described that is based on the finite-state machine but is distributed. The model allows the user to decompose a large system into separate views. Each view is a complete system in itself, and reveals how the whole system would behave as seen from a certain angle. Put together, the combined views present a complete picture of the whole system. The complexity of a large centralized system is thus distributed and subdued. The author offers a simple execution scheme for the model. Using a high-level state-transition language called SXL, constructs in the model are expressed as preconditions and postconditions of transitions. The execution scheme allows all the views in the model to proceed in a parallel but harmonious way, producing a working prototype for the modeled system. >


There is described a method for detecting the presence of skin tone in an image. A gray scale representation of a pixel within the image is provided. Next, a red chrominance independent representation for is provided for the pixel. Then, the two representations are analysed to determine whether a difference in value between the representations corresponds with a the presence of a skin tone value. The present invention provides a rapid skin tone detection classifier particularly useful for real time applications.


This book provides you with the tools required to approach and manage projects. These effective skills will impact positively on the success of both the projects you are involved with and of your organization. It is a practical handbook for both career project managers and those involved intermittently with projects throughout their career. It provides simple step-by-step tools for understanding and managing each of the project value-add stages: developing a business case; robust planning; staying in control; delivering benefits. It is focused on the needs of engineering and other technical project managers, but generic enough to support projects in other areas. Brief and visually led, the Toolkit is designed to get you up and running fast and to increase the certainty of a positive project outcome from day one.Comprehensive real world case studies demonstrate the use of tools. It is supported by downloadable online project planning templates that enable the techniques developed in the book to be applied in practice. "Project Management Toolkit" introduces the whole project life-cycle. It is the first of four project management titles that separately build skills in critical PM areas and together provide a powerful project management resource. Focused on the needs of engineering and other technical project managers, this book recognises that most non-routine work completed by an organization is a project. It is a practical, hands-on guide to aid those tasked with real industry projects not a lengthy theoretical textbook, it gets to the point and delivers real benefits. Fully supported by online project planning and delivery tools, templates, workflow organizers and data sheets, the book is suitable for both career project managers and those involved with projects intermittently.


There is a consensus that one of the most important ingredients for high and sustainable growth is human capital accumulation. Yet, a different strand of literature argues that there are some frictions in the labor markets of most countries that result in possible education-occupation mismatches, and consequently inefficiencies. Despite a significant amount of research using data from advanced economies there are very few studies on developing economies. Considering that human capital is scarce in these countries, whether it is efficiently allocated is arguably relatively more important. This paper using data from two different years examines the incidence of overeducation in Turkey. The findings show that there is a significant amount of over- and undereducated workers, and they are paid significantly less than those with the same level of education but working in jobs that require education levels that match their own. The magnitude of the incidence and the impact of mismatches on wages are, however, not too different than in most developed economies.


This study introduces a new TLD reading technique to be adopted for low LET radiation field dosimetry capable of shallow and deep dose measurements which utilises simultaneously obtained integrated glow values from two sides of a hot gas-heated TLD slab. Time-dependent temperature profiles and the Randall-Wilkins TL model are utilised to simulate TL signal production. Assuming a given form for depth-dose distribution and TL light attenuation in the chip, the pair of integral glow values are used with the associated system of equations describing glow production to reconstruct the depth-dose distribution, from which shallow dose and deep dose may be estimated. The method is evaluated for a simulated LiF TLD irradiated in various radiation fields. For a 5% fluctuation in the response of the TLD, errors range from −4.4% to −13.5% for shallow dose and −2.6% to +16.3% for deep dose


It is often too expensive to compute and materialize a complete high-dimensional data cube. Computing an iceberg cube, which contains only aggregates above certain thresholds, is an effective way to derive nontrivial multi-dimensional aggregations for OLAP and data mining.
In this paper, we study efficient methods for computing iceberg cubes with some popularly used complex measures, such as average, and develop a methodology that adopts a weaker but anti-monotonic condition for testing and pruning search space. In particular, for efficient computation of iceberg cubes with the average measure, we propose a top-k average pruning method and extend two previously studied methods, Apriori and BUC, to Top-k Apriori and Top-k BUC. To further improve the performance, an interesting hypertree structure, called H-tree, is designed and a new iceberg cubing method, called Top-k H-Cubing, is developed. Our performance study shows that Top-k BUC and Top-k H-Cubing are two promising candidates for scalable computation, and Top-k H-Cubing has better performance in most cases.


Powded CxNy coatings were deposited from acetonitrile on Ni, Si, and C surfaces at a voltage 500-2000 V by the electrochemical method. Electrolysis products were analyzed by IR spectroscopy, X-ray phase analysis and electron microscopy. According to FTIR data, at frequencies 1370 and 1530 cm -1 , absorption bands characteristic for stretching C-N and C=N oscillations are observed. The obtained results indicate that the deposition process occurs in a different manner in each specific case, i.e., the kinetics of the electrode depends on the electrode material (Ni, Si, and C).


Global food demand is rising exponentially as the population is increasing.  Protected farming is becoming increasingly popular among the farming communities for fast growing vine crops round the year.  Consideration of crop growing parameters while designing and maintaining a protected farm is very important for optimal crop growth and profit.  Many farmers does not consider all the crop growing parameters and does not know the importance of all factors in the optimal crop growth.  In this paper, an attempt has been made to prioritize 12 crops growing parameters using fuzzy approach.  12 crop growing parameters were selected from the literature and scored by four different evaluation methods viz., food consumer importance, expert's importance, farmer importance and food dealer importance.  The results revealed that the descending order of relative importance of the 12 crop factors are water quality, light intensity, nutrient availability, crop cultivar, substrate media, daylight length, moisture availability, crop spacing, temperature, air freshness, air circulation and relative humidity respectively.  Priority for crop growing factors must be considered while designing and maintaining a protected farm for optimal crop growth and net return.


Objective. To determine if clinical guidelines recommending therapeutic exercise for people with knee osteoarthritis (OA) are supported by rigorous scientific evidence. To explore whether the magnitude of treatment benefit reported in randomized controlled trials (RCT) is associated with exercise dosage or study methodology. Methods. We conducted a metaanalysis of RCT comparing some form of land-based therapeutic exercise with a nonexercise group using pain and self-reported physical function outcomes. Results. The 32 included studies provided data on almost 3800 participants. Metaanalysis revealed a beneficial treatment effect: standardized mean difference (SMD) 0.40 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.30 to 0.50] for knee pain; SMD 0.37 (95% CI 0.25 to 0.49) for physical function. While the pooled beneficial effects of the 9 RCT evaluating exercise programs providing fewer than 12 direct supervision occasions or the 9 RCT judged to have a low risk of bias remained significant and clinically relevant, the magnitude of treatment benefit pooled from these RCT was significantly smaller than the comparator group (12 or more supervision occasions, moderate to high risk of bias, respectively). The mode of treatment delivery (individual treatments, exercise classes, home program) was not significantly associated with the magnitude of treatment benefit. Conclusion. There is evidence that land-based therapeutic exercise has at least short-term benefit in terms of reduced knee pain and physical disability for people with knee OA. The magnitude of the treatment effect was significantly associated with the number of direct supervision occasions provided and study methodology (assessor blinding, adequate allocation concealment).


Although seal scarers are widely used both to reduce economic losses at fish farms caused by seal predation and to reduce risks posed to marine mammals by offshore pile driving activities, the spatial extent of their deterrent effect on harbour porpoises is still largely unclear. However, this information is crucial to understanding the effects these devices have on the marine environment and to judge their potential as a mitigation measure.
A study was conducted in the German North Sea, using passive acoustic monitoring and to some extent simultaneous aerial surveying to specifically study the spatial extent of the deterrence effects of a seal scarer on harbour porpoises. In order to link porpoise detections at various distances to actual sound levels, sound measurements of the seal scarer signal were carried out at several distances from the source.
C-POD recordings revealed a significant deterrence effect on harbour porpoises up to 7.5 km away (at about 113 dB re 1 μParms), much further than previously reported. During seal scarer operation the number of porpoise detections within 750 m of the C-PODs decreased by between 52 and 95% of the value before the seal scarer was activated.
An aerial survey revealed a significant decrease in porpoise density from 2.4 porpoises km-2 before to 0.3 porpoises km-2 during seal scarer operation within the 990 km2 study area, showing that the decrease in porpoise detections by passive acoustic monitoring was probably indeed the result of a decrease in porpoise abundance.
These results may raise serious concerns about unwanted disturbance effects on harbour porpoises in the context of seal scarer use at fish farms and also highlight the need for caution when applied as a mitigation measure during offshore construction.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


A brave and moving memoir which is both a family history and a story of friendship and betrayal between people caught up in the wrenching forces of the South African Struggle. It is framed as a journey between two railway stations. The departure is from Park station Johannesburg and the destination is York station in Britain. It is an actual journey and the arrival at York is a real event, but it is also a symbolic journey in which Lewin describes his progress towards a meeting with Adrian Leftwich, the man who betrayed him to the Security Police in 1964. Park station is the point of departure because it was the site in 1964 of the station bomb planted by John Harris who was associated with the cell in which Lewin operated. The book therefore has a quest structure. After 40 years, Lewin is determined to meet with his long-term friend Leftwich both to find out what happened at his trial and to deal with the emotions of anger and bitterness that have assailed him ever since. Lewin?s subject is the culpability of betrayal.


Design of integrated RF circuits requires detailed insight in the behavior of the used components. Unintended coupling and perturbation effects need to be accounted for before production, but full simulation of these effects can be expensive or infeasible. In this paper, we present a method to build nonlinear phase macromodels of voltage-controlled oscillators. These models can be used to accurately predict the behavior of individual and mutually coupled oscillators under perturbation at a lower cost than full circuit simulations. The approach is illustrated by numerical experiments with realistic designs.


Recently, there has been an expansion in the deployment of digital systems and digital IDs among taxing authorities. However, little is known about the extent to which such technologies are being adopted, or about whether the data from them is being used strategically to improve tax administration. Even less is known about this in the context of subnational tax administration, although this could be very relevant in some contexts, such as Nigeria. This study investigates the extent of the adoption and strategic usage of data from e-tax systems and digital IDs among state internal revenue services (SIRSs) in Nigeria. Data was collected through qualitative interviews conducted within the SIRSs – one from each of the country's six geopolitical zones, and within the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). The qualitative data from the interviews was evaluated using thematic analysis. The findings revealed that there is scope for improvement in the adoption and usage of data from e-tax systems and digital IDs among the SIRSs. It was also found that the extent of adoption and strategic data usage from e-tax systems by SIRSs likely improves states' per capita internally generated revenue (IGR), but similar insights on the impact of digital IDs have not been obtained. Lastly, it was found that there are some lessons SIRSs could learn from FIRS in terms of strategic use of data from e-tax systems and digital IDs. Specifically, SIRSs need to integrate an audit risk engine and machine learning for performing analytics into their e-tax systems, and also automate the estimation of annual credits for withholding tax suffered, tax refunds and penalties, as well as tax audit management including case selection, allocation of auditors and generating audit reports. Some policy recommendations are offered that are consistent with these findings.


The microbial community of a pilot plant for the production of iron hydroxysulfates by biological oxidation of ferrous iron was studied using molecular techniques. The 16S rRNA gene libraries were dominated by one sequence type, which can be classified phylogenetically to the class of Betaproteobacteria. These bacteria have no close cultivated relatives and were also proved as the dominating species in other mine waters. The microbial community was observed over a period of 18 months using TRFLP to investigate the influence of different process parameters on the composition of the microbial diversity. These studies verified the dominance of the Betaproteobacteria in the pilot plant.


Background : Differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC) is the most prevalent thyroid neoplasm which includes papillary and follicular cell carcinoma. Exposure to ionizing radiation is a predisposing factor for developing DTC. Non Homologous End Joining (NHEJ) DNA repair pathway is important one among DNA repair pathways which rejoins ends of broken DNA strands. XRCC4 gene is one of the most important genes in this pathway and G>A polymorphism in acceptor site of splicing site of its intron, causes truncated protein production. The aim of this study was assay presence any relationship between this polymorphism and differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC). Material and Methods : In this case-control study, by using PCR-RFLP method, rs1805377 SNP of XRCC4 gene was analyzed in total of 172 DTC patients and 195 cancer free individuals who admitted in Shariate Hospital of Tehran. The frequencies of this single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in case and control groups were compared. Also, risk ratio of having DTC in genotypes was assyed using regression analysis. Results : Current results showed no significant differences in genotypes between case and control groups (p-value: 0.588, OR= 1.52, 95% CI: 0.3349-6.9638). Also, dichotomized genotypes in DTC and control groups showed no significant results. Conclusion : Although the results showed potential association of A genotype with DTC risk, but these findings should be replicated in other studies with larger sample sizes.