Background—Brugada syndrome is a form of idiopathic ventricular fibrillation characterized by a right bundle-branch block pattern and ST elevation (STE) in the right precordial leads of the ECG. Sodium channel blockers increase STE. Mutations of the cardiac sodium channel SCN5A cause the disorder, and an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator is often recommended for affected individuals. Mutations in other genes have not been identified, and it is not known if the efficacy of drug testing or the malignancy of arrhythmias correlates to the gene defect. Methods and Results—We performed histories, physical examinations, ECGs, and drug testing on a large multigenerational family with Brugada syndrome. DNA isolated from blood samples, polymorphic genomic markers, and polymorphisms within candidate sodium channels were used for a genome-wide screen, fine mapping, and linkage analysis. We identified 12 affected individuals (right bundle-branch block, 1-mm STE) with an autosomal dominant inheritance pattern characterized by incomplete penetrance that appeared to be dependent on age and sex. Four affected individuals had syncope and 2 had documented ventricular arrhythmias, but there was minimal family history of sudden death. Procainamide infusions did not identify additional affected individuals. Linkage was present to an 15-cM region on chromosome 3p22-25 (maximum LOD score 4.00). The sodium channel genes SCN5A, SCN10A, and SCN12A on chromosome 3 were excluded as candidates (LOD scores 2). Conclusions—A Brugada syndrome locus distinct from SCN5A is associated with progressive conduction disease, a low sensitivity to procainamide testing, and a relatively good prognosis in a single large pedigree. (Circulation. 2002;105: 707-713.)


This book shows that new centers of Christianity have taken root in the Global South. Although these communities were previously poor and marginalized, StephenOffutt illustrates that they are now socioeconomically diverse, internationally well connected, and socially engaged. Offutt argues that local and global religious social forces, as opposed to other social, economic, or political forces, are primarily responsible for these changes.


AIMS
To obtain an overall picture of the organisation of acute stroke management in hospitals throughout New Zealand.

METHODS
A questionnaire was sent to all New Zealand hospitals. The survey included questions about access to organised stroke care, the presence of designated areas for stroke patient management, guidelines for stroke management and audit.

RESULTS
Responses were received from all hospitals surveyed, with 41 admitting stroke patients acutely. Five hospitals (four regional and one large urban) had organised inpatient care. Five hospitals (three regional and two large urban) had stroke physicians. Only 40-60% of the New Zealand population had access to hospitals with guidelines for the management of complications following stroke or secondary prevention. Only fifteen of 41 hospitals had audited local stroke care. There were few differences in the management of stroke patients between urban and regional centres, but care in some regional hospitals was 'better' than that in most large urban hospitals.

CONCLUSIONS
The development of an organised approach to inpatient stroke care in New Zealand and the training of general physcians, geriatricans and neurologists in stroke medicine must be seen as a priority.


A modied double-ridged horn structure is proposed to obtain ultrawideband antenna characteristics over a bandwidth ratio of greater than 40:1 for impulse radar systems. The Vivaldi-shaped TEM horn feeder has been designed to extend the lower cut-off frequency and the partial dielectric loading technique using a small lens inward while the aperture has been implemented to enhance the gain of the standard double-ridged horn antenna without changing the physical dimensions. The starting frequency of the antenna operation band is lowered from 800 MHz to 400 MHz. Moreover, approximately 5 dB gain increment level is achieved from 4 to 10 GHz. It is shown that proper combination of the partial dielectric loaded TEM and ridged horn antennas can be suitable for multiband ground-penetrating radar operations that provide high resolution imaging at different depths. The antenna gain and input reection performance measurements are presented with comparisons in both the frequency and time domains.


ABSTRACT This paper examines how older women experience and respond to ageism in relation to their changing physical appearances and within the context of their personal relationships and places of employment. We elucidate the two definitions of ageism that emerged in in-depth interviews with 44 women aged 50 to 70 years: the social obsession with youthfulness and discrimination against older adults. We examine the women's arguments that their ageing appearances were pivotal to their experience of ageism and underscored their engagement in beauty work such as hair dye, make-up, cosmetic surgery, and non-surgical cosmetic procedures. The women suggested that they engaged in beauty work for the following underlying motivations: the fight against invisibility, a life-long investment in appearance, the desire to attract or retain a romantic partner, and employment related-ageism. We contend that the women's experiences highlight a tension between being physically and socially visible by virtue of looking youthful, and the realities of growing older. In other words, social invisibility arises from the acquisition of visible signs of ageing and compels women to make their chronological ages imperceptible through the use of beauty work. The study extends the research and theorising on gendered ageism and provides an example of how women's experiences of ageing and ageism are deeply rooted in their appearances and in the ageist, sexist perceptions of older women's bodies.


Key frame extraction methods select the most representative frames of a video, which can be used in different areas of video processing such as video retrieval, video summary, and video indexing. In this paper we present a novel approach for extracting key frames from video sequences. The frame is characterized uniquely by his contours which are represented by the dominant blocks. These dominant blocks are located on the contours and its near textures. When the video frames have a noticeable changement, its dominant blocks changed, then we can extracte a key frame. The dominant blocks of every frame is computed, and then feature vectors are extracted from the dominant blocks image of each frame and arranged in a feature matrix. Singular Value Decomposition is used to calculate sliding windows ranks of those matrices. Finally the computed ranks are traced and then we are able to extract key frames of a video. Experimental results show that the proposed approach is robust against a large range of digital effects used during shot transition. Keywords—Key Frame Extraction,Shot detection, FSDWT, Singular Value Decomposition.


We have studied the role of amphipathic alpha-helices in the ability of apoA-I to promote cholesterol efflux from human skin fibroblasts and activate lecithin:cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT). Three apoA-I mutants were designed, each by deletion of a pair of predicted adjacent central alpha-helices [Delta(100-143), Delta(122-165), Delta(144-186)], and expressed in Escherichia coli. This strategy was used to minimize disruption of the predicted secondary structure of the resulting protein. These three central deletion mutants have been previously shown to be expressed as stable folded proteins but to exhibit altered phospholipid-binding properties. When recombined with phospholipids to form homogeneous LpA-I containing equivalent amounts of POPC and tested for their ability to promote diffusional cholesterol efflux from normal [3H]cholesterol-labeled fibroblasts, each mutant and the wild-type recombinant protein (Rec.-apoA-I) promoted cholesterol efflux with very similar rates at all the concentrations tested. These experiments showed that all LpA-I could acquire cellular cholesterol with similar affinity and binding capacity. However, when the cell-incubated LpA-I were incubated with purified LCAT, two mutants, Delta(122-165) and Delta(144-186), appeared incapable of activating the enzyme. To directly determine their ability to activate LCAT, each mutant and the control were recombined with equivalent amounts of cholesterol and phospholipid and incubated with the purified enzyme. The results show that whereas deletion of residues 100-143 has little effect on LCAT activation, deletion of residues 122-165 or 144-186 results in an inability of the mutants to promote cholesterol esterification. In conclusion, our results show that no specific sequence in the central domain of apoA-I is required for efficient diffusional cholesterol efflux from normal fibroblasts; however, residues 144-186 appear critical for optimum LCAT activation and cholesteryl ester accumulation. Since deletion of residues 144-186 also perturbs phospholipid association and prevents the formation of large LpA-I particles [Frank, P. G., Bergeron, J., Emmanuel, F., Lavigne, J. P., Sparks, D. L., Denèfle, P., Rassart, E., and Marcel, Y. L. (1997) Biochemistry 36, 1798-1806], the data show that this pair of alpha-helices plays an important role in the maturation of HDL. Sequence analysis of these apoA-I helices further identifies specific residues that appear essential to this activity.


Saudi universities have at their disposal a huge number of low cost IT resources to aid teaching, research and learning. The emergence of cloud computing delivers substantial benefits in the form of rich education content, increased efficiency and agility that can be used to transform higher education in Saudi universities. By migrating to cloud services, Saudi universities will be moving data and programs from local servers to the internet, thereby providing users with the ability to access and share information at any time from multiple devices. Also, procuring IT resources such as infrastructure, applications, and platforms via the Internet will be cost effective, easy and fast. This will promote innovation in universities, as the main barrier of cost will be removed. However, the migration to cloud-based IT resources is not yet widespread in Saudi universities due to several challenges including security, legal policies and IT personnel skills. Moreover, at present, there is a lack of research and guidance on the significance of the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) to improve the success of cloud migration projects in Saudi university. These CSFs were used to measure the readiness of Saudi universities in terms of their ability, perception and readiness in making their cloud migration more successful. This research proposes a framework of enablers to guide the Saudi Arabian universities to migrate to the cloud paradigm successfully. In the presented research, a set of key CSFs was identified by synthesising factors from studies concerned with the migration of cloud for higher education in global context and factors identified from previous research investigating the successful implementation of Web Based Learning (WBL) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) on higher education in Saudi Arabia. Based on the literature review, the proposed Success Factor Cloud Migration (SFCM1) framework was then evaluated via expert reviews and a survey conducted by IT specialists working in Saudi universities. The initial CSFs in SFCM1 were updated based on the expert reviews and the results were analysed via the Thematic Analysis approach. Based on the findings at this stage, additional CSFs were added to the framework as suggested by the experts. Subsequently, in order to confirm the reviewed CSFs, additional investigation via a structured online questionnaire was conducted and the outcome was analysed via one-sample t-test with the data integrity analysed via Cronbach's alpha. The outcome indicated that most CSFs were statistically significant, apart from, the Physical Location CSF. Subsequently, based on the confirmed SFCM2 framework, a cloud migration readiness assessment instrument (CMRA) was developed using Goal Question Metrics (GQM) approach. The scoring scales of the CMRA instrument were adapted from the COBIT5 Process Assessment Model (PAM). The practicality of CMRA instrument was evaluated by three case studies conducted in Saudi universities. The instrument was used to assess the readiness status of the Saudi universities that already planned to migrate to the cloud. Afterwards, the usefulness and practicality of the CMRA were evaluated through an evaluation questionnaire and interviews with seniors working in IT deanships in Saudi universities. The contributions of this research are first that it developed a SFCM2 framework within the context of Saudi Arabian universities. Secondly, the framework was extended to an instrument (CMRA) to measure the readiness status of a particular Saudi university.


Objective. To provide a comprehensive overview of the potential for morphine to lead to angiogenesis and metastasis. Background. Morphine is often the treatment of choice for severe cancer-related pain. Small studies have been emerging that indicate that opioids may influence angiogenesis and metastasis, but this has not yet been comprehensively synthesized. Purpose. To highlight morphine's relationship with angiogenesis and metastasis in in vitro models. Methods. A review of the literature was conducted using PubMed (1966 to 2015) and Cochrane Library (1987 to 2015) electronic databases. The search, as well as consultation with experts, yielded 84 articles for initial review, 12 of which met inclusion for review. Possible theories of the underlying etiology of the metastasis and angiogenesis were recorded. Results. All studies were assessed using the PRISMA checklist. Conclusion. This systematic review demonstrates that morphine has a potential causal relationship with angiogenesis and metastasis. This is likely due to multiple etiologies, including immunosuppressive, pro-inflammatory, and pro-angiogenetic.


The blood characteristics of broiler chickens as influenced by dietary inclusion of Neem Leaf Meal (NLM) were investigated. The duration of feeding trial was eight weeks, with a total of 192 day old broiler chicks. The chicks were randomly allotted to four (4) dietary treatments of 48 birds each and replicated three times with 16 birds per replicate in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) experiment. The dietary treatments had inclusion levels of 0, 2.5, 5.0 and 7.5% NLM, respectively. A total of 36 blood samples (3 per replicate, i.e. 9 per treatment) were obtained with the aid of hypodermic needles and syringes via the prominent wing vein of the broilers at the 8th week. Blood for haematological assay was collected into EDTA bottles, while blood for serum biochemical determinations was collected into non – EDTA bottles. All blood parameters were assayed using standard laboratory procedures. Results were subjected to one – way ANOVA where haematological characteristics were not significantly (P>0.05) influenced by dietary treatments. The parameters ranged as follows: RBC (2.33 3.00 ×1012/L); WBC (6.90 8.90 ×109/L), Hb (13.66 – 15.13 g/dl), MCHC (43.13 – 44.10%), MCH (58.67 – 61.67 pg), MCV (134.33 – 144.67 fl) and PCV (32.00 – 34.33%). In terms of serum biochemical indices only cholesterol content (3.77 – 6.03 mmol/L) was significantly (P<0.05) affected by dietary treatments, while albumin (4.31 – 5.58 g/dl), glucose( 6.73 – 7.60 mmol/L), creatinine (44.40 – 47.50 μmol/L), total protein (6.57 – 8.62 g/dl), globulin (1.94 – 3.04 g/dl) and urea (1.77 – 2.33 mmol/L) showed no significant differences (P>0.05) between treatments. All haematological and serum biochemical parameters were within the normal ranges for apparently healthy broiler chickens. The study therefore concludes that including up to 7.5% neem leaf meal (NLM) in diets meant for broiler chickens will not adversely affect their blood characteristics.


Hepatotoxicity due to drugs, herbal or dietary supplements remains largely a clinical diagnosis based on meticulous history taking and exclusion of other causes of liver injury. In 2004, the U.S. Drug-Induced Liver Injury Network (DILIN) was created under the auspices of the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases with the aims of establishing a large registry of cases for clinical, epidemiological and mechanistic study. From inception, the DILIN has used an expert opinion process that incorporates consensus amongst three different DILIN hepatologists assigned to each case. It is the most well-established, well-described and vigorous expert opinion process for DILI to date, and yet it is an imperfect standard. This review will discuss the DILIN expert opinion process, its strengths and weaknesses, psychometric performance and future.


The response to hypoxia in tissues is regulated by the heterodimeric transcription factor hypoxia inducible factor-1 (HIF-1). We have investigated the transcriptional effects of hypoxia-inducible factor 1 alpha (HIF-1α) in the heart by expressing an oxygen-stable form of HIF-1α in cardiac myocytes of transgenic mice. The result in most cases is regulation of an expected panoply of genes that restore homeostasis during hypoxia, with corresponding phenotypic changes including contractile dysfunction and increased capillary density. In mice that do not show this phenotype, the mRNA for protein kinase c binding protein 1 isoform 2 (PRKCBP1) was much more abundant, as was the protein, and chromatin immunoprecipitation shows a predominant binding of HIF to the promoter of this gene. Sequencing of the promoter region of the PRKCBP1 gene from the two phenotypes revealed an unexpected 480 bp insert in the HIF-resistant animals containing two canonical HIF binding sites. The protein co-immunoprecipitates with HIF and inhibits HIF transcriptional activity in cell culture. In FVB mice, that contain the promoter insert, PRKCBP is induced by ischemia and co-localizes with HIF in the infarct region. It may be responsible for the greater susceptibility of this strain to heart failure after infarction. We have confirmed with genetic, transcriptional, biochemical, and physiological data that Prkcbp1 inhibits HIF activity through direct interaction, in a mechanism mediated by transcriptional control.


Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a common childhood disorder, affecting 2-4% of the school-age population in the UK. Various studies have explored the impact of ADHD on the family environment and dynamic. Research to date has examined the parental experience of having a child with ADHD, with parents experiencing great amounts of stress and often focusing their efforts primarily on the child with ADHD more than their other children. Therefore, it is relevant to investigate how the disorder affects other family members, specifically siblings. The main purpose of the current study is to explore the experiences surrounding having a sibling with ADHD using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and to add to the marginal amount of literature exploring siblings' accounts. Semi-structured interviewing was used to generate data from 3 female students (n=3) from Manchester Metropolitan University who have a sibling with ADHD. Analysis of interviews with participants gave rise to three emergent themes: the retrospective view of the diagnosis of ADHD, alongside understanding changes in feelings, intersubjectivity and protecting the vulnerable sibling, and spatiality and living with ADHD. Overall positive experiences were presented by the siblings of children with ADHD, and despite feeling that they were difficult to live with, participants felt an innate response to protect their vulnerable sibling.


About the Author Introduction: Why This Book? Part I. The Dating Scene 1. Understanding What It Means to Be in a Relationship Defining the Terms Changing the Mids of the Commitment-Phobic 2. Dating, Living Together, and Marriage Recognizing the Continuum of Options Going in With Eyes Wide Open Do's and Don'ts of Co-Teaching 3. General Educators Are From Jupiter, Special Educators Are From Saturn Recognizing Different Frames of Reference The Second Time Around: Getting Over Bad Experiences Self-Assessment 1: Are We Ready to Date? 4. Matchmaker, Matchmaker: The Role of the Administrator To Marry Them or Not to Marry Them: Determining Whether to Use Co-Teaching Part II. The Engagement 5. Getting to Know Your Partner Drinking Out of the Carton (and Other Pet Peeves) Ensuring Parity Who'll Do the Laundry? Setting Roles and Responsibilities 6. Registering for the Wedding Identifying Our Needs Communicating With Stakeholders 7. Discussing the Future Establishing Schoolwide Improvement Goals Establishing Individual Team Improvement Goals Self-Assessment 2: Are We Ready to Get Engaged? 8. Matchmaker, Matchmaker: The Role of the Administrator Avoiding Arranged Marriages: The Search for Soul Mates Part III. The Wedding 9. For Better or Worse: Establishing Norms for Behavior and Academics Physical Issues Classroom Management Issues Instructional and Assessment Issues 10. For Richer or Poorer: Sharing Space and Materials Sharing Space Sharing Materials 11. Planning Quality Time Together: Why, When, and How to Plan Why Should We Co-Plan? When Shuold We Co-Plan? How Should We Co-Plan? Self-Assessment 3: Are We Ready to Marry? 12. Matchmaker, Matchmaker: The Role of the Administrator Avoiding Polygamy: Too Many Is SImply Too Many (When Scheduling) Part IV. The Marriage 13. Working Together to Wrangle the Li'l Rascals Five Practical Approaches for Co-Instruction Approach 1: One Teach, One Support Approach 2: Parallel Teaching Approach 3: Station Teaching Approach 4: Alternative Teaching Approach 5: Team Teaching 14. Teaching the Seven Dwarves Understanding Differentiation Practical Strategies for Differentiation 15. Are We Successful Yet? Co-Assessing Us and Them 16. Playing Nicely With the Other Parents Co-Teaching's Role With Other School-Improvement Initiatives Reading First Cooperative Learning Twenty-First-Century Technology Universal Design for Learning Response to Intervention Self-Assessment 4: Will We Be Able to Celebrate Our Anniversary? 17. Matchmaker, Matchmaker: The Role of the Administrator Is It Time for a Divorce? Building an Effective Program: Making More Matches Appendix: Keeping the Honeymoon Going References Index


The optimization of the monomer composition, using a polymerization kinetic study and the mechanical behavior study of the composites, was the principal objective of this work. The monomeric mixture analyzed is a part of the composite that has been in development at the University of Campinas, Brazil. Parameters such as initiator, accelerator, and macro-components composition were optimized. The infrared spectroscopy was the analytical technique used in the kinetic study. On the mechanical characterization, the stress strain, flexure stress and its modulus, were the properties analyzed. The dependency between the polymeric reaction and the physical behavior of the composites and the monomer composition was observed and studied. Finally, the monomer optimum composition was determined.


This paper proposes an approach to transform speech from a neutral style into other expressive styles using both prosody and voice quality (VoQ). The main aim is to validate the usefulness of VoQ in the enhancement of expressive synthetic speech. A Harmonic plus Noise Model (HNM) is used to modify speech following a set of rules extracted from an expressive speech corpus with five categories (neutral, happy, sensual, aggressive and sad). Finally, modified speech utterances were used to perform a perceptual test. These results indicate that listeners prefer prosody together with VoQ transformation instead of only prosody modification.


Like Das et al.'s study (2018, TJACSM ), studies over the last decade or so have shown that many health care providers have low knowledge of peer-reviewed physical activity guidelines (PAGs, e.g., Barton et al., 2021, Physical Therapy in Sport ; Douglas et al., 2006, BMC Public Health ). One remedy may be educational videos. PURPOSE : This presentation details a process to create a short, interactive, educational video to train health care providers in how to advise clients in a manner consistent with PAGs. METHODS : Over a four-month period (January to April of 2021), the second author developed a video summarizing the results of one peer-reviewed research article, which examined the extent online material matched US. PAGs at least once on average (Thomas et al., 2020, TJACSM ). Methods described in the article to judge if advice matched PAGs were used to create an interactive exercise for the video. Canva and Excel were used to visually summarize key results from the research article to elicit understanding. Editorial feedback was provided by the first and third author. An oral slideshow presentation was developed in PowerPoint and narrated using a typed transcript. The presentation slides were converted into a video using the Screencast-o-Matic recording software. A checklist based on guidelines for "distraction-free" and "plain language" presentations was used to revise the video. The first author confirmed the accuracy of all content. Feedback on the clarity and utility of the video was requested from 14 undergraduates/alumni working in the first author's lab, using a 100% optional and anonymous online survey (64% response rate, 7-day response window). RESULTS : After several iterations (PowerPoint slides & transcript = 4, video = 2), a less than 7-minute,


Many young Moroccan-Dutch in transition within the Dutch society face acculturation challenges and have limited social resources. We examined how different access to social capital (supportive networks among family, friends, and neighbourhood) and social identity of Moroccan-Dutch students (N = 172) aged 17 to 33 years are associated with their acculturation outcomes. A path analysis showed that those with a stronger Moroccan-Islamic identity had more negative outcomes and less contact with mainstream Dutch. Co-ethnic support was related negatively to mainstream identity, but positively to co-ethnic ties and perceived exclusion problems in contact with Dutch. Conversely, Dutch support was negatively associated with ethnic identity and exclusion, but positively with Dutch ties and well-being. Participants had an orientation on either the Dutch or Moroccan culture. We conclude that young Moroccan-Dutch do not pursue integration (combining two cultures), and that those who adjust well, have more supportive Dutch and social networks, feel and do much better in the Dutch society than those who separate.


Tholeiite of the oldest oceanic crust was drilled during ODP Legs 129 and 185 at Hole 801C in the western Pacific. Fresh appearing submarine basaltic glass (SBG) was recovered from the tholeiites (∼167 Ma) which has been shown to be nearly ideal for determining absolute paleointensity. Paleointensities of the younger, off‐axis, alkalic basalts (∼160 Ma), overlying the tholeiites, had been studied earlier. Here we report results from the older tholeiitic (on‐axis) sequence. We subjected a total of 73 specimens from 17 cooling units to absolute paleointensity experiments. Of these, 30 specimens and six cooling unit averages met our strictest reliability criteria, yielding an average of 11.9 ± 3.9 μT. The bulk of evidence suggests a paleolatitude of the site of 14°S (with an uncertainty of 10°). This translates the intensity to a value for the virtual axial dipole moment of 28 ZAm2, slightly lower than values determined from the plagioclase crystals in the three cooling units of the younger alkalic basalts overlying the tholeiites (Tarduno & Cottrell, 2005). Our value is low when compared to the long‐term median value of the field of 42 ZAm2. Our results and those of the published literature therefore support the contention of a low magnetic field strength in the Jurassic (average of 28 ± 14 ZAm2; N = 138 individual estimates), as initially suggested by Prévot et al. (1990). Our interpretation of the body of available data argue for low field strengths for the entire Jurassic extending into the early Cretaceous.


Chemokines: MCP-1 and MIP-1 alpha may play an important role in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis, influencing migration of lymphocytes to the CNS. One of possible mechanisms of interferon beta action may be an effect on chemokines. We measured MCP-1 and MIP-1 alpha chemokines in sera of 24 patients with MS treated with interferon beta-1a before and after 3 months of therapy and in 15 control patients. There was a significant increase of MIP-1 alpha concentration in sera of MS patients in comparison with control group. After 3 months of therapy with interferon beta-1a, MIP-1 alpha and MCP-1 levels did not differ from the values before therapy. Investigations will be continued after longer time of treatment with interferon beta.


In very soft (sandy) aquifer formations, drilled boreholes are often susceptible to fine media ingress. This can damage submersible pumps and block handpumps, leading to downtime, expensive rehabilitation procedures or, at worst, total abandoment. Mark Osola explains why a few buckets of washed river gravel can make all the difference.


Antitumor necrosis factor-α therapy has been used effectively in treatment of many inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, and inflammatory bowel disease. There are increasing number of paradoxical reactions associated with this therapy that are being reported. We present the case of a 63-year-old male with psoriatic arthritis maintained on adalimumab and methotrexate (previous treatment trials of prednisone and leflunomide) who developed severe symptomatic sarcoidosis in the brain, liver, and lung. Upon discontinuation of adalimumab, the symptoms resolved but the imaging findings persisted. Although the development of sarcoidosis (usually in the lung, skin, and eyes) while on antitumor necrosis factor-α therapy is increasingly reported, the brain and liver are less commonly involved but should be borne in mind by physicians when extensive granulomatous lesions develop.


This book offers a concise and accessible introduction to the emerging field of artificial cognitive systems. Cognition, both natural and artificial, is about anticipating the need for action and developing the capacity to predict the outcome of those actions. Drawing on artificial intelligence, developmental psychology, and cognitive neuroscience, the field of artificial cognitive systems has as its ultimate goal the creation of computer-based systems that can interact with humans and serve society in a variety of ways. This primer brings together recent work in cognitive science and cognitive robotics to offer readers a solid grounding on key issues. The book first develops a working definition of cognitive systems -- broad enough to encompass multiple views of the subject and deep enough to help in the formulation of theories and models. It surveys the cognitivist, emergent, and hybrid paradigms of cognitive science and discusses cognitive architectures derived from them. It then turns to the key issues, with chapters devoted to autonomy, embodiment, learning and development, memory and prospection, knowledge and representation, and social cognition. Ideas are introduced in an intuitive, natural order, with an emphasis on the relationships among ideas and building to an overview of the field. The main text is straightforward and succinct; sidenotes drill deeper on specific topics and provide contextual links to further reading.


Glass fragments are a prime source of injury to occupants of buildings subjected to explosive events during which window glass breaks into either flying shards (annealed glass windows) or fragments (fully tempered glass). These account for injuries ranging from minor cuts to severe wounds. A successful blast-resistant glazing design requires balancing of the safety and security of the window panels with physical appearance and cost-effectiveness. Moreover, it should consider the principles of a reasonable degree of protection against explosive threats based on the proposed level of security and previous lessons learned. In this paper, explicit finite element method (FEM) with is used for modeling the window failure and investigate the failure patterns of annealed and fully tempered glass windows panels with embedded imperfections across the panel. For this purpose, the element-removal technique is utilized in accordance with the fracture micromechanics' principles and the brittle failure criteria of displacements; strains and stresses. The results of the analysis demonstrate that the response of the conventionally-framed window panels to blast loading cases depends upon the glazing technologies; blast load intensities; the glass types; and the location of imperfections. Through the application of element removal technique and stress redistributions at each infinitesimal time increment, the results of this paper further demonstrates that the existence of glass imperfections in the window panels will make them more vulnerable against the air blast overpressures for both annealed and fully-tempered glass panel cases: For fully tempered glass panels, the vulnerability arises from greater stress concentrations at the location of glass defects as well as higher brittleness of the panel itself when compared to the annealed glass panels. The results of this study show that the existence of defects along the edges will help in redistribution of the stresses in a way that the yield lines will pass through these imperfection locations. The general failure pattern for defective annealed glass panels subjected to small intensity air blast will be very similar to the failure pattern of homogeneous window panels yet with a faster pace. However, when subjected to a higher intensity air blast, the severity of the load will cause excessive rotation angles in the panel and subsequent computational divergence and instability. The panel failure will occur much faster and with different patterns compared to the case of annealed glass panels subjected to smaller intensity air blasts. KeywordsGlass; Air Blast; Safety; Window Panels; Fracture Mechanics; Crack Propagation


Background: The reticulotegmental nucleus of the pons (RTTG) is among the precerebellar nuclei of the human brainstem. Although it represents an important component of the oculomotor circuits crucial for the accuracy of horizontal saccades and the generation of horizontal smooth pursuits, the RTTG has never been considered in CAG repeat or polyglutamine diseases. Methods: Thick serial sections through the RTTG of 10 patients with spinocerebellar ataxias (SCAs) assigned to the CAG repeat or polyglutamine diseases (2 SCA-1 patients, 4 SCA-2 patients, and 4 SCA-3 patients) were stained for neuronal lipofuscin pigment and Nissl material. Results: The unconventionally thick tissue sections revealed the hitherto overlooked involvement of the RTTG in the degenerative processes underlying SCA-1, SCA-2, and SCA-3, whereby in one of the SCA-1 patients, in two of the SCA-2 patients, and in all of the SCA-3 patients, the RTTG underwent a conspicuous loss of its nerve cells. Conclusions: Neurodegeneration may not only affect the cranial nerve nuclei (i.e., oculomotor and abducens nuclei) of SCA-1, SCA-2 and SCA-3 patients integrated into the circuits, subserving accuracy of horizontal saccades and the generation of horizontal smooth pursuits, but likewise involves the premotor networks of these circuits. This may explain why the SCA-1, SCA-2, and SCA-3 patients in this study with a heavily damaged reticulotegmental nucleus of the pons developed dysmetric horizontal saccades and impaired smooth pursuits during the course of the disease.


A 74-year-old man underwent standard aortic valve replacement. The aortotomy was closed by use of strips of Teflon felt because of somewhat friable thin aortic wall. After the termination of cardiopulmonary bypass, aortic cannulation site was carefully sutured enforcing with a piece of pericardium, since some bleeding persisted. The intraoperative diagnosis of acute aortic dissection (Stanford type A) was made with transesophageal echocardiography. Since extension of the dissection toward the aortic root was hardly possible due to the Teflon felt enforced aortotomy closure, further surgical intervention was not considered at this time. Thiry-two hours later after admission to CCU, sudden bleeding through the mediastinal tube prompted the patient back to OR for exploration Bleeding was noted from the posterior wall of the ascending aorta. Ascending aorta and transverse arch were significantly enlarged with notable discoloration. With the aid of extracorporeal circulation and selective cerebral perfusion, the total graft replacement of the ascending aorta and aortic arch was performed. The intimal tear located at the aortic cannulation site. The postoperative course was uneventful. Prompt recognition and appropriate surgical management are necessary to improve patient outcome.


Most of the algorithms implemented in FPGAs used to be fixed-point. Floating-point operations are useful for computations involving large dynamic range, but they require significantly more resources than integer operations. With the current trends in system requirements and available FPGAs, floating-point implementations are becoming more common and designers are increasingly taking advantage of FPGAs as a platform for floating-point implementations. The rapid advance in Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology makes such devices increasingly attractive for implementing floating-point arithmetic. Compared to Application Specific Integrated Circuits, FPGAs offer reduced development time and costs. Moreover, their flexibility enables field upgrade and adaptation of hardware to run-time conditions. A 32 bit floating point arithmetic unit with IEEE 754 Standard has been designed using VHDL code and all operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are tested on Xilinx.


The sustainable exploitation of marine ecosystem services is dependent on achieving and maintaining an adequate ecosystem state to prevent undue deterioration. Within the European Union, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) requires member states to achieve Good Environmental Status (GEnS), specified in terms of 11 descriptors. We analyzed the complexity of social-ecological factors to identify common critical issues that are likely to influence the achievement of GEnS in the Northeast Atlantic (NEA) more broadly, using three case studies. A conceptual model developed using a soft systems approach highlights the complexity of social and ecological phenomena that influence, and are likely to continue to influence, the state of ecosystems in the NEA. The development of the conceptual model raised four issues that complicate the implementation of the MSFD, the majority of which arose in the Pressures and State sections of the model: variability in the system, cumulative effects, ecosystem resilience, and conflicting policy targets. The achievement of GEnS targets for the marine environment requires the recognition and negotiation of trade-offs across a broad policy landscape involving a wide variety of stakeholders in the public and private sectors. Furthermore, potential cumulative effects may introduce uncertainty, particularly in selecting appropriate management measures. There also are endogenous pressures that society cannot control. This uncertainty is even more obvious when variability within the system, e.g., climate change, is accounted for. Also, questions related to the resilience of the affected ecosystem to specific pressures must be raised, despite a lack of current knowledge. Achieving good management and reaching GEnS require multidisciplinary assessments. The soft systems approach provides one mechanism for bringing multidisciplinary information together to look at the problems in a different light.


Although there is a growing body of literature on students' transition from middle school to high school, much of the literature fails to take into consideration the distinctive racial and environmental circumstances of African American students. This article reviews literature related to the transitioning of African American students and discusses the unique challenges that African American students experience during adolescence. Counseling interventions are delineated and implications for school counseling professionals also are discussed.


The dynamic state of cytoskeletal proteins actin and vinculin was studied in living cells using microinjection of fluorescently-labeled proteins combined with fluorescence photobleaching recovery (FPR). It is shown that both proteins maintain a dynamic equilibrium between their diffusible pools in the cytoplasms and their "organized" cytoskeletal fraction. These interrelationships could be simulated in model systems consisting of isolated substrate attached membranes. It was demonstrated that fluorophore bound vinculin was incorporated into the exposed focal contacts and that this binding was largely actin independent. These results are in line with the hypothesis that local contacts induce binding of vinculin to the endofacial surface of the membranes and that this region serves as a nucleation center for the assembly of actin bundles.


We demonstrate 1 x 1104 holographic switching with a ferroelectric liquid-crystal spatial light modulator to test the feasible output size of a holographic switch. The demonstration proves that switching was achieved when the power of a laser diode used as the control light source was 6.3 mW. The average of the insertion loss was 31.6 dB.


BACKGROUND
Care and education have much in common, and work in the healthcare sector is closely associated with learning and teaching. It is felt that many in the healthcare and medical services are not aware of their pedagogic skills and how they can be developed. FRAME OF REFERENCE: Belonging to a community of practice means that you share perspectives, methods and language.

OBJECTIVE
The aim is to describe the pedagogical discourse by identifying pedagogical processes and studying the staff's awareness of such processes or situations in which a pedagogical approach would be useful in their work with patients and next of kin.

METHOD
A qualitative study based on individual and group interviews. The analysis is directed by grounded theory.

RESULTS
The pedagogical processes varied in length and quality. Most were unplanned and were usually embedded in treatment. The pedagogical process is linear (planning, goal setting, teaching and evaluating) in an educational setting but we found that the beginning and end can be unclear and the goals can be vague or non-existent. The pedagogical process is best described using the concepts Read, Guide and Provide learning support.

DISCUSSION
The pedagogical discourse in healthcare is almost silent. Data indicate that at the collective level there is very little support for professional development of pedagogical ability. Tacit knowledge may therefore remain silent even though it may be possible to formulate and describe it.

CONCLUSIONS
There is a strong need to focus on the pedagogical parts of the work and to encourage and support the development of professional pedagogical knowledge.


Many parasitic digeneans are of medical and veterinary importance and therefore developing methods to accurately identify them and understand their evolutionary epidemiology is crucial to disease diagnosis, surveillance and control. An integrative approach using molecular and morphological data was applied in investigating digenean species transmitted by lymnaeid snails in the UK. Radix auricularia, R. balthica, Lymnaea stagnalis and Stagnicola fuscus were identified by DNA sequencing of the ITS2 and cox1 genes. They were recorded to transmit a total of 13 digenean species belonging to six families. The parasites were identified by sequencing appropriate nuclear and mitochondrial genetic markers and were morphologically described. The study presents the first molecular identification of Diplostomum pseudospathaceum and Tylodelphys clavata (Diplostomatidae), Cotylurus brevis (Strigeidae), Plagiorchis maculosus (Plagiorchiidae), Trichobilharzia szidati (Schistosomatidae), Echinostoma revolutum, Echinoparyphium aconiatum, and Hypoderaeum conoideum (Echinostomatidae) from the UK. Australapatemon sp. (Strigeidae) and Echinoparyphium sp. could only be identified to genus level and require further investigation. Trichobilharzia franki was molecularly identified for the first time from Scotland. Echinoparyphium recurvatum and Lecithodendrium linstowi (Lecithodendriidae) were molecularly identified for the second time in the UK. Trichobilharzia species are causative agents of human cercarial dermatitis which is currently regarded as a re-emerging disease in Europe and E. revolutum, Ep. recurvatum and H. conoideum are zoonotic agents of echinostomiasis. Diplostomum pseudospathaceum and T. clavata cause diplostomiasis in aquaculture. The cercaria of the bat trematode L. linstowi is described for the first time and its molluscan host identified as R. balthica.


The complex evaluation of the reactogenicity characteristics revealed that after immunization with chemical brucellosis vaccine systemic reactions observed in most of the vaccinees were mildly pronounced and local reactions, mildly and moderately pronounced, their duration not exceeding 48-72 hours. During 4 months after immunization the antigenic and immunogenic potency of chemical brucellosis vaccine was no different from that of live brucellosis vaccine; seropositive persons immunized with chemical and live brucellosis vaccines showed no statistically significant differences in the geometric mean of their antibody titers, as determined in a number of serological tests, for a year after immunization. The examination of the vaccinees 4 and 12 months after immunization revealed that the sensitizing activity of chemical brucellosis vaccine was, respectively, 12.2 and 2.5 times lower than the allergenic action of live brucellosis vaccine.


Summary
1. Multiple functions of plant silicon are known from agricultural species where silicon fertilizer alleviates biotic and abiotic stress impacts. In contrast, the function of plant silicon in natural ecosystems is often overlooked and is relatively poorly understood.

2. We investigated a potential integration of silicon with the leaf dry mass economics framework. We examined the relationship between leaf longevity, a trait considered to optimize leaf carbon use, and leaf silicon concentration across plant functional types and phylogenetic groups, testing the hypothesis that short-lived leaves have higher silicon content to maximize carbon allocation to growth. We considered leaf longevity a continuous trait (months, n = 155 species) and a binary trait (annual vs. perennial, n = 602 species).

3. A significant negative correlation was found across all species between leaf longevity (months) and relative silicon concentration, indicating that across functional types and plant families, leaves with shorter life spans contain higher concentrations of silicon. A similar significant relationship was also found within deciduous angiosperm leaves. Silicon concentration was significantly higher in annual vs. perennial species across most plant functional types. Within order and family, no significant difference in silicon concentration was found between annual and perennial leaves except in the Poales and the Poaceae, where annual leaves had higher silicon concentration. Relative leaf/shoot silicon concentration varied much more than leaf longevity across the phylogeny, and there was a stronger phylogenetic signal from silicon concentration than from leaf longevity. Evolutionary divergence analysis showed that divergences between relative silicon concentration and leaf life span (months) were not significantly correlated; however, using a larger data set, leaf life span (as an annual/perennial binary trait) and relative silicon concentration were significantly correlated, implying that across a larger data set, shifts to higher relative leaf/shoot silicon concentration are consistently associated with shifts to annual foliage.

4. We suggest that in shorter-lived leaves, silicon could be a metabolically cheaper alternative to carbon, allowing a more favourable leaf carbon balance over short periods. Silicon could be a less versatile, but more disposable resource, with the potential to function in structural, stress alleviation and defensive roles by substituting for carbon that could be allocated to further growth and reproduction.


1. Spatial prioritization tools provide a means of finding efficient trade-offs between biodiversity protection and the delivery of ecosystem services. Although a large number of prioritization approaches have been proposed, most are specifically designed for terrestrial systems. When applied to river ecosystems, they often fail to adequately account for the essential role that landscape connectivity plays in maintaining both biodiversity and ecosystem services. This is particularly true of longitudinal connectivity, which in many river catchments is highly altered by the presence of dams, stream-road crossings, and other artificial structures.
2. We propose a novel framework for coordinating river conservation and connectivity restoration. We formulate an optimization model for deciding which subcatchments to designate for ecosystem services and which to include in a river protected area (RPA) network, while also deciding which existing river barriers to remove in order to maximize longitudinal connectivity within the RPA network. In addition to constraints on the size and makeup of the RPA network, the model also considers the suitability of sites for conservation, based on a biological integrity index, and connectivity to multiple habitat types. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach using a case study involving four managed river catchments located in Hungary.
3. Results show that large increases in connectivity-weighted habitat can be achieved through targeted selection of barrier removals and that the benefits of barrier removal are strongly depend on RPA network size. We find that (i) highly suboptimal solutions are produced if habitat conservation planning and connectivity restoration are done separately and (ii) RPA acquisition provides substantially greater marginal benefits than barrier removal given limited resources.
4. Synthesis and applications. Finding a balance between conservation and ecosystem services provision should give more consideration to connectivity restoration planning, especially in multi-use riverscapes. We present the first modelling framework to directly integrate and optimize river conservation and connectivity restoration planning. This framework can help conservation managers to better account for connectivity, resulting in more effective catchment scale maintenance of biological integrity and ecosystem services delivery.


This paper sets out an agenda for advancing critical geographies of the university campus. Despite the plethora of scholarship that highlights the complexity evident within other social locations, scales and sites, there is a dearth of geographical research about the construction and contestation of social and spatial relations experienced on university campuses. By exploring understandings of the contradictory and contested nature of everyday spaces developed by social and cultural geographers, I suggest that scholarship could usefully be extended to interrogate the complex ways in which different university campuses are constructed, contested and experienced. This paper explores these multiple constructions of the university campus through the narratives of 29 Muslim students attending a British higher education institution. I use these data to explore the multiple and contradictory discourses that students utilise, which simultaneously construct the university campus as tolerant and diverse and as discriminatory and exclusionary. This paper draws attention to the significance of spaces within universities as well as to the management of university space as crucial factors in providing environments suited to an increasingly diverse student body.


We discuss two optimal control problems of parabolic equations, with mixed state and control constraints, for which the standard qualification condition does not hold. Our first example is a bottleneck problem, and the second one is an optimal investment problem where a utility type function is to be minimized. By an adapted penalization technique, we derive optimality conditions from which useful information on the solution can be derived. In the case of a control entering linearly in the state equation and cost function, we obtain generalized bang-bang properties.


Despite the availability of low-cost exchanges, over-the-counter (OTC) trading is pervasive for most assets. We explain the prevalence of OTC trading using a model of adverse selection, in which informed and uninformed investors choose to trade over-the-counter or on an exchange. OTC dealers' ability to price discriminate allows them to imperfectly cream-skim the uninformed investors from the exchange. Assets with a higher share of trades executed on exchanges are predicted to have wider bid-ask spreads on those exchanges, as supported by evidence from US stocks. Having an OTC market can reduce welfare while increasing total trade volume and decreasing average bid-ask spread. Specifically, for assets that are mostly traded over-the-counter (such as swaps and bonds), having the OTC market actually harms welfare. Our results justify recent policies that seek to end OTC trading in such assets.


Intelligent transportation system (ITS) sensor networks, such as road weather information and traffic sensor networks, typically generate enormous amounts of data. As a result, archiving, retrieval, and exchange of ITS sensor data for planning and performance analysis are becoming increasingly difficult. An efficient ITS archiving system that is compact and exchangeable and allows efficient and fast retrieval of large amounts of data is essential. A proposal is made for a system that can meet the present and future archiving needs of large-scale ITS data. This system is referred to as common data format (CDF) and was developed by the National Space Science Data Center for archiving, exchange, and management of large-scale scientific array data. CDF is an open system that is free and portable and includes self-describing data abstraction. Archiving traffic data by using CDF is demonstrated, and its archival and retrieval performance is presented for the Minnesota Department of Transportation–s 30-s traffic data collected from about 4,000 loop detectors around Twin Cities freeways. For comparison of the archiving performance, the same data were archived by using a commercially available relational database, which was evaluated for its archival and retrieval performance. This result is presented, along with reasons that CDF is a good fit for large-scale ITS data archiving, retrieval, and exchange of data.


A study examined family conflicts on the premise that conflict between siblings provides an opportunity for the socialization of justice. Forty two-parent, two-child families were observed in their homes during th!ee RO-minute sessions in which the children and parents were in separate areas of the house. In each of the families, one child was 2.5 years old and the other was 4 to 5 years old. Observers recorded sibling interactions and parental interventions in sibling disputes, and found that parents were more likely to support the younger than the older sibling in sibling conflicts. It was also discovered, however, that when the seriousness of the transgression was taken into account, there was no difference between parents' support of older and younger children. Parents favored younger children because they are most often transgressed against. Parents tended to uphold certain "rules," such as those involving sharing, aggression, and property damage, more than others, such as those involving lies, tattling, disagreement, and bossiness.


Introduction what is organic chemistry all about?; Structural organic chemistry the shapes of molecules functional groups; Organic nomenclature; Alkanes; Stereoisomerism of organic molecules; Bonding in organic molecules atomic-orbital models; More on nomenclature compounds other than hydrocarbons; Nucleophilic substitution and elimination reactions; Separation and purification identification of organic compounds by spectroscopic techniques; Alkenes and alkynes. Ionic and radical addition reactions; Alkenes and alkynes; Oxidation and reduction reactions; Acidity or alkynes.


Since 2003, congenital malformations have increased to account for 15% of all births in Fallujah, Iraq. Congenital heart defects have the highest incidence, followed by neural tube defects. Similar birth defects were reported in other populations exposed to war contaminants. While the causes of increased prevalence of birth defects are under investigation, we opted to release this communication to contribute to exploration of these issues. By using a questionnaire, containing residential history and activities that may have led to exposure to war contaminants, retrospective reproductive history of four polygamous Fallujah families were documented. Our findings point to sporadic, untargeted events, with different phenotypes in each family and increased recurrence. The prevalence of familial birth defects after 2003 highlights the relevance of epigenetic mechanisms and offers insights to focus research, with the aim of reducing further damage to people's health.


A U.S. building boom that started in the late 1990s and peaked in early to mid 2000s resulted in imports of gypsum board, commonly known as drywall, from foreign sources particularly from China. Some of the homeowners began experiencing problems with homes built during this time. The complaints included sulfur based attack on the copper in the residences. The purpose of the paper is to present data obtained from a copper conductor exposure test designed to evaluate the use of X-ray fluorescence (XRF) in detecting and evaluating the sulfur impact on the exposed copper. In the experiment, small segments of copper were exposed to 45 different samples of drywall and evaluated using the XRF. The results show that the method can detect impacts on copper due to emissions from drywall and distinguish between corrosive and noncorrosive drywalls. The method affords corroborating evidence required by the interim guidance published in January 2010 by the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Department of Housing and Urban Development for homeowners in identifying homes with corrosion from problematic drywall. It also provides corroborating evidence for the Florida Department of Health Case Definition (12-18-09), Criteria 3.3.


Importance Pancreatic mucinous cystic neoplasms (MCNs) harbor malignant potential, and current guidelines recommend resection. However, data are limited on preoperative risk factors for malignancy (adenocarcinoma or high-grade dysplasia) occurring in the setting of an MCN. Objectives To examine the preoperative risk factors for malignancy in resected MCNs and to assess outcomes of MCN-associated adenocarcinoma. Design, Setting, and Participants Patients who underwent pancreatic resection of MCNs at the 8 academic centers of the Central Pancreas Consortium from January 1, 2000, through December 31, 2014, were retrospectively identified. Preoperative factors of patients with and without malignant tumors were compared. Survival analyses were conducted for patients with adenocarcinoma. Main Outcomes and Measures Binary logistic regression models were used to determine the association of preoperative factors with the presence of MCN-associated malignancy. Results A total of 1667 patients underwent resection of pancreatic cystic lesions, and 349 (20.9%) had an MCN (310 women [88.8%]; mean (SD) age, 53.3 [14.7] years). Male sex (odds ratio [OR], 3.72; 95% CI, 1.21-11.44; P = .02), pancreatic head and neck location (OR, 3.93; 95% CI, 1.43-10.81; P = .01), increased radiographic size of the MCN (OR, 1.17; 95% CI, 1.08-1.27; P < .001), presence of a solid component or mural nodule (OR, 4.54; 95% CI, 1.95-10.57; P < .001), and duct dilation (OR, 4.17; 95% CI, 1.63-10.64; P = .003) were independently associated with malignancy. Malignancy was not associated with presence of radiographic septations or preoperative cyst fluid analysis (carcinoembryonic antigen, amylase, or mucin presence). The median serum CA19-9 level for patients with malignant neoplasms was 210 vs 15 U/mL for those without (P = .001). In the 44 patients with adenocarcinoma, 41 (93.2%) had lymph nodes harvested, with nodal metastases in only 14 (34.1%). Median follow-up for patients with adenocarcinoma was 27 months. Adenocarcinoma recurred in 11 patients (25%), with a 64% recurrence-free survival and 59% overall survival at 3 years. Conclusions and Relevance Adenocarcinoma or high-grade dysplasia is present in 14.9% of resected pancreatic MCNs for which risks include male sex, pancreatic head and neck location, larger MCN, solid component or mural nodule, and duct dilation. Mucinous cystic neoplasm–associated adenocarcinoma appears to have decreased nodal involvement at the time of resection and increased survival compared with typical pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Indications for resection of MCNs should be revisited.


— Embryo implantation is a complex process consisting of multiple cross-talks between maternal and embryonic cells. Defining the mechanisms underlying implantation at molecular level is challenging task in reproductive biology. In order to identify molecules involved in cellular interactions between trophoblastic and endometrial epithelial cells, we have established two human cell lines, trophoblastic HT-H and endometrial epithelial SNG-M. These two cell types exhibit cell adhesion at their respective apical cell membranes. Mole cules involved in this unique cell adhesion were identified by expression complementary DNA cloning and were named trophinin, tastin, and bystin. Trophinin is a membrane pro tein thought to have self-binding activity and thus mediates homophilic cell adhesion. Tastin and bystin are cytoplasmic proteins required for trophinin to exhibit cell adhesion activity. Trophinin is strongly expressed in trophectoderm of monkey blastocysts. In human endo metrium, trophinin is expressed for a limited period in the luminal epithelium at the time ex pected for implantation. In human placenta, trophinin, tastin, and bystin are strongly ex pressed in trophoblast and endometrium at the uteroplacental interface at an early stage in pregnancy. All these molecules disappear from the human placenta in the second trimester. The unique expression pattern and cell adhesion activity exhibited by trophinin, tastin, and bystin suggest strongly the involvement of these molecules in the initial attachment of blas tocyst to uterus.


A television feature documentary film directed and produced by Kamran Qureshi and Iram Qureshi, written by Ayesha Fareed. It was an Evergreen Media Europe production. The film covers the entire maritime sector, Ports, Fisheries, Shipyards, Shipbuilding, Ship-Breakers, Creeks areas, Naval aviation and combat ships, Arabian sea, its significance and contribution in the development in a country. The film was broadcasted on PTV Network and available online.


Peer tutoring is a form of academic support in which students who have mastered a particular subject assist peers who may be struggling in that course. While relatively little research has focused on the impact of tutoring on peer tutors, existing literature highlights the interpersonal, social, and academic skills peer tutors can gain from their experiences (Gaffney-Varma-Nelson, 2007; Loke & Chow, 2007). It is important to understand the most meaningful factors in the peer tutoring experience and the conditions that best support skills development in order to better structure programs to maximize the potential outcomes for peer tutors. The purpose of this research study was to examine how peer tutors make meaning of their tutoring experiences and if the tutoring experience impacts tutors' personal, academic, and leadership skills development. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 8 peer tutors from the Math Center, Writing Center, and STEM tutoring program at a small, liberal arts college. Four main findings emerged from the data, including the role of a peer tutor, important factors in meaning-making of the tutor role, rewards and outcomes for peer tutors, and challenges associated with peer tutoring. Based on the literature examined and the data from this research study, recommendations for best practices to improve the experiences of peer tutors are discussed in detail.


Online advertising is becoming more popular because it is easier to access and less expensive. Similar to this, the regulatory limitations on the use of conventional advertising instruments for advertisements in Nepal boosted the popularity of online advertisements. Therefore, a marketer also wants their advertisement to be very efficient at getting customers to remember their products. The goal of the paper is to determine how well Nepalese online advertisements help consumers recall products. The article polled 270 Nepalese customers who have gone through online advertisements. The study discovered banner ads the most preferred type of online as among the respondents. The paper found that online ads helped to make online purchasing decisions and recalling products. The respondents were concerned about the value associated with the product displayed in online ads. Similarly, the Nepalese online ad viewers did not find effective in the use of humor in online ad in recalling the products and services.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate cellular composition of salivary gland adenomas using 3 monoclonal antibodies that recognize a smooth muscle phenotype confirmed to be sensitive for myoepithelial differentiation.

DESIGN
Immunohistochemical evaluation of 25 salivary gland basal cell and canalicular adenomas.

SETTING
Archival pathology material from the files of Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, Mich, and the University of California at San Francisco.

RESULTS
All basal cell adenoma variants exhibit some degree of myoepithelial cell participation with periductal, epithelioid, and spindled (stromal-like) morphologic structures. Only the canalicular adenomas, even if mixed with trabecular and solid patterns, are devoid of staining with these 3 antibodies, suggesting an adenoma composed exclusively of ductal luminal cells.

CONCLUSIONS
There is an overlapping histomorphologic and common cellular composition of the basal cell adenoma variants with other recognized adenomas, such as pleomorphic adenoma and myoepithelioma. Relative differentiation toward 3 cell phenotypes (ductal luminal, basal, and myoepithelial) and the character of extracellular matrix production in varying proportions by the neoplastic myoepithelial cells distinguishes the spectrum of salivary gland adenomas identified in current classification schemes.


As part of a new programme for flexible and distance learning, CREST, Eng TLSC and
the Department. of Computing Services at Loughborough University have developed a
series of Continuing Professional Development Units in Renewable Energy Systems
Technology. Over 70 students employed by SMEs (small and medium-sized
enterprises) across the UK participated in the inaugural course (March-June 2001).
The course utilised a hybrid CD-ROM/WWW/SMTP learning and teaching approach.
Summative and formative assessment was performed off-line via the course's learning
support CD-ROM (due in part to issues connected with learners' Internet access).
Student's answer files were then uploaded to the University's secure
'CRESTDL@Learn' WWW server for tutor marking and data evaluation.
This paper describes the strategic and technical development of the work, along with
practical aspects of its implementation. Specific areas explored include:
• CAA issues for distributed learners;
• Baseline data and pre-evaluation;
• Design of individual assessment profiles for industry-based learners;
• Development of the hybrid WWW/CD assessment system;
• Determining the CAA question protocols;
• Student and staff evaluation of the system;
• Advantages of the system when marketing the courses in the corporate sector.
The results indicate that such a 'hybrid' approach can provide students with effective
access to a complete virtual learning environment, without an Internet connection being
a pre-requisite. Such an "anytime, anyplace" system may be integrated with a Webbased
tutorial support infrastructure to provide a full range of VLE tools.


Over the last years, several researchers have been claiming that team ball sports may be viewed as dynamical systems and, thus, they should be thoroughly investigated using congruent concepts and tools. The study of variability in the sport performance domain has shown potential to contribute with valuable information about tactical behaviours related with space and time management within ever changing task constraints featuring team sports contests. Here we detail how different entropy measures have been applied to the study of performance variability to uncover the interactions underlying players and teams' performances. With that purpose, urging issues related with information entropy, approximate entropy and sample entropy applications are discussed as a mean to enrich the state of the art in team sport performance. In sum, measurements of entropy in team sports have shown great potential to assess the uncertainty of players' spatial distributions and dominant regions areas and of several collective team behaviours (e.g., team synchrony and team dispersion) throughout the course of a match. Entropy can also be used as a potential tool to identify expert performances and differentiate skilled from novice athletes. Future holds many other applications of this statistic in the context of performance analysis in sports, and the inclusion of new and more sophisticated entropy algorithms.


Six patients with an apparently unique, self-limited, primary acantholytic skin disease are described. The elementary lesions were pruritic, discrete, edematous papules or vesiculopapules which tended to appear first on the trunk, possibly as a Koebnerlike response to nonspecific irritation, such as ultraviolet light. The two youngest patients, aged 46 and 48, developed only localized manifestations which disappeared in a few weeks. The older patients, ranging from 56 to 74 years old, had disseminated eruptions which lasted several months. Although there was a strong histologic resemblance to Darier's disease in three cases, and to Hailey-Hailey's disease in the other three, clinical considerations seem to rule out both of these diagnoses. It is stressed that cytologic examination is most useful in recognizing the disease.


: Standard operative interventions (thromboendarterectomy, (autovenous shunt) in patients with thromboangiitis obliterans of the lower limbs produce a poor effect. This is explained both by a poor initial condition of the draining channels and by advancement of the primary thromboangitic affection of the vascular wall in the zone of the intervention with its development into a stenotic-occlusive process. The use of some technical (operative) innovations, particularly postoperative arterial infusion of suspended forms of immunosuppresive agents (hydrocortisone, Kenalog), increased essentially the efficacy of restorative operations on the vessels with a high level of limb preservation and patency of the vessels which had been operated on.


Trinucleotide repeat expansions are an important cause of inherited neurodegenerative disease. The expanded repeats are unstable, changing in size when transmitted from parents to offspring (intergenerational instability, "meiotic instability") and often showing size variation within the tissues of an affected individual (somatic mosaicism, "mitotic instability"). Repeat instability is a clinically important phenomenon, as increasing repeat lengths correlate with an earlier age of onset and a more severe disease phenotype. The tendency of expanded trinucleotide repeats to increase in length during their transmission from parent to offspring in these diseases provides a molecular explanation for anticipation (increasing disease severity in successive affected generations). In this review, I explore the genetic and molecular basis of trinucleotide repeat instability. Studies of patients and families with trinucleotide repeat disorders have revealed a number of factors that determine the rate and magnitude of trinucleotide repeat change. Analysis of trinucleotide repeat instability in bacteria, yeast, and mice has yielded additional insights. Despite these advances, the pathways and mechanisms underlying trinucleotide repeat instability in humans remain largely unknown. There are many reasons to suspect that this uniquely human phenomenon will significantly impact upon our understanding of development, differentiation and neurobiology.


Background: The inhibition of autophagy using pharmacological inhibitors such as chloroquine may be an effective strategy to overcome chemotherapy or resistance to anti-angiogenic therapy. Materials and Methods: The cytotoxic effect of doxorubicin (0.1-1 μM), chloroquine (0.25-32 μM) and their combination were investigated by employing ATP assay in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). The effect of doxorubicin and chloroquine combination was also measured using tube formation assay on Matrigel. The anti-angiogenic activities of doxorubicin (2.5 μg/pellet) and chloroquine (15 μg/pellet), their combination, and standards (50 μg/pellet) were tested in vivo using the chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) assay. Results: The combination of doxorubicin and chloroquine significantly had a stronger anti-angiogenic effect than the positive control (±)-thalidomide and doxorubicin alone in the CAM assay and in vitro tube-formation assay. Conclusion: Chloroquine enhanced the anti-angiogenic effect of doxorubicin on CAM at the tested concentrations.


It is shown that every asymptotically controllable system can be globally stabilized by means of some (discontinuous) feedback law. The stabilizing strategy is based on pointwise optimization of a smoothed version of a control-Lyapunov function, iteratively sending trajectories into smaller and smaller neighborhoods of a desired equilibrium. A major technical problem, and one of the contributions of the present paper, concerns the precise meaning of "solution" when using a discontinuous controller.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate whether the increased interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta) secretion in hyperimmunoglobulinemia D and periodic fever syndrome is due to the accumulation of mevalonate kinase (MK), the substrate of the deficient enzyme, or the lack of its products, the isoprenoid compounds.

METHODS
The effects of lovastatin and farnesol (FOH), geranylgeraniol (GGOH), and mevalonate on peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 8 patients with MK deficiency and from 13 controls were studied. Lovastatin inhibits isoprenoid biosynthesis by reducing the production of mevalonate. FOH and GGOH restore isoprenoid biosynthesis downstream from MK. Culture supernatants were collected for cytokine analysis 48 hours after stimulation with monoclonal antibodies against CD2 + CD28.

RESULTS
Lovastatin induced a 15-fold rise in IL-1beta secretion by normal anti-CD2 + CD28-stimulated cells (P < 0.001). This effect could be countered by mevalonate and, to a lesser extent, by FOH and GGOH. In the absence of lovastatin, mevalonate did not change IL-1beta secretion. Stimulated MK-deficient cells secreted 9-fold more IL-1beta than control PBMCs (P < 0.005), rising 2.4-fold in the presence of lovastatin. The effect of lovastatin on IL-1beta secretion was reduced by mevalonate, FOH, and GGOH. Isoprenoid biosynthesis in PBMCs from patients was impaired due to the endogenous MK deficiency. Bypassing this defect with FOH, in the absence of lovastatin, led to a 62% reduction (P < 0.02) in IL-1beta secretion by these cells.

CONCLUSION
In this model, shortage of isoprenoid end products contributes to increased IL-1beta secretion by MK-deficient PBMCs, whereas excess mevalonate does not.


Gross primary production (GPP) is a useful metric for determining trends in the terrestrial carbon cycle. To estimate daily GPP, the cloud-adjusted light use efficiency model (LUEc) was developed by adapting a light use efficiency (LUE, ε) model to include in situ meteorological data and biophysical parameters. The LUEc uses four scalars to quantify the impacts of temperature, water stress, and phenology on ε. This study continues the original investigation in using the LUEc, originally limited to three AmeriFlux sites (US-Ne1, US-Ne2, and US-Ne3) by applying gridded meteorological data sets and remotely sensed green leaf area index (gLAI) to estimate daily GPP over a larger spatial extent. This was achieved by including data from four additional AmeriFlux locations in the U.S. Corn Belt for a total of seven locations. Results show an increase in error (RMSE = 3.5 g C m−2 d−1) over the original study in which in situ data were used (RMSE = 2.6 g C m−2 d−1). This is attributed to poor representation of gridded weather inputs (vapor pressure and incoming solar radiation) and application of gLAI algorithms to sites in Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois, calibrated using data from Nebraska sites only, as well as uncertainty due to climatic variation. Despite these constraints, the study showed good correlation between measured and LUEc-modeled GPP (R2 = 0.80 and RMSE of 3.5 g C m−2 d−1). The decrease in model accuracy is somewhat offset by the ability to function with gridded weather datasets and remotely sensed biophysical data. The level of acceptable error is dependent upon the scope and objectives of the research at hand; nevertheless, the approach holds promise in developing regional daily estimates of GPP.


We report on the growth by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy of a InGaN/GaN resonant-cavity light emitting diode (RCLED) emitting at 454 nm and incorporating a 12-pair Al0.82In0.18N/GaN distributed Bragg reflector as bottom mirror. A(1-x)In(x)N layers with an Al content around x similar to 0.17 are lattice matched to GaN, thus avoiding strain-related issues in the subsequent active layers while keeping a high refractive index contrast of 7%, comparable to that achievable in the Al0.5Ga0.5N/GaN system. Devices exhibit clear resonant-cavity effects, improved directionality in the radiation pattern and achieve an optical output of 1.7 mW and 2.6% external quantum efficiency at 20 mA. (C) 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.


The widespread use of digital multimedia data has made the development of advanced processing techniques necessary, to enable its more efficient analysis. For video content, the estimation of motion is a fundamental step in the extraction of activity, for tracking, motion segmentation, video classification and other applications. The numerous methods that have been proposed over the years for the problem of motion estimation can be divided into two categories. The first group processes data in the spatial domain, and the other in the frequency domain. In this work, an original approach for the estimation of motion in the frequency domain is presented. The proposed method avoids limitations of illumination-based methods, such as sensitivity to local illumination variations and noise by employing the continuous wavelet transform (CWT). All video frames are processed simultaneously, so as to create a frequency-modulated (FM) signal, which contains the motion information in its frequency. The resulting FM signal is then processed using the CWT, which extracts its time-varying frequency and consequently its motion. This system is shown to be robust to local measurement noise and occlusions, as it processes the available data in a global, integrated manner. Experiments take place with both synthetic and real video sequences to demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed approach.


The aim of this study was to determine the acute toxicity levels of cadmium for Penaeus semisulcatus
and elucidate the impact of this heavy metal on gills at two sublethal (250 and 500 μg L-1) levels for a
period of 14 days. The median lethal concentration level (LC50) of cadmium in 24, 48, 72 and 96 h for P.
semisulcatus were 8180, 5160, 4000 and 2680 μg L-1. The gills of the shrimps were dissected out and
processed for light and electron microscopic studies. The light microscopic studies revealed several
alterations in the histoarchitecture of the gills and the prominent changes include deformity of the
secondary gill lamellae, infiltration of hemocytes, malformation at the tip of gill filament, lifting of
lamellar epithelium, hyperplasia and swelling of the gill lamellae. The ultrastructural examination
exposed detachment of gill epithelium, formation of electron dense deposits in the cuticle, disrupted and
damaged microvilli, shrunken nucleus, vacuole formation, swollen mitochondria with disoriented cristae,
fragmented endoplasmic reticulum and numerous vacuoles with electron dense granules. These
alterations impair vital physiological functions, such as respiration and osmoregulation of the gills, which
in turn affect the survival of P. semisulcatus. Therefore, the present study suggests that efficient remedial
measures should be adopted to prevent the occurrence of cadmium contamination in the aquatic
environment.


This piece of work objectified a historical analysis on the introduction and the widespread of coffee in the southern region of Minas Gerais. Considered as objects of historygraphic study were literary works, documents, journalistic, memorialistic, biographic, documental and didactic oriented texts. Yet another method used was the quantitative one, besides orally reported pieces of historical nature as well as life history which completed the official documentation. Our empiric investigation object was the southern side of Minas Gerais, the study's theme being the historic development of coffee in such region. The widespread of coffee in the region caused the arisal of a new landscape profile- the coffee landscape. Self-supporting farms arised on sites formerly covered with untouched vegetation. It also caused many towns to expand, and railroads were multiplied substituting for the trails on which jack-asses were predominant.The first coffee cultures in the region were settled in Aiuruoca, JacuA and Baependi, by the SapucaA and Grande rivers valley in the late 1700's, by the troopers which made the the limk between the south of Minas Gerais and the state of Rio de Janeiro. We inferred that the greatest barrier against the expansion of coffee in the south of Minas was the difficulties concerning transportation. The means of communication were then precarious and the distances to be covered were too long. Up until the end of the 19th century both production and exportation were only modest due to rival producing areas which were closer to the embarkation harbours.With the beginning of the 20th century came a new production dynamism, due to the railroads. It has been 200 years of coffee culture in the south of Minas Gerais, the greatest justification for the denomination "traditional coffee producing region.â€


The present study examines the relationship between efficiency index of working capital management and efficiency of assets in four industries. The efficiency of working capital management is one of the main prerequisites of success in a commercial unit and it is defined as managing the working capital in a way that sufficient amounts of working capital are used in order to stabilize the firm and obtain profitability and cash. In the current study, in order to determine the efficacy of working capital management four indexes have been used, including Performance Index of Working Capital Management (PIWCM), Utilization Index of Working Capital Management (UIWCM), Efficiency Index of Working Capital Management (EIWCM), Cash Conversion Cycle (CCC) the conventional financial ratio of determining the efficacy of working capital management, and the dependent variable is the efficiency of assets. The statistical samples of the study are the firms accepted in pharmaceutical, chemical, base metal and non-metal mineral industries, and a total number of 72 firms were selected as the sample. Regression method of analysis was employed to analyze the data. The result of this study is different in industry level of the industries under investigation and the total number of the firms studied. However, among efficiency indexes of working capital management and cash conversion cycle, the efficiency index was selected as the optimal index related to determining the efficiency of the assets.


This article focuses on parenting and children's game play. The study is based on an ethnographic study of 32 American middle-class families and takes a discourse analytic approach. Earlier research has argued that parenting styles are dependent on social class, ethnicity, and gender. The present data reveal considerable diversity in how middle-class parents deal with game play, which is currently one of the most common child and youth leisure activities. This diversity is seen across stances taken within the same interview and across interviews. It is argued that differences in middle-class families' parenting styles are related to their view of the child and their stance on game technology. In addition, talk about parenting reveals parents' construction of good and bad parenting, where they see themselves as belonging to the former category.


Energy functionals which depend explicitly on orbital densities, rather than on the total charge density, appear when applying self-interaction corrections to density-functional theory; this is, e.g., the case for Perdew-Zunger and Koopmans-compliant functionals. In these formulations the total energy is not invariant under unitary rotations of the orbitals, and local, orbital-dependent potentials emerge. We argue that this is not a shortcoming, and that instead these potentials can provide, in a functional form, a simplified quasiparticle approximation to the spectral potential, i.e., the local, frequency-dependent contraction of the many-body self-energy that is sufficient to describe exactly the spectral function. As such, orbital-density-dependent functionals have the flexibility to accurately describe both total energies and quasiparticle excitations in the electronic-structure problem. In addition, and at variance with the Kohn-Sham case, orbital-dependent potentials do not require nonanalytic derivative discontinuities. We present numerical solutions based on the frequency-dependent Sham-Schl "uter equation to support this view, and examine some of the existing functionals in this perspective, highlighting the very close agreement between exact and approximate orbital-dependent potentials.


The bi-layer lift-off method is used commercially to fabricate many MEMS and semiconductor device structures and is deployed for metallization processes to fabricate neural probe electrodes. The process utilizes LOR/PMGI plus an imaging resist to create a dual layer masking structure. Uniquely, this structure can be application customized because its composition and dimensions can be tailored for a given material-deposition-design feature objective. Considering the necessary advancement of materials and fabrication options to enable neural implantable devices and micro-electrode arrays (MEAs) this study was undertaken to assess use of bi-layer processing with the insulator material SiO2. A predictive model for structure optimization based on applied deposition film stress for relevant thicknesses to fabricate conductor line insulation and microelectrode arrays is presented. Also, it introduces a new high temperature bi-layer process using a negative imaging resist capable of maintaining stability during higher temperature insulator deposition. This investigation identifies dimensional targets to fabricate successful bi-layers with sputtered insulators for process optimizing useful structures for MEAs, Michigan type probes and related neural interface microstructures. The new processing capability may enable new neural probe interface designs and features to expand the human – artificial intelligence and machine intersection.


Nanotechnology is becoming part of our daily life in a wide range of products such as computers, bicycles, sunscreens or nanomedicines. While these applications already become reality, considerable work awaits scientists, engineers, and policy makers, who want such nanotechnological products to yield a maximum of benefit at a minimum of social, environmental, economic and (occupational) health cost. Considerable efforts for coordination and collaboration in research are needed if one wants to reach these goals in a reasonable time frame and an affordable price tag. This is recognized in Europe by the European Commission which funds not only research projects but also supports the coordination of research efforts. One of these coordination efforts is NanoImpactNet, a researcher-operated network, which started in 2008 promote scientific cross-talk across all disciplines on the health and environmental impact of nanomaterials. Stakeholders contribute to these activities, notably the definition of research and knowledge needs. Initial discussions in this domain focused on finding an agreement on common metrics, and which elements are needed for standardized approaches for hazard and exposure identification. There are many nanomaterial properties that may play a role. Hence, to gain the time needed to study this complex matter full of uncertainties, researchers and stakeholders unanimously called for simple, easy and fast risk assessment tools that can support decision making in this rapidly moving and growing domain. Today, several projects are starting or already running that will develop such assessment tools. At the same time, other projects investigate in depth which factors and material properties can lead to unwanted toxicity or exposure, what mechanisms are involved and how such responses can be predicted and modelled. A vision for the future is that once these factors, properties and mechanisms are understood, they can and will be accounted for in the development of new products and production processes following the idea of "Safety by Design". The promise of all these efforts is a future with nanomaterials where most of their risks are recognized and addressed before they even reach the market.


The NOD mouse has been a critical tool in the quest to understand the genetic control of type 1 diabetes (T1D), and over 25 murine insulin-dependent diabetes ( Idd ) loci that modulate the natural history of T1D have been identified (1). Several of the candidate genes identified in NOD mice also play a role in human T1D, suggesting that dysregulated immune pathways in NOD may closely resemble those found in humans, and justifying continuing work on the genetic origin of T1D in NOD (2). The role of specific genes in T1D has been explored by constructing congenic mice (carrying disease-protective Idd loci), by creating transgenic mice, and by knocking out genes. In each case, however, these studies have had a significant potential drawback: the presence of "passenger DNA" that can potentially confound the interpretation of the results (Fig. 1 A , top panel ) (3). Knockout mice, for example, have previously been made almost exclusively using non-NOD embryonic stem (ES) cells; the resulting non-NOD mice were backcrossed to NOD mice. The backcrossing process ensures that non-NOD genetic material is bred along with the genetic region of interest (Fig. 1 A , top panel ). This is not merely a theoretical concern, as some published studies of transgenic or deleted genes showed an effect on T1D that was later proven to arise from non-NOD passenger DNA (3).

Figure 1
A : Zinc-finger nuclease (ZFN) knockout technology eliminates passenger DNA. The top panel illustrates chromosomal DNA from a conventional knockout bred onto the NOD genetic …


Finite element numerical simulation, Cold-rolled AL1100, Cross wedge rolling Abstract. The geometrical and physical models of a ladder shaft for finite element numerical simulation are developed. With the ANSYS/LS-DYNA software, the knifing zone, forming zone and sizing zone of the cold-rolled AL1100 ladder shaft are simulated, including the flow of the material and the strain condition in the whole rolling process. Distribution of tangential strain , radial strain , axial strain , and equivalent strain is analyzed. The influences of wedge corner , stretch corner and reduction of area on the strain and rolling force are discussed. The study is helpful to reveal the law of metal flow inside the rolled part and guide the production of cold Cross Wedge Rolling (CWR).


The value of the biophysical profile scoring to predict accurate perinatal outcome in prolonged pregnancy, was assessed. 60 patients with the diagnosis of prolonged pregnancy were included in this prospective clinical trial. A fetal biophysical profile score, described by Manning and modified by Johnson, was recorded in all these patients. There were 40 cases (66%) with normal profile scoring 3 of which had a feature considered as perinatal morbidity (specificity 94.8%). In contrast, from 20 cases with abnormal profile scores, 18 (90%) had abnormal perinatal findings (sensitivity 85.7%). The false positive and negative rates were low, 10 and 7.5% respectively, and the global predictive value of this test was 90%. In our study the amniotic fluid volume was the profile variable most able to identify a compromised fetus and the second with the highest specificity. Although we had a high cesarean section rate, (71%), we suggest that with normal profile scores (greater than or equal to 8) and normal amniotic fluid volume, the fetal biophysical profile may be an accurate test in the evaluation of the fetal condition in this obstetric complication.


PURPOSE
This study compared shear bond strength and type of bond failure between a highly cross-linked tooth and different denture base polymers.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Cross-linked denture teeth were bonded to either a heat-, an auto-, a microwave-polymerized denture base resin or a relatively new injection-molded, microwave-polymerizable polyurethane-based resin. Six experimental groups were established for each of the shear and peel tests. In four of the groups, teeth were used as received and bonded to each of the denture base resins; in the remaining two groups, they were treated with dichloromethane to determine its effect on the bonding with heat or auto-polymerized denture base resins. Bond strength was determined by compressive load applied at 45 degrees on the palatal surface of each tooth until fracture; the type of bond failure was assessed by the peel test.

RESULTS
The results showed that heat-cured PMMA groups failed cohesively and demonstrated significantly higher bond strengths than the other resins used. The application of dichloromethane on the ridge lap areas of teeth resulted in a significant improvement of bond strengths in heat- and auto-cured resins.

CONCLUSION
Within the limitations of this experimental study, the results suggest that type of denture base material and processing methods may have an influence upon the bond strength between interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) denture teeth and base materials. Treatment of denture teeth with dichloromethane could provide substantial improvement in the bond strength of teeth with heat and auto-cured denture base resins; however, this finding should be validated in further investigations on the long-term effect of such treatment on the bond strength.


Two explanations exist for the evolutionary origin of grouping in primary consumers: reduction of individual predation risk and resource-mediated aggregation. While several studies have assessed relationships between aggregation and predation risk, few studies have examined the circumstances under which resource-mediated aggregation can lead to stable group formation. Using a model, we examined if forage preference alone can generate stable aggregation, and what were the circumstances of its emergence and stability. The model was a spatially explicit grazing model using empirically derived parameters to simulate large ruminant foraging in a meadow. Simulation results indicated that aggregation can spontaneously arise if grazers exhibit preference for forage of higher nutritional quality, usually associated with intermediate stages of forage growth. In this case, foragers could establish and maintain 'islands' of high quality forage as a result of revisiting continuous paths of previously grazed patches. However, aggregation was an intermittent phenomenon and occurred only within a narrow range of parameters. If grazer density was low compared to the amount of forage, the grazers' foraging paths intersected too rarely to form contiguous islands of high forage quality; if their density was too high, the entire available area was uniformly utilized and foraging movements resembled unbounded random walks. We conclude that it is difficult to conceive of the evolution of grouping without the involvement of predators, since the relationship between grazer and forage abundance is ultimately co-regulated by predator abundance, and because in modern grazers, predator avoidance and foraging behavior seem to be functionally inseparable. Future research should consider the reinforcing effects of predator avoidance as well as foraging behavior on consumer aggregation.