Supraphysiologic doses of prostaglandins (PGs) mimic the effect of cholera toxin and cAMP in the small intestine, but not all observations are explicable in terms of the theory that links PGs to cAMP. Because no data exist on endogenous PGs in human cholera we measured PGE2 concentrations in jejunal fluids and fasting intestinal flow rates of PGE2 during slow marker perfusion of proximal jejunum in nine patients with high purging cholera. Nine patients in the recovery phase of cholera or other watery diarrhoeas served as controls. In acute cholera PGE2 concentrations were significantly (p less than 0.001) raised (172-1435 (n = 9) vs 60-270 (n = 9) pg/ml) and negatively correlated (r = 0.71; p less than 0.05) to the time following onset of diarrhoea. Also fasting jejunal flow rates of PGE2 were significantly (p less than 0.005) increased (0.77-8.22 (n = 7) vs 0.21-0.92 (n = 6) ng/min), and positively correlated (r = 0.84; p less than 0.01) to stool output (2.9-9.5 ml/min). By extrapolation, at normal stool output fasting jejunal flow rates of PGE2 equalled those measured during convalescence. The results support the notion that PGs, in addition to cAMP, may play a pathophysiologic role in human cholera. As the ratio between the medians of the highest values measured during the acute phase of cholera and in late convalescence was at least 15, local intestinal PGE2 formation in full blown cholera should result in mucosal PGE2 concentrations above those required for a maximal secretory response. This observation might explain why conventional doses of aspirin and indomethacin had no significant antidiarrhoeal effect in clinical trials.


Selective Laser Melting (SLM) is a popular and promising Additive Manufacturing (AM) technique as it can produce parts with complex internal features with part density close to 100%. However, unprocessed raw SLM fabricated parts have surface roughness issues and the mechanical properties of raw SLM parts without heat treatment are not ideal. The material used to address some of these issues in this research is an Aluminum alloy, AlSi10Mg – a strong and light weight metal. The SLM machine engaged for the test coupons fabrication is M2 Cusing from Concept Laser, Germany, which uses a diode pumped Yb-Fibre laser (Ytterbium-doped fibre lasers) with an effective output power of 200W. It is found that SLM fabricated parts with and without sandblasting shows up to 80% difference in surface roughness values. Also, the tensile test experiments of raw untreated SLM parts carried out at room temperature and at high temperature (200oC) show superior result compared with heat treated casted parts. Other properties such as hardness and density (porosity) are found to be better than heat treated cast parts as well.


We show the way in which the self-consistent Ornstein-Zernike approach (SCOZA) to obtaining structure factors and thermodynamics for Hamiltonian models can best be applied to two-dimensional systems such as monolayer films. We use the nearest-neighbor lattice gas on a square lattice as an illustrative example.


Although data driven-decision making has been the mantra of school reform for the last 10 years, school leaders bene t from frequent discussions in how to engage teachers in the process. As a result, the purpose of this paper is to apply Reeves (2004) framework concerning Antecedents of Excellence in creating a school culture that routinely uses data to inform instruction. The authors argue principals must focus on three antecedents as precursors to e ective data use: leadership responsibilities, professional development responsibilities, and school culture responsibilities. Additionally, the authors highlight shared leadership as being instrumental when creating a data-driven culture. Applications for practice


Background There is limited information about the long-term consequences of subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). Methods Data were obtained from a population-based study of aneurysmal SAH conducted in Australia and New Zealand between 1995 and 1998. The authors report health outcomes for survivors 1 year after the onset of SAH. Results From a total of 432 first-ever cases of SAH (76% due to confirmed cerebral aneurysm rupture) registered in four cities in Australia and New Zealand, 242 (56%) were alive approximately 1 year later (mean time 1.2 years), with 230 (95%) available for interview. Of those interviewed, 105 (46%) reported an incomplete recovery, with ongoing problems with memory (50%), mood (39%), speech (14%), and self-care (10%). Compared with age- and sex-adjusted Australian population norms, health-related quality of life, as determined by Short Form–36, was significantly lower for cases in the domains of role limitations that result from physical problems. However, there were no patient or disease characteristics that predicted complete recovery from SAH. Conclusions A high proportion of long-term survivors of SAH experience ongoing deficits in high level (neuropsychological) functioning. These deficits result in impairment in social roles.


As contemporary manufacturing environments are getting more volatile and dynamic, many control frameworks and related information systems have been provided. Simulation Lifecycle Management is considered an advanced dynamic manufacturing framework with early warning control functionality among them. While other systems focus on fault detection and its classification, SLM reasons where the defects occur and how these are removed. This paper provides several executable control frameworks for achieving current manufacturing goals as well as for repairing defects. The suggested framework classifies the degree of defects and analyzes current production objectives with discrete process simulation techniques. Then, it generates the following-up schedule and modifies control parameters. The effectiveness of the provided control framework is proven with a numerical example.


Flower fall from cut Geraldton waxflower (Chamelaucium uncinatum) during transport and handling is principally associated with pre-harvest infection and post-harvest invasion by the fungal pathogen Botrytis cinerea. As a first step towards a biological disease management program, the potential use of honey bees (Apis mellifera) as vectors of Trichoderma harzianum (Trichodex((R))) for biological control of Botrytis on waxflower flowers was investigated. Two modifications to basic beehive design were tested to enable and/or enhance acquisition of biocontrol agent by bees. Based on experiments with these designs, a third improved design is proposed herein. Laboratory and limited field studies were conducted to determine if bees successfully acquired biocontrol agent and delivered it to waxflower cv. 'Lollipop' flowers. Bees acquired T harzianum upon exit from the Trichodex((R)) inoculum dispenser at 5960 1197 (n=5) colony forming units (cfu)/bee. However, despite demonstrated removal of Trichodex((R)) from the hives by bees and transfer of T harzianum to artificial flowers (viz. plastic trays containing honey), transfer of biocontrol agent to waxflower 'Lollipop' flowers was not achieved in the course of this study.


A review of the 51 longitudinal aging studies currently in the National Institute on Aging Database of Longitudinal Studies was conducted to identify major information gaps and areas for future research. Database information, which included posted study summaries, study details from principal investigators or directors of these projects, and more than 300 recent publications based on the studies, were reviewed to identify significant findings of each study. This review summarizes the main findings and identifies the need for future work within six broad study topics: cognitive function, socioeconomic status, health and physical performance, morbidity and mortality predictors, healthcare costs, and genetics. The percentages of these 51 studies addressing the four most common topics are as follows: cognitive function (44%), health and physical performance (51%), socioeconomic factors (55%), and predictors of morbidity/mortality (63%). Important areas not addressed to any major degree were healthcare costs and genetics. Only two studies reported findings on genetics or epigenetics of human aging, and only a single study reported on associations between aging and financial costs, especially healthcare costs, which have been postulated to be important determinants of care and life quality. The results of this review, together with the specific directions proposed by other investigators with longitudinal study expertise, will inform the strategic planning of future long‐term studies of aging.


The additive of Al(NO3)3 has been doped into ZnO varistors in order to reduce their residual voltages. However, the leakage currents of samples always increase at the same time. Generally, it is recognized that some of doped Al3+ ions enter the ZnO grains and reduce their resistivity, which results in lower residual voltages of varistor samples. On the other hand, the remnant Al3+ ions appear in the grain boundaries and also reduce their resistivity, which results in larger leakage currents. In this paper, the electrical properties of ZnO varistor samples with various amounts of Al(NO3)3 dopant were measured. The experimental data are compared with the numerical simulation results, which reveals that the increased leakage currents of ZnO varistors with Al(NO3)3 dopant are not only due to the decreased resistivity of grain boundaries, but also the increased donor density of ZnO grains.


Abstract Marketing messages are most effective if they reach the right customers. Deciding which customers to contact is an important task in campaign planning. The paper focuses on empirical targeting models. We argue that common practices to develop such models do not account sufficiently for business goals. To remedy this, we propose profit-conscious ensemble selection, a modeling framework that integrates statistical learning principles and business objectives in the form of campaign profit maximization. Studying the interplay between data-driven learning methods and their business value in real-world application contexts, the paper contributes to the emerging field of profit analytics and provides original insights how to implement profit analytics in marketing. The paper also estimates the degree to which profit-concious modeling adds to the bottom line. The results of a comprehensive empirical study confirm the business value of the proposed ensemble learning framework in that it recommends substantially more profitable target groups than several benchmarks.


This article focuses in on the ways in which the North American energy boom is reworking environments and livelihoods in the Great Lakes, focusing in particular on the expansion of BP's Chicago-area refinery as it has pivoted towards processing Canadian tar sands oil. In examining this 're-industrialization', the article contributes to an ongoing discussion about the relationship between fossil fuels, limits to capitalism, and the importance of frontiers in resolving capitalist crises. The first empirical section of the article looks at the early history of the Calumet's development as a hub for fossil fuel distribution and refining and, drawing from Moore's 'world-ecology framework', demonstrates the ways in the appropriation of unpaid work/energy - in particular the appropriation of the wetlands that make up the southern tip of Lake Michigan - serves as the underappreciated condition of possibility for the BP Whiting refinery's existence. Today, this combination of productivity and plunder continues in the region, illustrating urban metabolisms that are not confined to the city. In the second empirical section of the article, I argue that despite predictions of crises arising from declining ecological surpluses, in Calumet today, BP is finding new frontiers of surplus value production, both in the form of producing petcoke and in continued geographic expansion in the region. As a way of understanding the persistence and adaptive capacity of capital, even in degraded landscapes like Calumet, I consider Johnson's concept of 'accumulation by degradation' as an excellent tool for understanding dynamics in the region. The production of both petcoke and pollution – undesirable from a social and ecological perspective – sustain BP's industrial colonialism in the region because they ensure weakened competition and below market rents that allow for expansion and place-based longevity. Keywords: tar sands, oil, refining, appropriation, accumulation by degradation, Chicago


OBJECTIVE
Avocado and soya unsaponifiables (ASU) have been reported to exert beneficial effects in the treatment of periodontal and osteoarticular diseases. They are supposed to stimulate deposition and repair of extracellular matrix components, but the mechanisms underlying their action are not well understood. In view of the repair potential of osteoarthritic (OA) cartilage and the role that the transforming growth factor beta (TGFbeta) system could play in that process, we carried out in vitro studies to determine the mechanism of action of ASU on articular chondrocytes that may account for the beneficial effects on cartilage metabolism.

METHODS
Cultured bovine articular chondrocytes were treated with various concentrations of ASU, and the expression of both TGFbeta isoforms, 1 and 2, and their receptors (TGFbetaRI and TGFbetaRII) was determined by Northern blot and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. Cell transfection with TGFbeta1 promoter constructs was also used to delineate the cis-acting sequences mediating ASU responsiveness in chondrocytes. The level of plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1) was also evaluated by Northern blotting and protein radiolabeling.

RESULTS
The data indicated that ASU stimulate the expression of TGFbeta1, TGFbeta2, and PAI-1 by articular chondrocytes. In contrast, the levels of TGFbetaRI and TGFbetaRII were not significantly affected by the compound. Treatment of bovine articular chondrocytes transiently transfected with TGFbeta1 promoter constructs suggested that the effect on TGFbeta1 expression is mediated by the region located between -732 and -1132 bp.

CONCLUSION
The results indicate that the ASU-induced stimulation of matrix synthesis previously reported in cultured articular chondrocytes could be explained by the ability to enhance TGFbeta expression in these cells. Further, ASU increase the production of PAI-1, an effect that could help in blocking the plasmin cascade that leads to metalloprotease activation. These data suggest that the compound has properties that might promote TGFbeta-induced matrix repair mechanisms in articular cartilage.


OBJECTIVE
To describe family doctors' contribution to maternity care in Canada and to observe the influence of age, sex, region of the country, and practice population on provision of maternity care.

DESIGN

SURVEY
College of Family Physicians of Canada's Janus Project national family physician survey.

SETTING
All 10 provinces and two territories.

PARTICIPANTS
Random sample of family physicians and general practitioners, both members and non-members of the College.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Proportion of family doctors participating in prenatal, intrapartum, postpartum, and newborn care, and proportion of doctors involved in intrapartum care by age, sex, location in Canada, and practice population.

RESULTS
Overall response rate was 58%. Just over 50% of all family doctors in Canada are involved in some aspect of maternity care; 19% do intrapartum care; and 33% are involved in prenatal (shared) care. Similar proportions of men and women still do intrapartum care, but women care for more pregnancies than men. More family doctors serving rural areas are doing intrapartum care compared with doctors in urban areas, although those in urban areas tend to do more deliveries. The western provinces have the highest percentages of intrapartum caregivers. A gradual decline in percentage of intrapartum caregivers by age group increases among the 55- to 64-year-old cohort. Almost a quarter of women doctors younger than 35 years are doing intrapartum care. Most physicians doing prenatal (shared) care look after women until the third trimester.

CONCLUSIONS
Family doctors are still providing a large proportion of maternity care in Canada. This contribution must be nurtured by the College through its Maternity and Newborn Care Committee and other contacts to encourage family doctors to continue offering this essential service to childbearing women in Canada.


As certain refractory molybdenum with degree high oxidation and high argillization, on the premise of molybdenum concntrate recovery rate, in order to increase tenor of molybdenum concntrate, we use cyclonic static micro-bubble flotation column as concentration equipment. We used two concentrate courses to replace flotation machine eight concentrate courses. It showed that, in the condition of same recovery rate, tenor of molybdenum concntrate was 26.16%, rising by 8%. Using processes of flotation machine eight concentrate courses - concentrate regrinding - flotation column two concentrate courses, tenor of molybdenum concntrate was 39.33% and the recovery rate was of 8%. The results showed that, by increasing the degree of monomer dissociation of molybdenum ores, cyclonic static micro-bubble flotation column has higher capability in recovering and selecting ores of -400 mm size fraction. The high argillization resulting from the regrinding and unsuppressed gangue minerals are the main factors affecting the tenor of ore concentrate.


The use of optical communication links is a growing and promising technology, with its applications spreading over many areas of telecommunication. ESA's involvement in the development of optical communication terminals for high data rate links between satellites already resulted in the successful demonstration of the SILEX programme using optical inter-satellite links, using the ARTEMIS satellite in the GEO orbit and experimental programmes like the OPTEL terminal. The Optical Ground Station (OGS) facility on the Canary Islands and communication links through the Earth's atmosphere have been demonstrated successfully. In this paper we show improvements on Optical Wireless Links for future Broadband networks. Most of the results have been carried out within international co-operations like COST and EU-projects and ESA-contracts.


There are anecdotal reports that upstream water withdrawals over the past 50 years have altered the salinity structure of coastal Georgia estuaries. Since few consistent salinity records exist, it may be possible to use shifts in vegetation to document salinity change. The purpose of this study was to use aerial photographs and GIS analysis to determine if the location of the brackish water interface in two Georgia estuaries has changed. Current vegetation maps of the Satilla and Altamaha estuaries were constructed from 1993 USGS DOQQs. Vegetation was outlined and classified as Juncus roemerianus, brackish marsh, fresh marsh, salt marsh, or other. Historic vegetation maps were similarly constructed from 1:77000-scale color infrared photographs taken in 1974 and 1:24000-scale black and white photographs taken in 1953. Change maps between all years were constructed for each river. In the Altamaha River, 6,786 hectares of marsh area were mapped, of which 77% did not change between 1953 and 1993. Of the 10,205 hectares of marsh area mapped in the Satilla, 87% did not change between 1953 and 1993. Shifts in Juncus constituted the primary vegetation change in both estuaries (95% in the Satilla and 87% in the Altamaha). However, these changes in Juncus do not necessarily reflect changes in estuarine salinity, indicating a need for further investigation of Juncus interactions in these systems.


Dennis Adler, photojournalist and car nut, captures the beauty and power of the sports car in this tribute to America's dream machine. There are great cars and then there are sports cars, those that have withstood the test of time and have remained desirable and valuable for over 50 years. This profile features many examples of the motor car, several of which are benchmarks in the history of the sports car in the 20th century.


To the Editor.— I would like to respond to your MEDICAL NEWS & PERSPECTIVES story on methylphenidate hydrochloride (Ritalin) in the May 6 issue. 1 For years, American child psychiatry has emphasized the environmental causation of behavior disorders. This in turn has led to much wasted research effort and the sad state of pharmacotherapy for behavior disorders. Methylphenidate is a short-acting drug. Since improved self-control is the goal, we need drugs that can produce an even result over 24 hours. Many clinicians have been using small doses of imipramine, desipramine, amitriptyline hydrochloride, and trazodone with great success. The different antidepressants are not interchangeable and one cannot predict which patient will respond to which drug. Ninety percent of patients will respond to twice-a-day dosage, without side effects, at doses well below those that might produce unwanted cardiac effects. Methylphenidate should be a drug of last resort. 2-7 We published our first


Biomass is one of the renewable energy (RE) sources with high prospects in the clean energy strata. The diversity of its application and sources have made digitalisation of its exploration presents an array of attractive opportunity to deploy different categories of biomass in a manner that mitigates climate change, advances economies and reduces power dependency. This study discusses the drivers of digitalisation in bioenergy exploration with the associated opportunities and challenges along the bioenergy value chain. As proof of concept, a case study based on the intelligent classification perspective of digitalisation of biomass was discussed. Two classifiers: Sparse Random Error-Correcting Output-based Support Vector Machine (SRECO-SVM) and Euclidean distance-based k-Nearest Neighbour (KNN-EUM) were elaborated while the procedures for the model development were highlighted. Relevant performance indices were applied to evaluate the models developed. Most significantly, the Accuracy, Sensitivity, Specificity were 0.77, 0.81, 0.97 respectively for SRECO-SVM at the computational time (CT) of 20.41 secs while 0.55, 0.56, 0.96 respectively were reported for KNN-EUM at the computational time (CT) of 20.40 secs. Some other composite metrics, which include G-means, F1-score, Mathews correlation coefficient (MCC), Discriminant power (DP) were reported. On the overall, a synergistic relationship is needed between the data analytics, artificial intelligence and other blockchain technologies in order to unleash the full benefits of digitalisation.


Akt/PKB is a crucial regulator of diverse cellular processes and contributes to cancer progression. Activation of Akt is essentially dependent on phosphatidylinositol (PI) 3-kinase signaling. Here, we describe a novel mediator of Akt that is independent of PI 3-kinase. This mediator, PIKE-A, is a PIKE isoform and contains GTPase, pleckstrin homology, ArfGAP, and ankyrin repeats domains. PIKE-A directly binds to activated Akt but not PI 3-kinase in a guanine nucleotide-dependent way and stimulates the kinase activity of Akt. Overexpression of PIKE-A enhances Akt activity and promotes cancer cell invasion, whereas dominant-negative PIKE-A and PIKE-A knockdown markedly inhibit these processes. Our results demonstrate that PIKE-A is a physiologic regulator of Akt and an oncogenic effector of cell invasion.


Mutations in the sucrase-isomaltase gene can lead to the synthesis of transport-incompetent or functionally altered enzyme in congenital sucrase-isomaltase deficiency (CSID) (Naim, H. Y., J. Roth, E. Sterchi, M. Lentze, P. Milla, J. Schmitz, and H. P. Hauri. J. Clin. Invest. 82:667-679). In this paper we have characterized two novel mutant phenotypes of CSID at the subcellular and protein levels. The first phenotype revealed a sucrase-isomaltase protein that is synthesized as a single chain, mannose-rich polypeptide precursor (pro-SI) and is electrophoretically indistinguishable from pro-SI in normal controls. By contrast to normal controls, however, pro-SI does not undergo terminal glycosylation in the Golgi apparatus. Subcellular localization of pro-SI by immunoelectron microscopy revealed unusual labeling of the molecule in the basolateral membrane and no labeling in the brush border membrane thus indicating that pro-SI is missorted to the basolateral membrane. Mapping of biosynthetically labeled pro-SI with four epitope- and conformation-specific monoclonal antibodies suggested that conformational and/or structural alterations in the pro-SI protein have prevented posttranslational processing of the carbohydrate chains of the mannose-rich precursor and have lead to its missorting to the basolateral membrane. The second phenotype revealed two variants of pro- SI precursors that differ in their content of mannose-rich oligosaccharides. Conversion of these forms to a complex glycosylated polypeptide occurs at a slow rate and is incomplete. Unlike its counterpart in normal controls, pro-SI in this phenotype is intracellularly cleaved. This cleavage produces an isomaltase-like subunit that is transport competent and is correctly sorted to the brush border membrane since it could be localized in the brush border membrane by anti-isomaltase mAb. The sucrase subunit is not transported to the cell surface and is most likely degraded intracellularly. We conclude that structural features in the isomaltase region of pro-SI are required for transport and sorting of the sucrase-isomaltase complex.


Sea-level has been rising at an accelerated rate during recent decades and is projected to continue increasing at an accelerated rate over the twenty-first century and beyond, mostly as a result of anthropogenic warming. A substantially raised sea level can have severe impacts on low-lying coastal areas, including coastal erosion and flooding of inhabited areas. Under continued climate warming, these impacts will be exacerbated by extreme meteorological events and extreme wave heights, posing severe risks to the human communities and coastal ecosystems. In this paper we review the recent advances on the contributions of glaciers and sheets to sea-level rise, in the light of the recently released IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.


Physicians today are required to do more than ever before; skills that were unnecessary in the past are now "givens." In order for physicians to keep patients well, help them manage chronic problems, and encourage them to adhere to medication regimens, a positive doctor/patient relationship is vital. Establishing patient rapport, obtaining patient trust, and allowing patients to tell their stories show respect and allow a healing partnership. Patients often expect help with emotional as well as physical problems, so it is important to obtain as much information from patients as possible. The BATHE technique is a psychotherapeutic procedure and serves as a rough screening test for anxiety, depression, and situational stress disorders. The BATHE technique consists of 4 specific questions about the patient's background, affect, troubles, and handling of the current situation, followed by an empathic response; the procedure takes approximately 1 minute and must be practiced. Physicians may use the BATHE technique to connect meaningfully with patients, screen for mental health problems, and empower patients to handle many aspects of their life in a more constructive way.


Iron sulfide mineralization in low-temperature systems is a result of biotic and abiotic processes, though the delineation between these two modes of formation is not always straightforward. Here we review the role of microorganisms in the precipitation of extracellular iron sulfide minerals. We summarize the evidence that links sulfur-metabolizing microorganisms and sulfide minerals in nature and we present a critical overview of laboratory-based studies of the nucleation and growth of iron sulfide minerals in microbial cultures. We discuss whether biologically derived minerals are distinguishable from abiotic minerals, possessing attributes that are uniquely diagnostic of biomineralization. These inquiries have revealed the need for additional thorough, mechanistic and high-resolution studies to understand microbially mediated formation of a variety of sulfide minerals across a range of natural environments.


Objective: Measurement of range of motion is used to measure the joint Position Sense (JPS). The objective of this study was to give an easy and less costly method of measuring JPS.
Methods: The study conducted at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, in Iran in May 2017. In this study researcher used the system of digital photographs, non-reflective markers and software for measuring the accuracy and reliability. The fixed arm of the goniometer was horizontal. The moveable arm was positioned at the 15° initially and then selected it at different degrees (30, 45, 60 and 75) randomly. 5 reference angles were selected from 15° to 75°. By using moving arm three photos were taken from each angle. Reliability and validity of measurement for each angle was disclosed by utilizing T-test, correlation (reliability test) and R square of regression (validity test). Also relative and absolute error is used to evaluate the accuracy of this method.
Results: Results showed that mean (R^2) for validity is 0.99, T-test p-value for reliability is 0.41 it means there is no significant difference between these methods and for correlation (reliability) mean value was 0.97 and averages of absolute error and relative error were (-0.44 and 0.62) respectively.
Conclusion: It was disclosed that method comprising of digital photography non-reflective markers showed similar results as compared to goniometer in terms of reliability, validity and accuracy of this method. In conclusion, it was a novel approach to measure JPS with salient features of user friendly, fast, less expensive, accurate and reliable.


Protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs) are key enzymes in cellular regulation. The 107 human PTPs are regulated by redox signalling, phosphorylation, dimerisation, and proteolysis. Recent findings of very strong inhibition of some PTPs by zinc ions at concentrations relevant in a cellular environment suggest yet another mechanism of regulation. One of the most extensively investigated PTPs is PTP1B (PTPN1). It regulates the insulin and leptin signalling pathway and is implicated in cancer and obesity/diabetes. The development of novel assay conditions to investigate zinc inhibition of PTP1B provides estimates of about 5.6 nM affinity for inhibitory zinc(II) ions. Analysis of three PTP1B 3D structures (PDB id: 2CM2, 3I80 and 1A5Y) identified putative zinc binding sites and supports the kinetic studies in suggesting an inhibitory zinc only in the closed and cysteinyl-phosphate intermediate forms of the enzyme. These observations gain significance with regard to recent findings of regulatory roles of zinc ions released from the endoplasmic reticulum.


Leaves of American mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) are being investigated as an alternative and renewable source of podophyllotoxin, a pharmaceutical compound used in the manufacture of several drugs. This study examined long-term performance of mayapple populations subjected to different harvest strategies.Anaturally occurring population in shade was subjected to leaf removal treatments of frequency (every year, every 2nd or 3rd year) or timing (early or late season). Plots were 1.0 m 2 , established during Spring 2001, and treatments were applied from 2001 to 2004. Control plots not previously harvested were also included each year. Plants did not tolerate the severest of leaf removal treatments: early harvest time in combination with annual harvest frequency. Early annual harvests reduced total leaf dry mass and total leaf area in a quadratic manner. Late harvest conducted annually, and early harvest conducted every other year, also reduced leaf dry mass and area but not as much as early annual harvest. Plants harvested every year, early, or early every year produced fewer sexual shoots than other treatment combinations. Contents ofa-peltatin, β-peltatin, and total lignans were higher for leaves harvested early than those harvested late during each year of the study, demonstrating that lignan contents were affected by leaf age and not treatment. In conclusion, our results for plants grown in shade show that leaves can be removed late in the growing season every 2nd or 3rd year or early every 3rd year without reducing long-term performance of the population. This is more restrictive than that reported for populations in full sun where plants tolerated late harvests every year.


The expansion of the agricultural border in brazilian savannahas with the farming production in wide scale extends the environmental costs, however it depends essentially on the adopted technique of plantation. The study it evaluates economically, by Replacement Cost Method, the environmental impacts of technologies of soy and corn plantation. In the case of the soy the no tillage raises the cost of production in 0,47%, but it provokes a reduction of (- 81,22%) in the environmental cost. In the corn, the costs of no tillage are (- 5,92%) lesser of that conventional tillage and provoke a reduction in the environmental cost in (- 29,43%). In the specific region of the study the annual ambient damages caused by the conventional tillage had been esteem in R$ 317,213.39 and the no tillage of R$ 81.375,76. The adoption of the no tillage in the plantation of soy and corn demonstrates its bigger social effectiveness for the reduction of the erosive process and improvement of the outflow and the quality of the rivers.


Summarises some of the predicted natural consequences of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Changes in temperature, climates, physical and chemical impacts on the biosphere as well as biodiversity loss are considered. Then some of the expected social and economic consequences of global warming are discussed. Subjects considered are the impacts of global warming on bio-industries and social conditions, the economic costs of greenhouse gas emissions and the effects of climate change. Attention subsequently turns to the environmental Kuznets curve and the inappropriate use of the relationship. For example, it is stressed that reducing the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions in relation to GDP does not necessarily reduce total greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, even if they are reduced, greenhouse gases can continue to accumulate in the atmosphere. Some suggestions are then made about how the global warming problem might be addressed.


The Container Loading Problem consists of packing boxes of similar sizes into available Containers in such a way to optimize an objective function. In this paper we are going to apply the concept of Permutation Block Algorithm (PBA) in the wall layer approach for the Load Optimization of Equal Dimension Boxes in the Container Loading Problem. The load is filled in the vehicle by means of two methods like by top sides only or by any sides possible. The main objective of this paper deals with the increased use of space while filling loads into the container.


We report on a macrocyclic platform based on an 18-membered macrocycle that forms kinetically highly inert paramagnetic complexes and possesses an excellent outlook for the development of bioresponsive paraCEST (paramagnetic chemical exchange saturation transfer) contrast agents. The investigated europium( III ) chelate is non-hydrated and contains four amide groups, each possessing two paramagnetically shifted proton resonances distant from bulk water. The X-ray crystal structure and solution studies indicate that the metal ion is ten-coordinated, being directly bound to the six N atoms of the macrocycle and the four amide O atoms of the pendant arms. The complex presents an excellent inertness with respect to dissociation, being stable under a variety of harsh conditions, including highly acidic and basic media or elevated temperatures. The amide protons are in slow-to-intermediate exchange with bulk water, which gives rise to the generation of a strong CEST e ff ect at low probe concentration and saturation powers ( ∼ 25% at 5 mM, B 1 = 5 μ T, 37 °C). We demonstrate the potential of this platform for mapping pH in its microenvironment and foresee potential for the development of diverse paraCEST probes and sensors.


ABSTRACT The transcription factor AflR is required for up-regulation of specific pathway genes involved in aflatoxin biosynthesis in the filamentous fungus Aspergillus. nor-1 encodes an early aflatoxin pathway enzyme; its promoter contains a consensus AflR binding site (AflR1). Proteins in Aspergillus parasiticus cell extracts and AflR expressed in Escherichia coli do not bind to A. parasiticus AflR1 in vitro, so it was not clear if this site was required for nor-1 expression or if other transcription factors contributed to gene regulation. In this study we defined the role of AflR1 in nor-1 expression in A. parasiticus and identified additional cis-acting sites required for maximum nor-1 transcriptional activation. Deletion and substitution of AflR1 in the nor-1 promoter in A. parasiticus nor-1::GUS reporter strains showed that this site is required for nor-1 transcriptional activation in vivo. Substitution of a putative TATA box in the nor-1 promoter resulted in nondetectable β-glucuronidase (GUS) activity, demonstrating that this TATA box is functional in vivo. We also identified a novel cis-acting site, designated NorL, between residues −210 and −238 that was required for maximum nor-1 transcriptional activation in A. parasiticus grown in liquid medium and on solid medium. Using an electrophoretic mobility shift assay, we identified a specific NorL-dependent DNA-protein complex that relies on a functional AflR, either directly or indirectly, for maximum binding capacity. Because the NorL site appears only once in the aflatoxin gene cluster, its association with the nor-1 promoter may have important implications for the overall regulatory scheme for the aflatoxin pathway.


Abstract The Panarea volcanic group is made up of dome-fields that are the subaerial culminations of a largely dissected volcanic complex mostly located below sea level. The correlation of marine isotope stage (MIS) 5 marine terrace deposits and numerous tephra layers, combined with the available radiometric ages, shows that the Panarea dome-fields mostly developed between c. 155–149 and 124–118 ka through the emplacement of successive lava domes, lava flows and minor pyroclastic products, interrupted by dormant periods and episodes of faulting in a context of regional uplift, plus volcano-related deformation. Recurrent explosive phases subsequently occurred in the area of minor islets at c. 100 ka (Punta Falcone), 67–56 ka (p1) and 24–8.7 ka (Drauto), together with the emission of the c. 54 ka Basiluzzo dome. The Panarea volcanic group is presently in a quiescent state with fumarolic activity and episodic gas outbursts. Panarea rocks show basaltic andesite and high-K basaltic andesite to high-K dacite and rhyolite compositions, with minor shoshonites. Radiogenic isotope signatures range between those typical of the western Aeolian islands and Stromboli. This reveals a heterogeneous mantle source, which resulted from migration of more primitive asthenospheric mantle from the west during slab rollback, and its admixture with more strongly contaminated Stromboli-type resident mantle. DVD: The 10 000 scale geological map of Panarea is included on the DVD in the printed book and can also be accessed online at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Memoir37-electronic. Also included is a full geochemical data set for the Panarea volcanic group.


Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus belonging to the family Lentiviruses, which are responsible for chronic and long-lasting infections including the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in monkeys. Since 1981, when the first acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) cases were reported, HIV poses a challenge to human beings, and the UNAIDS global estimate reveals that currently more than 33.2 million people are living with HIV infection worldwide. HIV infection leads to variable disease course in different people. The biological basis of this variability in the disease progression is still unknown. Initiation of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) although reduced the mortality, morbidity arising from antiretroviral side effects was a cause of concern. HIV-infected patient care has now shifted from complications arising from opportunistic infections to other causes attributable to HIV pathogenesis and toxic effects of HAART. Monitoring the disease progression and the response to HAART is traditionally carried out using TCD4+ cell counts and HIV/RNA viral load. Many clinical and laboratory markers have been used to estimate disease progression in HIV1 infection. HIV/AIDS after introduction of HAART has taken a different course where people infected with HIV have been considerably living longer due to reduced incidence of opportunistic infections and other AIDS-related conditions. HIV patient care should be multifaceted involving specialist HIV primary care physicians, infectious disease specialists, and emergency physicians considering the ways by which HIV and HAART have changed treatment and management of HIV-infected individuals.


The influence of endogenous opioid system on the rat's mean blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HS) has been studied under the chronic infusion of the opioid receptor antagonist naloxone (1 mg/kg intraperitoneally, twice a day, during 6 days) or an inhibitor of captorile enkephalinases (20 mg/kg subcutaneously). Naloxone caused a significant decrease and captorile--increase of maximum meanings of HR during exercises (the running on the treadmill during 3.5 min by the velocity of 30 m/min), both compounds didn't exert a considerable effect on BP at rest and during exercises. It has been concluded that the endogenous opioid system plays an important role in the autonomic HR regulation during exercise.


The effects of sulphur and copper on postharvest brown rot (Monilinia fructicola (Wint.) Honey) were studied for six years in a Bio-Gro registered apricot block at Clyde Research Centre, Central Otago. Four treatments of sulphur and/or copper were applied up to 9 times between flowering and harvest. Brown rot levels were high in seasons with a high rainfall from November to January (harvest). Sulphur (Kumulus DF) at either 120 or 160 g ai/100 litres or at 80 g with copper (Kocide DF) at 10 g ai/100 litres reduced brown rot levels in cvs Sundrop and CluthaGold. Seven organically acceptable alternatives to sulphur were also tested but none were more effective. However, alternatives to sulphur are needed for use close to harvest, to reduce both visible residues and the possible negative effect of sulphur on return


Twenty-five epidemiologic studies of acrylonitrile workers were reviewed and subjected to meta-analytic techniques in this study to assess the findings for 10 cancer sites. The analyses indicate that workers with acrylonitrile exposure have essentially null findings for most cancers, including lung [meta-relative risk (mRR) 0.9, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.9-1.1], brain (mRR 1.2, 95% CI 0.8-1.7), and prostate (mRR 1.0, 95% CI 0.7-1.4) cancers. Bladder cancer rates were elevated (mRR 1.8, 95% CI 1.0-3.4), but the excess was not dose-related and was limited to plants with aromatic amines. Therefore, the bladder cancer excess is unlikely to be related to acrylonitrile exposure. Some evidence of publication bias was found in the examined literature, but the bias did not have a significant impact on risk estimates for individual cancers. It was concluded that the available studies do not support a causal relation between acrylonitrile exposure and cancer.


In present work, optimization of engine performance and emission were performed for different butanol diesel blends (5–20%) for various engine operating parameter using Taguchi DoE with AHP Optimization Technique. Single cylinder VCR Engine (CI) was fueled with different blend of diesel and butanol and tested for various CR, FIP and FIT at different load conditions (Idle, 1/3, 2/3 and full load). First 3-D interaction plot is drawn to understand the effect of different engine parameter on butanol-diesel blend combustion at different load conditions for NOx and Smoke formation. It's observed that result vary with changes in operating parameter with different load conditions. Hence to optimize the engine operating parameter setting for correct butanol blend for all load conditions, AHP optimization with Taguchi DoE is performed and it's found that butanol blend of 15% with CR of 15, FIP of 260bar and FIT of 25°bTDC is optimum combination to get lowest emission with good engine performance. The use of 15% butanol is found most suitable as it gives favorable engine performance and low emission for all test load conditions.


This article describes the simulation results of manoeuvring operations used in ships, but applied to an SA-1 teleoperated aquatic robot. The SA-1 is a type of robot designed for flow measurement in natural water bodies (rivers, lakes). A robot's dynamic stability and course stability must be guaranteed due to the different tasks assigned to it. These features can be demonstrated through the pull-out manoeuvre, the Dieudonné spiral manoeuvre, modified Kempf manoeuvre and turning circle manoeuvre. System behaviour when using such manoeuvres can be used to propose a better control system for improving robot performance or modify system design.


Typical control systems that are found in modern power plants must control the many physical aspects of the complex processes that occur inside the various components of the power plant. As detection and monitoring of pollutants becomes increasingly important to plant operation, these control systems will become increasingly complex, and will depend upon accurate monitoring of the concentration levels of the various chemical species that are found in the gas streams. In many cases this monitoring can be done optically. Optical access can also be used to measure thermal emissions and the particulate loading levels in the fluid streams. Some typical environments were optical access is needed are combustion chambers, reactor vessels, the gas and solid flows in fluidized beds, hot gas filters and heat exchangers. These applications all have harsh environments that are at high temperatures and pressures. They are often laden with products of combustion and other fine particulate matter which is destructive to any optical window that could be used to monitor the processes in these environments in order to apply some control scheme over the process. The dust and char that normally collects on the optical surfaces reduces the optical quality and thus impairs the ability of the optical surface to transmit data. Once this has occurred, there is generally no way to clean the optical surface during operation. The probe must be dismounted from the vessel, disassembled and cleaned or replaced, then remounted. This would require the shutdown of the particular component of the plant where optical monitoring is required. This renders the probe ineffective to be used as the monitoring part of any control system application. The components of optical monitoring equipment are usually built in supporting structures that require precise alignment. This is almost always accomplished using fine scale adjustments to specialized mounting hardware that is attached to the reactor vessel. When the temperature of these supporting structures increases due to the high temperature process that is occurring inside the vessel, the optical alignment can often suffer due to the thermal expansion of the mounting structure. This can render them useless especially for gas velocity measurements or other situations where precise optical alignment is required. What is needed is an optical probe that can be inserted into any hazardous environment that will not suffer alignment problems or other failure modes that are related to high temperature dirty environments, and at the same time maintain a clean optical surface through the lifetime of the devise so that it may be continually used for optical inspection or for control system applications. This paper describes details of the construction and the use of a transpiration purged optical probe which mitigates the problems that are outlined above. The transpiration probe may be used as either an emitter or a detector. The probe is implemented in the harsh high temperature environment of the NETL pulsed combustion system where products of combustion and particulate matter have been shown to degrade the performance of a normal optical window. Assessments of combustion heat release are made by monitoring the ultraviolet signatures that are produced by the concentration of OH during a pulsed combustion process. It is shown that these measurements are directly correlated with the pressure within the pulsed combustor. Probe temperature measurements are also presented to show how the probe and its mounting hardware remain at constant temperatures well below the high temperature environment which they monitor.


We investigate whether an aging population may challenge the supremacy of large working cities. To this end, we develop an economic geography model with two types of individuals (workers and retirees) and two sectors (local services and manufacturing). Workers produce and consume; the elderly consume only. As a result, the mobility decision of workers is driven by both the wage gap and the cost-of-living gap, unlike the elderly who react to the differences in the cost of living only. We show that the return of pre-industrial urban system dominated by rentier cities does not seem to be on the agenda. Quite the opposite, the future of large working cities is still bright, the reason being that today's urban costs act as a strong force that prevents a large share of local services and manufacturing firms from following the rentiers in the elderly cities, while the supply of differentiated b2c services impede their complete separation.


Nuclear receptors (NRs) have the ability to elicit two different kinds of responses, genomic and non-genomic. Although genomic responses control gene expression by influencing the rate of transcription, non-genomic effects occur rapidly and independently of transcriptional regulation. Due to their anucleate nature and mechanistically well-characterized and rapid responses, platelets provide a model system for the study of any non-genomic effects of the NRs. Several NRs have been found to be present in human platelets, and multiple NR agonists have been shown to elicit anti-platelet effects by a variety of mechanisms. The non-genomic functions of NRs vary, including the regulation of kinase and phosphatase activity, ion channel function, intracellular calcium levels, and production of second messengers. Recently, the characterization of mechanisms and identification of novel binding partners of NRs have further strengthened the prospects of developing their ligands into potential therapeutics that offer cardio-protective properties in addition to their other defined genomic effects.


The Final Report of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety (2021) highlighted the challenges in developing a sustainable financing system for Aged Care in Australia. The Report recommended additional funding both in the short term and longer term, to provide an adequate level of aged care quality for older Australians including exploring an actuarially based contributory social insurance scheme for aged care. Sustainable financing of aged care requires a balance between government tax-based financing, individual contributions during working life through an aged care levy, co-payments for aged care costs for those receiving aged care and means testing for these co-payments. There should be a role for private market insurance and financing to supplement government financed aged care support.


May-Hegglin anomaly, Sebastian syndrome, Fechtner syndrome, and Epstein syndrome are autosomal dominant macrothrombocytopenias distinguished by different combinations of clinical and laboratory signs, such as sensorineural hearing loss, cataract, nephritis, and polymorphonuclear Döhle-like bodies. Mutations in the MYH9 gene encoding for the nonmuscle myosin heavy chain IIA (NMMHC-IIA) have been identified in all these syndromes. To understand the role of the MYH9 mutations, we report the molecular defects in 12 new cases, which together with our previous works represent a cohort of 19 families. Since no genotype-phenotype correlation was established, we performed an accurate clinical and biochemical re-evaluation of patients. In addition to macrothrombocytopenia, an abnormal distribution of NMMHC-IIA within leukocytes was observed in all individuals, including those without Döhle-like bodies. Selective, high-tone hearing deficiency and cataract was diagnosed in 83% and 23%, respectively, of patients initially referred as having May-Hegglin anomaly or Sebastian syndrome. Kidney abnormalities, such as hematuria and proteinuria, affected not only patients referred as Fechtner syndrome and Epstein syndrome but also those referred as May-Hegglin anomaly and Sebastian syndrome. These findings allowed us to conclude that May-Hegglin anomaly, Sebastian syndrome, Fechtner syndrome, and Epstein syndrome are not distinct entities but rather a single disorder with a continuous clinical spectrum varying from mild macrothrombocytopenia with leukocyte inclusions to a severe form complicated by hearing loss, cataracts, and renal failure. For this new nosologic entity, we propose the term "MHY9-related disease," which better interprets the recent knowledge in this field and identifies all patients at risk of developing renal, hearing, or visual defects.


With faster depletion of natural sources of petroleum fuels, it becomes essential to use alternative fuels. Ethanol is growingly becoming best choice as fuel fraction to blend with gasoline. These fuel fractions are planning to be used with higher percentages of ethanol. It is highly required to find the best possible fuel fractions and performance of the engine under different operating conditions. The present study proposes applications of Minitab 17 and XLSTAT for establishing the relationship of dependent parameters with each independent parameter. Minitab 17 is used for multiple regression and provides mathematical equations for each dependent variable in terms of operating independent variables. Minitab 17 is also used for plotting the contour graphs, which shows the regions of best and poor levels of each dependent parameter on graph through contours and shaded areas. These applications of Minitab 17 are used for performance prediction and finding optimum conditions of engine. XLSTAT is add-on tool to be used in MS-Excel. It provides graphical tools for finding the errors in the model developed. It also gives the dominance of each operating parameter with engine output parameters. Both tools can be effectively used for developing customised mathematical relations. Semi-empirical mathematical relations are simple to form and accurate to predict the engine performance.


Objective: This study was designed to evaluate the reproductive effect of isolated ergosterol constituent of Portulaca olerac ea on reproductive parameters in male albino rats. Methods: The isolated compound was administered on daily basis for 25 days at doses of 0.50 mg/kg and 0.75 mg/kg and blood samples were collected for hormonal assay, semen analysis was also carried out. Data were analysed using ANOVA at p<0.05. Result: Treatment of rats with 0.50 mg/kg BW and 0.75 mg/kg BW caused decrease in testosterone levels, sperm motility and sperm count as well as increase in the percentage of abnormal sperm cells relative to their respective controls. Conclusion: These findings on the reproductive parameters suggests that isolated ergosterol constituent of Portulaca oleracea has deleterious effect on reproductive functions in male albino rats.


Precise and absolute beam polarization measurements are critical for the RHIC spin physics program. Because all experimental spin-dependent results are normalized by beam polarization, the normalization uncertainty contributes directly to final physics uncertainties. We aimed to perform the beam polarization measurement to an accuracy Of A&am/Pbeam < 5%. The absolute polarimeter consists of Polarized Atomic Hydrogen Gas Jet Target and left-right pairs of silicon strip detectors and was installed in the RHIC-ring in 2004. This system features proton-proton elastic scattering in the Coulomb nuclear interference (CNI) region. Precise measurements of the analyzing power AN of this process has allowed us to achieve Mbeam/Pbeam = 4.2% in 2005 for the first long spin-physics run. In this report, we describe the entire set up and performance of the system. The procedure of beam polarization measurement and analysis results from 2004 2005 are described. Physics topics of AN in the CNI region (four-momentum transfer squared 0.001 < -t < 0.032 (GeV/c)2) are also discussed. We point out the current issues and expected optimum accuracy in 2006 and the future.


Reasons for performing this study: Metacarpal/metatarsal III condylar fractures are the most common type of fracture associated with Thoroughbred horseracing in the UK, and the most common reason for euthanasia on the racecourse. Prediction of fracture through quantification of exercise-related radiographic changes could enable modification of horse management to prevent this injury, improving animal welfare and reducing wastage.
Objectives: The general aims were to validate objective radiographic measurement of exercise-related modelling in distal metacarpal III of Thoroughbred racehorses and to explore their utility for fracture prediction by comparing measurements from horses that sustained a fracture of the lateral condyle of distal metacarpal III with those from controls. The initial objective was to establish methods to measure objectively the following variables in distal metacarpal III: condyle opacity, cortical thickness and metaphyseal angle. Radiographic measurements were correlated with equivalent measurements derived from computed tomography (CT) to determine their accuracy. The second objective was to explore the ability of the radiographic measurements to identify horses at risk of fracture. This was done initially by comparing measurements made from radiographs taken at a single time point between Thoroughbred racehorses with and without a lateral condylar fracture, and subsequently by analysis of measurements from series of radiographs obtained prior to and at diagnosis of lateral condylar fracture as part of routine clinical practice. For the final objective, the maximum density of the palmar condyles of distal metacarpal III was determined using a quantitative CT-based technique. Maximum density was compared between horses with fractures and those without, and comparison made with the maximum opacity measured from radiographs, to investigate whether these measurements could be used to identify horses at risk of fracture.
Materials and Methods: Fifty-five metacarpal III bones obtained from Thoroughbred racehorses euthanized on UK racecourses (age range 3-11 years) were divided in to three groups: control (no distal limb fracture, n=30), non-fractured (contralateral limb lateral condylar fracture, n=11) and fractured (lateral condylar fracture, n=14). All limbs were subjected to radiography and computed tomography for measurement of diaphyseal cortical thickness 2.5cm distal to the nutrient foramen (expressed as dorsal cortex:medulla width) and metaphyseal angle (deviation of the metaphysis relative to the diaphysis). Measurement of radiopacity of the medial and lateral condyles was calibrated using an aluminium phantom
i
(condyle:phantom ratio). Correlation between radiography and CT measurements and comparison of radiography measurements between groups was performed.
For the longitudinal study, medical records of the Singapore Turf Club were reviewed. Thoroughbred racehorses diagnosed with a lateral condylar fracture that had also been radiographed in the previous 24 months were identified and placed in the 'high risk' group (n=16). Horses radiographed and then raced for a minimum of 2 years without suffering a fracture were placed in the 'low risk' group (n=15).
Twenty-seven metacarpal III bones obtained from Thoroughbred racehorses euthanized on UK racecourses (age range 3-10 years) were used in the investigation of maximum density of the palmar condyles. They were divided in to three groups: control (no distal limb fracture, n=10), non-fractured (contralateral limb lateral condylar fracture, n=8), and fracture (lateral condylar fracture, n=9). Computed tomography measurement of condyle density was calibrated using a potassium phosphate phantom to enable comparison between age-matched bones.
Results: Diaphyseal cortical thickness and metaphyseal angle measurements made by radiography and CT were significantly correlated (r=0.74, 0.73; p=0.007, 0.004) but there was no significant difference in measurements between groups. Radiopacity of medial and lateral condyles was significantly greater in non-fracture (0.67±0.04, 0.68±0.04) and fracture (0.82±0.07, 0.68±0.09) groups than the control (0.59±0.08, 0.57±0.09) group (p=0.003). The medial condyle (0.82±0.07) was significantly more radiopaque than the lateral condyle (0.68±0.09) in the fracture group only (p=0.001).
In the longitudinal study, the dorsal cortex was thicker in high risk than low risk horses, the mean ± SD cortical thickness ratio of the high and low risk groups was 1.36 ± 0.26 and 1.08 ± 0.19 respectively (p=0.008). Metaphyseal angle measurement displayed a similar pattern and the difference was statistically significant, the mean ± SD metaphyseal angle of the high and low risk groups was 9.65° ± 2.21 and 6.95° ± 1.65 respectively (p=0.000).
Computed tomography measurement of maximum density of distal metacarpal III, found no significant difference in maximum density of the lateral and medial palmar condyle between groups. There was a significant correlation between age and maximum density of the lateral condyle (r=0.44, p=0.019) and medial condyle (r=0.54, p=0.003).
ii
Conclusions: Objective measurement of dorsal cortical thickness and metaphyseal angle of distal metacarpal III can be performed accurately and precisely using radiography in Thoroughbred horses. Radiographic measurement of condyle opacity was precise but conclusions about the accuracy of this measurement await comparison with an appropriate reference standard.
Increased radiopacity of the distal condyles was identified in horses that sustained lateral condylar fracture. However, this finding was not reflected by data from the horses represented by the clinical radiographs, suggesting that this measurement may not be useful in identifying horses at risk of fracture. Evidence supportive of this conclusion was provided by maximum density measurements made by CT.
Significant differences in dorsal cortical thickness and metaphyseal angle were found between horses that sustained a lateral condylar fracture and horses that underwent radiography for clinical reasons but subsequently raced without fracture, suggesting that these variables could be of value in determining the risk of fracture and merit further investigation.


Fibrosis and cirrhosis are the main complications of chronic liver diseases. At present, liver biopsy is the golden standard for evaluating liver fibrosis. However, this is an invasive procedure, hence the interest in developing non–invasive approaches. The present study identifies novel possibilities for non-invasive fibrosis evaluation. We included 591 hepatitis C patients. Fibrosis was assessed using the Metavir score. A number of 93 features were obtained from each patient using B-mode ultrasound, Doppler ultrasound, transient elastography and common biochemical and cytological measurements. The patients were grouped according to fibrosis stages and additive logistic regression models were built. Crossvalidation along with Area Under Curve (AUROC) was used to measure the classification performance. The AUROC of 0.90 was recorded when discriminating between fibrosis stage ≤3 and fibrosis stage 4.


Despite the fact that erosion undermines productivity in the Ethiopian highlands, adoption of fertility enhancing techniques remained very minimal. The objectives of this study is to examine factors affecting adoption of fertilize and manure use and their interrelationships using plot and household level data collected from 211 farm households. A two-stage probit model results revealed a negative reciprocal relationship between fertilizer use and manure applications, basically because of the difference in additional resource requirements for application of the two inputs. Whereas prices of chemical fertilizers are very high in the study area, manure is labor-intensive in its application. This implies that the ability to afford high fertilizer prices decreases the probability to apply manure; and endowment with adequate labor input decreases the probability to opt for fertilizer. The study also identified different impediments to adoption of fertilizer use and manure applications and important implications drawn from the results are discussed.


Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often have difficulties initiating and maintaining reciprocal conversations with others. In this study, we examined if an interdependent group contingency would improve reciprocal conversation of children with ASD when they were paired as conversational partners. We also assessed children's social preference through their choices between spending time with their peers or by themselves. In a multiple-baseline design, we found that the group contingency immediately produced independent reciprocal conversational responses, sustained conversational exchanges, and increased preference for peers across all participants. Improvements were further maintained even after the group contingency was removed and novel peers were introduced.


In this paper, a methodology to design controllers able to cope with different load conditions on an Ethernet network is introduced. Load conditions induce time-varying delays between measurements and control. To face these variations an interpolated, delay-dependent gain scheduling law is used. The lack of synchronization is solved by adopting an event-based control approach. The dual-rate control action computation is carried out at a remote controller, whereas control actions and measurements are taken out locally at the controlled process site. Stability is proved in terms of probabilistic linear matrix inequalities. TrueTime simulations in an Ethernet case show the benefit of the proposal, which is later validated on an experimental test-bed Ethernet environment.


The explicit assumption underlying Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) is that offering payments that are at least equal to individual's opportunity cost will establish individuals' participation. At the same time, that payment should act as a substitution within landowners' global income, making environmental conservation compatible with economic development goals, and suitable for win-win policy. This partially acts under the more general hypothesis of money fungibility built-in neoclassical economic premise. Meanwhile, behavioural economics demonstrate that individuals track their financial activities using a set of cognitive labels depending to the context in which it was obtained, each of which being associated with a different marginal propensity to consume. Based on a 'Humans' vs. 'Econs' approach, we test the effect of income's origin ('Low effort' based money vs. 'High effort' based money) on spending decisions (Necessity vs. Superior goods) and pro social preferences (Contribution to a public good) within Madagascar rural areas that are potential beneficiaries of PES programs, using a natural field experiment. Our findings support that human's behavioural responses matter and could, under some circumstances, alter environmental conservation policies.


Vaccination is central to controlling COVID-19. Its success relies on having safe and effective vaccines and also on high levels of uptake by the public over time. Addressing questions of population-level acceptability, stability of acceptance, and sub-population variation in acceptability are imperative. Using a prospective design, a repeated measures two-wave online survey was conducted to assess key sociodemographic variables and intention to accept a COVID-19 vaccine. The first survey (Time 1) was completed by 3436 people during the period of national lockdown in Scotland and the second survey (n = 2016) was completed two months later (Time 2) when restrictions had been eased. In the first survey, 74% reported being willing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Logistic regression analyses showed that there were clear sociodemographic differences in intention to accept a vaccine for COVID-19 with intention being higher in participants of white ethnicity as compared with Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) groups, and in those with higher income levels and higher education levels. Intention was also higher in those who had "shielding" status due to underlying medical conditions. Our results suggest that future interventions, such as mass media and social marketing, need to be targeted at a range of sub-populations and diverse communities.


Recent advances in air traffic Communication Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) have encouraged investigations into the concept following which Air Traffic Control functions can be delegated to the flight deck, allowing more freedom of movement to airspace users. In late 1995, an initiative, known under the project name FREER, for Free-Route Experimental Encounter Resolution, was introduced at EUROCONTROL to investigate the feasibility of this concept. In this paper, we present the initial results obtained from the Autonomous Aircraft Operations study (FREER-I) that targets full delegation of ATC to aircraft operating in low-density airspace. Specific issues of Autonomous Aircraft Operations (AAO) supporting free-route, free flight and user-preferred routing are discussed. A description of the current prototype illustrating the Airborne Interactive Conflict Resolution Advisory service is included.


In 2017, the Australian government conducted the Australian
Marriage Law Postal Survey ('AMLPS'). This saw the federal
government make innovative use of national survey processes to
conduct an exercise that closely resembled an advisory referendum
or plebiscite. This article views the marriage survey as a type of
'popular vote process' and uses the conceptual tools of referendum
research to understand and evaluate it from a process perspective.
The article begins by examining the legal framework that applied to
the AMLPS and highlights how it differed from the laws that apply to
referendums and plebiscites. Next, the article evaluates the AMLPS
as a popular vote process. While acknowledging that the survey
delivered some important democratic benefits, it offers a mostly
critical assessment. The analysis identifies several shortcomings,
including insufficient checks on the power of the executive to initiate
the survey, gaps in legal regulation, inadequate protection of ballot
secrecy, the absence of a mechanism to challenge the result, and
questions around the effectiveness of administration. The article
concludes that the survey device should not be used as the basis for
future popular votes on policy issues.


Large-scale internet services aim to remain highly available and responsive in the presence of unexpected failures. Providing this service often requires monitoring and analyzing tens of millions of measurements per second across a large number of systems, and one particularly effective solution is to store and query such measurements in a time series database (TSDB).

A key challenge in the design of TSDBs is how to strike the right balance between efficiency, scalability, and reliability. In this paper we introduce Gorilla, Facebook's in-memory TSDB. Our insight is that users of monitoring systems do not place much emphasis on individual data points but rather on aggregate analysis, and recent data points are of much higher value than older points to quickly detect and diagnose the root cause of an ongoing problem. Gorilla optimizes for remaining highly available for writes and reads, even in the face of failures, at the expense of possibly dropping small amounts of data on the write path. To improve query efficiency, we aggressively leverage compression techniques such as delta-of-delta timestamps and XOR'd floating point values to reduce Gorilla's storage footprint by 10x. This allows us to store Gorilla's data in memory, reducing query latency by 73x and improving query throughput by 14x when compared to a traditional database (HBase)-backed time series data. This performance improvement has unlocked new monitoring and debugging tools, such as time series correlation search and more dense visualization tools. Gorilla also gracefully handles failures from a single-node to entire regions with little to no operational overhead.


The process of winning and retaining investors who establish businesses in a particular place is under-researched. The purpose of this study is to analyze the extent to which place marketers (seller) and potential investors interact in order to establish, develop and maintain a win- win exchange relationships. A cross-country study, with multiple case studies, was used as method. The result shows that the seller has been able to win and maintain clients. The seller-client exchange relationships have been influenced by interaction with third parties. The seller-client interactions have been going on before, during, and after clients' location of operations.


The experimental and clinical study of the allergen diagnostic properties of new Brucella protein-polysaccharide antigen in comparison with brucellin has been made in the leukocyte migration inhibition test, and its working doses have been determined. The results thus obtained suggest that Brucella protein-polysaccharide antigen has considerable diagnostic advantages over commercial brucellin, which presents vast possibilities of using this antigen for the allergen diagnosis of brucellosis in the leukocyte migration inhibition test.


Heat furnace is one of the most important parts in iron and steel industry which is one of the basic industries. The control of furnace quality indices has a direct impact on iron and steel qualities and energy consumptions in an iron and steel manufacturing process. Due to dramatic changes of exhaust gas in combustion, this multi-variable process becomes time-varying, and also has inherent nonlinearities, couplings among the variables, large inertias and time delays.Therefore, manual operations are still being widely used in quality indices control. In this paper, an optimization control method is proposed for the control of furnace quality indices. The optimization consists of a materials temperature calculation model, an optimization objective, an ideal materials heating model and a furnace heating model. Optimization algorithm consists of the maximum principle, the simulated annealing algorithm,the iterative algorithm and sensitive analysis.Finally, quality indices were controlled by lower layer loop control on-line.The proposed optimization control method has been successfully applied to some steel plants. The industrial applications show the effectiveness of the proposed method.


The repair of an abdominal subcostal hernia is presented. Diagnosis was confirmed by CT scan and repair was accomplished laparoscopically. PURPOSE The author describes the presentation and management of a patient with subcostal hernia. There is no reference to adult subcostal hernia in PUBMED. Therefore, we wish to bring it to attention of readers and show that the laparoscopic repair is suitable for this condition. CASE REPORT A 69-year-old man was referred for evaluation of a left sided abdominal wall mass. The mass was first noted after a neurosurgical procedure for a lumbar arachnoid cyst. The mass was described as the size of a fist and was just below the left lateral costal margin. There were no gastrointestinal symptoms. The patient denied previous abdominal surgical procedures and there were no scars. He also denied previous trauma. Physical exam confirmed the hernia in the left subcostal area. A CT scan showed a left lateral subcostal hernia in the location described by the patient (Figure 1). Figure 1 Figure 1: CT scan demonstrates mushroom-shaped left subcostal hernia At operation, three laparoscopic ports were placed. The incarcerated omentum was reduced from a 6-cm defect below the ribs on the left. A mesh repair was completed. The mesh was secured with four corner sutures and a tacking device. The repair was secure at a three month postoperative visit. DISCUSSION Laparoscopic techniques are used with increasing frequency for repair of abdominal wall hernias. Prior to operation on this patient, a search of PUBMED for "subcostal hernia" did not reveal any previous cases in adults. The etiology of this unusual hernia in our patient is uncertain. He did not recall Laparoscopic Repair of Subcostal Hernia 2 of 3 any major trauma and he did not have a surgical procedure at the site of the hernia. Based on the success of this repair, we recommend laparoscopic mesh repair for subcostal hernia. References Laparoscopic Repair of Subcostal Hernia 3 of 3 Author Information James H. McClenathan Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery, University of Arizona Healthcare South Campus


Stars provide an enormous gain for interstellar communications at their gravitational focus, perhaps as part of an interstellar network. If the Sun is part of such a network, there should be probes at the gravitational foci of nearby stars. If there are probes within the solar system connected to such a network, we might detect them by intercepting transmissions from relays at these foci. Here, we demonstrate a search across a wide bandwidth for interstellar communication relays beyond the Sun's innermost gravitational focus at 550 au using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and Breakthrough Listen (BL) backend. As a first target, we searched for a relay at the focus of the Alpha Centauri AB system while correcting for the parallax due to Earth's orbit around the Sun. We searched for radio signals directed at the inner solar system from such a source in the L and S bands. Our analysis, utilizing the turboSETI software developed by BL, did not detect any signal indicative of a non-human-made artificial origin. Further analysis excluded false negatives and signals from the nearby target HD 13908. Assuming a conservative gain of 103 in the L band and roughly 4 times that in the S band, a ∼1 m directed transmitter would be detectable by our search above 7 W at 550 au or 23 W at 1000 au in the L band, and above 2 W at 550 au or 7 W at 1000 au in the S band. Finally, we discuss the application of this method to other frequencies and targets.


In 1986, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) initiated a terminology integration project – the Unified Medical Language System ® (UMLS) – as "an effort to overcome two significant barriers to effective retrieval of machine-readable information": the variety of names used to express the sam e concept and the absence of a standard format for distributing terminologies. By integrating more tha n 60 families of biomedical vocabularies, the UMLS Metathesaurus ® currently provides not only an extensive list of names (2.5 million) for its 900,5 51 concepts, but also over 12 million relations among these concepts. Its scope is broader and its granularity finer than that of any of its source vocabul aries.


Linear Friction Welding (LFW) is an assembly process for producing high quality joins of metallic alloys for aero engines [1]. It consists in enforcing a relative linear motion of the two components to be welded together while applying a compressive force between them. Resulting friction heats the material interface up to viscous state and produces the weld. Its occurrence and quality depend on material, friction and process parameters such as force intensity and oscillation frequency and amplitude. Assembly of new and dissimilar materials requires an improved understanding of the process coming both from experiments and numerical simulation. Previous numerical investigations of LFW [2-4] have been based on model simplifications, such as artificial process symmetry, to get around intrinsic simulation difficulties. A more comprehensive approach is necessary to both provide more insights on the process, to quantify the error introduced by those simplifications and to consider dissimilar materials. The process being governed by local heating phenomena, it induces contact-related instabilities, which numerical modelling requires a special attention. High temperature drives material softening and flowing at the close vicinity of friction surface, which is very sensitive to both finite element size and contact algorithm. Automatic mesh adaptation, based on error estimation, is consequently required to ensure the necessary precision in the continuously evolving zone of interest [5], which cannot be achieved by uniform or handily crafted meshes. With utilized Forge® software, the current contact algorithm between deformable bodies leads to uncontrolled and unphysical instabilities. Specific techniques such as contact surface smoothing [6] and bilateral contact formulation are used to handle this issue. Numerical results are compared to LFW machine monitoring in terms of global mechanical forces and displacements under prescribed pressure. In-process thermocouple measures also provide accurate information close to the welding zone allowing for friction coefficient calibration. References : [1] I. Bahmji and al.,"Linear friction welding in aerospace engineering" from Welding and Joining of Aerospace Materials, Woodhead Publishing, (2012). [2] A. Vairis and M. Frost, "Modelling the linear friction welding of titanium blocks", Materials science and Engineering, 292-1, 8-17 (2000). [3] W. Li and al., "Numerical simulation of linear friction welding of titanium alloy: Effects of processing parameters", Materials and Design, 31, 1497-1507 (2010). [4] J. Sorina-Muller and al., "FEM simulation of the linear friction welding of titanium alloys", Computational Materials Science, 48, 749-758 (2010). [5] S. Guerdoux and al. A 3D numerical simulation of different phases of friction stir welding. Modelling and simulation in materials science and engineering, 17(7) (2009) [6] M. Hachani and al. A smoothing procedure based on quasi-C 1 interpolation for 3D contact mechanics with applications to metal forming. Computers & Structures, 128, 1-13. (2013)


Hot Jupiter exoplanets are a previously unknown and fascinating field of study. Models of planet formation based only around the Solar System did not predict their existence, occupying as they do the orbital region less than 0.1 AU from their parent stars. Believed to be tidally locked, always presenting the same face to the star, these gas giants are bathed in intense irradiation, and inhabit a regime alien to anything known in the Solar System. As exoplanetary surveys discover an increasing number of planets, the ubiquity of hot Jupiters in the galaxy continues to be confirmed.

Both the evolution and the atmospheric dynamics of these unusual planets are natural focuses of study. However, most authors have historically concentrated on one or the other of these two lines of enquiry, although both are linked. In the case of gas giants in particular, which have no true ground or otherwise easily defined surface layer, the two regimes blend towards the outer layers of the planet. This convergence renders the possibility of model overlap ever more relevant, a possibility that is here studied, both independently and together, ultimately continuing to the modelling of the specific known exoplanets HD 209458b, HD 189733b, and WASP-7b.

It is found that, while it is reasonable for interior evolution model results to be used to provide boundary conditions and atmospheric characteristics for the purposes of three-dimensional atmospheric modelling, the reverse is a much more difficult proposition, providing few truly relevant constraints. Observational characteristics are also predicted, with cyclic variability found in the case of HD 209458b, a more permanently variable state in the case of HD 189733b, and very little longitudinal temperature variation for the calmer atmosphere of WASP-7b.


According to rational choice theory, rational consumers tend to maximize utility under a given budget constraints. This will be achieved if they choose a combination of goods that cannot satisfy their needs and provide the maximum level of utility. Gary Becker imagines irrational consumers who choose bundle on the budget line. As irrational consumers have an equal probability of choosing any bundle on the budget line, on average, we expect that they will pick the bundle lying at the midpoint of the line. The results of research in which artificial Becher's agents choose among more than two commodities rational choice theory is small. And in more than two budget/price situations show that the percentage of agents whose behaviour violate. Adding some factors to Becker's model of random behaviour, experimenters can minimize these minor violations and fit the actor's choice with the theory. In addition, the results of organizations' choices analysis show that the observed agents behave rationally, and this behaviour confirms the theory rational choice. Therefore, rational choice theory is unfalsifiable. As the theory can always fits with the facts, it would have been much more productive if we had admitted that the theory was falsifiable and then debated its explanatory value in specific circumstances.


Worldwide 46.8 million persons are living with dementia and many are requiring assistance with performing daily living or instrumental functions. It is often the task of family members to provide care for their relatives with dementia. However, they are often the silent, unseen and unacknowledged figures in the lives of people living with dementia. In 2015, we used a phenomenological design utilising visual participatory methods in the form of collages and interviews to explore and describe the transition experiences of eight family members (seven females and one male) living in a South African city regarding how they became caregivers of their relatives with dementia. They often entered their caregiving roles unexpectedly, often not having much choice regarding whether or not to take on the caregiving role. Family members caring for relatives with dementia have unique support needs as they transition into the caregiving role.


The intertwining of everyday life and computation, along with a new generation of inexpensive digital recording devices and storage facilities, is revolutionizing our ability to collect and analyze human activity data. Such ubiquitous data collection has an exciting potential to augment human cognition and radically improve information-intensive work. In this paper we introduce a system to aid the process of data collection and analysis during observational research by providing non-intrusive automatic capture of paper-based annotations. The system exploits current note-taking practices and incorporates digital pen technology. We describe the development, deployment and use of the system for interactive visualization and annotation of multiple stream of video and other types of time-based data.


Do consultant pharmacists who work in nursing homes have a conflict of interest? The Medicare program thinks they do. That is what's behind a new proposal from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The agency wants to require long-term-care (LTC) facilities to ensure that their consultant pharmacists are "independent."

The proposal is included as one of the changes the CMS wants to make in calendar 2012 to its Part C (Medicare Advantage) program and its Part D (outpatient drug prescription) program.

The problem, as perceived by the CMS, is that consultant pharmacists are usually supplied by a nursing home's LTC pharmacy at a concessionary rate—typically, by PharMerica, Omnicare, or Managed Health Care Associates. These organizations control 90% of the nursing-home market, according to the CMS, and Omnicare is now also in the midst of a takeover attempt aimed at PharMerica.

As one might imagine, the independence proposal doesn't sit very well with the LTC pharmacies, among others. Gregory S. Weishar, PharMerica's Chief Executive Officer, said:

PharMerica's consultant pharmacists play an important role in ensuring safe and cost-effective outcomes for patients. We are concerned that the changes proposed by CMS could adversely affect customers; payers; and, ultimately, residents, resulting in a decrease of much needed benefits and higher costs."

Although the CMS proposal appears to be directed at alleged conflicts centered on the "big three" LTC pharmacies and their free-standing nursing-home clients, if it becomes final, it is also likely to affect LTC facilities that are part of an integrated health care system. Allied Services Integrated Health System in Scranton, Pa., for example, has its own pharmacy on its campus. It takes care of more than 750 patients and residents via assisted living, behavioral health, skilled nursing, and rehabilitation.

Kevin E. Bowman, PharmD, Assistant Vice President of Pharmacy Services at Allied, acknowledges that his group-purchasing organization (GPO) sometimes recommends drugs for which it and the Allied pharmacy receive rebates from the manufacturer. He asks:

Do we take advantage of those rebates? Sometimes we do, when they are the result of a good, solid clinical recommendation. But our consultants aren't going to steer patients at our skilled nursing facility to a brand PPI [proton pump inhibitor], for example, even if there is a rebate attached, when there are so many good alternative generics out there. In the end, we want a patient's family to feel good about our facility. So we work with the family and physician to reduce out-of-pocket drug costs for the resident. We are helping to reduce overall medication costs, which is the opposite of CMS's concerns.

Whether or not consultant pharmacists are employed by an integrated system such as Allied Services or one of the big three, they are responsible for reviewing the drug regimens for every nursing-home patient once a month. In most states, those pharmacists can switch residents from one drug to another in that same drug class. The CMS is concerned that consultant pharmacists, who are ostensibly beholden to the LTC pharmacy, are likely to change a patient's medications from those originally prescribed by the physician to those for which the LTC pharmacy gets rebates, directly or indirectly, from a drug manufacturer. That could lead to higher costs for Medicare and could compromise the safety and health of nursing-home residents. In the Federal Register notice dated October 11, 2011, the CMS cites some studies that detail inappropriate prescribing of drugs, especially antipsychotic drugs, at LTC facilities.

To eliminate any potential conflict of interest, the CMS wants nursing homes to employ only independently licensed consultant pharmacists who are not employed by, under contract to, or otherwise affiliated with the facility's pharmacy, a pharmaceutical manufacturer or distributor, or any affiliate of these entities. A separate company would also be set up by the pharmacy, which would hire the consultant pharmacists. The CMS would interpret the term "affiliate" broadly, but it would probably list some types of affiliates that would be considered free of conflicts of interest.

The CMS doesn't cite specific or verified conflicts of interest to support its proposal. In the October Federal Register notice, the CMS alluded to qui tam claims, which are lawsuits brought forth by whistleblowers, who can receive all or part of any penalty imposed. For instance, an informant could allege that an LTC pharmacy had received quarterly payments, styled as rebates, from a pharmaceutical manufacturer to engage in an active intervention program to convince physicians to prescribe that company's antipsychotic agent to the physician's patients in the nursing home and to authorize all competitive products only after the failure of the manufacturer's product.

The overprescribing of antipsychotic drugs in nursing homes is a particular irritation to the CMS that was exacerbated by testimony presented on November 30, 2011. Inspector General Daniel Levinson, JD, said that 14% of nursing-home residents had prescriptions for atypical antipsychotic agents and that Medicare should not have paid for half of those drug claims because the drugs were not used for medically accepted indications.


Cancer-related neuropathic pain syndromes are common and serious complications of a patient's primary malignancy or its treatment, whether by surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy. They may compromise the patient's quality of life as well as their ability to receive effective treatment. In many patients, there may be more than one coexistent neuropathic pain syndrome, posing a diagnostic dilemma that, if unresolved, may result in the institution of therapies that are of limited scope or not targeted at the primary underlying pathophysiology. There is no single adequate diagnostic method that has been established to reliably diagnose or follow patients with cancer-related neuropathic pain syndromes. Clinical assessment of cancer-related neuropathic pain poses some important challenges diagnostically as well as in defining a clear and reliable endpoint assessment in controlled clinical trials. Many different approaches have been applied to the development of assessment or diagnostic tools. Careful review of these methods has been helpful in developing a clearer vision for the future design and refinement of more reliable tools, and more importantly, validation of the clinical utility as well as the reliability of such tools when employed as endpoints in clinical trials focused on prevention, mitigation, or treatment of cancer neuropathic pain.


Objectives Pineal cysts (PCs) may be incidentally found on intracranial imaging. They are typically quiescent, benign and asymptomatic. However, imaging alone cannot exclude an underlying pineal malignancy. This study reviewed our hospital's experience of managing PCs in order to develop a clinical pathway to guide their investigation and follow-up. Design Single-centre retrospective review of cases. Subjects Patients referred to our hospital with a PC. Methods Case notes and imaging from patients referred to our hospital with a clinically-coded 'pineal cyst' between 2007 and 2017 were reviewed. Results 43 cases were included. The most common indication for intracranial imaging was headache (12/43), followed by seizures (4/43). No symptoms were attributable to the PC. Follow-up imaging to monitor the PC was performed in 13/43 cases; in a further 10/43 cases, it was carried out for an indication unrelated to the PC. Follow-up was arranged by the neurosurgical team in 12 cases. Uncertainty about the diagnosis led to an endoscopic biopsy in one case, which confirmed a PC. There was no consistent clinical rationale underlying the decision to undertake follow-up imaging, nor its interval or duration. Conclusions Clinical practice varied widely for the management of incidental PCs. We propose that all PCs should be investigated with standardised MRI, reported by a neuroradiologist and repeated at 6–12 months. Further follow-up and its duration should be guided by the patient's clinical condition and the radiological features of the PC.


In a dishevelled west London flat the body of a young man lies crumpled, the victim of a suicide. In a stylish family home less than a mile away is a writer: stranded in mid-life, his one triumph behind him, his family slipping away from him, all he has to hold on to is his self-belief that one day the world will recognise his talents. From these two seemingly unrelated elements, Terence Blacker creates a magnificently compulsive novel of ego, envy, self-deception and, ultimately, self-destruction. Gregory Keays is a man with a wonderful future behind him. A dazzlingly brilliant first work has led to a series of false starts, wrong turnings and critical cold shoulders. Reduced to compiling a book of literary lists and stuck in the mire of his latest fiction, Insignificance, Gregory's life turns around when he takes under his wing Peter Gibson, a promising student at the night school where he teaches creative writing. When Gibson kills himself following an argument with his mentor, Gregory pays him the highest compliment - he appropriates his work and passes it off as his own...But when Gregory realises that somebody else may know of the existence of the work, he has to decide just how far he is prepared to go for success. And when he calls in Brian McWilliam, ex-villain turned literary star for a spot of freelance work in his old game, it can only lead to one frightening conclusion. A towering literary achievement and a novel of compulsive readability, Kill Your Darlings vividly imagines the terrifying outcome of one man's Faustian pact with the demon of success.


The authors extend the concept of displacement structure to time-variant matrices and use it to efficiently and recursively propagate the Cholesky factor of such matrices. A natural implementation of the algorithm is via a modular triangular array of processing elements. When the algorithm is applied to solve the normal equations that arise in adaptive least-squares filtering, they get the so-called QR algorithm, with the extra bonus of a parallelizable procedure for determining the weight vector. It is shown that the general algorithm can also be implemented in time-variant lattice form; a specialization of this result yields a time-variant Schur algorithm. >