Background/Aim: Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is one of the most common types of cancer worldwide. Our study focused on the axon guidance receptor roundabout guidance receptor 1 (ROBO1) as a target for monoclonal antibody therapy of HNSCC. We previously showed that saporin-conjugated anti-ROBO1 (B5209B) immunotoxin (IT-ROBO1) enhanced cytotoxic effects on HNSCC cells in combination with the photosensitizer aluminum phthalocyanine disulphonate (AlPcS2a) and illumination. We examined the effects of this combination therapy in a mouse xenograft model. Materials and Methods: IT-ROBO1 was intraperitoneally administered to HSQ-89 (derived from Japanese maxillary sinus squamous carcinoma, RCB0789; RIKEN, Tsukuba, Japan) xenografted mice. After 3 days, AlPcS2a was injected subcutaneously around the tumor and the area was illuminated at 650 nm for 30 min. The growth of the tumor was evaluated and the effects on the tumor were examined. Results: Pronounced anti-tumor effects were elicited by the administration of IT-ROBO1 and AlPcS2a with light illumination on tumor size and pathological characteristics. Conclusion: The results showed that photosensitizer treatment with illumination robustly enhanced the antitumor effect of the IT-ROBO1 immunotoxin.


According to the International Standards Organization 2631-1 standard on human vibration, individuals in a seated position are at risk of injury due to whole-body vibrations when exposed for long periods of time. Wheelchair users fit this description perfectly; however, little research has been conducted to evaluate the amount of vibration transmitted to a wheelchair user. The vibration exposure produced by traversing nine surfaces was evaluated by having 10 individuals without disabilities propel over them in both a manual wheelchair at 1 m/s and a powered wheelchair at 1 and 2 m/s. Root-mean squared (RMS) vertical vibration was examined to determine if differences existed between surfaces. At 1 m/s for both the manual and the powered wheelchair the 8-mm bevel interlocking concrete surface produced significantly higher RMS vertical vibration than the other surfaces. At 2 m/s in the powered wheelchair, the poured concrete surface (control) produced the significantly highest RMS vertical vibration. Based on the manual and power wheelchair results of this study, use of selected ICPI pavers would be acceptable for any route traveled by individuals using wheelchair. Furthermore, a 90° herringbone pattern is preferred over the 45° pattern, and it is recommended that for safety reasons regarding vibration exposure a bevel of less than 6 mm should be used.


The determination of the water retention curve (WRC) and hydraulic conductivity function (HCF) of a specific volcanic coarse granular material used as a substrate for urban green roofs in Europe was carried out on a newly developed specific device in which low suctions, typical of coarse granular materials, were controlled. Smaller suctions (up to 32 kPa) were imposed by using a hanging column system, and larger suctions (between 32 and 50 kPa) were imposed by using the axis translation technique in the same cell. The changes in suction during the tests were monitored by using a high accuracy differential pressure transducer. They were also used to determine the HCF by means of both Kunze and Kirkham's and Gardner's methods. The former technique was used at low suctions (<4 kPa) to account for the impedance effects due to the high air entry value ceramic porous disk and the latter was used between 4 and 50 kPa. Good comparability was observed in the data from both methods, demonstrating the good performance of the device. The mathematical expressions of the WRC of van Genuchten and Brooks and Corey were used, and a good fitting with our experimental data was obtained. Conversely, the HCFs derived from these expressions appeared to lead to a significant underestimation, confirming the need of an operational and simple device for the experimental determination of the HCF. Also, this material proved to be an appropriate material for green urban infrastructures, because of its lightweight, satisfactory water retention capability and hydraulic conductivity.


We studied the photic (L/D cycle) and non-photic (restricted feeding) entrainment on the patterns of daily rhythm of total locomotor activity in goats. Six female Maltese goats were subjected to three different artificial L/D cycles: 12/12 L/D, 12/12 D/L and constant light. During the 12/12 L/D and 12/12 D/L, food and water were available ad libitum. During constant light, animals were subjected to a restricted feeding treatment. Total activity was recorded by means of an actigraphy-based data logger (Actiwatch-Mini). Our results showed that goats exhibited clear daily rhythms of activity in 12/12 L/D cycle, 12/12 D/L cycle and constant light, although they showed FAA prior the feeding time during the restricted feeding treatment. Goats were diurnal, with activity consistently beginning promptly following the onset of light. Even when the L/D cycle was delayed by 12 h on some days, to the daily rhythm was re-established. During the constant light period, the onset of activity was linked to the time of food administration. Our study evidences two factors for the rhythm of total locomotor activity in goats: light stimuli (photic) and food access (non photic), strongly coupled to permit organisms the adaptive temporal coordination of behaviour with stable and unstable environmental periodicities.


Glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) is an index of estimated average blood glucose over the preceding three months, giving an estimate of long-term glycemic status. Its value is used both for the diagnosis and monitoring the blood glucose control of the patients with diabetes mellitus. Though a widely used tool the value of HbA1c is influenced by various factors which, if not kept in mind of the treating clinician may lead to a false diagnosis or false sense of diabetic control. The authors give a brief overview of the HbA1c and the factors affecting its value.

Keywords: Diabetes mellitus; Estimated average glucose; Glycosylated hemoglobin; Glycemic control


The rise probabilities of positive corona streamers initiated by a flux of negative ions are investigated under the combined voltage (dc + ac) in point-to-coaxial cylinder discharge gaps in atmospheric air. A method is developed to detect and to estimate quantitatively an after-effect of the preceding streamer on the rise probability of the following one during the next cycle of the ac voltage. The method is based on the statistical analysis of sequences of streamers. The dependence of the intensity of the after-effect on dc and ac voltage, ac frequency, pre-ionization level, air humidity and airflow velocity is investigated. The causes of the after-effect of streamers are discussed.


The HLA multigene family consists of HLA class I (HLA-A, B and C) and class II (HLA-DR, DQ and DP) genes, and plays a central role in the regulation of immune response. To investigate how each HLA gene and each HLA allele contribute to the human immune response, we immunized 339 healthy Japanese medical students with recombinant hepatitis B surface antigen (rHBsAg) and determined the HLA types of all vaccinated subjects at the DNA level. The anti-HBs antibody titers showed a log-normal distribution, implying that the immune response to HBsAg in humans is a multifactorial and continuous trait. A stepwise multiple regression analysis demonstrated the alleles at the HLA-class I (HLA-A and B) and class II (HLA-DRB1, DQA1, DQB1, DPA1 and DPB1) loci significantly contributed to antibody production to HBsAg. The predicting equation of anti-HBs antibody levels for individuals with any HLA phenotype was proposed based on a multiple regression analysis. The multiple correlation coefficient of antibody production to HBsAg with the HLA-DRB1 locus was highest (0.34) among all of the HLA loci, whereas those with whole HLA class I or class II loci were 0.36 or 0.44 respectively. The incorporated correlation coefficient of the presence of all HLA gene families with antibody production became 0.50, suggesting that HLA class I and class II loci within the HLA multigene family are dynamically involved in regulation of the immune response to HBsAg.


Changes in perception during space missions are usually attributed to microgravity. However, additional factors, such as spatial confinement, may contribute to changes in perception. We tested changes in scene perception using a boundary extension (BE) paradigm during a 105-day Earth-based space-simulation study. In addition to the close-up/wide-angle views used in BE, we presented two types of scenes based on the distance from the observer (proximal/distant scenes). In crew members (n = 6), we found that BE partly increased over time, but the size of BE error did not change in the control group (n = 22). We propose that this effect is caused by an increasing BE effect in stimuli that depict distant scenes and is related to spatial confinement. The results might be important for other situations of spatial confinement with restricted visual depth (e.g., submarine crew, patients confined to a bed). Generally, we found a larger BE effect in proximal scenes compared with the distant scenes. We also demonstrated that with no feedback, subjects preserve the level of the BE effect during repeated measurements.


Technological procedure of slow cooling slag from primary copper production is applied in the purpose of copper recovery in the level of 98.5% to blister. This technological procedure is divided into two phases, first slow cooling of slag on the air for 24 hours, and then accelerated cooling with water for 48 hours. Within the research following methods were used: calculation of nonstationary slag cooling, verification of the calculation using computer simulation of slag cooling in the software package COMSOL Multiphysics and experimental verification of simulation results. After testing of the experimentally gained samples of slowly cooled slag it was found that this technological procedure gives the best results in promoting growth or coagulation of dispersed particles of copper sulfide and copper in the slag, thereby increasing the utilization of the flotation process with a decrease of copper losses through very fine particles.


A closed-form approximate matrix-weighted solution for estimating motion parameters from point correspondences in two stereo image pairs is presented. The corresponding algorithm is noniterative and fast. Simulation shows that the solution is significantly more reliable than the unweighted and the scalar-weighted solutions, except when the number of point correspondences is less than seven. The matrix-weighted least squares solution can be used as a final solution if the speed requirement does not allow iterations. An approach to optimal estimation of the motion parameters and the structure of the three-dimensional points is also introduced. In experiments with a calibrated real stereo setup, the motion parameters and depth maps were automatically computed from real-world images. Some ground truths were used to validate the accuracy of these results. >


The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationships between physical activity (ACT), including sports participation (SP) and antecedent risk factors for coronary heart disease (CHD), in a representative sample of adolescents from Northern Ireland, a region of high coronary mortality. Biological and behavioral risk factors were measured in a random sample of 1015 school children aged 12 and 15 yr. ACT and SP were assessed by self-report questionnaire, and relationships with biological risk factors were analyzed with stepwise multiple linear regression after controlling for potential confounders. Results showed that in 15-yr-old males ACT was beneficially associated with systolic blood pressure (P < 0.05), lipid profile, and cardiorespiratory fitness (both P < 0.01). In 15-yr-old females, SP was associated beneficially with fatness and cardiorespiratory fitness. Odds ratios calculated from logistic regression revealed that for the older children, a relatively small drop (-20%) in ACT (boys) or SP (girls) was significantly related to the probability of exposure to multiple risk factors. Overall, relationships were stronger for males rather than females and for older rather than younger children. This study provides further evidence for beneficial associations between ACT, SP, and CHD risk status in adolescents.


Objective: Previous studies have presented the effects of carbohydrate and protein intake using a single food or supplement. However, little knowledge is available regarding the long-term effects of protein diet supplementation on muscle mass and function. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of a 12-week high-intensity resistance exercise program combined with a high-carbohydrate (HCHO), high-protein (HPRO) diet on body composition, muscle function, anabolic/catabolic hormones, and blood amino acid levels.

Methods: This study included 27 male college students, who were divided into an HPRO group (n=12) and an HCHO group (n=15). Three to five sets of resistance exercises were performed four times a week at 75% of 1- repetition maximum for 12 weeks.

Results: The weight and body fat percentage decreased in both groups after the 12-week resistance exercise, and muscle mass increased in the HPRO group. The peak torque increased in the HPRO group, and the average power increased in both the HCHO and HPRO groups, although there was no significant difference between the changes in both groups. However, the testosterone level and the ratio of testosterone to cortisol increased in the HCHO group, and the changes were significantly different between the groups. The blood essential amino acid (EAA) and non-essential amino acid levels showed a time × group effect. Conclusion: Protein supplementation of a high-carbohydrate diet during resistance training may enhance body composition and muscle mass and function by increasing the blood EAA levels. Therefore, considering that Asians tend to consume high-carbohydrate diets, a diet with slightly less carbohydrate and increased protein may be more effective for increased muscle strength and mass during training.


Biometrics using inherited characteristics are frequently used in security systems. An alternative metric is user behaviour. Examples of user behaviour are the set of web pages accessed over a number of Internet sessions, or, the set of television programmes viewed by an individual over a number of days. A mathematical framework is developed which enables simple and robust identification algorithms based on this kind of user behaviour to be presented. Experimental results are based on a database of 33 users' television viewing habits. The use of these algorithms to this domain is not intended as a real application, but rather as an illustration of the power of the techniques. Practical applications would include user authentication for fraud prevention and preference prediction on the Internet. The user discrimination performance using the TV viewing database is modest, an equal error rate of about 18%. However, it is reasonable to suppose that the discrimination given by this technique would be orthogonal to those of other biometrics and so could provide a useful improvement in performance in a system combining the two.


Medical industry is of vital importance as it deals with the health affairs of humanity, an effort to contribute the assistance with respect to saving of health, wealth and time of the individual and the system (community). In cardiology hospital patients and attendants normally face many troubles (problems) while seeking the treatment for their disease, like access to proper place, excess of waiting time, lack of information in admin and control etc. It is necessary to reengineer tasks hierarchy and sequence in cardiology sector for solving patient's problems and saving the financial cost. Business process reengineering recovers the procedures of the business process including its improvement. In this paper we present a case study of cardiology hospital named Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology and National Institute of Heart Diseases" (AFIC-NIHD). First of all we reengineer tasks and present them with the help of workflow optimization tool called Bonita Soft. And then calculate the performance of all reengineered tasks using four parameters like cost, quality, time and flexibility with the help of devil's quadrangle. We have explored how workflow reengineering steps effect on these four parameters and how this reengineering methodology implementation is fruitful.


The current trend in biomass conversion technologies is toward more efficient utilization of biomass feedstock in multiproduct biorefineries. Many life‐cycle assessment (LCA) studies of biorefinery systems have been performed but differ in how they use the LCA methodology. Based on a review of existing LCA standards and guidelines, this paper provides recommendations on how to handle key methodological issues when performing LCA studies of biorefinery systems. Six key issues were identified: (i) goal definition, (ii) functional unit, (iii) allocation of biorefinery outputs, (iv) allocation of biomass feedstock, (v) land use, and (vi) biogenic carbon and timing of emissions. Many of the standards and guidelines reviewed here provide only general methodological recommendations. Some make more specific methodological recommendations, but these often differ between standards. In this paper we present some clarifications (e.g. examples of research questions and suitable functional units) and methodological recommendations (e.g. on allocation). © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd


Hospitals doing business is good business. Hospitals that use their professional staff to enhance their interface with industry are usually pleased with the outcome. Health care professionals must reach beyond their doors and be willing to understand the needs of a large corporate bureaucracy and the aspiring entrepreneur. Using hospital professionals in a consultative model with gatekeepers of industry is an ideal way to market and enhance the hospital's image in the community. Professionals employed by private hospitals are usually quite willing to expand their roles into the community as trainers, consultants, educators, diagnosticians, and treatment resource consultants to the business world. Business people understand business problems, and health care is a business issue as well as a humanitarian issue. In the current climate of cost containment, the hospital's ability to help the business work with paying for health care, if properly presented, will be welcomed.


A concept of maskless electrochemical microfabrication has been presented. In this method, a substrate, which is the anode, is placed in an electrochemical reactor in close proximity to a tool carrying the micropattern, which is the cathode. Although the anode is etched over its entire surface, it etches at a higher rate on the areas opposing exposed regions of the cathode, hence, reproducing a pattern on the anode. This paper describes the electrochemical process that enables the transfer of micropatterns from the cathode to the anode. This investigation involved the development of a mathematical model for anodic dissolution from a substrate, which was tested and verified against experimental data. The model was solved using commercial software that allows the simultaneous solution of reaction distribution at two different length scales, millimeter and micrometer. It has been applied to copper dissolution in acidified and nonacidified media. The results show that selective etching in acidified media produces a surface topography that is sinusoidal, whereas a rectangular topography is obtained in nonacidified media due to the formation of an oxide at the surface.


Intravenous infusions of [Sar1-Ala8]angiotensin II, acute hypophysectomy, and acute intestinal denervation were carried out in 15 pentobarbital-anesthetized cats. Infusion of the angiotensin II antagonist caused only a small increase in superior mesenteric arterial conductance and a small decrease in arterial pressure in intact animals, but the changes were subypophysectomy alone caused only a small intestinal vasodilatation and little change in arterial pressure. However, the responses to hypophysectomy were much larger when the gland was removed during a prolonged infusion of the angiotensin II antagonist. Intestinal denervation caused only minor changes in mesenteric conductance and arterial pressure, and the responses to [Sar1-Ala8]angiotensin II and hypophysectomy were largely unaltered by the presence or absence of the intestinal innervation. The results suggest that the renin-angiotensin and vasopressin systems are reciprocal overlapping mechanisms that exert a significant vasoconstrictor influence on the intestinal resistance vessels in the anesthetized cat. In the absence of one control system, the other appears to compensate to maintain resistance.


Abstract Medical education is evolving from a heavily hierarchical and paternalistic approach to a more developmental and student-centred paradigm. In addition, there has been a greater focus on decentralised medical education, taking medical students closer to the lowest tiers of the healthcare system and allowing for a more immersive experience within the communities of their patients. This paper presents the experience of an enlightening rural experience, in which the benefits of such a model to medical education are explored. Furthermore, it presents the highly personal and developmental journey that decentralised and, in particular, rural medical training can offer. A new concept of a 'home-stay' model has now been introduced as part of the rural medicine experience, where students are hosted by a family within the community in which they work. This is a transformative project in which the most fundamental principles of medical training and the art of medical practice can be honed. The convergence of clinical training, public health enlightenment, and family practice are highlighted.


The signal-to-noise ratio and bandwidth of photonic time-stretch (PTS) systems have previously been limited due to the nonlinear distortion caused by modulator response and dispersive propagation. In this paper, we present a novel method for the reconstruction of the input signal from two phase-diverse intensity measurements. The method consists of optical phase retrieval at the measurement point followed by simulated optical backpropagation to the modulation point. By numerical simulation of a PTS system with realistic parameters, we analyze the proposed method and compare it with the previously suggested maximum ratio combining (MRC) method. We show that the proposed optical backpropagation method, unlike the MRC method that treats the system as being linear from electrical input to output, can reconstruct the signal even at a large modulation depth and that the method is insensitive to biasing error or drift and not overly sensitive to misestimation of system parameters. Furthermore, to reduce the computational effort associated with the simulation of PTS systems, we present a numerical propagation method whereby the required number of sampling points is reduced by several orders of magnitude.


Recently, spectrum optimization solutions require mobile phones to obtain precise, accurate and fine-grained estimates of the radio link data rate. In particular, the effectiveness of anticipatory schemes depends on the granularity of these measurements. In this paper we use a reliable LTE control channel sniffer (OWL) to extensively compare mobile phone measurements against exact LTE radio link data rates. We also provide a detailed study of latencies measured on mobile phones, the sniffer, and a server to which the phone is connected. In this study, we show that mobile phones can accurately (if slightly biased) estimate the physical radio link data rate. We highlight the differences among measurements obtained using different mobile phones, communication technologies and protocols.


The unprecedented technology advancements in miniaturizing integrated circuits, and the resulting plethora of sophisticated, low cost electronic devices demonstrate the impact that micro/nano scale engineering can have when applied only to the area of electrical and computer engineering. Current research efforts in micro/nano fabrication technology for implementing integrated devices hope to yield similar revolutions in life science fields. The integrated life chip technology requires the integration of multiple materials, phenomena, technologies, and functions at micro/nano scales. By cross linking the individual engineering fields through micro/nano technology, various miniaturized life chips have been developed at UCI that will have future impacts in the application markets such as medicine and healthcare.


Environmental gradients generate and maintain biodiversity on Earth. Mountain slopes are among the most pronounced terrestrial environmental gradients, and the elevational structure of species and their interactions can provide unique insight into the processes that govern community assembly and function in mountain ecosystems. We recorded bumble bee-flower interactions over three years along an 1400 m elevational gradient in the German Alps. Using nonlinear modeling techniques, we analyzed elevational patterns at the levels of abundance, species richness, species β-diversity, and interaction β-diversity. While floral richness exhibited a mid-elevation peak, bumble bee richness increased with elevation before leveling off at the highest sites, demonstrating the exceptional adaptation of these bees to cold temperatures and short growing seasons. In terms of abundance, though, bumble bees exhibited divergent species-level responses to elevation, with a clear separation between species preferring low vs. high elevations. Overall interaction β-diversity was mainly caused by strong turnover in the floral community, which exhibited a well-defined threshold of β-diversity rate at the tree line ecotone. Interaction β-diversity increased sharply at the upper extreme of the elevation gradient (1800-2000 m), an interval over which we also saw steep decline in floral richness and abundance. Turnover of bumble bees along the elevation gradient was modest, with the highest rate of β-diversity occurring over the interval from low- to mid-elevation sites. The contrast between the relative robustness bumble bee communities and sensitivity of plant communities to the elevational gradient in our study suggests that the strongest effects of climate change on mountain bumble bees may be indirect effects mediated by the responses of their floral hosts, though bumble bee species that specialize on high-elevation habitats may also experience significant direct effects of warming.


The text introduces the student to the basic ideas of estimation and hypothesis testing early in the course after a rather brief introduction to data organization and some simple ideas about probability. Estimation and hypothesis testing are discussed in terms of the two-sample problem. The book exploits nonparametric ideas that rely on nothing more complicated than sample differences Y-X, referred to as elementary estimates, to define the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test statistics and the related point and interval estimates. The ideas behind elementary estimates are then applied to the one-sample problem and to linear regression and rank correlation. Discussion of the Kruskal-Wallis and Friedman procedures for the k-sample problem rounds out the nonparametric coverage. The concluding chapters provide a discussion of Chi-square tests for the analysis of categorical data and introduce the student to the analysis of binomial data including the computation of power and sample size. Most chapters in the book have an appendix discussing relevant Minitab commands.


The objective of the Registry was to characterize the population of infants receiving prophylaxis for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) disease by describing the patterns and scope of usage of palivizumab in a cross section of US infants. RSV hospitalization outcomes were also described. The Palivizumab (Synagis®, MedImmune, Inc., 25 West Watkins Mill Road, Gaithersburg, MD 20878) Outcomes Registry was a prospective multicenter survey conducted at 63 sites. Demographics, injection history, and RSV hospitalization outcomes were collected on 2,116 infants receiving palivizumab. Infants were enrolled in the Registry between September 1, 2000–March 1, 2001, at the time of their first injection. Infants born at less than 32 weeks of gestation accounted for 47% of infants enrolled, and those between 32–35 weeks accounted for 45%; approximately 8% were greater than 35 weeks of gestation. Lower RSV hospitalization rates were observed in infants who had greater adherence to regularly scheduled injections. Nearly one‐half of all hospitalizations occurred within the first and second injection intervals, suggesting the importance of early RSV protection. The confirmed RSV hospitalization rate of all infants in the Registry was 2.9%; the rate was 5.8% in infants with chronic lung disease of infancy, and 2.1% in premature infants without chronic lung disease. In conclusion, these data support the continued effectiveness of palivizumab prophylaxis for severe RSV lower respiratory tract disease in a large cohort of high‐risk infants from geographically diverse pediatric offices and clinics. The Palivizumab Outcomes Registry provides an opportunity to assess palivizumab utilization and clinical effectiveness in the US. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2003; 35:484–489. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Background/aims To determine the incidence of any diabetic retinopathy (any-DR), sight-threatening diabetic retinopathy (STDR) and diabetic macular oedema (DMO) and their risk factors in type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) over a screening programme. Methods Nine-year follow-up, prospective population-based study of 366 patients with T1DM and 15 030 with T2DM. Epidemiological risk factors were as follows: current age, age at DM diagnosis, sex, type of DM, duration of DM, arterial hypertension, levels of glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA1c), triglycerides, cholesterol fractions, serum creatinine, estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and urine albumin to creatinine ratio (UACR). Results Sum incidence of any-DR was 47.26% with annual incidence 15.16±2.19% in T1DM, and 26.49% with annual incidence 8.13% in T2DM. Sum incidence of STDR was 18.03% with annual incidence 5.77±1.21% in T1DM, and 7.59% with annual incidence 2.64±0.15% in T2DM. Sum incidence of DMO was 8.46% with annual incidence 2.68±038% in patients with T1DM and 6.36% with annual incidence 2.19±0.18% in T2DM. Cox's survival analysis showed that current age and age at diagnosis were risk factors at p<0.001, as high HbA1c levels at p<0.001, LDL cholesterol was significant at p<0.001, eGFR was significant at p<0.001 and UACR at p=0.017. Conclusions The incidence of any-DR and STDR was higher in patients with T1DM than those with T2DM. Also, the 47.26% sum incidence of any-DR in patients with T1DM was higher than in a previous study (35.9%), which can be linked to poor metabolic control of DM. Our results suggest that physicians should be encouraged to pay greater attention to treatment protocols for T1DM in patients.


Inflammatory polyneuropathies are mainly known by their acute form, Guillain-Barré syndrome, but there are also chronic cases and all are considered as having an autoimmune mechanism. In each form, peripheral nerve biopsies show scattered macrophages in the endoneurium and in certain cases macrophages invade the Schwann cell cytoplasm and destroy the myelin sheath. In rarer cases there is a primary axonal degeneration. The authors studied two chronic cases, which both exhibited mixed primitive axonal and demyelinating lesions, with peculiar histiocytes in the endoneurium. These rounded cells were characteristically well marked by KP1 but showed well-developed rough endoplasmic reticulum cysternae at ultrastructural examination. Such plasmacytoid histiocytes have mainly been studied in subacute lymphadenopathies and have been only briefly illustrated in a few cases of peripheral neuropathies due to Lyme disease or HIV infection. The two cases reported here had no associated diseases and probably correspond to a peculiar subacute autoimmune reaction.


The mesoscale Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) model is gaining popularity among the hydrometeorological community in providing high‐resolution rainfall forecasts at the catchment scale. Although the performance of the model has been verified in capturing the physical processes of severe storm events, the modelling accuracy is negatively affected by significant errors in the initial conditions used to drive the model. Several meteorological investigations have shown that the assimilation of real‐time observations, especially the radar data can help improve the accuracy of the rainfall predictions given by mesoscale NWP models. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of data assimilation for hydrological applications at the catchment scale. Radar reflectivity together with surface and upper‐air meteorological observations is assimilated into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model using the three‐dimensional variational data‐assimilation technique. Improvement of the rainfall accumulation and its temporal variation after data assimilation is examined for four storm events in the Brue catchment (135.2 km2) located in southwest England. The storm events are selected with different rainfall distributions in space and time. It is found that the rainfall improvement is most obvious for the events with one‐dimensional evenness in either space or time. The effect of data assimilation is even more significant in the innermost domain which has the finest spatial resolution. However, for the events with two‐dimensional unevenness of rainfall, i.e. the rainfall is concentrated in a small area and in a short time period, the effect of data assimilation is not ideal. WRF fails in capturing the whole process of the highly convective storm with densely concentrated rainfall in a small area and a short time period. A shortened assimilation time interval together with more efficient utilisation of the weather radar data might help improve the effectiveness of data assimilation in such cases. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Discovering frequent and rare spatio-temporal patterns in large amounts of streaming visual data is of great practical interest since it allows for automated applications of activity and surveillance analysis. In this paper we present a computationally efficient and memory preserving clustering scheme which uses streaming input from a stationary-mounted neuromorphic camera and performs density-based clustering in a high-dimensional feature space. The clustering scheme can treat arbitrarily shaped complex distributions and employs an intuitive density-based criterion to assign previously unseen samples to categories of frequently observed and rare. The spatio-temporal structure of neuromorphic video is encoded into sparse binary features, which allow for fast Hamming distance based neighborhood analysis in the feature space. Moreover, data sparsity brings advantages with respect to memory-efficient transmission and storage of the learned statistical model when used within a camera network. We present rare event detection results in a multiple-day neuromorphic data sequence and discuss strengths, failure modes and possible extensions of the proposed method.


In the treatment based on Guided Bone Regeneration method (GBR), membranes are necessary to cover bone defects and prevent the invasion of surrounding soft tissues. In spite of the potential usefulness of GBR method, no appropriate materials for the membrane have been developed and this method is not utilized frequently in common clinical practice. Here we developed materials such as a composite of β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) and copolymer of L-lactide, glycolide and ε-caplolactone (PLGC), and designed the novel GBR membranes with ideal mechanical properties. The materials had good biocompatibility, and the membrane had sufficient strength although their thickness was as thin as 200 μm. The membranes were applied to large bone defects created in canine mandibular bones, and significant enhancement in bone regeneration was demonstrated.


This article asks whether financial incentives can improve the quality of health care. A conceptual framework drawn from microeconomics, agency theory, behavioral economics, and cognitive psychology motivates a set of propositions about incentive effects on clinical quality. These propositions are evaluated through a synthesis of extant peer-reviewed empirical evidence. Comprehensive financial incentives--balancing rewards and penalties; blending structure, process, and outcome measures; emphasizing continuous, absolute performance standards; tailoring the size of incremental rewards to increasing marginal costs of quality improvement; and assuring certainty, frequency, and sustainability of incentive payoffs--offer the prospect of significantly enhancing quality beyond the modest impacts of prevailing pay-for-performance (P4P) programs. Such organizational innovations as the primary care medical home and accountable health care organizations are expected to catalyze more powerful quality incentive models: risk- and quality-adjusted capitation, episode of care payments, and enhanced fee-for-service payments for quality dimensions (e.g., prevention) most amenable to piece-rate delivery.


This paper presents a pre-execution approach for improving GPU performance, called P-mode (pre-execution mode). GPUs utilize a number of concurrent threads for hiding processing delay of operations. However, certain long-latency operations such as off-chip memory accesses often take hundreds of cycles and hence leads to stalls even in the presence of thread concurrency and fast thread switching capability. It is unclear if adding more threads can improve latency tolerance due to increased memory contention. Further, adding more threads increases on-chip storage demands. Instead we propose that when a warp is stalled on a long-latency operation it enters P-mode. In P-mode, a warp continues to fetch and decode successive instructions to identify any independent instruction that is not on the long latency dependence chain. These independent instructions are then pre-executed. To tackle write-after-write and write-after-read hazards, during P-mode output values are written to renamed physical registers. We exploit the register file underutilization to re-purpose a few unused registers to store the P-mode results. When a warp is switched from P-mode to normal execution mode it reuses pre-executed results by reading the renamed registers. Any global load operation in P-mode is transformed into a pre-load which fetches data into the L1 cache to reduce future memory access penalties. Our evaluation results show 23% performance improvement for memory intensive applications, without negatively impacting other application categories.


In order to achieve a better knowledge about the presence of microorganisms in Spacecraft Assembly Facilities that are able to resist potential hostile conditions, different tests on survival were carried out in this work. Basis for this investigation is the planetary protection policy that defines the rules to avoid contamination of celestial bodies with organisms from earth, or vice versa. In this work a set of ten isolated bacterial samples was tested for their resistance to different simulated space or mars-like conditions, to find out how big the chance is that some of the isolates survive and to find out if and which strains are more resistant than others. Therefore, ten bacterial strains isolated from one Spacecraft Assembly Facility were dried over night and then exposed to UV-C radiation, vacuum, dessication and UV-C radiation combined with a simulated Martian atmosphere. The titer of the bacterial isolates was
determined by plate count and then evaluated. Four isolates and the reference strain survived all test conditions even though with sometimes high inactivation values and five strains did not survive at all or at least only one of the test conditions.


Abstract Geochronological, major and trace element, and Sr–Nd–Hf isotopic data are reported for the monzonitic rocks of the Fushan pluton in the Taihang Mountains, central North China Craton, in order to investigate their sources, petrogenesis and tectonic implications. Zircon U–Pb dating results reveal that the Fushan pluton was emplaced during the Early Cretaceous (∼126–124 Ma). The monzonites and quartz monzonites are mainly characterized by calc-alkaline and magnesian features and display light rare earth element (LREE) enrichment and flat heavy REE (HREE) patterns with slightly positive Eu anomalies. They have similar whole-rock initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios (0.70653–0.70819), εNd(t) values (−13.6 to −18.6) and zircon εHf(t) values (−21.8 to −17.3). The primary magma of the Fushan pluton was derived from the partial melting of a spinel-facies amphibole-bearing ancient enriched lithospheric mantle. The monzonitic rocks also have high Ba–Sr and low Y and Yb contents, with high Sr/Y and La/Yb ratios. These geochemical features of monzonitic rocks are not only inherited from the magma source but also significantly enhanced by crystal fractionation during magmatic evolution; e.g. hornblende fractionation increased the Ba–Sr concentrations and Sr/Y ratios. During the Early Cretaceous, the slab sinking and roll-back of the Palaeo-Pacific Plate could have created an ancient big mantle wedge beneath East Asia and induced a lithospheric extensional process in the central North China Craton within an intracontinental setting.


I know Ole Didrik Laerum since 1971 when we both worked
as post-docs at the Max Planck Institute of Virus Research
in Tubingen. We co-operated not only scientifically but also
educationally when we hiked with our children through the Swabian
Alb. Sometimes Ole had a hard time when his three sons wanted to
be carried at the same time and I could not assist him because my
two boys hang already round my neck. This did not discourage
him, since more children followed and today he also cares for
foster-children in Ethiopia.
Ole Didrik's scientific interests reach far beyond the subject
of this interview and include topics such as chronobiology,
aging and therapeutic aspects of different diseases and expand
to profound contributions to the preservation of old Norwegian
rural architecture and folk music. He actively plays several
instruments and his good sense of humour can be judged from his
contributions to the Journal of Irreproducible Results. When I mention
that he was rector (elected president) of the University of Bergen
for 6 years and organized numerous scientific conferences
and workshops, then it is only to illustrate the problems of finding
time and place for an interview with such an active personality.
Thanks to telephone and e-mail connections these problems were
solved without much delay.


This paper investigates whether the Covid-19 crisis has affected the way we think about (political) institutions, as well as our broader (policy) attitudes and values. We fielded large online survey experiments in Italy, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands, well into the first wave of the epidemic (May-June), and included outcome questions on trust, voting intentions, policies & taxation, and identity & values. With a randomised survey ow we vary whether respondents are given Covid-19 priming questions first, before answering the outcome questions. With this treatment design we can also disentangle the health and economic effects of the crisis, as well as a potential "rally around the ag" component. We find that the crisis has brought about severe drops in interpersonal and institutional trust, as well as lower support for the EU and social welfare spending financed by taxes. This is largely due to economic insecurity, but also because of health concerns. A rallying effect around (scientific) expertise combined with populist policies losing ground forms the other side of this coin, and suggests a rising demand for competent leadership.


In this paper, static and switching characteristics of a 1200 V 4H-silicon carbide (SiC) bipolar junction transistor (BJT) at a bus voltage of 600 V are reported for the first time. Comparison was made between the SiC BJT and a 1200 V Si insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT). The experimental data show that the SiC BJT has much smaller conduction and switching losses than the Si IGBT. The SiC BJT also shows an extremely large reverse bias safe operation area, and no second breakdown was observed. This removes one of the most unattractive aspects of the BJT. The results prove that, unlike Si BJTs, BJTs in 4H-SiC are good competitors for Si IGBTs.


Abstract
Growers within the UK rely upon relatively few poinsettia varieties, with Infinity 2.0 accounting for up to 65% of the current volume. The crop is grown for harvest from mid-November until Christmas as decoration for the domestic market and stringent specifications must be met.
Two trials are reported here:
1) Variety assessment
2) Water deficit work for plant growth control

The main objective of the variety trial was to build upon previous work, the plants were benchmarked against the current main commercial variety, Infinity 2.0. Previous AHDB research in 2015/16 assessed new poinsettia varieties coming onto the market through growth and shelf life trials, amid industry concerns of reliance upon existing varieties and stock plant maintenance. The results of these trials showed varieties such as Lenora, Ferarra, Christmas Sensation and Astro Red to be promising. The plants in the variety trial were tried on three different grower holdings across the UK.
A second aspect, the water deficit trial, was based upon industry concern regarding the reduction to two applications of important plant growth regulators (PGRs) such as chlormequat. PGRs have been critical to growers in enabling them to control crop size so attaining product specification. The removal of PGRs may hinder UK growers' ability to meet market specification and so increase vulnerability to competition. The water deficit trial was carried out by a nursery in Lincolnshire. Therefore different approaches were investigated;
• The assessment of the potential use of remote soil moisture sensing, combined with soil moisture deficit to control stem extension (plant height) during the period of rapid stem elongation within a commercial operation, so reducing the reliance on PGRs. The formation of a transferable model of precision irrigation to maintain "optimum" moisture content, capable of being scaled-up to full production and transferable to other crops.
• To identify the substrate moisture content at which visible wilting first occurs under a range of Vapour Pressure Deficits (VPDs).


Precise recognition of human action is a key enabler for the development of many applications, including autonomous robots for medical diagnosis and surveillance of elderly people in home environment. This paper addresses the human action recognition based on variation in body shape. Specifically, we divide the human body into five partitions that correspond to five partial occupancy areas. For each frame, we calculated area ratios and used them as input data for recognition stage. Here, we consider six classes of activities namely: walking, standing, bending, lying, squatting, and sitting. In this paper, we proposed an efficient human action recognition scheme, which takes advantages of the superior discrimination capacity of adaptive boosting algorithm. We validated the effectiveness of this approach by using experimental data from two publicly available databases fall detection databases from the University of Rzeszow's and the Universidad de Málaga fall detection data sets. We provided comparisons of the proposed approach with the state-of-the-art classifiers based on the neural network,  $K$ -nearest neighbor, support vector machine, and naïve Bayes and showed that we achieve better results in discriminating human gestures.


Study Design. A retrospective study. Objective. To determine the impact of the adjacent segment degeneration (ASD) on the clinical outcome after lumbar fusion. Summary of Background Data. Few studies have analyzed correlation between clinical outcomes and ASD. Methods. From January 2000 to December 2004, 217 patients who underwent lumbar fusion and have more than 2 years of follow-up were evaluated. The patients were divided into 3 groups: fusion was carried out on 1 (A), 2 (B), and more than 3 segments (C). UCLA grading scale was used to evaluate the ASD on radiograph preoperative, postoperative, and last follow-up. The clinical outcome was evaluated and the association between clinical outcome and ASD was evaluated by the Spearman correlation. Results. ASD occurred 11.6% (13/112 cases) in group A, 14.5% (9/62 cases) in group B, and 16.3% (7/43 cases) in group C. Among them, the cases which had progressed more than 2 level of degenerative grade were 0 in group A, 7 cases (77.8%) in group B, and 6 cases (85.7%) in group C. In group A, 5 cases with ASD had down graded 1 level in clinical outcome. In group B, all 9 cases with ASD had down graded more than 1 level in clinical outcome; 1 level aggravation in 1, 2 level in 5, and 3 level in 1 case. In group C, all 7 cases with ASD also had down graded more than 1 level in clinical outcome; 1 level aggravation in 2, 2 level in 5 cases. Finally, the more the change of the degenerative grade is severe, the more the clinical outcome is worse (P < 0.05). Conclusion. The impact of ASD on clinical outcome after fusion showed a significant correlation, especially with the ASD after multiple-segments fusion. Careful attention is needed in multiple-segments fusion such as degenerative lumbar deformity.


This article examines the background to the Nazi film 'Titanic'. Commissioned by the Propaganda Ministry in 1940, at the height of war with Britain, the film was able to draw on extensive German engagement with the fate of the 'R.M.S. Titanic', stretching back to the original newspaper reports of April 1912. The sinking of the 'Titanic' had made a deeper impression in Germany than in other European countries, perhaps because a substantial number of the victims were in fact German or had ties with Germany. The extent of the emotional engagement showed not only in the tone of the newspaper reporting but in the sheer range of tributes that appeared in Germany: newspapers apart, there were films, paintings, poems, novels, lectures or even children's toys.

The enduring interest in the 'Titanic' throughout the 1920s and 30s may explain the propagandists' decision to exploit the topic for Nazi purposes. Widespread German unease about the apparent preference given to first-class passengers during the rescue operation and rumours of financial improprieties surrounding the owners of the 'Titanic' made the topic especially attractive to the Nazis. Ultimately, however, the favourable German perceptions of 'heroic British seamanship' undermined the Nazi film and led Goebbels to restrict its release.


The advantage of multisensor data fusion stems from the fact that the use of multiple types of sensors increases the accuracy with which a quantity can be observed or characterized. The response of radar is more a function of geometry and structure than surface reflection as occurs in the optical wavelengths. A suitable fusion method has to be chosen with respect to the used spectral characteristic of the multispectral bands and the intended application. This paper describes a comparative study of multisensor image fusion techniques in preserving spectral quality of the fused images. Image fusion techniques applied in this study are: wavelet, intensity-hue-saturation (IHS), principal component analysis (PCA), and high pass filtering (HPF). With these image fusion techniques, a higher spatial resolution JERS-1 SAR is fused with Landsat TM data. The merging process is carried out at the pixel level and the comparison of the resulting images is explained based on the measurement in preserving spectral quality of the fused images. Assessment of the spectral quality is performed by graphical and statistical methods between the original TM image and the fused images. The factors computed to qualify the fused images are: mean, standard deviation, coefficient correlation, and entropy. With a visual inspection, wavelet and PCA techniques seem to be better than the other techniques. PCA provided the greatest improvement with an average entropy of about 5.119 bits/pixel.


As a commercial vehicle providing low pollution and good fuel economy, we have developed a capacitor hybrid type medium duty truck. This is the first in the world. In the development of the Super Power Capacitor (high efficiency electric double layer capacitor) unit installed on the vehicle we aimed to establish a simple and easy method and process to manufacture the capacitor. We started from the development of materials and found the requirements for the capacitor itself and its manufacturing process. Based on these findings we constructed a capacitor production line in our factory. Major equipment is connected large size glove box with inert gas circulating and purifying device that control the production environment and an automatic laminator that enables the lamination of the capacitor cell. These equipments were designed and manufactured in-house. In this paper, the basic structure of the capacitor, efforts to develop the manufacturing method, the outline of the manufacturing process and measures to cope with certain problems in the process will be presented. (A) For the covering abstract see ITRD E121867.


We present a technique for optimal co-addition of image data for rapidly varying sources, with specific application to gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows. Unweighted co-addition of rapidly fading afterglow light curve data becomes counterproductive relatively quickly. It is better to stop co-addition of the data once noise dominates late exposures. A better alternative is to optimally weight each exposure to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of the final co-added image data. By using information about GRB light curves and image noise characteristics, optimal image co-addition increases the probability of afterglow detection and places the most stringent upper limits on nondetections. For a temporal power-law flux decay typical of GRB afterglows, optimal co-addition has the greatest potential to improve the S/N of afterglow imaging data (relative to unweighted co-addition) when the decay rate is high, the source count rate is low, and the background rate is high. The optimal co-addition technique is demonstrated with applications to Swift Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) data of several GRBs, with and without detected afterglows.


The paper deals with the influence of amino acids (AAs) from algal organic matter (AOM) on the water treatment process and with their adsorption onto activated carbon (AC). The structure of the molecule, especially the character of functional groups in the chain, plays the most important role in the adsorption of AOM AAs. In terms of the nature of the solution, adsorption is affected especially by pH and ionic strength (IS). The largest adsorption capacities for a particular AA are achieved under conditions, where the molecules of AAs carry a charge opposite to the AC surface and, therefore, attractive electrostatic forces between the AC and AOM AAs can manifest themselves. Furthermore, the hydrophobic interactions are applied in the adsorption of neutral AAs with hydrophobic chain. Depending on the conditions, an increase of IS can significantly reduce the adsorption efficiency or have no effect.


Abstract Tissue injury is typically accompanied by inflammation. In Drosophila melanogaster larvae, wound-induced inflammation involves adhesive capture of hemocytes at the wound surface followed by hemocyte spreading to assume a flat, lamellar morphology. The factors that mediate this cell spreading at the wound site are not known. Here, we discover a role for the platelet-derived growth factor/vascular endothelial growth factor-related receptor (Pvr) and its ligand, Pvf1, in blood cell spreading at the wound site. Pvr and Pvf1 are required for spreading in vivo and in an in vitro spreading assay where spreading can be directly induced by Pvf1 application or by constitutive Pvr activation. In an effort to identify factors that act downstream of Pvr, we performed a genetic screen in which select candidates were tested to determine if they could suppress the lethality of Pvr overexpression in the larval epidermis. Some of the suppressors identified are required for epidermal wound closure (WC), another Pvr-mediated wound response, some are required for hemocyte spreading in vitro, and some are required for both. One of the downstream factors, Mask, is also required for efficient wound-induced hemocyte spreading in vivo. Our data reveal that Pvr signaling is required for wound responses in hemocytes (cell spreading) and defines distinct downstream signaling factors that are required for either epidermal WC or hemocyte spreading.


The network layout is the basis of transportation operation and the connectivity degree is one of important indexes to evaluate the network structure. When mapping out and selecting the comprehensive transport network planning scheme, in order to judge the connectivity of network, for its topological structure being composed of different modes of transport lines with the characteristics of complex graph, the counting of spanning tree in graph theory is applied to analyze the network connection quality. At the same time, to examine and evaluate the influence of the edges between nodes on the entire network connectivity, the calculation model of edge influence degree is proposed in terms of the changes in the number of spanning trees after removing one of edge as well as considering the traffic capacity, function and administrative status of links. The method based on spanning tree combined with traffic attributes is simple and easy to operate, and the example illustrates the effectiveness. It can provide decision-making basis for the evaluation and comparison of connectivity performance of comprehensive transport network layout schemes.


Background. Many studies examining smoking uptake among young people in the Pacific have not included their exposure to tobacco control promotions in the media in their assessment. This study examines how Fijian students view tobacco and tobacco-related media depictions to gain insight into both drivers of smoking uptake and potential directions for prevention interventions. Methods. A sample of thirty Fijian students (15 male and 15 female) aged 14–17 years, was recruited from a Suva school between September and October 2013 and participated in a one-to-one in-depth interview about their views on tobacco use, media consumption patterns and preferences and awareness of tobacco use in media. Results. Despite radical developments in access to media, television remains the most popular. Yet, the majority of participants were unaware of any protobacco imagery on television or other entertainment media. Tobacco-related imagery was more likely to be seen in connection with point of sale advertising and branding. The advertising potential of the shop counter was acutely apparent to some participants and this space was considered highly influential. Conclusions. Despite the fact that the recently introduced graphic health warnings were generally well received, more can be done to extend the use of media for tobacco control benefits in Fiji.


Solar control glass has applications for windows and glazed facades in order to modify indoor visual and thermal comfort in buildings. The article presents the results of evaluation study of optical properties of selected types of solar control glasses and foils. The spectral transmittance measurements were used as input data for daylight comparative studies, and the consideration of convenience of selected solar control glasses and foils for windows are summarised on the basis of analysis of optical properties.


The nuclear receptors liver X receptor (LXR) LXRα and LXRβ are differentially expressed ligand-activated transcription factors that induce genes controlling cholesterol homeostasis and lipogenesis. Synthetic ligands for both receptor subtypes activate ATP binding cassette transporter A1 (ABCA1)-mediated cholesterol metabolism, increase reverse cholesterol transport, and provide atheroprotection in mice. However, these ligands may also increase hepatic triglyceride (TG) synthesis via a sterol response element binding protein 1c (SREBP-1c)-dependent mechanism through a process reportedly regulated by LXRα. We studied pan-LXRα/β agonists in LXRα knockout mice to assess the contribution of LXRβ to the regulation of selected target genes. In vitro dose-response studies with macrophages from LXRα-/- and β-/- mice confirm an equivalent role for LXRα and LXRβ in the regulation of ABCA1 and SREBP-1c gene expression. Cholesterol-efflux studies verify that LXRβ can drive apoA1-dependent cholesterol mobilization from macrophages. The in vivo role of LXRβ in liver was further evaluated by treating LXRα-/- mice with a pan-LXRα/β agonist. High-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol increased without significant changes in plasma TG or very low density lipoprotein. Analysis of hepatic gene expression consistently revealed less activation of ABCA1 and SREBP-1c genes in the liver of LXRα null animals than in treated wild-type controls. In addition, hepatic CYP7A1 and several genes involved in fatty acid/TG biosynthesis were not induced. In peripheral tissues from these LXRα-null mice, LXRβ activation increases ABCA1 and SREBP-1c gene expression in a parallel manner. However, putative elevation of SREBP-1c activity in these tissues did not cause hypertriglyceridemia. In summary, selective LXRβ activation is expected to stimulate ABCA1 gene expression in macrophages, contribute to favorable HDL increases, but circumvent hepatic LXRα-dominated lipogenesis.


Embedded system designers continuously face a twofold challenge handling the ever-increasing complexity of design and meeting the ever-shrinking time-to-market timeline. To meet such a challenge, the system design paradigm has shifted to platform-based design characterized by intensive use of software and aggressive reuse of verified components. More and more designs are turning to heterogeneous platforms to meet design constraints in multiple criteria. However, the use of such and heterogeneity generates more challenges for platform-based design. To address the challenges, system designers must utilize system-level methodologies for specification and design. Here the designers begin the design process by coming up with a computation modelthat captures the behavior of the system. The computation model is successively refined down to the structural model in the system level. In each refinement, the designers explore the design space. The design space comprises a set of alternatives concerning hardware/software partitioning, platform selection, and mapping. The design space is huge, however, necessitating the automation of its exploration. The platform is very often fixed regarding either availability or legacy reasons, making mapping crucial. This dissertation focuses on the automatic mapping of the computation model for the given heterogeneous platform.This dissertation presents a new automatic mapping technique. The proposed technique consists of two separate phases: initial mapping and improvement driven by cycle-approximate estimation. Existing mapping techniques depend on early estimation so a dilemma arises from the fact that cycle-approximate estimation cannot precede mapping. The dilemma can be gotten around by our performing initial mapping based on rough estimation and then making iterative improvements based on cycle-approximate estimation. While earlier work has been domain specific, the mapping techniques in the proposed work are driven by a general computation model that includes hierarchy, state transitions, dynamic data-oriented behavior, and imperative languages. The proposed work also addresses mapping with an awareness of general hierarchy in pipelined applications. In such a mapping technique, the size of the design space explored is limited bythe speed of cycle-approximate estimation. Earlier work has realized such a fast cycle-approximate estimation by generating and simulating Transaction Level Models. However, simulation has to be performed whenever there is any change in the platform or mapping. That is not necessary and therefore there is still room for improvement regarding speed. This dissertation presents a new trace-driven estimation that is orders of magnitude faster than simulation-based cycle-approximate estimation while losing neither accuracy nor generality.We have applied the proposed mapping techniques to multiple multimedia applications and the techniques outperformed in terms of execution time the competitors by proportions ranging from 23.3% through 36.3%.


The field of automotive electronics is growing exponentially in terms of devices related to safety, driver assistance and a variety of other nodes connected to infotainment systems which become standards with every automobile. Networking protocols connect these systems to provide assistance to drivers. However, the demand of high-bandwidth to serve applications lead to the necessity of a more flexible communication
network within the vehicle

This thesis proposes using optical wireless links in intra-vehicle applications where different parts of the vehicle can form signal transferring media. A vehicle chassis can be represented as an optical wireless waveguide, where Line-of-sight (LOS) or a diffuse optical wireless link exists.

In order to predict the validity of the idea, optical wireless channel characteristics should be determined. This thesis describes the design of a modified Monte Carlo simulation tool for modelling a waveguide optical wireless channel. The simulator has the ability to determine the channel characteristics, and it can also be used more generally for indoor systems. The simulator studies the effect of purely diffuse and purely reflective materials as well as mixed diffuse-specular materials. The program was validated by comparing it with other indoor simulation studies and with a laboratory experiment for straight waveguide.

Emphasis was placed on understanding the requirements of LOS and diffusing optical wireless communication links. Results are presented for straight and bent waveguides received power, path loss and bandwidth for a series of receiver areas and fields-of-view. Studying the coupling effect between two waveguides which are different in dimensions has been assessed for series of transmitter directions. All studies have been undertaken for two types of materials (scattered and reflective) and two kinds of transmitters (omnidirectional and directional).

The study shows that the waveguides are plausible candidates to convey signals with high bandwidth, but a high power transmitter or an array of Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) is needed due to power limitations.


Introduction In June 2010, the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death published 'A Mixed Bag: an enquiry into the care of in-patients receiving parenteral nutrition' (PN). This study found only 19% of inpatients received care with respect to their PN that was considered good. It also revealed widespread variability in the type of venous access secured for the purpose of PN administration, with only 42% of lines being inserted solely for the use of PN. This further analysis aimed to delineate the frequency of line use for purposes other than PN, and the nature of this additional usage. Methods All patients in England and Wales who received PN between 1st January and 31st March 2008 were identified from pharmacy records. Two patients per consultant were identified. A clinical questionnaire was sent to be completed by the consultant for each patient, and then returned with a copy of the case notes. The questionnaires and case notes were then analysed by our Advisor group consisting of consultants, dieticians and pharmacists. Results Clinicians reported utilising a centrally inserted venous catheter (CVC) in 73% of patients (762/1042) for initial PN administration, with 15% (153/1042) via peripherally inserted central venous catheter (PICC), and 12% (127/1042) via peripheral cannula. Of those inserted, 73% were multilumen, and 27% single lumen lines. Lines were used for purposes other than PN in 37% (224/605). The most frequent usage of the CVC in addition to PN was for iv drugs and fluids combined (50%). Additional documented uses included: fluids alone (31%), drugs alone (13%), and other (6%). In 26% of cases there was a CVC related complication as deemed by the advisors. The commonest CVC complication was either suspected (36%) or confirmed line infection (23%). Overall rate of proven CVC related sepsis was 6% (45/734), and suspected line infection 9.5% (70/734), excluding patients where there was insufficient data. Conclusion These results demonstrate a significant proportion of CVC use for purposes other than PN. Overall incidence of CVC-related sepsis in the literature varies widely from 1.3% to 26.2% of patients receiving PN.1 Use of a multilumen CVC is associated with the highest frequency of CVC-related sepsis.2 This is likely to reflect the high incidence of concurrent drug and fluid administration via a multilumen line as shown in this analysis. These results emphasise the importance of the ASPEN and BAPEN guidelines recommending single lumen CVCs for PN administration, a dedicated lumen in multilumen lines, and the avoidance of CVC use other than for PN where possible.


The first part of this thesis is dedicated to the study of the physics of the four-wave mixing (FWM) optical non-linearity in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). We focus our attention on the polarization properties of FWM and spectroscopic measurements of ultrafast carrier dynamics in these amplifiers. The second part presents investigations of FWM applications in the context of high-speed optical communication systems.

The detuning and polarization dependence of the third-order non-linear susceptibility is presented with a model based on the density matrix formalism. Experimental verifications of the model for the polarization properties of the four-wave mixing are presented using an alternating compressive and tensile strained multiquantum-well semiconductor optical amplifier. The polarization selection rules are then used for spectroscopic measurements of the carrier dynamics in quantum well SOAs. In particular, we present new techniques to measure the stimulated carrier lifetime, the inter quantum-well transport lifetime as well as the intrinsic escape and capture time constants for quantum wells. The capture lifetime is further studied in a separate experiment involving wavelength resolved spectroscopy.

We then demonstrate that strongly saturated and long SOAs (1.5 mm) are very effective wide span wavelength converters. We present bit error rate measurements for 30 nm wavelength down-conversion and 15 nm wavelength up-conversion at 10 Gb/s. We also present an application of the polarization selection rules to generate a polarization independent conversion at 2.5 Gb/s. Then, we introduce two different configurations where we use a lasing optical amplifier with a fiber Bragg grating to enhance the conversion efficiency and simplify the converter design. In the first case, we used the laser mode as pump wave and in the second case the lasing mode is injection locked to the FWM signal generated within the cavity. Finally, we present a new paradigm to perform wavelength encoded logic operations on a byte-wide WDM bus. Again, we use the polarization properties of the FWM to perform the logic operations.


Bone destruction is a hallmark of chronic inflammation, and bone-resorbing osteoclasts arising under such a condition differ from steady-state ones. However, osteoclast diversity remains poorly explored. Here, we combined transcriptomic profiling, differentiation assays and in vivo analysis in mouse to decipher specific traits for inflammatory and steady state osteoclasts. We identified and validated the pattern-recognition receptors (PRR) TLR2, Dectin-1 and Mincle, all involved in yeast recognition as major regulators of inflammatory osteoclasts. We showed that administration of the yeast probiotic Saccharomyces boulardi CNCM I-745 (Sb) in vivo reduced bone loss in OVX but not sham mice by reducing inflammatory osteoclasts. This beneficial impact of Sb is mediated by the regulation of the inflammatory environment required for the generation of inflammatory osteoclasts. We also showed that Sb derivatives as well as agonists of TLR2, Dectin-1 and Mincle specifically inhibited directly the differentiation of inflammatory but not steady state osteoclasts in vitro. These findings demonstrate a preferential use of the PRR-associated costimulatory differentiation pathway by inflammatory osteoclasts, thus enabling their specific inhibition, which opens new therapeutic perspectives for inflammatory bone loss.


Background: The adolescent's sexual activity tends to be unplanned and unprotected which might results in negative impact such as illegal pregnancy, STD and HIVIAIDS. The high risk of adolescent's STD and HIV/AIDS is the impact of their sexual behaviour and their lack of information or never obtain education and service about sexual and reproduction health. In relationship with this matter, adolescents need to be given sexual health education with an expectation that they wilt not perform unhealthy sexual rela-tionship. PKBI DIY has conducted this activity for high school students through Peer Education in Yogyakarta. Aim: This research was aimed to find out the influence of sexual health education toward knowledge and attitude of teenager in the prevention of HIV/AIDS transmission. It was conducted toward students who obtained sexual health education through Peer Education (as Peer Education) in 11 high schools in Yogyakarta. It was a quasi-experi-mental research with posttest only control group design that seeks for the influence of independent variable that was sexual health education toward dependent variable (knowl-edge and attitude of teenager in the prevention of HIV/AIDS transmission) and qualita-tive study in order to find out the benefit and effectiveness from sexual health educa-tion. Method: Data were gathered with structured questioner and Focus Group Discussion (FGD). Result: The result of t-test showed that sexual health education had significant influ-ence toward the improvement of adolescent's knowledge (p=0,000 or 0,05). Conclusion: Qualitative data that was obtained from FGD showed that Peer Education still not yet optimum, and there is a need of improvement on accurate and actual mate-rials, facilitators quality, education media, school's cooperation, communication tech-nique skill of Peer Educator and Peer Educator activity. Therefore, Peer Education ap-proach could be used as one alternative approach for prevention of HIV/AIDS transmis-sion. Keywords: sexual health education, Peer Education, HIV/AIDS


Different digestion technologies for various substrates are addressed by the generic process description of Anaerobic Digestion Model No. 1. In case of manure or agricultural wastes a priori knowledge about the substrate in terms of ADM1 compounds is lacking and influent characterisation becomes a major issue. The actual project has been initiated for promotion of biogas technology in agriculture and for expansion of profitability also to rather small capacity systems. In order to avoid costly individual planning and installation of each facility a standardised design approach needs to be elaborated. This intention pleads for bio kinetic modelling as a systematic tool for process design and optimisation. Cofermentation under field conditions was observed, quality data and flow data were recorded and mass flow balances were calculated. In the lab different substrates have been digested separately in parallel under specified conditions. A configuration of 4 ADM1 model reactors was set up. Model calibration identified disintegration rate, decay rates for sugar degraders and half saturation constant for sugar as the 3 most sensitive parameters showing values (except the latter) about one order of magnitude higher than default parameters. Finally the model is applied to the comparison of different reactor configurations and volume partitions. Another optimisation objective is robustness and load flexibility, i.e. the same configuration should be adaptive to different load situation only by a simple recycle control in order to establish a standardised design.


A potential approach to facilitate the performance of implanted hepatocytes is to enable their aggregation and re-expression of their differentiated function prior to implantation. Here we examined the behavior of freshly isolated rat adult hepatocytes seeded within a novel three-dimensional (3-D) scaffold based on alginate. The attractive features of this scaffold include a highly porous structure (sponge-like) with interconnecting pores, and pore sizes with diameters of 100-150 microm. Due to their hydrophilic nature, seeding hepatocytes onto the alginate sponges was efficient. DNA measurements showed that the total cell number within the sponges did not change over 2 weeks, indicating that hepatocytes do not proliferate under these culture conditions. Nearly all seeded cells maintained viability, according to the MTT assay. Within 24 h post-seeding, small clusters of viable cells, were seen scattered within the sponge. More than 90% of the seeded cells participated in the aggregation; the high efficiency is attributed to the non-adherent nature of alginate. The spheroids had smooth boundaries and by day 4 in culture reached an average diameter of 100 microm, which is at the same magnitude of the sponge pore size. The cells appeared to synthesize fibronectin which was deposited on the spheroids. No laminin or collagen type IV were detected in the deposit. The 3-D arrangement of hepatocytes within the alginate sponges promoted their functional expression; within a week the cells secreted the maximal albumin secretion rate of 60 microg albumin/10(6) cells/day. Urea secretion rate did not depend on cell aggregation and was similar to that obtained when hepatocytes were cultured on collagen type I coated dishes (100 microg/10(6) cells/day). Our studies show that alginate sponges can provide a conducive environment to facilitate the performance of cultured hepatocytes by enhancing their aggregation.


A comprehensive introduction to both urban and geographical economics: the two dominant approaches used to explain the distribution of economic activity across space. This fully revised and up-to-date third edition gives a full account of the ever-expanding body of knowledge and insights on urban and geographical economics, with an increased emphasis on analytical concepts and empirical methods, reflecting developments in the literature since the last edition. The authors provide both state-of-the-art theories and empirics, introducing new data, methods and models for this edition, including a whole chapter dedicated to measurement issues and empirical methods. Written in a style that is accessible to students who are new to the field, this textbook also includes more advanced concepts that will interest experienced researchers. Unrivalled in its scope and depth, this title is perfect for readers seeking to understand the uneven spatial distribution of economic activity between and within countries.


Numerous early modern revenge tragedies illustrate the protagonist's quest to memorialize a loved one who has been murdered. Although revenge tragedy has not always been thought of as serving this memorializing function, this essay will seek to explain the metatheatricality of three revenge tragedies through the psychoanalytic lens of Butler's theory of psychic mimesis. The theory of psychic mimesis is, at its core, about the preservation of memory and the construction of new identity after a loss. However, this theory fails to acknowledge the grieving process for the loss of someone through violent means. Death through murder requires those left behind, not only to internalize the memory of the victim, but also to externalize the memory of the crime done. My work offers a new perspective both for the psychoanalytic theory of psychic mimesis as well as for the literary analysis of early modern revenge tragedies. AND In Twelfth Night, characters like Maria and Sir Toby understand the power of verbal violence, and they utilize it to inflict pain on others. Through their use of animal and hunting metaphors in the play, these characters position themselves as predators and their victims as prey. These juxtapositions along with their sporty diction make their cruel behavior seem comical, because they are ridiculing characters who deserve it, or at least that is what the audience is meant to think. I will argue that the continual appearance of the hunting metaphors in Twelfth Night enables Maria and her friends-- the predators—to behave cruelly toward Malvolio and Sir Andrew Aguecheek-- the prey-- because of their class-jumping ambitions, something that the tradition of the hunt facilitates, but ultimately prohibits. Furthermore, these metaphors create a paradox in the play, where some characters are rewarded for their lofty ambitions while others are punished.


BACKGROUND
Solid organ transplant recipients (SOTRs) are at increased risk for both skin and internal malignancies (IM). The risk of IM after the occurrence of non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) has been studied in the general population but very little is known about this association in SOTRs.

OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the risk of IM following a prior diagnosis of post transplantation NMSC in SOTRs.

METHODS
This single center retrospective cohort study included a study population of 329 SOTRs from Rabin Medical Center who had a post-transplant diagnosis of skin malignancy, internal malignancy, or both from 2012 to 2018.

RESULTS
In total, 135 (41.03%) SOTRs were diagnosed with IM without a preceding diagnosis of NMSC while only 42 (12.76%) patients diagnosed with IM had a preceding diagnosis of NMSC. SOTRs with a diagnosis of NMSC showed a significantly decreased risk of developing subsequent IM (hazard ratio [HR] 0.64, 95% confidence interval [95%CI] 0.44-0.94, P = 0.02) compared to those without a prior NMSC diagnosis. Liver and lung transplant patients showed a significantly decreased risk of developing subsequent IM after a diagnosis of NMSC (HR 0.09 and 0.43, respectively). When stratified by type of IM, only patients who were diagnosed with a hematological malignancy had a significantly lower risk of developing this malignancy if they had a prior NMSC (HR 0.26).

CONCLUSIONS
The findings of this study suggest a protective effect of NMSC on subsequent IM in the organ transplant population.


Crowdsourcing, which leverages the collective expertise and resources of (mainly online) communities to achieve specified objectives, today figures prominently in a broad array of realms, including business, human rights, and medical and scientific research. It also now plays a significant role in governmental crime control efforts. Web and forensic–genetic sleuths, armchair detectives, and the like are collecting and analyzing evidence and identifying criminal suspects, at the behest of and with varying degrees of assistance from police officials.

Unfortunately, as with so many other aspects of modern society, current criminal procedure doctrine is ill-equipped to address this development. In particular, for decades it has been accepted that the Fourth Amendment only limits searches and seizures undertaken by public law enforcement, not private actors. Crowdsourcing, however, presents considerable taxonomic difficulty for existing doctrine, making the already often permeable line between public and private behavior considerably more so. Moreover, although crowdsourcing promises considerable benefit as an investigative force multiplier for police, it poses risks, including misidentification of suspects, violation of privacy, a diminution of governmental transparency and democratic accountability, and the fostering of a mutual social suspicion that is inimical to civil society.

Despite its importance, government use of crowdsourcing to achieve crime control goals has not yet been examined by legal scholars. Like the internet on which it predominantly relies, crowdsourcing is not going away; if anything, it will proliferate in coming years. The challenge lies in harnessing its potential, while protecting against the significant harms that will accrue should it go unregulated. This Essay describes the phenomenon and provides a framework for its regulation, in the hope of ensuring that the wisdom of the crowd does not become the tyranny of the crowd.


The full-understanding of the dynamics of molecular systems at the atomic scale is of great relevance in the fields of chemistry, physics, materials science, and drug discovery just to name a few. Molecular dynamics (MD) is a widely used computer tool for simulating the dynamical behavior of molecules. However, the computational horsepower required by MD simulations is too high to obtain conclusive results in real-world scenarios. This is mainly motivated by two factors: (1) the long execution time required by each MD simulation (usually in the nanoseconds and microseconds scale, and beyond) and (2) the large number of simulations required in drug discovery to study the interactions between a large library of compounds and a given protein target. To deal with the former, graphics processing units (GPUs) have come up into the scene. The latter has been traditionally approached by launching large amounts of simulations in computing clusters that may contain several GPUs on each node. However, GPUs are targeted as a single node that only runs one MD instance at a time, which translates into low GPU occupancy ratios and therefore low throughput. In this work, we propose a strategy to increase the overall throughput of MD simulations by increasing the GPU occupancy through virtualized GPUs. We use the remote CUDA (rCUDA) middleware as a tool to decouple GPUs from CPUs, and thus enabling multi-tenancy of the virtual GPUs. As a working test in the drug discovery field, we studied the binding process of a novel flavonol to DNA with the GROningen MAchine for Chemical Simulations (GROMACS) MD package. Our results show that the use of rCUDA provides with a 1.21× speed-up factor compared to the CUDA counterpart version while requiring a similar power budget.


Early vision is the process occurring before any semantic interpretation of an image takes place. Motion estimation, object segmentation and detection are all parts of early vision, but recognition is not. Some models in early vision are easy to perform inference with---they are tractable. Others describe the reality well---they have high fidelity. This thesis improves the tractability-fidelity trade-off of the current state of the art by introducing new discrete methods for image segmentation and other problems of early vision. The first part studies pseudo-boolean optimization, both from a theoretical perspective as well as a practical one by introducing new algorithms. The main result is the generalization of the roof duality concept to polynomials of higher degree than two. Another focus is parallelization; discrete optimization methods for multi-core processors, computer clusters, and graphical processing units are presented. Remaining in an image segmentation context, the second part studies parametric problems where a set of model parameters and a segmentation are estimated simultaneously. For a small number of parameters these problems can still be optimally solved. One application is an optimal method for solving the two-phase Mumford-Shah functional. The third part shifts the focus to curvature regularization---where the commonly used length and area penalization is replaced by curvature in two and three dimensions. These problems can be discretized over a mesh and special attention is given to the mesh geometry. Specifically, hexagonal meshes in the plane are compared to square ones and a method for generating adaptive meshes is introduced and evaluated. The framework is then extended to curvature regularization of surfaces. Finally, the thesis is concluded by three applications to early vision problems: cardiac MRI segmentation, image registration, and cell classification. (Less)


Introduction: Lecture is an important method of instruction through which the undergraduate medical students acquire knowledge, experience, skill and attitude. There are however, serious questions regarding the effectiveness of the traditional lecture approach. Yet, it is agreed upon that this can be more effective by making this approach methodical and more interactive. Objectives: This study was conducted to assess medical teachers' skills in instructional events in their lecture classes. Materials and Methods: A descriptive, crosssectional study was conducted from July 2013 to June 2014 at conveniently selected six medical colleges of the country. At those selected institutions 30 lecture classes were observed and views of 1500 students were collected. A checklist with rating scale having rubric was used by the researchers to record the necessary observations while attending the lectures covering 8 instructional events. Out of 30 lecture classes, 13 were of preclinical subjects and 17 were of paraclinical area. Views of 1500 students were collected on a self administered structured questionnaire just after attending observed classes, covering 11 areas of performance. Out of them 732 were preclinical students and 768 were paraclinical students. Results: In this study, majority of the respondents (67%) agreed that the teachers successfully gained attention. In mentioning objective, the observer marked more than half (53.3%) of the teachers as unsatisfactory. The mean score of observer's opinion in mentioning objective was 0.97±1.35. More than one fourth (23.55%) of the student respondents did not agree that the teachers stimulated prior knowledge in the lecture class. More than one fourth (26.15%) of the respondents did not agree that necessary feedback were taken by the teachers. Forty two percent of the respondents did not agree that the teachers provided a good summary at the end. More than one fourth of the respondents (26.85%) did not agree that the lecture was interesting. In this study, some of the key performances of the teachers like mentioning objective of the lesson, providing summary, legibility of teaching aids were scored less than 2, indicating that those were the problem areas and should be emphasized more. In this regards, continued medical education/continued professional developmental program of medical colleges should be valued and exercised properly. Conclusion: Effectiveness of a lecture largely depends on the knowledge of the teachers in teaching methodologies, their individual skills in presentation and their ability in classroom management. This study revealed that the teachers of medical colleges had been missing some important characteristics of effective lecture. Journal of Armed Forces Medical College Bangladesh Vol.11(1) 2015: 19-24


In recent years there has been an increase in the number of students wanting to record lectures. Two factors have contributed to this. Firstly, there is wide availability of compact, solid state recorders, and recorders are often incorporated into other goods (MP3 players, mobile phones, cameras, laptops). Secondly, within many universities facilities have been provided by student support services for students with a special need to record lectures. However, the recording of lectures presents a number of issues related to ownership, data protection, potential misuse, and the pedagogic issue of ensuring equal treatment for all students. University recording policies address some of these issues, but the individual academic also needs to reflect on the consequences for their teaching. A trial has been carried out offering streamed recordings of lectures, and the merits of streaming and downloading are discussed. A survey was made on the usage by students and their reasons for accessing the recordings, and these are reported. There have been a number of advantages to students as well as to the lecturer which have required relatively little extra burden on the lecturer. One important initial conclusion appears to be the need to incorporate recordings as part of the teaching material in the initial pedagogic design rather than an addition. For some students the recordings have proved a valuable additional resource and feedback from students has been positive.


Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Transformers are two popular neural architectures used for natural language processing tasks. Theoretical results show that both are Turing-complete and can represent any context-free language (CFL).In practice, it is often observed that Transformer models have better representation power than LSTM. But the reason is barely understood. We study such practical differences between LSTM and Transformer and propose an explanation based on their latent space decomposition patterns. To achieve this goal, we introduce an oracle training paradigm, which forces the decomposition of the latent representation of LSTMand the Transformer and supervises with the transitions of the Pushdown Automaton (PDA) of the corresponding CFL. With the forced decomposition, we show that the performance upper bounds of LSTM and Transformer in learning CFL are close: both of them can simulate a stack and perform stack operation along with state transitions. However, the absence of forced decomposition leads to the failure of LSTM models to capture the stack and stack operations, while having a marginal impact on the Transformer model. Lastly, we connect the experiment on the prototypical PDA to a real-world parsing task to re-verify the conclusions


Within the framework of European food safety measures, Reg. 1760/2000 and 1825/2000 have introduced mandatory traceability and relevant labelling into the beef sector. The paper analyses whether information on meat labels can be considered a useful instrument for consumers, facilitating the verification of quality. The purpose of the paper is, first, to evaluate whether meat information is used during food purchase, and secondly, by focussing on specific meat information, to assess consumer interest in some mandatory and voluntary information cues and to identify the determinants affecting the use of such cues. Data were collected by a telephone questionnaire in a survey conducted in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. The sample consisted of 1,025 consumers. We estimated 4 models based on the literature, and for all the equations we used a binary logit model. The analysis revealed that most consumers tend to use the meat label and also most of the mandatory and voluntary information reported. With regard to mandatory meat labelling, the most important information was considered to be the country of animal origin, in accordance with other empirical studies. With regard to voluntary information, some, like the system of cattle breeding and cattle feeding, seems to be of interest to the Italian consumer. The empirical analysis suggests two different consumer types. The consumers who declare they use meat labels tend to be young people, of female gender, with a low income, and who use the media as their principal source of information. These consumers could have a lot of time available for food purchasing and probably the possibility of reading most of the information reported on the food label, even if they do not have the capacity to process all the information. On the other hand, those consumers who read specific labelled information tend to have a good level of food knowledge or education and weight problems. This second type of consumer probably does not have much time for food purchasing and they select only that information in which they are mostly interested. Moreover, the analysis reveals that consumers tend to read only information that is quickly understood, and that can help them to evaluate the quality of meat products.


Current Opinion in Nephrology and Hypertension 2008, 17:127–132 Purpose of review The paucity of early, predictive, noninvasive biomarkers has impaired our ability to institute potentially effective therapies for acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease in a timely manner. Recent findings Promising novel biomarkers for acute kidney injury include a plasma panel (neutrophi gelatinase-associated lipocalin and cystatin C) and a urine panel (neutrophil gelatinase associated lipocalin, interleukin-18, and kidney injury molecule-1). For chronic kidney disease, these include a similar plasma panel and a urine panel (neutrophil gelatinase associated lipocalin, asymetric dimethylarginine, and liver-type fatty acid-binding protein). The biomarker panels will probably be useful for assessing the duration and severity of kidney disease, and for predicting progression and adverse clinical outcomes. It is also likely that the biomarker panels will help to distinguish between the various etiologies of acute kidney injury or chronic kidney disease. Summary The tools of functional genomics and proteomics have provided us with promising nove biomarkers for acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease. It will be important in future studies to validate the sensitivity and specificity of these biomarker panels in clinical samplesfromlargecohortsand inmultipleclinicalsituations.Suchstudieswillbefacilitated by the availability of commercial tools for reproducible measurement of these panels.