The main objective of this study is to determine the income and financial risks of freshwater aquaculture, especially tilapia. The study was conducted in Seginim, South Bengkulu, with consideration that Seginim is an area of aquaculture centers in South Bengkulu. Samples have been taken as many as 50 tilapia farmers. Data analysis was using quantitative and qualitative models. Approach starts from the calculation of operating cost, revenue, and income, and then the study of risk analysis approached by variance analysis. The results show that the income of freshwater fish farming, tilapia in particular, is Rp 59,512,743.75 per period of production per farming unit, and the level of business risk is quite high with the number of CV more than 50% (>0,5) and it has opportunity losing of income as much as minus Rp 7,127,386.37 per period of production. Keywords : Aquaculture, Freshwater Fish, Income, and Risk


Al2O3 nanoparticles were used for fabrication of multilayer nanocomposite film deposition on cationic denim fabrics by electrostatic self-assembly to improve the mechanical properties. Denim fabrics were pre-treated with 2,3-epoxypropyltrimethylammonium chloride (EP3MAC) by a pad-batch method for cationic surface charge. Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy were used to verify the presence of deposit nanolayers. CIELab analysis was performed on the fabrics before and after the treatment with Al2O3 nanoparticles by the layer-by-layer (LbL) deposition method. After aging processes, the effect of LbL deposition method on the tensile strength properties of denim fabrics was also investigated.


This study aims to investigate and highlight the factors significant in cultivating satisfaction regarding jobs among the employees of a leading public sector university in Islamabad (termed PSU henceforth). For this purpose salary, stress /burnout, and relationship with supervisors have been taken as key factors to gauge the contentment level of employees and how they can be motivated to complete their tasks effectively and efficiently.  Based on quantitative research methods, the data was primarily collected through a self-administered adapted survey questionnaire. The target population included teachers of the Social Science Department of PSU. Stratified sampling was done randomly to collect data from seven departments of the faculty of Social Sciences. Fifty questionnaires were distributed among these seven Social Science departments. SPSS and Cronbach's alpha was used to analyze the data while the latter was utilized to infer the results too. The findings of the current study provide valuable insight into the factors that lead to job satisfaction. Moreover, results show a positive influence on job satisfaction concerning higher management. Regarding stress, the findings reveal that employees were somewhat not happy with the work stress and the same results were deduced for salary. The results postulate salary, stress, and relationship with higher management as intertwined and as having a significant impact on job satisfaction. This article may benefit society and organizations in creating awareness about the importance of productive employees. The research suggests that a satisfied employee is motivated to achieve the organizational goals and objectives, thus, contributes positively to the productivity of the organization.


This article frames the intersection of the emerging fields of internationalizing teacher education (ITE) and international schooling (IS) and presents findings of a qualitative study that draws on interviews with international school recruiters to explore teacher qualities valuable for thriving in international school settings. Beyond general characteristics of good teachers, recruiters note the importance of adaptability to living and working in a foreign setting, cultural-sensitivity, and, especially, pedagogical flexibility. Additionally, recruiters discussed the significance of "fit" between the teacher and the school (and school community) as playing a role. Fit overlaps with adaptability, cultural sensitivity and pedagogical flexibility but also introduces more school-specific, subjective (and potentially parochial) factors for "fitting in." Implications for teacher education are discussed, particularly on the importance of fostering teachers' pedagogical flexibility.


The acetyl-CoA carboxylase isoform ACC2 expressed in the liver generates malonyl-CoA, which primarily regulates fatty acid oxidation through inhibition of the mitochondrial carrier carnitine palmitoyl-CoA transferase-I. Activity is initiated by sterol regulatory element-binding protein-1 (SREBP-1) binding to steroid response elements SRE in ACACB gene promoter P-II. We proposed that sequence variation in the promoter might affect expression. We investigated the effect of a single-nucleotide polymorphism -368 C/T (rs16939972) in ACACB P-II on activity in transfected HepG2 hepatoma cells. The T-allele construct showed significantly lower activity than the C-allele (p = 0.016) but only in the presence of SREBP-1a overexpression. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays showed that HepG2 nuclear proteins bound specifically to both allele probes, but with higher affinity to the T-allele. We tested competition for nuclear protein binding between the T-allele probe and unlabeled probes containing consensus sequences for six candidate transcription factors plus SREBP-1a. The SREBP-1a competitor probe had no effect on the shifted complex. GATA, c-Myb, and GR competitor probes abolished the complex; however, these proteins were undetectable in mass spectrometry of gel extracts from shifted bands. In conclusion, the -368 C/T single-nucleotide polymorphism in ACACB P-II binds HepG2 nuclear proteins that affect promoter activity in an allele-specific fashion.


The research aim was to determine the course outline and study of relationship between conpetency program and Mold & Die occupation. The research tools used to collect the data were questionnaires and focus groups. The sampling group was chosen by purposive random sampling, which included experts related to the development of personnel in the molding industry. Results for this is that the course competencies are defined by the enterprises themselves to be divided into three levels of personnel: operators, experts and management. Role of performance standards can be devided for operating level out of 6 role include skill drawing mechanical works, mechanical works, material, english in industry, math in industry and safety in industry. An analysis of competency courses, by Delphi technique, found that experts, educational institute representatives, related mold personnel development institute representatives and enterprise representatives agreed both times. The difference was that it was higher for the second time although most medians were at 'agree-the-most' level. And average correlation is high. Relationship every competence has significant at .01.


During 2001, market measures of Argentina's 'country-risk' soared, the economy contracted, and the government collapsed. Over the first half of 2002, Uruguay followed Argentina into an economic and financial tail-spin, and Brazil encountered financing problems that endangered government solvency. Each of these phenomena was associated with disruptions to international capital flows.Increasingly, capital flows rather than current account features have determined the balance of payments for peripheral countries. For the most part, capital flows have meant portfolio flows, and for this reason perceptions of country-risk on the part of financial markets – loosely referred to here as Wall Street – are all important. An accurate measure of Wall Street's perceptions of country-risk can be found in sovereign spread levels – the difference in yield between dollar-denominated obligations of a peripheral government and US Treasury bonds. Extensive use will be made of this indicator to gauge not only the perceptions, but also the influence of Wall Street on the course of the debt crises.Overseeing international financial events have been Washington-based institutions. In the short run, the US Treasury, acting through the US Federal Reserve Board, sometimes the New York Federal Reserve Bank, and the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), has taken the lead in crisis-prevention and resolution for countries with a strategic importance to the United States. The institution overseeing arrangements for restoring normality has generally been the International Monetary Fund (IMF), either acting independently or with the guidance of the US Treasury and other OECD countries. The World Bank (IBRD) and organisations such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) play peripheral roles, typically as conduits for funds. These institutions each have separate, sometimes conflicting mandates, but uniting them is the goal of a smooth functioning international financial system: countries should not be allowed to become bankrupt because of problems in the system; conversely, moral hazard issues should prevent Washington from bailing- out countries guilty of economic malfeasance. Given the task of balancing these considerations, Washington's perceptions of domestic culpability for a crisis are critical.Rather than solely reflecting domestic policy errors and exogenous shocks, it will be argued that these disruptions had endogenous characteristics: feedback loops developed in which each iteration of the vicious cycle reinforced the first. These self-fulfilling cycles, facilitated by Wall Street's perception of country-risk, continued in the direction of their momentum until, for reasons to be analysed, Washington institutions intervened to stop them.Section two offers an historical context into which these crises fit. In section three, a short technical framework is presented, providing the conditions for stable long-term capital flows. In section four, competing explanations for the crises are then examined and found inadequate: the budgetary position of each of the countries is studied; both changes to the terms-of-trade and the degree to which capital flows were disrupted by the Russian default are explored; the impact of domestic politics on the crises is discussed.In all of these sections a circularity between the perceptions of Wall Street and Washington and domestic economic and political dynamics can be found. This recurrent theme is brought into focus in sections five, six and seven.Section five considers the developments in currency and financial system crisis theory over the last twenty-five years, and applicable aspects of financial crisis models are then applied to each of the countries under consideration. Within this framework an argument is made that each of the crises had self-fulfilling characteristics, fueled by market pessimism.Section six addresses the question as to why, if each crisis was endogenously defined, each crisis did not end in financial collapse. In answering this question, the relationship between official credit and the market is examined, and it is suggested that large-scale lightly-conditioned provision of official credit in the case of Uruguay, and the not insubstantial provision of strategically-conditioned credit to Brazil had a determining influence upon the sustainability of these countries' debt and subsequent terms of market access. Conversely, it is argued that the IMF exercised its negative catalytic power in relation to this country, sealing its fate.Section seven examines the factors that determined differential treatment between Argentina and Uruguay, finding not only that Uruguay benefited from special treatment on account of its small size and friends in high places, but also that Argentina was poorly treated, much of this treatment being explained by internal management change at the Fund.In conclusion, doubt is thrown over the concept of fundamental-driven economic equilibrium: the financial equivalent to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is at work and it is not possible for markets to look at a country's fundamentals without changing them. Economic and political instability, and perceptions of fragility are shown to be mutually constitutive in the absence of positive exogenous shocks.


A vast number of persistent organic pollutants have been found in wastewater effluent, surface water, and drinking water around the world. This indicates their ineffective removal from water and wastewater using conventional treatment technologies. In addition to classical persistent organics such as organochlorine insecticides, solvents, and polychlorinated biphenyls, a growing number of emerging pollutants of both synthetic and natural origins have been identified as major environmental pollutants in recent years. A variety of advanced and conventional treatment options have been suggested for the removal and/or destruction of these persistent organics in water and wastewater, such as chemical oxidation, activated carbon adsorption, and membrane filtration. Of these options, chemical oxidation using ozone, alone or in combination with additional physical/chemical agents (i.e., advanced oxidation), has been proved a highly effective treatment process for a wide spectrum of emerging aqueous organic pollutants, including pesticides, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, surfactants, microbial toxins, and natural fatty acids. In this paper, we discuss the emerging organic pollutants of concern in the aquatic environment and focus on the issues associated with their removal using ozonation and advanced oxidation processes.


Influence of the RF noise in automotive 12-volts power distribution network and its impact on electronic control unit is investigated. A magnetic near-field scanner is used to inspect the penetration of the injected RF currents on an automotive module. Spectral and spatial scans are useful in investigation of the power distribution robustness. It is anticipated that spatial view of conducted RF currents in a printed circuit board can result into design practices that enhances the EMI robustness of a product and its functional quality.


Abstract To our knowledge, this is the first work on the influence of species upon the bioactive molecules, antioxidant properties, and enzyme inhibitory capacities against tyrosinase and α-amylase of Onosma polyantha and O. mollis. The levels of phenolic compounds were from 6.55 to 10.37 mg gallic acid equivalent/g extract. The concentrations of total flavonoids varied from 2.71 to 10.78 mg quercetin equivalent/g extract. Twenty-five compounds were quantified via liquid chromatography – electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS). Significant differences were found between the two species. Chlorogenic acid, rosmarinic acid, hesperidin, and luteolin 7-glucoside were the major compounds in both species. Four antioxidant assays together with two enzyme tests confirmed that O. polyantha and O. mollis extracts exhibited remarkable antioxidant and enzyme inhibitory capacities. Statistical analyses confirmed that the biological activities depend on the synergism between phenolic compounds and radicals. The results proposed O. polyantha and O. mollis species as potential sources of bioactive compounds for industrial application.


Summary Although Visual Programming Language (VPL) is made easy by using iconic and graphic mode, designing test cases for the program is still a tedious and meticulous work. Recent developments in the field of test case designs have led to a renewed interest in using requirement specification, design specification, complex technique (i.e. Z) and third-party tools; but there are only for non visual programming. One concern regarding to this method is that the information supplied by user in designing test case would be less accurate and thus affected the test suite produced. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore the creation of VPL data representation for the test case generation using Extensible Markup Language (XML). Validation and verification of the language created is done by comparing test cases from five VPL programs that are converted into the proposed language with manually-designed test cases. It can be concluded that the test case markup language created in this study is able to create test cases for VPL. This proves that the proposed language able to bridge the gap in test case creation for VPL and thus simplifies the information carried by VPL.


Coated conductors are subjected to short-circuit currents 10 to 30 times greater than the operating current in the use of superconducting power cables. The Ic and thickness of the stabilizer are considered to be nonuniformly distributed in the real manufacturing process. Thus, the coated conductor may be damaged locally by the hot spot due to the overcurrent. Therefore, it is important to clarify the local degradation characteristics of the coated conductor and determine its tolerance against the fault current in the actual operation. In a previous study, overcurrent experiments and numerical simulations on thermal stress-strain were carried out on a coated conductor with a nonuniformly distributed Ic. In this study, two samples with nonuniformly distributed copper plating thickness were tested. Numerical simulations based on the finite element method were performed to simulate the temperature and thermal stress-strain distribution caused by the overcurrent. The nonuniform thickness of the copper plating and the longitudinal length of the nonuniform area were considered as the simulation parameters.


The soluble nuclear pore component XPO1 is a therapeutic target in DLBCL and its selective inhibitor selinexor received FDA approval in relapsed/refractory DLBCL. XPO1 inhibitors block the nuclear export of a subset of cargo proteins. Since the spectrum of XPO1 cargos varies among cell types, the mechanism underlying the anti-lymphoma effect of selinexor has not been fully elucidated. Lack of this knowledge hampers the clinical use of XPO1 inhibitors in terms of patient selection and development of rational therapeutic combinations.
 We reported that XPO1 is amplified and overexpressed in DLBCL. At the molecular level, we described that XPO1 overexpression functionally remodels the nuclear pore to sustain the expression of DNA damage repair proteins increasing lymphoma cells' tolerance to genotoxic stress. Here, we investigated whether this XPO1 role is relevant for the anti-lymphoma effect of selinexor. Aberrant MYC expression induces DNA damage resulting from replication stress; thus, we speculated that selinexor kills MYC expressing (MYC+) DLBCL cells by limiting their ability to tolerate replication stress. Using B-cells expressing MYC in an inducible manner, we demonstrated that exposure to selinexor (6 h) caused G2-M cell cycle arrest upon MYC expression (p<0.0001, vs. vehicle-treated cells). Cell cycle arrest was associated with increased levels of DNA damage in S-phase as measured by yH2AX (p<0.0001). Furthermore, although MYC increased the expression of key replication stress repair proteins (i.e. RAD51, WEE and BRCA1), this effect was blunted by selinexor. To determine the clinical relevance of this mechanism, we interrogated publicly available datasets of DLBCLs and found that XPO1 amplification and overexpression was associated with MYC translocation (p<0.005), double-hit lymphoma signature (p<0.005), and elevated levels of chromosomal instability (p<0.005). Overall, these observations suggest that MYC-driven lymphomas sustaining high levels of genomic instability may critically depend on XPO1.
 To therapeutically capitalized this mechanism, we evaluated the effect of selinexor on MYC+ DLBCLs. Clinically achievable doses of selinexor induced cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in 83% (5/6) of cell lines investigated in vitro. In a patient-derived xenograft (PDX) MYC+ DLBCL model, a human-equivalent dose of selinexor impaired tumor growth (p< 0.05, vs. vehicle) without significant toxicities. Reduced tumor growth was secondary to apoptosis as determined by TUNEL (p<0.05). To characterize the biological effects of XPO1 inhibition, we compared the transcriptome of PDX from the previous experiment. Pathway analysis of differentially expressed genes revealed that selinexor induced pathways regulating innate immune signaling. The upregulation of key genes from this pathway (i.e. DDX58, DDX60, IRF7 and STAT1) was validated by qRT-PCR. Since unrepaired DNA damage elicits an innate immune response, we hypothesized that these effects could be mechanistically linked. To test this notion, we exposed MYC+ DLBCL cells to sub-lethal doses of the DNA damaging agent etoposide, selinexor, or their combination. Expression of innate immune genes was significantly higher in cells exposed to the combination compared to either drug alone (p<0.001, for both comparisons), indicating that selinexor increases the immunogenicity of MYC+ DLBCL cells and this effect is enhanced by concomitant replication stress. Furthermore, by analyzing primary DLBCLs we found that poorly immunogenic lymphomas, characterized by an immune deserted microenvironment, expressed higher levels of XPO1 and MYC compared to DLBCL with an immune rich microenvironment (P<0.001, for both genes). To determine a potential effect of selinexor in the function of immune effector cells, we performed single cells secretomic analysis (Isolight) of circulating CD8+ T cells obtained from two DLBCL patients before and after selinexor treatment and found that selinexor increases the secretory activity of CD8+ T cells in both patients.
 Overall, our study reveals a key oncogenic role for XPO1 in enabling DLBCL cells to tolerate MYC-induced replication stress while limiting their immunogenicity. This suggest that patients with MYC+ DLBCL and elevated genomic instability may benefit from therapeutic approaches based on XPO1 inhibitors in combination with immunomodulatory drugs, an approach we will test prospectively.

 Rutherford: AstraZeneca: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy; Dova: Consultancy; Genentech/Roche: Research Funding; Heron: Consultancy; Juno: Consultancy; Karyopharm: Consultancy, Research Funding; Kite: Consultancy; LAM Therapeutics: Research Funding; Regeneron: Research Funding; Seattle Genetics: Consultancy. Martin:Regeneron: Consultancy; Cellectar: Consultancy; Janssen: Consultancy; Karyopharm: Consultancy, Research Funding; Teneobio: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy; Bayer: Consultancy; Beigene: Consultancy; Sandoz: Consultancy; I-MAB: Consultancy; Morphosys: Consultancy; Kite: Consultancy; Incyte: Consultancy. Leonard:Miltenyi: Consultancy; Sutro: Consultancy; Roche/Genentech: Consultancy; BMS/Celgene: Consultancy; Regeneron: Consultancy; ADC Therapeutics: Consultancy; MEI Pharma: Consultancy; Bayer: Consultancy; Gilead/Kite: Consultancy; Karyopharm: Consultancy; GenMab: Consultancy; Epizyme: Consultancy; AstraZeneca: Consultancy. Cerchietti:Cellgene: Research Funding; Bristol Myers Squibb: Research Funding.


OBJECTIVE
In this study, we aimed to investigate whether there is a fast decay in the iconic memory of patients with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) compared to healthy individuals by taking into consideration the clinical OCD subtypes.

METHOD
The study included 74 patients diagnosed with OCD on the basis of the DSM 5 criteria and 63 healthy individuals. The OCD patients were grouped as washers, checkers, both washers and checkers, and non-washers and non-checkers. All participants took a partial report test (PRT) to compare iconic memory performance between the healthy control group and the OCD group as a whole and in OCD subgroups.

RESULTS
Loss of iconic memory did not differ between OCD group and the controls. The iconic memory scores, expressed as the d' values, at specified time points correlated negatively with age and positively with education duration in all groups. When the subgroup data were analyzed by controlling for age, the d1'value showing formation of iconic information was lower in the washers subgroup in comparison to the checkers subgroup and the nonwashers and non-checkers subgroup. The d7' value was also lower in the washers subgroup than in the the non-washers and non-checkers subgroup and the healthy control group. The iconic decay rate of the washers subgroup between the time points d6' and d7' was significantly higher in comparison to the healthy control group. The scores of OCD patients on the washing subscale of the Maudsley Obsessive Compulsive Inventory (MOCI) showed negative correlations with the iconic memory scores at all time points.

CONCLUSION
This study showed that washer OCD patients may have impaired iconic formation and fast iconic decay, which could significantly affect the amount of information transferred to visual memory.


End-stage congenital heart disease (CHD) is an important indication for pediatric heart transplantation (HTx) as well as transplantation in adult populations. The purpose of this retrospective analysis was to compare the survival rate of adults who underwent HTx for end-stage CHD with those who underwent HTx for other causes. To find out whether HTx is a viable therapeutic option for adult patients with preoperated CHD, data from 15 adult patients with different forms of CHD, who had previously undergone different corrective and palliative procedures, were retrospectively analyzed and compared with the HTx data of 1400 adult patients (>15 years old) whose indications for HTx were other than end-stage CHD. From 1989 to 2005, 15 adult patients (eight men/seven women) were given transplantation for end-stage CHD. Ten patients had been preoperated once, five patients twice. Their mean age was 34.06 ± 3.9 years. In five cases, patients had development of acute renal failure. One female patient died 40 days after surgery, after having a cerebral infarction; one male patient died 4 years after HTx for OKT 3 monoclonal antibody–resistant rejection; and two patients died as the result of multiple organ failure at 4 days and 30 days after HTx, respectively; 11 patients are still alive. The cumulative survival rate at 1 year is 80% versus 80% in patients given transplantation for noncongenital indications. Heart transplantation in adults with end-stage CHD can be performed with a good long-term prognosis. Previous palliative operations do not affect outcome after HTx.


In concert with other phytohormones, auxin regulates plant growth and development. However, how auxin and other phytohormones coordinately regulate distinct processes is not fully understood. In this work, we uncover an auxin - abscisic acid (ABA) interaction module that is specific to coordinating activities of these hormones in the hypocotyl. From our forward genetics screen, we determine that ABA biosynthesis is required for the full effects of auxin on hypocotyl elongation. Our data also suggest that ABA biosynthesis is not required for the inhibitory effects of auxin treatment on root elongation. Our transcriptome analysis identified distinct auxin-responsive genes in root and shoot tissues, consistent with differential regulation of the growth in these tissues. Further, our data suggests that many gene targets repressed upon auxin treatment require an intact ABA pathway for full repression. Our results support a model in which auxin stimulates ABA biosynthesis to fully regulate hypocotyl elongation.


During annealing of cold rolled steel sheets, the evolution of the texture, to produce the characteristic texture of a recrystallised material, depends on a series of factors, including the starting deformation texture, composition and processing conditions. In the present work, electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) techniques have been used to investigate the deformation substructures being developed by cold rolling into grains belonging to different texture components. The strain localisation, the deformation banding, the spread in orientation into grains with different orientations are some of the aspects that have been considered. Annealing cycles at different temperatures have also been carried out in order to promote recovery and initial stages of recrystallisation . The obtained substructures have been compared to the as-cold rolled ones. It has been observed that recovery induces the dislocation structures to arrange into subgrains. Associated to the ND fibre, a network of relatively high angle boundaries develop within the subgrain structure. The recrystallisation nuclei have been observed to evolve from such a network.


Recent research efforts in the area of future networks indicate Information-Centric Networking (ICN) as the dominant architecture for the Future Internet. The main promise of ICN is that of shifting the communication paradigm of the internetworking layer from machine endpoints to information access and delivery. Optimized content dissemination and efficient caching of information is key to delivering on this promise. Moreover, current trends in management of future networks adopt a more distributed autonomic management architecture where management intelligence is placed inside the network with respect to traditional off-line external management systems. In this paper, we present an autonomic cache management approach for ICNs, where distributed managers residing in cache-enabled nodes decide on which items to cache. We propose three online cache management algorithms with different level of autonomicity and compare them with respect to performance, complexity, execution time and message exchange overhead. Our extensive simulation-based experimentation signifies the importance of network wide knowledge and cooperation.


Aims. To develop a fully Bayesian least squares deconvolution (LSD) that can be applied to the reliable detection of magnetic signals in noise-limited stellar spectropolarimetric observations using multiline techniques. Methods. We consider LSD under the Bayesian framework and we introduce a flexible Gaussian Process (GP) prior for the LSD profile. This prior allows the result to automatically adapt to the presence of signal. We exploit several linear algebra identities to accelerate the calculations. The final algorithm can deal with thousands of spectral lines in a few seconds. Results. We demonstrate the reliability of the method with synthetic experiments and we apply it to real spectropolarimetric observations of magnetic stars. We are able to recover the magnetic signals using a small number of spectral lines, together with the uncertainty at each velocity bin. This allows the user to consider if the detected signal is reliable. The code to compute the Bayesian LSD profile is freely available.


The mere co-presence of another person synchronizes physiological signals, but no study has systematically investigated effects of type of emotional context and type of relationship in eliciting dyadic physiological synchrony. In this study, we investigated the synchrony of pairs of strangers, companions, and romantic partners while watching a series of video clips designed to elicit different emotions. Maximal cross-correlation of heart rate variability (HRV) was used to quantify dyadic synchrony. The findings suggest that an existing social relationship might reduce the predisposition to conform one's autonomic responses to a friend or romantic partner during social situations that do not require direct interaction.


The line-focus-beam ultrasonic material characterization (LFB-UMC) system can measure the phase velocity of leaky surface acoustic waves (LSAWs) excited on the water-specimen boundary. The temperature distribution in the water-couplant, however, is the source of some measurement errors in the LSAW velocity. A method for obtaining the proper water-couplant temperature and longitudinal velocity has been developed using the measured temperature distribution and the small interference signals between the V(z) curve signals and the carrier leakage signals arising from the RF tone burst pulse generation circuit used in the system. A procedure to obtain the LSAW velocity accurately is established and the system achieves relative accuracy of LSAW velocity better than /spl plusmn/0.002% at a single chosen point and better than /spl plusmn/0.003% in two-dimensional measurements.


The traditional load balancing optimization scheme cannot guarantee the user's QoS in the C-RAN wireless communication networks when all the neighboring macrocells are under the situation of overload. In order to resolve this problem, we implement the femtocell to the macrocell network, which considers the advantages of femtocell, i.e., small coverage, low cost and better signal quality. Therefore, in this paper, the joint load balancing mechanism is proposed to achieve the joint optimization of femtocell and macrocell network by allowing the users of overloaded macrocell to handover to the femtocell. Finally, the simulation results show that the proposed mechanism greatly improves the user satisfaction as well as the resource utilization rate of the femtocell network while decreases the blocking rate and dropping rate.


Purpose – Several systems for the management of digital libraries have evolved in the recent past from simple document repository to sophisticated applications that provide the possibility of classifying and, in some cases, even rating the documents collected in the library itself. In a few of those systems members of the community of practice that uses and produces the library itself can also be active in assigning a reputation score to each other. This study aimed to explore the idea of using a collectively negotiated term taxonomy in order to develop a better model for the automated evaluation of users' competence on different discussion topics. Design/methodology/approach – The study provides a formalization of the approach we propose, and the proposal of an architecture for implementing a system deploying the approach. Findings – The study analyses the issues related to the implementation of a digital library, and develops an architecture that aims to evaluate users' competence about different discussion topics in an automated way. Research limitations/implications – The paper only describes an abstract architecture of a self‐balancing digital library. Further research should investigate the different possible choices for the implementation details that have been left out from this first explorative analysis. Originality/value – The novelty of the approach resides in the fact that we make use of a collectively negotiated taxonomy in order to automatically assign relevance scores to reviewers' evaluations.


We consider the problem of building a binary decision tree, to locate an object within a set by way of the least number of membership queries. This problem is equivalent to the "20 questions game" of information theory and is closely related to lossless source compression. If any query is admissible, Huffman coding is optimal with close to H[P] questions on average, the entropy of the prior distribution P over objects. However, in many realistic scenarios, there are constraints on which queries can be asked, and solving the problem optimally is NP-hard. We provide novel polynomial time approximation algorithms where constraints are defined in terms of "graph", general "cost", and "submodular" functions. In particular, we show that under graph constraints, there exists a constant approximation algorithm for locating the target in the set. We then extend our approach for scenarios where the constraints are defined in terms of general cost functions that depend only on the size of the query and provide an approxima- tion algorithm that can find the target within O(log(log n)) gap from the cost of the optimum algorithm. Submodular functions come as a natural generalization of cost functions with decreas- ing marginals. Under submodular set constraints, we devise an approximation algorithm that can find the target within O(log n) gap from the cost of the optimum algorithm. The proposed algorithms are greedy in a sense that at each step they select a query that most evenly splits the set without violating the underlying constraints. These results can be applied to network tomography, active learning and interactive content search.


Researchers used a state-of-the-art modeling methodology to analyze traffic congestion in and around IH 35 in Central Texas. The goal was to look at the big picture of travel patterns and congestion on the IH 35 main lane corridor. A base model of the adopted Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization's plan was converted to a simulation-based dynamic traffic assignment model capable of analyzing traffic operations on a time-dependent basis. The dynamic traffic assignment model developed is one of the most comprehensive tolling models in the country. Researchers used a combination of static, time-dependent, and congestive-responsive tolling strategies for various corridors in the Austin metropolitan area. Multiple scenarios were modeled and built off the base model developed under Rider 42. Strategies modeled included time-dependent pricing, reversible lanes, ramp metering, en-route diversion, and demand management in various combinations to determine the best approach to address oversaturated networks.


Ecosystem services lie at the heart of interactions between society and nature. Wetlands are natural assets that can deliver ecosystem services from local to regional scales. Due to their unique characteristics, they influence global biogeochemical and hydrological cycles in spite of their scattered nature. The idea of the ""wise use of wetlands"" derives from intergovernmental treaty the Convention on Wetlands held in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971. Wetlands continue to decline globally, both in area and in quality. Depending on the region, 30–90 % of the world"s wetlands have already been destroyed or strongly modified in many countries. Because of wetland losses and degradation, people are deprived of the ecosystem services that wetlands provide. Wetland resources in Ethiopia are not fully documented. In Ethiopia, wetland management is not efficiently coordinated and lacks adequate policy support. The attitudes of people about wetlands have shifted enormously over the past several decades. When both the marketed and non-marketed economic benefits of wetlands are included, the total economic value of unconverted wetlands is often greater than that of converted wetlands. Traditional and modern agricultural expansions, continuous land degradations, urbanizations and industrializations, lack of policies and institutional arrangements, lack of capacities, natural and ecological problems are the most dominant challenging factors of wetlands. Conservation of wetlands is a relatively recent priority, and it has seen more recent shifts from protection of remaining wetlands initially as a static biodiversity resource towards a focus on the many, formerly largely undervalued beneficial functions that these ecosystems provide to society.


As the healthcare system has modernized, it has also become rich with complexity. This complexity continues to foster the creation of wicked problems that at first consideration appear inherently insoluble. To compound matters, policy-makers and decision-makers continue to view the healthcare system in a reductionistic, linear manner. This paper advocates that all stakeholders within the system (policy-makers, providers, and patients) become comfortable with complexity as a determinant of health, and offers tools for productively working with complexity, instead of trying to solve it. These tools include complexity heuristics, adjusting to an emergent decision-making paradigm, and easing the anxiety associated with ambiguity and paradox by becoming antifragile. By adopting these methods, the health determinant of complexity within the Canadian healthcare system can be effectively handled. This will lead to sustainable and scalable interventions, strong patient-partners in care, and efficient use of monetary and human resources.


The Beit Bridge complex (BBC) in the Central Zone of the Limpopo Belt in Southern Africa includes metasedimentary rocks of Archaean age (chiefly metapelites, quartzites and carbonates), amphibolites (chiefly mafic dykes and sills) and granitoids which comprise ≥50% of the complex. The amphibolites are tholeiites with relatively unfractionated REE patterns and pronounced subduction-zone geochemical signatures in terms of relatively immobile incompatible elements. Tonalites and granites, which also exhibit such a signature, can be formed by batch melting of a mafic source with residual garnet or amphibole. Most granites have negative Eu anomalies and appear to represent residual liquids. BBC metapelites have negative Eu anomalies and other immobile element distributions similar to Phanerozoic shales. One group of metapelites that shows significant depletion in Ca, Na and Sr appears to have been derived from intensely weathered sources. The negative Eu anomalies in BBC metapelites suggest intracrustal melting of their sources and thus the presence of evolved continental crust in this part of Southern Africa by about 3000 Ma. BBC quartzites are quartz-rich sandstones that are depleted in HFS elements, Ba and Sr, relative to Phanerozoic counterparts; a feature that probably reflects less recycling during the early Archaean. BBC banded iron formation (BIF) is similar to other Archaean BIF and shows large positive Eu anomalies. BBC carbonates are dolostones depleted in REE, HFS elements, U, Th, Ba, Sr, Ni, Sc, V and Y and enriched in Fe, Mn, Na, Rb and Cs relative to Phanerozoic marine carbonates.


In daily interactions, our sensorimotor system accounts for spatial and temporal discrepancies between the senses. Functional lateralization between hemispheres causes differences in attention and control of action. In addition, differences in transmission delays between modalities affects motor control. Studies on hemispatial neglect syndrome suggest a link between temporal processing and lateral spatial biases. To understand this link, we studied participants who performed lateral reaching, and adapted to delayed visual feedback in either left, right, or both workspaces. We tested transfer of adaptation to blind drawing, and found that adaptation to left or both delay caused selective leftward elongation. In contrast, adaptation to right delay caused elongation in both directions. Arm dynamics alone cannot explain these findings, but a model of a combined attentional-motor asymmetry across the hemispheres explains our observations. This suggests a possible connection between laterality in delay processing and motor performances observed in cases of hemispatial neglect.


Transition of care (TOC) in adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with chronic gastrointestinal disorders has received increased attention, especially in those with inflammatory bowel disease. AYAs with hereditary polyposis syndromes are a heterogeneous group of patients with overlapping and complex medical needs. These patients are particularly vulnerable because of the risk of loss of continuity of care and subsequent poor disease outcomes. The Pediatric Committee of the American College of Gastroenterology commissioned a report with recommendations on TOC in AYAs with hereditary polyposis syndromes. This report aims at achieving best practice by both pediatric and adult gastroenterologists despite the paucity of published evidence in this population reflected in the included PRISMA report. Therefore, the group extrapolated findings from the literature related to other chronic gastrointestinal disorders, and a high degree of expert consensus was scored for all recommendations. The report addresses TOC through identifying shared domains followed by specific recommendations in disease management, including models of care, providers and patient and socioeconomic factors relevant to TOC. Areas of strong emphasis include the need for early planning, flexibility in the transition process to maintain continuity during major surgical procedures, patient and family psychological readiness, liaison among team members addressing transition, and changing insurance coverage in this population.


Weakly collisional, magnetized plasmas characterized by anisotropic viscosity and conduction are ubiquitous in galaxies, haloes, and the intracluster medium (ICM). Cosmic rays (CRs) play an important role in these environments as well, by providing additional pressure and heating to the thermal plasma. We carry out a linear stability analysis of weakly collisional plasmas with CRs using Braginskii MHD for the thermal gas. We assume that the CRs stream at the Alfvén speed, which in a weakly collisional plasma depends on the pressure anisotropy (Δp) of the thermal plasma. We find that this Δp dependence introduces a phase shift between the CR-pressure and gas-density fluctuations. This drives a fast-growing acoustic instability: CRs offset the damping of acoustic waves by anisotropic viscosity and give rise to wave growth when the ratio of CR pressure to gas pressure is ≳αβ−1/2, where β is the ratio of thermal to magnetic pressure, and α, typically ≲1, depends on other dimensionless parameters. In high-β environments like the ICM, this condition is satisfied for small CR pressures. We speculate that the instability studied here may contribute to the scattering of high-energy CRs and to the excitation of sound waves in galaxy-halo, group and cluster plasmas, including the long-wavelength X-ray fluctuations in Chandra observations of the Perseus cluster. It may also be important in the vicinity of shocks in dilute plasmas (e.g. cluster virial shocks or galactic wind termination shocks), where the CR pressure is locally enhanced.


UNLABELLED
Gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), originating from the interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC), is characterized by frequent activating mutations of the KIT receptor tyrosine kinase. Despite the clinical success of imatinib, which targets KIT, most patients with advanced GIST develop resistance and eventually die of the disease. The ETS family transcription factor ETV1 is a master regulator of the ICC lineage. Using mouse models of Kit activation and Etv1 ablation, we demonstrate that ETV1 is required for GIST initiation and proliferation in vivo, validating it as a therapeutic target. We further uncover a positive feedback circuit where MAP kinase activation downstream of KIT stabilizes the ETV1 protein, and ETV1 positively regulates KIT expression. Combined targeting of ETV1 stability by imatinib and MEK162 resulted in increased growth suppression in vitro and complete tumor regression in vivo. The combination strategy to target ETV1 may provide an effective therapeutic strategy in GIST clinical management.

SIGNIFICANCE
ETV1 is a lineage-specific oncogenic transcription factor required for the growth and survival of GIST. We describe a novel strategy of targeting ETV1 protein stability by the combination of MEK and KIT inhibitors that synergistically suppress tumor growth. This strategy has the potential to change first-line therapy in GIST clinical management.


India is a large and rapidly growing economy. The energy requirements of the country in terms of oil products and natural gas is also huge. Given its vast geographical size, there is ever-growing need to transport these oil & gas products over large distances but economically. For this purpose, several new projects for laying of new pipeline networks are at different stages of planning. In order to keep the cost of such large pipeline projects lower, countries around the world have shifted to higher strength API grades of steel. This was facilitated by advances in steel-making and processing technology and modern facilities that came up in advanced countries. India is no different and we have seen a gradual shift towards higher strength API grades being used for pipelines. Essar Steel has been a major producer of API grades of steel in India over the last 15 years initially through its hot-strip mill and more recently adding a state-of-the-art 5M wide plate mill as well as pipe mills, both LSAW & HSAW.Different alloy designs have been used around the world to produce high strength and high toughness API grades. These have produced essentially two types of microstructures which are either ferrite + pearlite or ferrite + acicular ferrite. But these microstructures show varying response to the pipe-making process. Choice of alloy design also has a major bearing on the cost of steel, but is partly influenced by mill capability. At Essar, while cost was a major determining criterion for selection of suitable alloy design, mill capability was not a constraint. Essar Steel has successfully produced X-80 plates and pipes with a modified HTP alloy design and using the new facilities of plate mill & pipe mill. The paper gives some of the key highlights of this development activity.This was a collaborative effort between the metallurgists & engineers at Essar Steel India Limited and experts from CBMM.Copyright © 2013 by ASME


Background Lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) is one of the major causes of mortality in children with estimated 1 million deaths every year. Hyponatremia is the most common electrolyte abnormality seen in LRTI. Objective To find association of hyponatremia (serum sodium<135meq/l) with severe LRTI. Design Prospective cross sectional study Settings Pediatric Emergency, Ward and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital(TUTH) Subjects Children between 2 months to 16 years presenting with cough for less than 3 weeks, fast breathing and chest indrawing. Methods Children between 2 month to 16 years of age having cough, fast breathing and chest indrawing admitted in emergency, ward or PICU of TUTH were screened and among them, children having pediatric respiratory severity score of 4-5 were enrolled in the study. Serum sodium was sent during admission and collected within 2 hours. Daily follow up was done to find need of respiratory support, duration to resolve hypoxia, total duration in hospital and final outcome of patient. Statistical test applied were Chi-square test and Fisher exact test. Results 47.5% of study population had hyponatremia, of whom 65.79% had mild hyponatremia 26.31% had moderate and 7.89%had severe hyponatremia. Association of hyponatremia with need of non rebreathing face mask (p=0.001), ventilatio r (p=0.009), duration of hospital stay (p=0.047) were significant. The study also found the association of severity of hyponatremia with need of non rebreathing facemask (p=0.001),ventilator (p=0.01), outcome (p=0.001), duration of stay (0.002). Mean time to resolve hypoxia in children with hyponatremia (4.5 days) was longer compared to normal sodium (2.58 days). Four patients died during the study period and all of them had hyponatremia.


Antibiotics are organic compounds produced by various microorganisms and have the ability to inhibit the growth or kill other microorganisms. However, the irrational application of antibiotics lead to resistance of microorganisms so that they become ineffective. The objectives of this study were to isolate and characterize new antibiotics from Indonesian coastal marine bacteria. In this study, a total of 141 isolates consisting of seven Streptomyces sp. isolates and 134 isolates of other marine bacteria, were obtained from Indonesian coastal regions. Based on antimicrobial activity assay, four Streptomyces sp. and five marine bacteria isolates showed antimicrobial activity towards Bacillus cereus and Staphylococcus aureus with the diameter of inhibition of 3-12 mm. Further, antimicrobial compounds were produced successfully extracted with six organic solvents, such as 1-butanol, dichloromethane, n-hexane, chloroform, and toluene. The best solvent to extract antimicrobial compounds from Streptomyces sp. isolates was 1-butanol, while the best solvent to extract antimicrobial compounds from other marine bacteria isolates could not be specified. Antimicrobial compounds were successfully separated by thin layer chromatography with mobile phase used were 1-butanol, acetic acid, and water at a ratio of 4:1:2 and retention values obtained at 0.50 and 0.63.


Uncertainty is the only certainty there is. Modeling data uncertainty is essential for regression, especially in unconstrained settings. Traditionally the direct regression formulation is considered and the uncertainty is modeled by modifying the output space to a certain family of probabilistic distributions. On the other hand, classification based regression and ranking based solutions are more popular in practice while the direct regression methods suffer from the limited performance. How to model the uncertainty within the present-day technologies for regression remains an open issue. In this paper, we propose to learn probabilistic ordinal embeddings which represent each data as a multivariate Gaussian distribution rather than a deterministic point in the latent space. An ordinal distribution constraint is proposed to exploit the ordinal nature of regression. Our probabilistic ordinal embeddings can be integrated into popular regression approaches and empower them with the ability of uncertainty estimation. Experimental results show that our approach achieves competitive performance. Code is available at https://github.com/Li-Wanhua/POEs.


Ageing is a global phenomenon which has motivated many research and development projects with the aim of providing computing services that support the active and independent living of the elderly. To integrate the ambient intelligence (AmI) vision into the home environment to allow elders to "age in place", it has been identified the necessity of providing high-level software support for creating ambient assisted living (AAL) environments. We propose activity-aware computing to allow smart environments to provide continuous activity awareness and opportunistically offer assistance aimed at supporting the elders' current activity. This new paradigm calls for novel tools to help developers mirror human activities in the digital domain, and adapt smart environments based on the activities executed by the users. This paper proposes the use of autonomous agents to cope with the design issues for developing activity-aware systems. We specialized the SALSA agent architecture by incorporating customizable activity-aware mechanisms to infer and represent activities. We illustrate the capabilities offered by SALSA autonomous agents through a design of an activity-aware application for helping elders to manage their medication activity.


The custard apple tree (Annona squamosa L.), has increased in cultivation due to good prices in the national market. However, there are few studies regarding the fruit's nutrition. The aim of this study was to verify the influence of N and K levels in developing the flower buds in two growing cycles, corresponding to the time of high temperatures (spring-summer) and another milder season (autumn-winter). The experiment was conducted in a rural property located in the municipality of Anagé, Bahia, installed in a randomised complete block design with 3 blocks, arranged in a factorial 4 x 4, obtained by the combination of the following levels of N (0, 16.875, 33.750 and 67.500 g plant-1) in the form of urea and K (0, 22.5, 45.0 and 90.0 g plant-1) in the form of potassium chloride, applied every fifteen days (every fortnight / every two weeks). It was evaluated the vigor of floral buds, measured by determining its weight and the length of them. At the end of the study it was concluded that the vigor of the floral buds tended to increase with elevated levels of nitrogen in the coldest period of the year (dry season with low in temperature). In the spring-summer period (rainy season and high temperature) the vigor of the flower buds was reduced as they increased the doses of N. Potassium did not affect the vigor of the flower buds in these considered periods. There was no interaction between N and K levels for the vigor of the flower buds.


Objectives: To determine the frequency of different types of cleft lip and palate, geographical distribution and its association with consanguinity, family history and other syndromes in the Northern Pakistani population.
Study design: Descriptive cross-sectional study.
Settings: This study was performed in Plastic and Reconstructive units of Hayat Medical Complex Peshawar Pakistan, Aman Hospital Peshawar Pakistan and Abasin Hospital Peshawar, Pakistan from November 2010 to December 2011.
Material & Methods: All the patients, irrespective of their gender, presenting with cleft lip/palate deformities were included in the study. Previously operated cases and those who did not agree with the study protocol were excluded from the study. The data were collected through questionnaires as well as history and physical examination. The data were organized and analyzed through Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 17 (SPSS 17). The results were expressed in the form of tables and figures.
Results: A total of 159 patients of cleft lip and cleft palate deformities were included in the study, having a mean age of 3.5+6.59 years and containing 59.1% males and 40.9% females with a ratio of 1.4:1. A cleft lip with palate, cleft palate and cleft lip were found in 51.6%, 31.4% and 17% of cases, respectively. Left-sided clefts were most common in the cleft lip with palate and the isolated cleft lip deformity. A cleft lip with palate was a male dominant variety (62.8% of cases), while in the cleft palate variety, the dominant gender was female. In 61.6% of cases, the parent had a consanguineous relationship. In 21.4% of cases, family history was positive for the cleft lip/palate. Other congenital anomalies were associated in 10.7% of cases.
Conclusion: Cleft deformities of the lip and palate affect the male population more than females with cleft lips, in association with a cleft palate being the most common anomaly. Females are mainly affected by an isolated cleft palate. The high prevalence of these deformities in consanguineous marriages emphasizes educating people. The lower number of patients from distant distracts of Northern Pakistan calls for the attention of the health department.


Identifying a criminal captured on conventional security video typically requires matching poor-quality video footage against a high-quality photograph. The authors examined the consequence of such a large discrepancy in image quality. Recognition and matching performance of this incongruent-quality condition was compared with that of a congruent one, in which a high-quality photograph was reduced to a low-quality video. Recognition memory was little affected by this manipulation, whereas matching performance of the incongruent condition enjoyed occasional advantage. The results show that person identification can tolerate a large discrepancy between image qualities of matching stimuli when one of the images is of poor quality.


The recently proposed x-vector based anonymization scheme converts any input voice into that of a random pseudo-speaker. In this paper, we present a flexible pseudo-speaker selection technique as a baseline for the first VoicePrivacy Challenge. We explore several design choices for the distance metric between speakers, the region of x-vector space where the pseudo-speaker is picked, and gender selection. To assess the strength of anonymization achieved, we consider attackers using an x-vector based speaker verification system who may use original or anonymized speech for enrollment, depending on their knowledge of the anonymization scheme. The Equal Error Rate (EER) achieved by the attackers and the decoding Word Error Rate (WER) over anonymized data are reported as the measures of privacy and utility. Experiments are performed using datasets derived from LibriSpeech to find the optimal combination of design choices in terms of privacy and utility.


Research on long-term trends in annual weather severity known to influence migration and winter distributions of Mallard Anas platyrhynchos and other migratory birds is needed to predict effects of changing climate on: 1) annual distributions and vital rates of these birds, 2) timing of habitat use by migratory birds, and 3) demographics of the hunters of these species. Weather severity thresholds developed previously for Mallard were used to calculate weather severity and spatiallydepicted Weather Severity Index Anomalies (± km2, WSIA), in comparison with normal conditions, for Mallard in eastern North America from November–January 1950–2008. We determined whether WSIA differed among decades and analysed the effects of atmospheric teleconnections and Eurasian snow cover on annual variation in WSIA. Weather severity was mildest (+ WSIA) during the 2000s compared to other decades and differed substantially from the 1960s and 1970s (– WSIA). The Arctic Oscillation Index explained substantial variation in WSIA during El Nino and La Nina episodes, but not when the Oceanic Nino Index was neutral. Eurasian snow cover models accurately predicted if the WSIA would be greater or less than normal for 75% of the years studied. Our results may provide a partial explanation for recent observations of interrupted or reduced migration to southern latitudes by Mallard and other migratory birds during autumn–winter. Our models also provide ecologists with teleconnection models to help predict future distributions of Mallard and potentially  other migratory birds in eastern North America. Future investigations could include testing the influence of WSIA on Mallard survival and on annual movements and distributions for other migratory birds, to provide a better understanding of the influences of climate and changes in climate on population dynamics and the need to conserve particular habitats.


Anecdotal evidence has long suggested that zebrafish may be a good model to predict toxicity of human drugs. As summarized in this review, several groups have recently conducted systematic evaluations of zebrafish toxicity end points using large numbers of pharmacologically relevant compounds. Assays of particular interest include those for cardiotoxicity, ototoxicity, seizure liability, developmental toxicity and gastrointestinal motility. Results suggest that zebrafish assays can attain an acceptable level of predictivity, ranging from "sufficient" (65 - 75% predictivity) to "good" (75 - 85% predictivity) based on guidelines established for novel in vitro tests by the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods. Further validation will probably be required to definitely establish zebrafish as a standard model for toxicity testing.


Contrastive adversarial training has successfully improved the robustness of contrastive learning (CL). However, the robustness metric used in these methods is linked to attack algorithms, image labels and downstream tasks, all of which may affect the consistency and reliability of robustness metric for CL. To address these problems, this paper proposes a novel Robustness Verification framework for Contrastive Learning (RVCL). Furthermore, we use extreme value theory to reveal the relationship between the robust radius of the CL encoder and that of the supervised downstream task. Extensive experimental results on various benchmark models and datasets verify our theoretical findings, and further demonstrate that our proposed RVCL is able to evaluate the robustness of both models and images. Our code is available at https: //github.com/wzekai99/RVCL .


: The benefits of tailoring therapy with vasodilators in patients with severe heart failure are well documented, but this may lead to neurohormonal activation and sodium retention. Renal dopamine has local natriuretic actions and interacts with other hormones involved in renal sodium handling. The aim of the present work was to determine the effects of arterial underfilling induced by vasodilator therapy on renal sodium handling, neurohormonal activation and the activity of the renal dopaminergic system in patients with severe heart failure. For this purpose we monitored haemodynamic parameters, plasma levels of type B natriuretic peptide (BNP), catecholamines, aldosterone, renin activity (PRA), sodium and creatinine, and urinary excretion of sodium, creatinine, L-DOPA, dopamine and its metabolites, before initiation of sodium nitroprusside therapy and every 6 h thereafter (for 42 h), and again after 5 days of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibition, in 10 male patients with severe heart failure. The results of nitroprusside therapy were a marked increase in cardiac index and a substantial decrease in systemic vascular resistance index. Plasma levels of BNP decreased significantly, while PRA, noradrenaline and aldosterone showed marked increases, resulting in a substantial reduction in urinary sodium excretion. Creatinine clearance was not affected. Urinary dopamine and dopamine metabolites increased in response to nitroprusside therapy. After 5 days of ACE inhibition, urinary sodium returned to baseline values, while urinary dopamine was markedly reduced. These results suggest that the renal dopaminergic system is activated in patients with severe heart failure by stimuli leading to sodium renal reabsorption.


Sounds, Images and Data 2015 is a conference that analyzes the role of the artists and curators in creating new experiences and aesthetics in the 21st century. By mixing a series of contemporary technologies, Big Data, social media practices and innovative approaches both to curating and artistic practices, contemporary creators and commentators are envisaging and constructing a different world where different strands collide. These practices could be defined as convergent, but they actually bring a complexity to the field of studies that cannot be subsumed under an homologating system, rather it appears to produce multiple and sometimes contradictory aesthetics.

Focusing on:

Curating Sounds, Images and Big Data
Artistic Practices in Sounds, Images and Big Data
Theories of Sounds, Images and Big Data
Aesthetics of Sounds, Images and Big Data
Convergence or Divergence?
Experimental Practices of Sounds, Images and Big Data
Sounds, Images and Big Data in Relation to Traditional Practices

Aims of the Conference:

The aim of the conference is to bring together artists, theorists, scholars, sound engineers, historians and curators. The conference speakers will present papers that respond to the themes of sound art, images and data and that will range from artistic practices, historization processes, aesthetics and curatorial studies, spanning from the fine arts to contemporary media arts, cultural representations and including archiving practices. The conference is also opened to areas of conceptualization, aesthetic and philosophical analyses of sounds, images and data.

Venues and Dates: New York University, 23-25 July 2015.


Poly(L-lactide) (PLLA) was synthesized by the ring-opening polymerization of L-lactide and the shape memory behavior was studied using DSC and bending test experiments. The results indicate that the specimen shows the shape memory effect (SME), the small crystalline phase of PLLA and the mobility of amorphous phase may be responsible for the SME. The shape recovery of samples decreases and approaches to steady with the testing number increases.


safety in dentistry. As an additional safety factor may I make the plea for adequate oxygenation from the outset monitored as described? I feel certain that virtually all anaesthetic deaths would then be avoidable. I should add that I have acted as operator anaesthetist for many years, after 1500 cases originally carried out with a consultant anaesthetist (1961-3). Any prolonged or difficult case assessed as being out of my scope as an operator-anaesthetist has always been referred for a consultant's help.-I am, etc., DAVID FORMAN Hove, Sussex


Mik-beta 1 is a mAb that binds to the beta subunit of the IL-2R. We have constructed a recombinant single chain immunotoxin Mik-beta 1(Fv)-PE40 by genetically fusing the H and L V domains of Mik-beta 1 to each other via a peptide linker, and then to PE40, a derivative of Pseudomonas exotoxin. Mik-beta 1(Fv)-PE40 was selectively cytotoxic for cells expressing high levels of IL-2R beta (p75) subunit. Mik-beta 1(Fv)-PE40 was cytotoxic to the NK cell line YT-S, which expresses p75 but not p55 subunits, with an IC50 of 6 ng/ml. The ATL line HUT-102 was less sensitive, with an IC50 of 200 ng/ml. However, the IC50 could be lowered to 11 ng/ml when Mik-beta 1(Fv)-PE40 was allowed to bind to HUT-102 cells at 4 degrees C for 4 h before overnight incubation at 37 degrees C. An excess of Mik-beta 1 but not of anti-Tac, the anti-p55 mAb, prevented the cytotoxicity of Mik-beta 1(Fv)-PE40. We constructed a more active version of Mik-beta 1(Fv)-PE40, designated Mik-beta 1(Fv)-PE40KDEL, by converting the carboxyl-terminus of the toxin from -REDLK to -KDEL. Mik-beta 1(Fv)-PE40KDEL showed an IC50 of 2 ng/ml toward YT-S cells and 35 ng/ml toward HUT-102 cells. Binding studies using radioiodinated Mik-beta 1 showed that Mik-beta 1(Fv)-PE40 bound to the p75 receptor subunit with 11% of the affinity of the native Mik-beta 1 antibody. Mik-beta 1(Fv)-PE40 may be a useful reagent to study cells that express IL-2R, and it deserves further study as a possible treatment for cancers in which the malignant cells express high numbers of p75 subunit.


The effects of treatment on plasma total triglyceride, total cholesterol, and plasma postheparin lipase activities have not been evaluated in non-insulin-dependent diabetic (NIDD) subjects without a coexisting familial lipid disorder. In 49 untreated NIDD subjects, there was a linear relationship between glycosylated hemoglobin (GHb) and triglyceride (r = 0.35, P < 0.02). This correlation was improved after adjusting for the effects of obesity by a partial correlation analysis. After therapy, there was a significant relationship between the change in GHb and the change in triglyceride. To determine whether changes in lipid removal from plasma may contribute to the decrease in plasma lipid concentrations during treatment, the plasma postheparin lipoprotein lipase and hepatic lipase activities were evaluated in a subgroup (N = 8) of these NIDD subjects before and after 1 and 3 mo of therapy. Plasma postheparin hepatic lipase activity in the NIDD subjects was not different from that observed in six normal control subjects and did not change during therapy. In contrast, plasma postheparin lipoprotein lipase activity was lower in the untreated NIDD subjects than in the control subjects. Analysis of the two phases (early and late) of the postheparin lipoprotein lipase activity in plasma showed that the abnormal early phase in untreated NIDD corrected to normal values in less than a month, but the late phase was not corrected until the 3-mo measurement. These findings suggest that some NIDD subjects have a defect in heparin releasable lipoprotein lipase activity, which is reversed with improved glycemic control. This defect in lipoprotein lipase could contribute to the elevation in plasma triglyceride concentration by limiting triglyceride removal from plasma.


We present our approach to online popularity and its applications to political science, aiming at the creation of agent-based models that reproduce patterns of popularity in participatory media. We illustrate our approach analyzing a dataset from Youtube, composed of the view statistics and comments for the videos of the U.S. presidential campaigns of 2008 and 2012. Using sentiment analysis, we quantify the collective emotions expressed by the viewers, finding that democrat campaigns elicited more positive collective emotions than republican campaigns. Techniques from computational social science allow us to measure virality of the videos of each campaign, to find that democrat videos are shared faster but republican ones are remembered longer inside the community. Last we present our work in progress in voting advice applications, and our results analyzing the data from choose4greece.com. We show how we assess the policy differences between parties and their voters, and how voting advice applications can be extended to test our agent-based models.


Recent U.S. federal regulatory initiatives have focused on the requirement that pipeline operators know their systems and have documented records demonstrating the basis for establishment of MAOP. This has involved the location and cataloging of pipeline records, and verification of the existence of traceable, verifiable and complete pipeline records.This paper provides a review of materials useful for compliance with the recently emphasized records requirements, including historic and recent regulatory requirements along with a concise summary of currently effective regulations. The requirement for traceable, verifiable and complete records is discussed and a proposed elaboration of the concepts is presented. Best practices for records management are outlined, and a methodology is proposed for quality ranking of located documents. Finally, common records problems are discussed and some possible technical approaches are suggested to address typical records issues.Copyright © 2014 by ASME


Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) is a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm that avoids the random walk behavior and sensitivity to correlated parameters that plague many MCMC methods by taking a series of steps informed by first-order gradient information. These features allow it to converge to high-dimensional target distributions much more quickly than simpler methods such as random walk Metropolis or Gibbs sampling. However, HMC's performance is highly sensitive to two user-specified parameters: a step size {\epsilon} and a desired number of steps L. In particular, if L is too small then the algorithm exhibits undesirable random walk behavior, while if L is too large the algorithm wastes computation. We introduce the No-U-Turn Sampler (NUTS), an extension to HMC that eliminates the need to set a number of steps L. NUTS uses a recursive algorithm to build a set of likely candidate points that spans a wide swath of the target distribution, stopping automatically when it starts to double back and retrace its steps. Empirically, NUTS perform at least as efficiently as and sometimes more efficiently than a well tuned standard HMC method, without requiring user intervention or costly tuning runs. We also derive a method for adapting the step size parameter {\epsilon} on the fly based on primal-dual averaging. NUTS can thus be used with no hand-tuning at all. NUTS is also suitable for applications such as BUGS-style automatic inference engines that require efficient "turnkey" sampling algorithms.


Tomkins et al. (Reports, 14 May 2010, p. 892) reported a strong negative correlation between breeding values and mutational load in cow-pea weevils. Here, I show that this result can be attributed to a statistical artifact. By testing the observed correlation against an incorrect null hypothesis, they find a negative correlation where one does not exist.


Experiments on RNA synthesis and the observation of an increased secretion of proinsulin during stimulated synthesis of insulin in islets of Langerhans in vitro led to the supposition that insulin synthesis in vivo may be increased to a higher extent than synthesis in vitro. This investigation evaluates the effect of long time infusions of glucose on the synthesis of proinsulin and insulin in islets of Langerhans from the rat. The following results were obtained: 1. the rate of synthesis of proinsulin and insulin increased due to glucose infusions by a factor of 2 after 6 hours and by a factor of 4 after 24 hours; 2. prolonged infusion led to a decrease of insulin synthesis and serum insulin concentrations; 3. the turnover of proinsulin into insulin remained unaffected by the glucose infusion; 4. a specific stimulatory effect on the synthesis of one of the two insulins of the rat was not observed. The conclusion was made, that glucose in vivo stimulates enzyme induction, followed by increased RNA synthesis and mitotic activity. These combined factors lead to an increased insulin synthesis.


The report discusses the destruction of toxic and non-toxic solids, liquids and gases through lasers. In order to completely understand the project first chapters describes the basics about laser and plasma separately, from definition to types, components and categories. Differences between laser and microwave system are covered in this chapter as well. Besides lasers there are different technologies that are currently being used to destroy toxic and non-toxic materials. These technologies were studied and comparison tables are made in order to discern between different destruction technologies. For the destruction of toxic and non-toxic materials through lasers two mathematical models have been developed, molecular dissociation model and plasma exploitation model, and later the experimental work was carried out on one of the toxic material. Mathematical modeling and experimental work is in accordance with each other as discussed in results and discussion. Mathematical model shows that all the materials discussed in the report can be destroyed by lasers but in order to carry further experiments on all other toxic and non-toxic materials, a proposal is made for the laser reactor using CAD model (Solid Edge) and drawing software (AutoCAD). Tables and mathematical calculations have been placed in appendix at the end of the report.


The ongoing tendency toward the electrification of hydraulic systems, mainly in the form of self-contained solutions, poses design challenges in high-power applications. An electric motor drives positive-displacement machines used to control the motion of the hydraulic actuator (nonhybrid systems encompassing one or two pumps exist in the technical literature). All the power managed by the actuator passes through the electric motor, which leads to often oversized arrangements. These detrimental characteristics are especially pronounced when the power level increases approximately above 35–40 kW. Therefore, this research paper presents and studies a self-contained, electro-hydraulic, hybrid architecture intended to downsize the electric motor while maintaining the high-power output of the nonhybrid counterpart. After introducing the sizing process for the energy storage device and developing a suitable control strategy for the hybrid subsystem, the proposed concept is validated via high-fidelity dynamic models. The rated power of the electric prime mover can be cut by 70% in the considered application (a mid-size, knuckle-boom crane with an installed power of about 46 kW) without altering the performance in terms of motion control. The additional mass (about 310 kg) of the hybrid system is not expected to affect the load-carrying capacity significantly. As a result, the hybridization of self-sufficient systems is technically feasible for high-power applications. Drawbacks related to the system cost-effectiveness might, however, be experienced. An application-driven cost analysis should be conducted before implementing such a solution.


Joubert's syndrome is a relatively rare, autosomal-recessive syndrome defined by vermis hypoplasia, hypotonia, developmental delay and at least one of two additional manifestations: abnormal breathing pattern or abnormal eye movements. Detailed descriptions of the neuropathological findings in this syndrome are scarce. We present a radiological and pathological correlation of a case of Joubert's syndrome in which, apart from the classic vermis aplasia and some malformations of the brain stem and the spinal cord, extensive malformations of the cerebrum were found. The dentate nuclei were broken into islands and showed a few heterotopias within the superior cerebellar pedunculi, the inferior olives were plump and dysplastic, and an almost complete absence of the pyramidal decussation was found. In the spinal cord, the dorsal columns were located in a dorsal position within the spinal grey matter. In the cerebrum, absence of the corpus callosum was found. Many nodular heterotopias of the cerebral cortex and of the basal ganglia, the amygdala and the diencephalon were observed. The present case is compared to previous pathological descriptions of the Joubert syndrome and to other syndromes with comparable malformations of the posterior fossa.


Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) is associated with feline acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (FAIDS) and has been suggested as a model for HIV-induced human AIDS. The most obvious immunological defect in HIV infection is a reduction in CD4+ cell numbers and an inversion of the CD4:CD8 ratio. To determine whether the same is true in FIV infection, we analyzed by flow cytometry using a panel of monoclonal antibodies to feline lymphocyte populations the CD4:CD8 ratios in cats naturally infected with the virus. We report that 13 of 19 FIV-infected cats had ratios below the 5th percentile of normal cats (0.57, established from analysis of 39 normal cats) and 18 of 19 had ratios below 1. Repeated analyses over a period of several months revealed the inverted ratios to be consistent. Analysis of lymphocyte numbers in FIV-infected cats shows that the inverted ratios are due to a decrease in CD4+ T cells, while CD8+ T and B cells remain relatively normal in number. Analysis of a group of cats with a variety of other chronic diseases, including feline leukemia virus (FeLV) infections, revealed a near-normal distribution of CD4:CD8 ratios. These findings are similar to those in HIV infections and indicate that, like HIV, FIV causes a selective reduction in CD4+ cells and should be an excellent model for studying retrovirus-induced AIDS.


The News story "The seer of science publishing" (T. Rabesandratana, special section on Communication in Science, 4 October, p. [66][1]) draws attention to F1000Research , a journal offering immediate publication with post-publication peer review and revision.

The idea of post-publication review is not new. Fifteen years ago I launched naturalSCIENCE ( ), which offered free online publication of original research with post-publication comment. However, scientists were reluctant to contribute and publicly comment. If thinking has changed, I see little necessity for publishers or publication fees. All that is required is a science-friendly blog platform that handles scientific notation and math, edits tables, and forces standardized formatting of references. Volunteered peer reviews could be handled with standard blog comment machinery; reviewers could be required to establish their bona fides by making their identities and scientific resumes publicly available. If revised, earlier drafts could remain available for the benefit of those interested in following the development of the paper.

However, most scientists currently still depend for advancement on publishing in high-impact journals that, whatever one may think of citations analysis, undoubtedly attract the majority of the better papers and do a great deal more than most low-impact journals to add value through reviewing, fact checking, copyediting, graphics editing, table editing, and rewriting.

If it emerges at all, science self-publishing seems unlikely to have great impact on top journals but will divert content from the proliferating multitude of low-impact journals. Such a development could have many benefits, such as a reduction in cost of science communication; a leak-proof channel for the immediate announcement of breakthrough results; a convenient means for the dissemination of negative results; the opportunity for novice scientists to receive a wider range of advice and criticism than they could expect from the perfunctory review process used by marginal commercial journals; and a means for reviewers to receive recognition for ideas or information disclosed in the course of a review.

 [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.342.6154.66


Services with a stable API and good backward compatibility is important for component-based software development and service-oriented architectures. Despite its importance, little tool support is currently available to ensure that services are backward compatible. To address this problem a new continuous integration technique has been developed. The idea is to build projects that depend on a service with a new version of the service. This ensures that the development version is compatible with projects that depend on the regular version. A continuous integration server is used to initiate builds. This entails that if a build breaks, the developers get feedback right away, and it is easy to determine which change that caused the broken build. We show that an implementation is feasible by implementing a prototype as a proof of concept. The prototype use Continuum as the underlying build engine and utilize metadata from the Maven Project Object Model (POM). The prototype has support for multiple services. Services can thus be checked for compatibility with each other, in addition to backward compatibility with the regular version. Keywords: Continuous integration, Continuum, Maven, Component-based software development (CBSD), Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), Test-Driven Development (TDD), agile software development


The protective function of mucosal HIV-1- or SIV-specific antibodies against viral infection has stimulated extensive studies of their Ig isotype association with differences in specificity and in effector functions. In contrast to many mucosally acquired microbial infections in which the humoral responses are dominated by induction of secretory IgA (S-IgA), HIV-1/SIV infections stimulate vigorous IgG responses in sera as well as in external secretions but low IgA virus-specific antibodies although the total levels of IgA in these fluids remain unaltered. The diminished or even absent IgA responses to HIV-1/SIV and to other mucosal antigens in external secretions and their replacement with IgG is likely to influence the functionality of mucosal barriers and eliminate antiinflammatory effector functions of IgA antibodies. Furthermore, the polymeric character of S-IgA with 4-8 antigen-binding sites, exquisite resistance to proteolysis and anti-inflammatory potential are of great advantage in mucosal protection. The markedly different effector functions of mucosal antibodies of IgG and IgA isotypes must be considered in the design of HIV-1 vaccines to stimulate S-IgA responses at sites of virus entry and IgG responses in the systemic compartment.


Solar ganglia taken from 64 subjects who died in different periods of burn disease: (shock, toxemia septico toxemia, and burn exhaustion) were pathomorphologically examined. The specific time course of changes in solar ganglia was established in various periods of the disease. Dystrophic changes, necrosis of individual neuron groups, and varices of myelinated fibers were detected during burn shock, hypertrophic neurons with thick processes interwoven in between as "felt" predominanted in toxemia whereas in septicotoxemia and burn exhaustion, necrotic changes in neurons and degeneration of nerve fibrous bundle.


BACKGROUND
Determining the stability of stored samples for assays that were not available at the time of original collection is problematic. To assess sample stability for a relatively new assay of glycated albumin (GA), we first measured GA in fresh samples and in samples stored for 19-23 years. We then compared the regression of the contemporaneous glycohemoglobin (Hb A(1c)) values against the GA results from fresh vs stored samples, reasoning that similar slopes and intercepts would provide strong, albeit indirect, support for the stability of the stored samples for GA measurements.

METHODS
We assayed 90 samples frozen for 19-23 years and 90 fresh samples from participants in the Diabetes Control and Complications trial cohort for GA. Hb A(1c) was measured contemporaneously in fresh samples at each time period. A single normal-errors linear model regressed the Hb A(1c) values on the GA, with an additional effect for collection period (fresh vs stored for GA) and the interaction of period and GA.

RESULTS
Analysis of the regressions lines between GA and Hb A(1c) revealed intercepts (3.69 and 2.97 for the fresh and stored samples, respectively) and slopes (0.198 vs 0.187) that were not significantly different (P = 0.182 and P = 0.639, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS
This simple approach can be used to assess the stability of stored samples in new assays. Samples stored for as long as 23 years are suitable for the GA assay.


God has given love to every human. But sometimes love makes some people crazy and blind if they do not use their common sense correctly. Some people can do anything for love and it usually happens to people who experience a delirious love. When they have to obey a tradition that makes them cannot get married, possibly they will try to break the tradition. In Pakistan, there is one of Islamic traditions that makes woman cannot get married, named Shahzadi Ibadat. The first daughter becomes victim from this tradition; she must marry to the holy Quran. From the identification above rises two research questions; 1) What is the impact of Shahzadi Ibadat tradition to the main character? 2) How Zarri Bano's inner conflict in relation to her delirious love?
 In this research, the writer takes literary criticism as a design with mimetic approach and Psychoanalysis as Grand Theory. The researcher uses Psychoanalysis theory from Sigmund Freud that analyzes how the Id, Ego and Superego of the main character in the novel.
In this research, the writer found the impacts of Shahzadi Ibadat tradition. 1). She cannot get married. 2) She must marry to the holy Quran. 3) She must wear burqa. 4) She must become a holy woman. Actually, she cannot undergo the tradition because she experiences delirious love to her beloved man, because of it, she want marry to her beloved man but she cannot break the tradition, so she experiences inner conflict. When she tries to break the tradition to defend her delirious love to beloved man, her Id defeats the superego and her Id is more dominant than the superego but when she experiences inner conflict, she hides her Id in order not to seem weak, so her superego can pressure her Id and her superego is more dominant than her Id.
 I conclude that actually the Shahzadi Ibadat tradition has positive and negative impacts but this tradition has many contradictory to Islam, whereas this tradition is one of Islamic tradition that still used in Pakistan until this modern era by certain people, so delirious love tries to go against the tradition.


The performance of dynamic distance-based location management schemes (DBLMS) in wireless communication networks is analyzed. A Markov chain is developed as a mobility model to describe the movement of a mobile terminal in 2D cellular structures. The paging area residence time is characterized for arbitrary cell residence time by using the Markov chain. The expected number of paging area boundary crossings and the cost of the distance-based location update method are analyzed by using the classical renewal theory for two different call handling models. For the call plus location update model, two cases are considered. In the first case, the intercall time has an arbitrary distribution and the cell residence time has an exponential distribution. In the second case, the intercall time has a hyper-Erlang distribution and the cell residence time has an arbitrary distribution. For the call without location update model, both intercall time and cell residence time can have arbitrary distributions. Our analysis makes it possible to find the optimal distance threshold that minimizes the total cost of location management in a DBLMS.


OBJECTIVE
Helical CT combined with contrast material administered by mouth and through the colon has been shown to be accurate for appendiceal imaging. This investigation was performed to determine if helical CT combined with contrast material administered only through the colon has comparable accuracy.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS
One hundred patients prospectively underwent appendiceal CT imaging with thin-collimation, helical scanning limited to the lower abdomen and upper pelvis after contrast material was administered only through the colon. CT results were correlated with surgical and pathologic findings at appendectomy (56 patients), other surgery (three patients), or clinical follow-up at least 2 months after the CT scan (41 patients).

RESULTS
Fifty-three CT scans were interpreted as positive for appendicitis, including 52 true-positives (with surgical-pathologic correlation) and on false-positive (with clinical follow-up). Forty-seven CT scans were interpreted as negative for appendicitis, including 40 true-negatives with clinical follow-up, three true-negatives with appendectomy and pathologic correlation, three true-negatives with other surgery and pathologic correlation, and one false-negative with appendectomy and pathologic correlation. CT had a 98% sensitivity, 98% specificity, 98% positive predictive value, 98% negative predictive value, and 98% accuracy for diagnosing or excluding appendicitis. In 47 normal appendix cases at CT, the appendix was seen in 44 cases (94%), and an alternative diagnosis was identified in 29 cases (62%).

CONCLUSION
For diagnosing appendicitis, helical CT combined with contrast material administered only through the colon proved to be as accurate (98%) as helical CT combined with contrast material administered by mouth and through the colon. Helical CT with contrast material administered only through the colon also could be performed immediately and without any of the potential patient risks or discomforts of contrast material administered i.v. or by mouth.


ABSTRACT Although the probiotic Escherichia coli strain Nissle 1917 has been used for the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases, the precise mechanisms of action of this strain remain unclear. In the present study, we estimated the anti-inflammatory effect of E. coli Nissle 1917 on inflammatory responses in vitro to determine the suppressive mechanism of Nissle 1917 on the inflammatory process. To determine the effect of E. coli Nissle 1917, the human colonic epithelial cell line HCT15 was incubated with or without E. coli Nissle 1917 or another nonpathogenic E. coli strain, K-12, and then tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α)-induced interleukin-8 (IL-8) production from HCT15 cells was assessed. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays and real-time quantitative PCR showed that Nissle 1917 treatment suppressed TNF-α-induced IL-8 transcription and production. In addition, results from luciferase assays indicated that Nissle 1917 inhibited IL-8 promoter activity. On the other hand, these anti-inflammatory effects were not seen with E. coli K-12. In addition, heat-killed Nissle 1917 or its genomic DNA did not have this anti-inflammatory effect. Surprisingly, Nissle 1917 did not affect IL-8 transactivation pathways, such as NF-κB activation, nuclear translocation, and DNA binding, or even activation of other transcriptional factors. Furthermore, it also became evident that Nissle 1917 induced the anti-inflammatory effect without contact to epithelial cells. In conclusion, these data indicate that the nonpathogenic E. coli strain Nissle 1917 expresses a direct anti-inflammatory activity on human epithelial cells via a secreted factor which suppresses TNF-α-induced IL-8 transactivation through mechanisms different from NF-κB inhibition.


Much of this country's public policy towards sex offenders is based on misinformation or ignorance of the extensive research that has been conducted in this area. Too often, all sex offenders are viewed as a single entity: the predatory stranger unable to control his or her urge to prey upon children. Not being able to be rehabilitated, the individual needs to be incarcerated for long periods of time and have severe restrictions imposed once released. This image is all too often reinforced by politicians, the media, and others who profit from panicking the public with visions of an ever-spiraling increase in sexual abuse. However, the fact is that this definition fits only a small percentage of sex offenders. The vast majority have virtually the lowest re-offense rate among all criminal categories and can be safely and productively reintegrated into their communities. In addition, child sexual abuse is far rarer than politicians and the media would make out, and in fact has declined significantly over the past few decades.


INTRODUCTION Anecdotally, surgeons claim splenic flexure mobilisation is more difficult in male patients. There have been no scientific studies to confirm or disprove this hypothesis. The implications in colorectal surgery could be profound. The aim of this study was to assess quantitatively whether there is an anatomical difference in the position of the splenic flexure between men and women using computed tomography (CT). METHODS Portal venous phase CT performed for preoperative assessment of colorectal malignancy was analysed using the hospital picture archiving and communication system. The splenic flexure was compared between men and women using two variables: anatomical height corresponding to the adjacent vertebral level (converted to ordinal values between 1 and 17) and distance from the midline. RESULTS In total, 100 CT images were analysed. Sex distribution was even. The mean ages of the male and female patients were 68.1 years and 66.7 years respectively (p=0.630). The mean vertebral level for men was 8.88, equating to the inferior half of the T11 vertebral body (range: 1–17 [superior half of T9 to inferior half of L2]), and 11.36 for women, equating to the inferior half of the T12 vertebral body (range: 4–16 [superior half of T10 to superior half of L2]). This difference was statistically significant (p=0.0001) and is equivalent to one whole vertebra. The mean distance from the midline was 160.8mm (range: 124–203mm) for men and 138.2mm (range: 107–185mm) for women (p<0.0001). CONCLUSIONS The splenic flexure is both higher and further from the midline in men than in women. This provides one theory as to why mobilising the splenic flexure may be more difficult in male patients.