Gastric cancer incidence is declining. However, it is too early to consider this neoplastic disease as rare and the worldwide mortality rate still remains high. Several risk factors have been identif ied for non-cardia gastric cancer and primary prevention is feasible since most of the risk factors can be removed. Helicobacter pylori eradication treatment reduces but does not abolish gastric cancer risk. Indeed, gastric cancer is a multifactorial disease and removing one factor does not therefore prevent all cases. Endoscopic surveillance is still needed, especially in subjects at higher risk. The def inition of high-risk patients will be the future challenge as well as identifying the best surveillance strategy for such patients.


Three-point bending specimens of MgAl are loaded by MTS material testing equipment and Hopkinson pressure bar. Strength ratio of MgAl subjected to static compression loading is gained. The dynamic response of three-point bending specimen subjected to impact loading is simulated by ABAQUS finite element software. The stress distribution around crack tip is like shape of butterfly. It indicates that stress decreases quickly away from crack tip. Strain gauges are affixed at the swings of butterfly in the experiments and can experience higher strain signal. So the choice of strain gauge position is reasonable. Based on finite displacement method and the least multiplication value theory, dynamic stress intensity factors at different loading velocities are obtained. According to crack initiation time, dynamic initiation toughness is computed. The results indicate that dynamic initiation toughness of MgAl varies at different loading rates and increases with ball velocity.


Long binary sequences related to cyclic difference sets are investigated. Among all known constructions of cyclic difference sets it is shown that only sequences constructed from Hadamard difference sets can have an asymptotic nonzero merit factor. Maximal-length shift register sequences, Legendre, and twin-prime sequences are all constructed from Hadamard difference sets. The authors prove that the asymptotic merit factor of any maximal-length shift register sequence is three. For twin-prime sequences it is shown that the best asymptotic merit factor is six. This value is obtained by shifting the twin-prime sequence one quarter of its length. It turns out that Legendre sequences and twin-prime sequences have similar behavior. Jacobi sequences are investigated on the basis of the Jacobi symbol. The best asymptotic merit factor is shown to be six. Through the introduction of product sequences, it is argued that the maximal merit factor among all sequences of length N is at least six when N is large. The authors also demonstrate that it is fairly easy to construct sequences of moderate composite length with a merit factor close to six. >


SUMMARY The graphical and statistical analyses of competition diallels devised by Durrant were applied to an experiment investigating competition between four spring-wheat varieties. The results indicated that at low seed rates mixtures between varieties having a wide phenotypic difference between them in competitive characters, such as height and early maturity, could significantly outyield pure-stands of the component varieties. However, the results of a second experiment, in which these mixtures were grown at a range of seed rates, indicated that the yield advantage of mixtures over pure-stands was unlikely to occur at normal seed rates. It is suggested that, at the low seed rates likely to be used in growing F1 hybrid wheat crops, mixtures of F1 hybrids and male parental lines might achieve very nearly the same yield as the pure F1 hybrid variety with a seed bulk that was cheaper to produce.


During embryonic morphogenesis, cells and tissues undergo dramatic movements under the control of F-actin regulators. Our studies of epidermal cell migrations in developing C. elegans embryos have identified multiple plasma membrane signals that regulate the Rac GTPase, thus regulating WAVE and Arp2/3 complexes, to promote branched F-actin formation and polarized enrichment. We describe here a pathway that acts in parallel to Rac to transduce membrane signals to control epidermal F-actin through the GTPase Rho. Rho contributes to epidermal migrations through effects on underlying neuroblasts. Here we identify signals to regulate Rho in the epidermis. HUM-7, the C. elegans homolog of human Myo9A and Myo9B, regulates F-actin dynamics during epidermal migrations, by controlling Rho. Genetics and biochemistry support that HUM-7 behaves as GAP for the Rho GTPase, so that loss of HUM-7 enhances Rho-dependent epidermal cell behaviors. We identify SAX-3/ROBO as an upstream signal that contributes to attenuated Rho activation through its regulation of HUM-7/Myo9. These studies identify a new role for Rho during epidermal cell migrations, and suggest that Rho activity is regulated by SAX-3/ROBO acting on the RhoGAP HUM-7.


ABSTRACT Analysis of the genetic locus encompassing a cell wall polysaccharide (CWPS) biosynthesis operon of eight strains of Lactococcus lactis, identified as belonging to the same CWPS type C genotype, revealed the presence of a variable region among the strains examined. The results allowed the identification of five subgroups of the C type named subtypes C1 to C5. This variable region contains genes encoding glycosyltransferases that display low or no sequence homology between the subgroups. In this study, we purified an acidic polysaccharide from the cell wall of L. lactis 3107 (subtype C2) and confirmed that it is structurally different from the previously established CWPS of subtype C1 L. lactis MG1363. The CWPS of L. lactis 3107 is composed of pentasaccharide repeating units linked by phosphodiester bonds with the structure 6-α-Glc-3-β-Galf-3-β-GlcNAc-2-β-Galf-6-α-GlcNAc-1-P. Combinations of genes from the variable region of subtype C2 were introduced into a mutant of subtype C1 L. lactis NZ9000 deficient in CWPS biosynthesis. The resulting recombinant mutant synthesized a polysaccharide with a composition characteristic of that of subtype C2 L. lactis 3107 and not wild-type C1 L. lactis NZ9000. By challenging the recombinant mutant with various lactococcal phages, we demonstrated that CWPS is the host cell surface receptor of tested bacteriophages of both the P335 and 936 groups and that differences between the CWPS structures play a crucial role in determining phage host range. IMPORTANCE Despite the efforts of nearly 80 years of lactococcal phage research, the precise nature of the cell surface receptors of the P335 and 936 phage group receptors has remained elusive. This work demonstrates the molecular nature of a P335 group receptor while bolstering the evidence of its role in host recognition by phages of the 936 group and at least partially explains why such phages have a very narrow host range. The information generated will be instrumental in understanding the molecular mechanisms of how phages recognize specific saccharidic receptors located on the surface of their bacterial host. Despite the efforts of nearly 80 years of lactococcal phage research, the precise nature of the cell surface receptors of the P335 and 936 phage group receptors has remained elusive. This work demonstrates the molecular nature of a P335 group receptor while bolstering the evidence of its role in host recognition by phages of the 936 group and at least partially explains why such phages have a very narrow host range. The information generated will be instrumental in understanding the molecular mechanisms of how phages recognize specific saccharidic receptors located on the surface of their bacterial host.


River Listening is an interdisciplinary research project exploring the cultural and biological diversity of global river systems through sound. The project examines the creative possibilities of accessible and noninvasive recording technologies to monitor river health and engage local communities in the conservation of global river systems. River Listening combines emerging fields of science with acoustic ecology, creativity and digital technology to further the understanding of aquatic biodiversity and inspire action at a time when the conservation and management of freshwater ecosystems is a critical priority.


In this paper, we present a novel non-iterative algorithm to identify linear time-invariant systems from frequency response data. The algorithm is related to the recent time-domain subspace identification techniques. Promising results are obtained when the algorithm is applied to the real frequency data originating from a large flexible structure. A robustness analysis is performed and under weak conditions on the measurement noise, it is shown that the algorithm is consistent.


In this study the effects were examined of gender, academic domain, and grade level on attitudes towards women in 626 university students. Undergraduates were drawn from Faculty of Education, the School of Health, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, and Faculty of Engineering at a Turkish university. A Turkish version of the short version of the Attitude Towards Women Scale (Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1973) was administered and factor analyzed. Variance analysis applied to total scores revealed a significant main effect of gender on attitude towards women only. Females reported significantly more liberal views than males. Multivariate variance analysis results applied on 6 subscales showed that females were more liberal in vocational, educational, and intellectual behavior; freedom and independence; drinking, swearing, and dirty jokes; and marital relations. Dating, etiquette, and courtship; and premarital sexual behavior subscales indicated males' and females' views were not significantly different.


Increasingly, many centres around the world are delivering multidisciplinary care for patients with Parkinson's disease (PD).1 2 Indeed, a multidisciplinary team approach currently seems inevitable for anyone who understands even a little about PD. After all, this really is a wretched disorder, with a complex and diverse phenotype. Patients become progressively incapacitated, not only because of the well known motor symptoms (bradykinesia, rigidity, tremor, gait impairment and postural instability), but also because of a wide variety of non-motor symptoms. These include neuropsychiatric disorders (cognitive disturbances, hallucinations, psychosis), sleep disorders (insomnia, rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder, periodic leg movements), autonomic dysfunction (orthostatic hypotension, constipation, urinary incontinence, erectile dysfunction) and pain from various sources (eg, central pain, painful off period dystonia). Not surprisingly, PD is regarded by patients as one of the most unbearable disorders around, ranked second on the respective lists for both motor and cognitive disorders.3 Perhaps even more telling is the fact that many immediate caregivers are on the brink of succumbing to the pressure of living with someone with PD.4–6 Moreover, conventional therapies—drug treatment and stereotactic deep brain surgery—offer only partial and temporary relief, particularly in more advanced disease.7 Against this background, any neurologist who still feels that a single discipline suffices to combat this debilitating disease must seem almost heartless, or at least a bit naive. And any potential critics should be consoled by the fact that multidisciplinary care has already won its spurs in other areas of neurology—for example, stroke units.8

Luckily for PD patients, help is on the way. Evidence is growing to support the effectiveness of various allied health disciplines. Thus far, the case is strongest for specific physiotherapy techniques, such as cueing.9 But there are also practice based guidelines—from accumulating research evidence, or sometimes merely expert …


Summary. The aim of the present study was to investigate the incidence of Candida stomatitis and resulting interruptions in radiation and radiochemotherapy in 50 patients suffering from squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck region receiving fluconazole (100 mg d‐1) in comparison with a historical control group (n= 50) without specific prophylaxis. Twenty of the control patients (40%) demonstrated Candida stomatitis, with seven of them (14%) requiring interruptions in anticancer therapy. In contrast, none of the patients with fluconazole had evidence of Candida stomatitis (P= 0.0000051) and subsequent interruption of anti‐cancer therapy (P= 0.0061). Laboratory monitoring for the presence of Candida species was performed in 30 patients before and after therapy with fluconazole. Candida albicans was identified less frequently after therapy when compared with the pretreatment status. However, C. glabrata and C. krusei were isolated in some of the patients, probably because of drug resistance of these subspecies. The results demonstrate the clinical usefulness of prophylactic fluconazole applications in patients suffering from head and neck tumours with the aim of reducing Candida stomatitis and the resulting interruptions in radiation and radiochemotherapy.


Interaction of Cadmium (Cd) and a widely-used veterinary antibiotic tetracycline (TC), on the basis of their adsorption and desorption on alluvial soil, was studied using the batch experiments. The results indicated that adsorption and desorption isotherms of Cd and TC on the soils were well fitted with the Freundlich equation. There was an apparent sorption-desorption hysteresis of Cd and TC in soil, which will probably pose a threat to soil-environmental quality and human health. The adsorption of Cadmium or tetracycline in the combined form was more than individual. This can be attributed to increasing Cd adsorption via the bridge of TC, or stronger affinity of the TC-Cd complex to soil minerals than Cd or TC. The presence of Cd enhanced the hysteresis effect of TC sorption -desorption (H= 0.886-0.904). Similarly, the hysteresis effect of Cd sorption - desorption in presence of TC was more than Cd alone (H=0.882-0.925). The hystersis effect was more for Cd in presence of TC than forTC in presence of Cd, denoting binding of Cd on soil surface was stronger in presence of TC than Cd alone. It is thus important to consider the interaction between Cd and TC while studying on the fate of Cd and TC in soil environment.


The present paper is concerned with problems of the strong uniqueness of the best approximation and the characterization of a uniqueness element in operator spaces. Some results on the strong uniqueness of the best approximation operator from RS-sets are proved and the uniqueness element of a sun in the compact operator space from C0 to C0 is characterized by the strict Kolmogorov's condition. Some recent results due to Lewicki and others are extended and improved.


eScholarship provides open access, scholarly publishing services to the University of California and delivers a dynamic research platform to scholars worldwide. Abstract: The analysis of manufacturer-supplier relationships in Japan has contributed significantly to the advancement of interorganizational theory. It has yielded broad evidence that long-term collaborative partnerships enable firms to exploit the incentive benefits of market-based exchange while reaping the learning and coordination benefits of internalization within a corporate hierarchy. In this paper, we go beyond the issues of trust and cooperation that have occupied much prior theory and research on supplier relations in considering another dimension along which collaborative agreements may be arrayed. We build on transaction and network theories respectively to propose two types of long-term collaborative ties: dyadic or bilateral governance and network embeddedness. A comparative analysis of collaborative relationships in product and process development between two Japanese TV manufacturing companies and their suppliers provides empirical evidence for the distinctive effect of network ties over dyadic relationships for collaborative knowledge-sharing. ABSTRACT The analysis of manufacturer-supplier relationships in Japan has contributed significantly to the advancement of interorganizational theory. It has yielded broad evidence that long-term collaborative partnerships enable firms to exploit the incentive benefits of market-based exchange while reaping the learning and coordination benefits of internalization within a corporate hierarchy. In this paper, we go beyond the issues of trust and cooperation that have occupied much prior theory and research on supplier relations in considering another dimension along which collaborative agreements may be arrayed. We build on transaction and network theories respectively to propose two types of long -term collaborative ties: dyadic or bilateral governance and network embeddedness. A comparative analysis of collaborative relationships in product and process development between two Japanese TV manufacturing companies and their suppliers provides empirical evidence for the distinctive effect of network ties over dyadic relationships for collaborative knowledge-sharing.


Linguistics is commonly assumed and expressed by western scholars, as a modern science of language. Although, Arab scholars engaged with thus important science from early ages and its history goes back to the second century of hijrah. Arabs produced literary works that consisted upon the studies of language, specially arabic language and compiled books on those words or phrases or mustlahat that belonged to one subject or any living thing, for example, Kitab-ul-sha, kitab-ul- ibl etc. it is notable that they, at that time were ignorant of this fact how valuable work, they are producing.
It is because studies of language as linguistics was not introduced at that time Linguistics is indeed, the study of human language. It studies and expresses human language from different aspects and angles. The study of phoentics is one of its major and basic studies, as it discusses human sounds that are the basic of any human language. Eminent Arab scholar, Ibn-e- Jinni (392h) defines language in his famous book "Al-Khasais" and says "language is indeed those sounds by which one expresses his thoughts and feelings".So I have tried to discuss Arabic phoentics with detail in the following article, elaborting the system of speech of human beings and functions of its different organs in producing different types of sounds. I have also discussed properties of different sounds, like Hams, Jahr, Rikhve, Mutta-wassat etc, along with sounds of consonants and vowels. I hope this article will help the students to understand Arabic phoentics and will open new aspects of research to the researchers.


Haptic technology provides the ability for a system to recreate the sense of touch to a human operator, and as such offers wide reaching advantages. The ability to interact with the human's tactual modality introduces haptic human-machine interaction to replace or augment existing mediums such as visual and audible information. A distinct advantage of haptic human-machine interaction is the intrinsic bilateral nature, where information can be communicated in both directions simultaneously. This paper investigates the bilateral nature of the haptic interface in controlling the motion of a remote (or virtual) vehicle and presents the ability to provide an additional dimension of haptic information to the user over existing approaches (Park et al., 2006; Lee et al., 2002; and Horan et al., 2007). The 3D virtual haptic cone offers the ability to not only provide the user with relevant haptic augmentation pertaining to the task at hand, as do existing approaches, however, to also simultaneously provide an intuitive indication of the current velocities being commanded.


Discriminative region responses residing inside an object instance can be extracted from networks trained with image-level label supervision. However, learning the full extent of pixel-level instance response in a weakly supervised manner remains unexplored. In this work, we tackle this challenging problem by using a novel instance extent filling approach. We first design a process to selectively collect pseudo supervision from noisy segment proposals obtained with previously published techniques. The pseudo supervision is used to learn a differentiable filling module that predicts a class-agnostic activation map for each instance given the image and an incomplete region response. We refer to the above maps as Instance Activation Maps (IAMs), which provide a fine-grained instance-level representation and allow instance masks to be extracted by lightweight CRF. Extensive experiments on the PASCAL VOC12 dataset show that our approach beats the stateof-the-art weakly supervised instance segmentation methods by a significant margin and increases the inference speed by an order of magnitude. Our method also generalizes well across domains and to unseen object categories. Without fine-tuning for the specific tasks, our model trained on VOC12 dataset (20 classes) obtains top performance for weakly supervised object localization on the CUB dataset (200 classes) and achieves competitive results on three widely used salient object detection benchmarks.


SUMMARY We report on four patients seen during the past two years who had acanthamoeba keratitis. One is described in detail. We believe that acanthamoebic eye infection is not rare. An immunofluorescent technique for localisation of amoebae and cysts is described. Our patients' response to propamidine and dibromopropamidine therapy was complicated by problems of toxicity.


Background Ventilator-acquired pneumonia (VAP) remains a significant problem within intensive care units (ICUs). There is a growing recognition of the impact of critical-illness-induced immunoparesis on the pathogenesis of VAP, but the mechanisms remain incompletely understood. We hypothesised that, because of limitations in their routine detection, Mycoplasmataceae are more prevalent among patients with VAP than previously recognised, and that these organisms potentially impair immune cell function. Methods and setting 159 patients were recruited from 12 UK ICUs. All patients had suspected VAP and underwent bronchoscopy and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL). VAP was defined as growth of organisms at >104 colony forming units per ml of BAL fluid on conventional culture. Samples were tested for Mycoplasmataceae (Mycoplasma and Ureaplasma spp.) by PCR, and positive samples underwent sequencing for speciation. 36 healthy donors underwent BAL for comparison. Additionally, healthy donor monocytes and macrophages were exposed to Mycoplasma salivarium and their ability to respond to lipopolysaccharide and undertake phagocytosis was assessed. Results Mycoplasmataceae were found in 49% (95% CI 33% to 65%) of patients with VAP, compared with 14% (95% CI 9% to 25%) of patients without VAP. Patients with sterile BAL fluid had a similar prevalence to healthy donor BAL fluid (10% (95% CI 4% to 20%) vs 8% (95% CI 2% to 22%)). The most common organism identified was M. salivarium. Blood monocytes from healthy volunteers incubated with M. salivarium displayed an impaired TNF-α response to lipopolysaccharide (p=0.0003), as did monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs) (p=0.024). MDM exposed to M. salivarium demonstrated impaired phagocytosis (p=0.005). Discussion and conclusions This study demonstrates a high prevalence of Mycoplasmataceae among patients with VAP, with a markedly lower prevalence among patients with suspected VAP in whom subsequent cultures refuted the diagnosis. The most common organism found, M. salivarium, is able to alter the functions of key immune cells. Mycoplasmataceae may contribute to VAP pathogenesis.


This is the second part of a two-part paper that presents a procedural approach to derive nonlinear filters from schematics of audio circuits for the purpose of digitally emulating musical effects circuits in real-time. This work presents the results of applying this physics-based technique to two audio preamplifier circuits. The approach extends a thread of research that uses variable transformation and offline solution of the global nonlinear system. The solution is approximated with multidimensional linear interpolation during runtime to avoid uncertainties in convergence. The methods are evaluated here experimentally against a reference SPICE circuit simulation. The circuits studied here are the bipolar junction transistor (BJT) common emitter amplifier, and the triode preamplifier. The results suggest the use of function approximation to represent the solved system nonlinearity of the K-method and invite future work along these lines.


Candida , the most prevalent hospital-associated fungal pathogen, causes a variety of mucosal and deep-seated infections (1). Candidemia and other invasive Candida infections are among the more difficult to treat infections and are associated with high mortality rates, near 40% (2). Neutropenia, often related to chemotherapy or hematologic malignancy, places patients at high risk for severe disseminated candidiasis (3). The current recommended therapy involves a combination of treatment with antifungals, debridement and/or drainage of intra-abdominal sources, and removal of infected devices, such as vascular catheters and implantable cardiac devices (2,4-7).


The nucleotide sequence of the long internal reiteration. IR1, of Epstein-Barr Virus DNA has been determined. The repeat unit is 3,071 base pairs which are 66.8% guanine plus cytosine. There is a CCAAT sequence 39 nucleotides 5' to a TATAA, which could indicate a promotor for transcription. The longest open reading frame is 1,124 base pairs. Also within IR1 is a sequence homologous to the papovavirus origin of DNA replication. The ori-like sequence is within a long palindromic region which is 500 base pairs overall. The palidromic region shares common features with the Alu family members and with eucaryotic transposable elements. The juncture between the short unique region (U1) and IR1 is also sequenced. The transition occurs in BamHI-C at 1,214 base pairs before the BamHI site in the first repeat of IR1. The transition from IR1 to the rightward unique region (U2) has been reported to be at 636 base pairs after the BamHI site in the last repeat of IR1. Thus, relative to the start of IR1 at the juncture with U1, the last copy of IR1 is a partial repeat which contains only the beginning 1,850 base pairs.


We present a dynamic over-the-counter model of the fed funds market, and use it to study the determination of the fed funds rate, the volume of loans traded, and the intraday evolution of the distribution of reserve balances across banks. We also investigate the implications of changes in the market structure, as well as the effects of central bank policy instruments such as open market operations, the Discount Window lending rate, and the interest rate on bank reserves.


Pygmy goats in the last third of pregnancy were trained to walk on a treadmill at rates up to 2.0 mph and up an inclination of 0-15 degrees. Electromagnetic flowmeters were placed unilaterally on a uterine artery, and measurements were made while the goats were standing quietly on the treadmill and during 5 min of exercise. Blood flow fell during exercise in all five animals studied, and this reduction was proportional to the level of exertion. At the highest level of exercise that these animals would voluntarily perform, uterine artery blood flow fell by 32 +/- 3 (SE) % (P less than 0.001) from control. In four additional animals the radioactive microsphere technique was used to measure uterine blood flow at rest and after 5-7 min of exercise. In these animals, exercise caused total uterine blood flow to fall by 18 +/- 10%; cotyledonary (placental) blood flow fell by 8 +/- 13%, while myoendometrial blood flow decreased by 52 +/- 12% (P less than 0.05). Thus nonplacental portions of the pregnant Pygmy goat uterus suffer major reductions in blood flow during exercise. This vasoconstriction may be due to exercise per se or to concomitant hypocapnia or hyperthermia. Singleton and twin kids born to animals that exercised were of normal birth weight.


This paper presents an estimation of the output gap based on a multivariate filter that extracts the signal from output indicators and from a Phillips curve. The empirical findings demonstrate that as the specification of the model changes the estimates of output gap and potential output vary over a broad interval. The various models, which are assessed using multiple measures, are optimal only in relation to a specific measure or a time period, and none of them is better in absolute terms. In addition, models that were optimal prior to the recent economic crisis appear to have lost subsequently their explanatory power. The policy implications of these findings point to the need to base economic policy decisions on a model that is sufficiently flexible to incorporate different economic assumptions (such as anomalous cyclical conditions or hysteresis), and to accompany the estimates obtained with appropriate measures of error. We show that the median value of the different output gap estimates performs better, in terms of inflation forecast accuracy, than the individual models in the whole sample period. This measure of the Italian output gap results to be wider than the EC estimates and close to the IMF ones.


Dehydroquinate dehydratase (DHQD) catalyzes the third reaction in the biosynthetic shikimate pathway. Type I DHQDs are members of the greater aldolase superfamily, a group of enzymes that contain an active site lysine that forms a Schiff base intermediate. Three residues (Glu86, His143, and Lys170 in the Salmonella enterica DHQD) have previously been proposed to form a triad vital for catalysis. While the roles of Lys170 and His143 are well defined—Lys170 forms the Schiff base with the substrate and His143 shuttles protons in multiple steps in the reaction—the role of Glu86 remains poorly characterized. To probe Glu86′s role, Glu86 mutants were generated and subjected to biochemical and structural study. The studies presented here demonstrate that mutant enzymes retain catalytic proficiency, calling into question the previously attributed role of Glu86 in catalysis and suggesting that His143 and Lys170 function as a catalytic dyad. Structures of the Glu86Ala (E86A) mutant in complex with covalently bound reaction intermediate reveal a conformational change of the His143 side chain. This indicates a predominant steric role for Glu86, to maintain the His143 side chain in position consistent with catalysis. The structures also explain why the E86A mutant is optimally active at more acidic conditions than the wild‐type enzyme. In addition, a complex with the reaction product reveals a novel, likely nonproductive, binding mode that suggests a mechanism of competitive product inhibition and a potential strategy for the design of therapeutics.


In this thesis, we study how silhouettes extracted from images and video can help with two fundamental problems of 3D computer vision - namely multi-view camera calibration and 3D surface reconstruction from multiple images.
First, we present an automatic method for calibrating a network of cameras that works by analyzing only the motion of silhouettes in the multiple video streams. This is particularly useful for automatic reconstruction of a dynamic event using a camera network in a situation where pre-calibration of the cameras is impractical or even impossible. Our key contribution is a novel RANSAC-based algorithm that simultaneously computes the epipolar geometry and synchronization of a pair of cameras, only from the motion of silhouettes in video. The approach proceeds by first independently computing the epipolar geometry and synchronization for pairs of cameras in the network. In the next stage, the calibration and synchronization for the complete network is recovered.
The fundamental matrices from the first stage are used to determine a projective reconstruction, which is then upgraded to a metric reconstruction using self-calibration. Finally, a visual-hull algorithmis used to reconstruct the shape of the dynamic object from its silhouettes in video. For unsynchronized video streams with sub-frame temporal offsets, we interpolate silhouettes between successive frames to get more accurate visual hulls.
In the second part of the thesis, we address some short-comings of existing volumetric multi-view stereo approaches. First we propose a novel formulation for multi-view stereo that allows for robust and accurate fusion of the silhouette and stereo cues. We show that it is possible to enforce exact silhouette constraints within the graph-cut optimization step in the volumetric multi-view stereo algorithm. This guarantees that the reconstructed surface will be exactly consistent with the original silhouettes. Contrary to previous work on silhouette and stereo fusion, the silhouette consistency is guaranteed by construction through hard constraints in the graph-cut problem – the silhouette consistency terms are not part of the energy minimization problem which aims to find a surface with maximal photo-consistency.
Finally, we have also developed an adaptive graph construction approach for graph-cut based multi-view stereo to address the inherent high memory and computational overhead of the basic algorithm. The approach does not need any initialization and is not restricted to a specific surface topology which is a limitation with existing methods that use a base surface for initialization. Using this method, we have been able to efficiently reconstruct accurate and detailed 3D models of objects from high-resolution images for a number of different datasets.


The aim of this essay is to study social capital among entrepreneurs and employees and see how trust in social relations manifests itself in each working group. This is based on two theoretical concepts: social capital and trust. The essay focuses primarily on the social capital but will also affect trust in social relations. In the essay analysis questions is answered about how entrepreneurs and employees' social capital manifests itself and how trust in social relations is expressed in each working group. The general results of the essay are the following: Social capital for employees and contractors manifests itself in different ways, even if they have not proven to be any different in how much support they have from colleagues or other related parties. It has also been shown that contractors and employees utilize their social capital in various ways. Those surveyed employees and entrepreneurs trust towards social relations have also shown differ. This has been reflected in how they perceive hierarchical systems in the workplace, in the great extent they can be themselves and trust their colleagues. This is basely proved in that they possess different forms of employment, and thus has a different chance to influence who they work with.


Aims. On October 24, 2007 the comet 17P/ Holmes underwent an outburst that was extraordinary in both duration and size. We attempted to determine the cause of the outburst by acquiring and analyzing high resolution spectra of the comet. Methods. On two nights, October 25 and December 2, we acquired four high resolution spectra in the visible range at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo in La Palma. The oxygen lines intensity ratio was estimated for the observation performed on October 25, and computed for the observation performed on December 2. Results. Many emission lines were detected in the spectra, most of them attributable to C2 ,N H 2, CN and CH. The atomic O green line and one of the red doublet lines were detected in a spectrum acquired on October 25. All the three atomic O lines were detected in a spectrum acquired on December 2. The value obtained for the first night, 0.1 ± 0.11, implies that the H2O molecule was the main parent of the emission lines, while the value obtained for the second night, 0.3 ± 0.1, implies that the main parent was CO or CO2 instead than H2O. Conclusions. Our results imply that in the days around the outburst the water production was exceptionally high for that heliocentric distance. By December, however, the behavior of 17P/ Holmes had returned to that of a comet orbiting at 2.6 AU from the Sun, in which state the activity is probably sustained mostly by gases more volatile than water, such as CO and CO2.


Here is a unique, revealing, one-of-a-kind book about many of the personalities, pilot, and aircraft involved in major transcontinental races across the United States from 1928-1970. Cross-country unlimited class events-including non-stop air derbies of the late 1920s, the famous Bendix Trophy Races of the 1930s and 1940s, and modern Reno Harolds Club Trophy to 1970-produced some of the most exciting and heartbreaking tournaments on record. Written by the co-author of Mustang: The Racing Thoroughbred, this companion volume is an extensive history and assessment of many factors involved in the isolated, lonely environment of long distance air racing. Although the history is seasoned with technical lore-the history of aviation weather forecasting and wireless radio transmission, major engine manufacturing, detailed histories of the Marcoux-Bromberg r-3, and the Granville Brothers Gee Bee-the human element is by no means neglected. The trials, ordeals and mishaps of many famous pilots include Jimmy Doolittle, Art Grobel, Benny Howard, Earl Ortman, Joe Debona, Charley Tucker, Ed Lunken, and Mike Carroll, and are remembered in context with the planes they flew.


Regional differences in mortality from cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, strokes, and other causes have been observed in England and Wales. To determine to what extent the death certification practices of doctors influence these variations, we surveyed 123 British general practitioners and housemen. Each doctor completed death certificates based on fictitious case histories. We found that diagnostic groupings did not vary significantly according to the doctors' region, type of practice, place of medical training, sex, or year of qualification. Doctors qualifying before 1955, however, appeared more inclined than their younger colleagues to list stomach cancer on the death certificate.


ABSTRACT The Stenotrophomonas genus shows great adaptive potential including resistance to multiple antimicrobials, opportunistic pathogenicity, and production of numerous secondary metabolites. Using long-read technology, we report the sequence of a plant-associated Stenotrophomonas strain originating from the citrus phyllosphere that displays a copper resistance phenotype.


The purpose of this study was to examine selected characteristics of the editorial committee of the Journal of Research in Music Education (JRME) during the publication's first 40 years (1953-1992). Findings include: (1) the appointment of women to the committee increased significantly by decade but lagged behind female researcher productivity in music education; (2) committee members received their doctorates from and were affiliated with a relatively large number of colleges and universities; (3) generally, geographical distribution of the doctoral-degree-granting and affiliated institutions was proportionate to regional populations; (4) committee members' rate of publication in the JRME before appointment increased significantly by decade; and (5) female members published significantly more JRME articles than did male members during one decade, but there was no significant publication difference between male and female members for the four decades combined. The authors noted a possible trend toward dominance among doctoral-degree-granting institutions, but applauded the demographic representativeness of the committee over the four decades and continuing improvements toward the same.


Background Prognostic assessment in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains controversial. Using the Italian Liver Cancer (ITA.LI.CA) database as a training set, we sought to develop and validate a new prognostic system for patients with HCC. Methods and Findings Prospective collected databases from Italy (training cohort, n = 3,628; internal validation cohort, n = 1,555) and Taiwan (external validation cohort, n = 2,651) were used to develop the ITA.LI.CA prognostic system. We first defined ITA.LI.CA stages (0, A, B1, B2, B3, C) using only tumor characteristics (largest tumor diameter, number of nodules, intra- and extrahepatic macroscopic vascular invasion, extrahepatic metastases). A parametric multivariable survival model was then used to calculate the relative prognostic value of ITA.LI.CA tumor stage, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status, Child–Pugh score (CPS), and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) in predicting individual survival. Based on the model results, an ITA.LI.CA integrated prognostic score (from 0 to 13 points) was constructed, and its prognostic power compared with that of other integrated systems (BCLC, HKLC, MESIAH, CLIP, JIS). Median follow-up was 58 mo for Italian patients (interquartile range, 26–106 mo) and 39 mo for Taiwanese patients (interquartile range, 12–61 mo). The ITA.LI.CA integrated prognostic score showed optimal discrimination and calibration abilities in Italian patients. Observed median survival in the training and internal validation sets was 57 and 61 mo, respectively, in quartile 1 (ITA.LI.CA score ≤ 1), 43 and 38 mo in quartile 2 (ITA.LI.CA score 2–3), 23 and 23 mo in quartile 3 (ITA.LI.CA score 4–5), and 9 and 8 mo in quartile 4 (ITA.LI.CA score > 5). Observed and predicted median survival in the training and internal validation sets largely coincided. Although observed and predicted survival estimations were significantly lower (log-rank test, p < 0.001) in Italian than in Taiwanese patients, the ITA.LI.CA score maintained very high discrimination and calibration features also in the external validation cohort. The concordance index (C index) of the ITA.LI.CA score in the internal and external validation cohorts was 0.71 and 0.78, respectively. The ITA.LI.CA score's prognostic ability was significantly better (p < 0.001) than that of BCLC stage (respective C indexes of 0.64 and 0.73), CLIP score (0.68 and 0.75), JIS stage (0.67 and 0.70), MESIAH score (0.69 and 0.77), and HKLC stage (0.68 and 0.75). The main limitations of this study are its retrospective nature and the intrinsically significant differences between the Taiwanese and Italian groups. Conclusions The ITA.LI.CA prognostic system includes both a tumor staging—stratifying patients with HCC into six main stages (0, A, B1, B2, B3, and C)—and a prognostic score—integrating ITA.LI.CA tumor staging, CPS, ECOG performance status, and AFP. The ITA.LI.CA prognostic system shows a strong ability to predict individual survival in European and Asian populations.


Analog environments on Earth enable scientists to answer research questions about extraterrestrial ocean worlds that would be otherwise inaccessible. Because of their relative ease of sampling and close proximity to research facilities, utilization of analog environments allows scientists to undertake many investigations for the cost of a single planetary mission. In addition to direct in situ sampling, modeling approaches can be useful as can cost-effective tools both for determining whether a moon or planet is a suitable Earth analog and for designing strategies to sample extraterrestrial analog environments. Reconfigured Earth system models can help determine if conditions on other ocean worlds are suitable to support life. Finally, space exploration has made the protection of Earth's environment and other solar system bodies from harmful contamination a high priority at both the national and international levels. Because NASA's planetary exploration priorities emphasize robotic exploration, the US National Academies recently recommended that studies, workshops, and brainstorming sessions organized by NASA and other space agencies need to include a sufficiently broad range of microbiologists to ensure planetary protection. This will require the development and implementation of mechanisms for creating partnerships between Earth scientists and planetary scientists to test planetary protection solutions at field analog sites.


2D trajectory correction technology has been adopted to improve the accuracy of mortar. The fuze equipped with a trajectory correction canard is a method to achieve effectively 2D trajectory correction. The circular grid-fin has the characteristic of shorter length of fin cell, thereby the flowing choking is reduced effectively. The use of grid fin is well known for its smaller control moments resulting in smaller actuators, which can solve the problem of fuze space limitation. In addition, the circular layout allows it to be closed folded along the surface of the fuze, resulting in little influence on the aerodynamic characteristics of the trajectory correction mortar in the flight before correcting. The computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations are carried out to investigate the aerodynamic characteristics of trajectory correction mortar with planar canard and circular grid-fin canard respectively, in the condition of subsonic, transonic and supersonic. Lift coefficients, drag coefficients, lift/drag ration, pitch moment coefficients and center of pressure of trajectory correction mortar with circular grid-fin canard and planar canard are compared. The results indicate the circular grid-fin canard is a good configuration for 2D trajectory correction.


BackgroundParkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative hypokinetic movement disorder presenting with subcortical pathology and characterized by motor deficits. However, as is frequently reported in the literature, patients with Parkinson's disease can also exhibit cognitive and behavioral impairments. These impairments may be attributed to dysfunction of multiple systems associated with the disease process in Parkinson's disease that are not necessarily related to motor symptoms. In recent years, considerable attention has addressed the circuits connecting the frontal cortical regions and the basal ganglia (i.e., frontostriatal circuits) and how they mediate cognition and behavior in humans. It has been suggested that these same circuits are disrupted in Parkinson's disease and may be responsible for the frontal/executive deficits predominantly reported in this patient population. ObjectiveThe current survey of the literature provides a critique and analysis of the neuropsychological profile of Parkinson's disease, including cognitive impairments, behavioral alterations, and emotional processing deficits. A special feature of this paper is to ascertain how frontostriatal circuitry might provide the substrate for the neuropsychological impairments exhibited in Parkinson's disease. In so doing, studies involving nonhuman subjects, neurologically healthy adults, brain-lesioned individuals, and patients with Parkinson's disease are reviewed to provide a novel perspective in conceptualizing and categorizing the cognitive and behavioral sequelae concomitant to specific frontostriatal circuit dysfunction in Parkinson's disease. ConclusionsThe current review suggests that the neuropsychological profile of Parkinson's disease, which predominantly reflects frontal/executive dysfunction, may be attributed to disruption of the frontostriatal circuitry. The information generated from this review can serve as a guide in the assessment of frontal/executive dysfunction in Parkinson's disease with suggestions for a clinical neuropsychological test battery.


The metabolic changes during pregnancy are characterized as "accelerated starvation" and "facilitated anabolism" which are, in turn, worsened by the presence of diabetes mellitus. The current roles of dietary fiber and exercise as adjunctive therapeutic modalities in the management of diabetic pregnancies are discussed herein.


Ecological engineering is a new field with its roots in the science of ecology, it uses ecology and engineering to predict, design, construct or restore, and manage ecosystems that integrate human society with its natural environment for the benefit of both. This paper is meant to serve as a bridge between ecologists and engineers. It reports a developmental approach in the application of CNC-machining for the rapid manufacturing process based on principles of engineering ecology. The purpose of this paper is to design a green methodology for machining parameters to be used for machining an intricate part which can significantly reduce pollution and is therefore to the benefit of environment and ecosystem. The present study also calculates the maximum values of force, feed, velocity and power required for machining an intricate part with thin ends with SSF as a fixture using CNC-RP machining. Practical implementation of principles of engineering ecology to design parameters is used for machining an intricate part with thin ends with SSF using CNC-RP process only in industries.


Lessons learned and public scrutiny resulting from the Gulf Coast hurricane disasters in 2005 led the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to restructure its national incident response guidance. The National Response Framework (NRF) replaced the National Response Plan (NRP) in early 2008. The updated Framework has focused the attention of emergency management planning to, among other things, updating Emergency Operations Plans (EOPs) on a State and local jurisdictional level, utilizing an Emergency Support Function (ESF) model. Since 2005, compliance mandates under the National Incident Management System (NIMS) have required local government entities to revise and update emergency operations plans to incorporate NIMS components. With the introduction of the NRF in 2008, the ESF model is now the recommended standard for local government EOPs under the NIMS compliance objectives. The ESF model provides for a coordinated response effort and mutual aid options local agencies may receive from State and Federal resources in the wake of an emergency. It also works to ensure that local entities themselves have a careful accounting of all of their own resources and capabilities to avoid another slow and inadequate response that was at the heart of the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita tragedies in 2005.


This paper presents a dynamic Overlapping Generations Computable General Equilibrium (OLG-CGE) model of Scotland. The model is used to examine the impact of population ageing on the labour market. More specifically, it is used to evaluate the effects of labour force decline and labour force ageing on key macro-economic variables. The second effect is assumed to operate through age-specific productivity and labour force participation. In the analysis, particular attention is paid to how population ageing impinges on the government expenditure constraint. The basic structure of the model follows in the Auerbach and Kotlikoff tradition. However, the model takes into consideration directly age-specific mortality. This is analogous to "building in" a cohort-component population projection structure to the model, which allows more complex and more realistic demographic scenarios to be considered. See above See above


Sea ice is an important structuring element of Arctic marine ecosystems and provides a
vast low-temperature habitat for ice-associated bacteria. While it is now known that sea ice
sequesters large amounts of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) contributing significantly to its
particulate organic carbon pool, the ecological role of EPS in sea ice is poorly understood. Using in
situ incubations combined with a newly developed triple-staining method (Alcian Blue, DAPI, CTC),
we determined the number of CTC-reducing (i.e. actively respiring) sea-ice bacteria living freely or
attached to gel-like exopolymer particles. Samples were collected at 6 depths from Chukchi Sea
coastal fast ice in April, May and June 2003. Concentrations of exopolymer particles ranged between
1.8 × 106 and 149.1 × 106 particles l–1 (average 4.7 × 106 particles l–1) and showed strong vertical gradients
with maximum concentrations at the ice-water interface. Total bacterial numbers (TBN)
ranged from 0.18 × 109 to 8.48 × 109 cells l–1 with an average fraction of 7.4% of actively respiring cells
(range 3.0 to 17.2% of TBN). The attached bacterial fraction (range 4.6 to 28.5%, average 15.0% of
TBN) showed a significantly, approximately 4 times higher proportion of actively respiring cells
(average 19.6%, range 7.8 to 37.6%) when compared to the free-living fraction that had an average
of 5.4% (range 1.1 to 11.2%) of actively respiring cells. In conclusion, exopolymer particles in sea ice
are microbial hotspots of increased bacterial activity able to foster enhanced biogeochemical cycling.


Photograph of Jens H. Berndt and his farmstead half a mile west of Danevang, Texas, which was later sold to P. C. Petersen in 1921. This information is also written on the back of the item in black ink. Presumably, Jens is the man in the foreground on the small plow that is being pushed by two horses. Behind him on the left, there is a barn with a tall gable roof and a windmill. The main home is on the far right. It is a two-story house with intersecting gable roofs and several double-hung windows, as well as two roof overhangs covering small patios.
The photograph has been placed on a stiff mat which is chipping on the sides.


Opioid use disorder has risen to epidemic proportions in the United States at an alarming rate in the past decade and is considered a leading public health concern. Women have a higher rate of acute and chronic pain conditions and are more likely to be prescribed opioids for pain management. The disproportionate incidence of opioid use, misuse, and progression to heroin and injectable drug use among reproductive age women is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Of particular concern are the unique health risks opioid-dependent women face including immune system alterations, endocrinopathies, diminished fertility, psychosocial isolation, interpersonal violence, and unintentional overdose. Opioid use in pregnancy is associated with negative maternal and neonatal consequences and requires comprehensive, multidisciplinary services for the co-occurring medical, mental health, infectious disease, social stressors, and legal issues. Neonatal abstinence syndrome is linked to a cluster of physiological withdrawal symptoms and considered the primary adverse outcome of opioid exposure in newborns. Maternal medication-assisted treatment with methadone or buprenorphine to decrease the negative effects of neonatal withdrawal is the standard of care for opioid use disorders in pregnancy. The complexity of services required for maternal opioid use disorders requires collaborative and multidisciplinary management strategies to optimize maternal and neonatal outcomes.


Size-selective synthesis of very small iron oxide nanoparticles (IONP; 4–8 nm) was achieved by the thermal decomposition of iron acetylacetonate in diethylenglycol by a simple one-pot reaction. The particles were functionalized on the one hand with poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) directly during the formation of the particles and on the other hand by a simple postsynthetic reaction with citrate, ascorbate, tartrate, dextran 60, gum Arabic, PVP, or poly(ethyleneglycol) (PEG). In view of medical and environmental applications, the stability of the particles was measured with dynamic light scattering in water as well as in physiological media containing buffers (4-(2-hydroxyethyl)-1-piperazineethanesulfonic acid (IP-HEPES), phosphate buffered saline (PBS)), high salt concentrations (Elendt M7), or proteins (Dulbecco's modified eagle medium (DMEM) with and without 10 % fetal calf serum (FCS)). The effect of the functionalization of the nanoparticles on the production of radical oxygen species (ROS) was investigated during the Fenton reaction, showing that the nature of the functionalization can raise the production of ROS drastically. To extend the range of applications, the one-pot reaction with PVP was expanded by an additional step, allowing tagging of the particles with various fluorescein derivatives. In this way, fluorescent nanoparticles exhibiting emissions in the range of 475–553 nm were obtained.


The discrete clamp is used to replace the integral clamp in the traditional stretch forming process, and the stretch forming process of complex curved parts is studied. With the trapezoidal profile part and the double curved top part as the research objects, numerical simulation of the stretch forming process with the integral clamp and the discrete clamp is carried out respectively. The numerical simulation results show that: compared with the integral clamp, it is easier for the trapezoidal profile part to fit the die during stretch forming with the discrete clamp, and the distribution of strain and thickness of the formed part is more uniform; during forming of the double curved top part, with the same forming force, the sheet metal can not fit the die completely with the integral clamp forming, while it can completely fit the die during stretch forming with the discrete clamp. When the forming force of the integral clamp is increased, the sheet metal still can not fit the die completely, and the sheet metal is more likely to crack. Stretch forming tests are conducted for the trapezoidal profile part and the double curved top part with the discrete clamp stretch forming device, and good forming effect is realized, which is consistent with the numerical simulation results.


There is growing interest in automating designing good neural network architectures. The NAS methods proposed recently have significantly reduced architecture search cost by sharing parameters, but there is still a challenging problem of designing search space. We consider search space is typically defined with its shape and a set of operations and propose a channel-level architecture search (CNAS) method using only a fixed type of operation. The resulting architecture is sparse in terms of channel and has different topology at different cell. The experimental results for CIFAR-10 and ImageNet show that a fine-granular and sparse model searched by CNAS achieves very competitive performance with dense models searched by the existing methods.


The goal of this paper is to propose, evaluate, and compare four search strategies for ensemble feature selection, and to consider their application to medical diagnostics, with a focus on the problem of the classification of acute abdominal pain. Ensembles of learnt models constitute one of the main current directions in machine learning and data mining. Ensembles allow us to get higher accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity, which are often not achievable with single models. One technique, which proved to be effective for ensemble construction, is feature selection. Lately, several strategies for ensemble feature selection were proposed, including random subspacing, hill-climbing-based search, and genetic search. In this paper, we propose two new sequential-search-based strategies for ensemble feature selection, and evaluate them, constructing ensembles of simple Bayesian classifiers for the problem of acute abdominal pain classification. We compare the search strategies with regard to achieved accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and the average number of features they select.


Iron and folic acid supplementation is the key approach for anemia prevention and control during pregnancy. In Ethiopia only <1% of pregnant mothers ingest the ideal number of tablets. Although, adherence is the most important challenge, literature is dearth and the predictors are undoubtedly recognized. Institution based quantitative cross sectional study design triangulated with qualitative methods was employed among 395 systematically selected pregnant mothers attending antenatal care in Debre Markos town, Ethiopia. Data were collected using interviewer administered structured questionnaire. Data were entered into Epi data and exported to SPSS software. Bivariate and multivariable Logistic regression with the 95% confidence interval was computed. P-value < 0.05 was declared as statistically significant. Eight in-depth interviews were conducted. The data were entered and analyzed using open code software. Adherence rate was 55.5% (95%CI, 50.5%-60.4%). Pregnant mothers who had; history of anemia during current pregnancy [AOR:7.9, 95%CI (4.44-14.01)], primary education (AOR:4.0, 95%CI (1.88-8.54)], secondary education and above (AOR:3.6, 95%CI (1.20-6.94)], good knowledge of iron and folic acid supplementation [AOR:2.1, 95%CI (1.24-3.56)], and early registration for antenatal care (AOR:1.8, 95%CI (1.06-3.11)] were predictors of iron and folic acid supplementation adherence. The rate of adherence was low. Getting medical advice and fear of illness if missed were the primary reasons that enforce mothers to take the tablets. Hence, improving mothers' knowledge regarding overall aspects of the tablet through better advice, community teaching and the mass media at large, would improve adherence.


Author(s): Waller, Travis | Advisor(s): Walker, Sharon L | Abstract: This dissertation characterized two forms of TiO2 engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) to determine the role of solution conditions in mediating differences in the environmental impacts of emerging nanomaterials. In general, ENMs designed for specific product matrices are functionalized to impart distinct characteristics capable of altering the environmental fate and transport (i.e. shape and surface composition). Observations of TiO2 ENM release during product life cycles presents a concern as nanoparticles with unique characteristics begin accumulating in environmental systems. TiO2 nanomaterials were introduced to three consecutive, environmental systems with microbial presence to characterize environmental implications of ENM presence, namely: a model human colon, septic tank, and a quartz sand filtration column. The following critical findings resulted from this dissertation research. Colonic exposure to food (FG) and industrial (IG) grade TiO2 inhibited a natural shift in microbial composition from Proteobacteria to Firmicutes phyla, with FG TiO2 having the greater impact. Colonic pH levels decreased from IG and FG TiO2 exposure where FG TiO2 (pH 4) again had the greatest impact compared to IG TiO2 (pH 5) and the control (pH 6). Therefore, inherent physical and chemical properties of FG and IG TiO2 can produce different microbial responses in the colonic environment. Next, exposure of the septic system to IG TiO2 particles had minimal effect on the composition of the denitrifying-dominant microbial community, while FG exposures resulted in a mixed functionality community less effective at waste treatment. Nano-FG TiO2 exposure in septic systems may facilitate considerable changes in microbial community activity. Lastly, FG TiO2 exhibited a high degree of stability in septic conditions and both monovalent electrolyte suspensions. Elution of FG and IG TiO2 was greatest in septic effluent at the higher nanoparticle concentration (100 ppm); however, FG TiO2 was well retained at the low (2 ppm) concentration suggesting low elution from the drainage field. Valuable insight into the role that inherent physical and chemical properties of emerging ENMs play in environmental systems is gained from this dissertation research. Additionally, the significance of the solution environment at mediating differences observed between uniquely, engineered nanomaterials sheds light on potential mechanisms for minimizing detrimental environmental implications of nanomaterials.


MR guided High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (MR-HIFU) is a promising non-invasive therapeutic modality. It makes use of ultrasound waves to cause localized heating of a target volume, e.g. a tumor, deep inside the patient's body. MRI is used to plan, monitor and evaluate the treatment procedure, by means of high-resolution imaging and MR thermometry techniques that allow real-time temperature mapping. Currently, pancreatic cancer patients have a poor prognosis. While MR-HIFU holds potential to enable fully non-invasive treatment of these patients, more technical work is needed to develop a routinely used treatment modality. MR Imaging and energy delivery in the pancreas is challenging because it is located in the upper abdominal area, is subject to respiratory motion and air in the digestive tract leads to artifacts in the images. In this dissertation, new MRI methods were introduced and investigated to improve MRI temperature monitoring and MRI planning of the treatment procedure. In addition, near the pancreas, major vessels and nerves are present, that can be visualized using MRI techniques developed in this thesis. The celiac plexus, for example, a nerve structure that plays a major role in pain generation in these patients, and is therefore a target in pain management. While the work presented in this manuscript introduces promising solutions, future step should be carried towards real time implementation and clinical evaluation of these solutions.


A logistic regression model and a bivariate statistical analysis were used in this paper to evaluate the groundwater recharge susceptibility. The approach is based on the assessment of the relationship involving groundwater recharge and parameters that influence this hydrological process. Surface parameters and aquifer-related parameters were evaluated as thematic map layers using ArcGIS. Then, a weighted-rating method was adopted to categorize each parameter's map. To assess the role of each parameter in the aquifer recharge, a logistic regression model and a bivariate statistical analysis were applied to the Guenniche phreatic aquifer (Tunisia). Models are explored to establish a map showing the aquifer recharge susceptibility. The code Modflow was used to simulate the consequence of the recharge. The recharge amount was introduced in the model and was tested to verify the recharge effect on the hydraulic head for the two models. The obtained results reveal that the recharge as mapped in the bivariate statistical model has a minor impact on the hydraulic head. Results of the logistic regression model are more significant as the hydraulic head is widely affected. This model provides good results in mapping the spatial distribution of the aquifer recharge susceptibility.


Large dams produce important changes in flow regime and sediment deposition and distribution in rivers. When inundation starts with the building of dams, water surface area increases, flow rate decreases, and sediment carried by the river is deposited in the reservoir. However, there is a lack of research on the physical and chemical properties of recently deposited sediment in reservoirs of large dams. We aimed to fill this gap in the literature by providing valuable data on the initial formation of sediment deposition areas in reservoirs. Therefore, the aim of this study conducted within the Borcka Dam reservoir was to estimate some physical and chemical properties of deposited sediment, including grain size distribution, penetration resistance, water-stable aggregate, moisture content, organic matter content, and pH at two depths (0-10 cm and 10-20 cm). Another objective was to analyze the distribution of these properties across the sampling site. For this purpose, one of the aforementioned sediment deposition areas, approximately 3.6 ha, was designated as the study site; the study site was further divided into intersecting transects of 10 A— 50 m. The penetration resistance values were determined in the field and 182 sediment samples were taken at 91 intersection points of transects, both from the surface (0-10 cm) and subsurface (10-20 cm) layers for laboratory analysis. Data gathered were evaluated using descriptive statistics and ANOVA, while geostatistical analyses were used for calculating spatial variability in the data. Results indicated that the most common texture classes were loam in the surface layer and silty loam in the subsurface layer. Moreover, the penetration resistance values, sand content, and water-stable aggregate values in the surface layer were significantly (P < 0.01) higher than in the subsurface layer, and moisture content, clay and silt content, pH, and organic matter were significantly (P < 0.01) higher in the subsurface layer than in the surface layer. Geostatistical analyses showed that all properties were described by the isotropic variogram and the ranges were lower in the subsurface layer than in the surface layer. This study revealed that the analyzed physical and chemical properties of the recently deposited sediments showed significant differences between the layers.


Optimal decision-making often requires an assessment of the costs and benefits associated with each available course of action. Previous studies have shown that lesions to the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) impair cost–benefit decision-making in laboratory animals, but the neural mechanisms underlying the deficit are not well understood. We recorded from ACC neurons in freely moving rats as they performed a spatial decision-making task whereby, in the baseline configuration "2:6B," rats could pursue two or six food pellets, the latter obtained by climbing a barrier [high cost, high reward (HCHR)]. In this configuration, the mean percentage of HCHR choices was 69 ± 4%, and a substantial portion of ACC neurons (63%) exhibited significantly higher firing for one goal trajectory versus the other; for 94% of these cells, higher firing was associated with the HCHR option. This HCHR bias was not simply attributable to the larger reward, the barrier, or behavioral preference. In intersession and intrasession manipulations involving at least one barrier (2:6B, 2B:6B, and 2:2B), ACC activity rapidly adapted and was consistently biased toward the economically advantageous option relative to the configuration. Interestingly, when only a difference in reward magnitude was presented (2:6, no barrier, HCHR choices of 84 ± 4%), ACC activity was minimal and nonbiased. One interpretation of our data is that the ACC encodes a relative, integrated cost–benefit representation of available choice options that is biased toward the "better" option in terms of effort/outcome ratio. This representation may be specifically recruited when an assessment of reward and effort is required to optimally perform a task.


This article investigates the indigenization of cinema, from production to reception, within the broader social, political, and cultural domain of early- to mid-twentieth-century East Bengal/Pakistan. As an attempt to fill certain gaps in South Asian film studies, Raju's essay locates the early encounters of the East Bengal population with film through multiple public spheres. Raju demonstrates how cinema was a site of contest between various social groups from the 1900s through the 1960s in East Bengal. He challenges the dominant mode of nationalist, empirical-teleological historiography to interpret the absorption of cinema in the East Bengali cultural milieu. He further argues that the cultural adoption of the film medium may be seen through overlapping public spheres for different publics during the first six decades of the twentieth century in East Bengal, where and when the nationhood was always in mutation. This article thus elaborates how colonial rulers, non-Bengalis, as well as Bengali Muslims of colonial East Bengal appropriated cinema in different ways and later in postcolonial East Pakistan how both urban and rural Bengali Muslims indigenized film to construct their preferred identities. It identifies such events related to appropriation of cinema as and within various public spheres: from transnational and colonial to cultural-national and rural-vernacular. In this way Raju attempts to understand the specific processes of cultural appropriation of cinema, a Western technological medium in a largely Islamic and agrarian society of South Asia.


Allozyme and chromosomal variation were compared between five small re-established populations of the endangered grassland daisy Rutidosis leptorrhynchoides and the two large, wild tetraploid (2n = 44) populations from which they were derived, to assess whether re-establishment has been associated with a significant genetic bottleneck. Mean allelic richness at five allozyme loci was lower in re-established populations than in their progenitors, but there were no differences in levels of heterozygosity or gene fixation. In contrast, re-established populations had a greater range of cytotypes than the wild populations, with novel cytotypes including euploids, aneuploids and chromosomal rearrangements. Some of this increased cytological diversity may be attributable to increased rates of disjunctional errors under increased inbreeding in small populations. However, the presence of 2n = 33 triploid plants in the re-established populations, along with the occurance of two allozyme alleles that are otherwise unique to a neighbouring diploid population, both suggest that immigration is also influencing the chromosomal architecture of the new populations. Although the two types of genetic diversity examined show apparently contrasting responses to re-establishment, both of the observed changes in diversity may negatively affect population viability. If losses in allozyme diversity are paralleled by a loss of mating types in this self-incompatible species there is the potential for significant effects on population demography. Increased frequencies of chromosomal abnormalities, which are often associated with lowered fertility, will also reduce mean individual fitness.


The design of a degradable high-performing thermoset without using organic solvents is critical for the understanding and sustainable development of homogeneous structures with simultaneous reinforcement and toughening functions. Here, we report a novel degradable and recyclable thermoset hyperbranched epoxy resin (EFTH-n) synthesized from bio-based 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA). EFTH-n showed excellent performance on common diglycidyl ether of bisphenol-A (DGEBA) with simultaneous improvements in the impact strength, tensile strength, flexural strength, storage modulus and elongation by up to 181.84%, 60.22%, 24.08%, 32% and 58.0%, respectively. The homogeneous microstructure of EFTH-n/DGEBA composites was systematically analyzed using in situ Raman imaging, AFM, SEM, DMA, dynamic light scattering and the positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy, which enabled us to attribute the improvements to the synergistic effect of the crosslinking density, free volume, intermolecular cavity, hyperbranched topological structure and good compatibility between the components, which was explained by an in situ reinforcing and toughening mechanism. We concluded that EFTH-n could significantly facilitate the degradation of the cured composites under mild conditions without using organic solvents together with a FDCA recycling yield of 56.8 wt%.


In response to the empirical and theoretical weaknesses of the older social stress or deprivation theories of social movements, a new general theory of social movements—resource mobilization theory—has become increasingly popular. One of the most basic points of disagreement between theorists accepting one or the other general perspective involves the extent to which the development and growth of a social movement can be attributed to the preconditions of social stress or some form of deprivation. This article begins by describing how the two perspectives are indirectly rooted in differeing paradigms of social organization, which leads to divergent assumptions about the nature of social conflict and social order. Next, theoretical and empirical problems contained in each perspective are shown to be partially related to these assumptions. Finally, a continuum describing "movements of crisis" and "movements of affluence" is constructed to suggest that the structural conditions inviting social movement activity are varied. When such variance is recognized, we find there is a place for both theories in the complex field of study, though deprivation theories especially face many continuing problems.


ABSTRACT Studies of the host response to virus infection typically focus on protein-coding genes. However, non-protein-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) are transcribed in mammalian cells, and the roles of many of these ncRNAs remain enigmas. Using next-generation sequencing, we performed a whole-transcriptome analysis of the host response to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) infection across four founder mouse strains of the Collaborative Cross. We observed differential expression of approximately 500 annotated, long ncRNAs and 1,000 nonannotated genomic regions during infection. Moreover, studies of a subset of these ncRNAs and genomic regions showed the following. (i) Most were similarly regulated in response to influenza virus infection. (ii) They had distinctive kinetic expression profiles in type I interferon receptor and STAT1 knockout mice during SARS-CoV infection, including unique signatures of ncRNA expression associated with lethal infection. (iii) Over 40% were similarly regulated in vitro in response to both influenza virus infection and interferon treatment. These findings represent the first discovery of the widespread differential expression of long ncRNAs in response to virus infection and suggest that ncRNAs are involved in regulating the host response, including innate immunity. At the same time, virus infection models provide a unique platform for studying the biology and regulation of ncRNAs. IMPORTANCE Most studies examining the host transcriptional response to infection focus only on protein-coding genes. However, there is growing evidence that thousands of non-protein-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) are transcribed from mammalian genomes. While most attention to the involvement of ncRNAs in virus-host interactions has been on small ncRNAs such as microRNAs, it is becoming apparent that many long ncRNAs (>200 nucleotides [nt]) are also biologically important. These long ncRNAs have been found to have widespread functionality, including chromatin modification and transcriptional regulation and serving as the precursors of small RNAs. With the advent of next-generation sequencing technologies, whole-transcriptome analysis of the host response, including long ncRNAs, is now possible. Using this approach, we demonstrated that virus infection alters the expression of numerous long ncRNAs, suggesting that these RNAs may be a new class of regulatory molecules that play a role in determining the outcome of infection. Most studies examining the host transcriptional response to infection focus only on protein-coding genes. However, there is growing evidence that thousands of non-protein-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) are transcribed from mammalian genomes. While most attention to the involvement of ncRNAs in virus-host interactions has been on small ncRNAs such as microRNAs, it is becoming apparent that many long ncRNAs (>200 nucleotides [nt]) are also biologically important. These long ncRNAs have been found to have widespread functionality, including chromatin modification and transcriptional regulation and serving as the precursors of small RNAs. With the advent of next-generation sequencing technologies, whole-transcriptome analysis of the host response, including long ncRNAs, is now possible. Using this approach, we demonstrated that virus infection alters the expression of numerous long ncRNAs, suggesting that these RNAs may be a new class of regulatory molecules that play a role in determining the outcome of infection.


Barnacle goose parents caring for four or more goslings devoted less time to foraging than did those with fewer offspring, and more time was spent being vigilant. Goslings gained substantial benefits from being in the family unit, including better foraging opportunities and higher dominance status. Apart from greater distances from their neighbours, goslings did not benefit from being in larger sized families. Time budgets and foraging performance did not differ between the three parentless gosling types. It is possible that only weaker goslings adopted the group or parasite' strategies, thus raising their foraging performance to a level similar to that of single non-family goslings.


We illustrate mechanisms that can give rise to path dependence in legislation. Specifically, we show how debtor-friendly bankruptcy law arose in the United States as a result of a path dependent process. The 1898 Bankruptcy Act was not regarded as debtor-friendly at the time of its enactment, but the enactment of the law gave rise to changes in interest groups, changes in beliefs about the purpose of bankruptcy law, and changes in the Democratic Party's position on bankruptcy that set the United States on a path to debtor-friendly bankruptcy law. An analysis of the path dependence of bankruptcy law produces an interpretation that is more consistent with the evidence than the conventional interpretation that debtor-friendliness in bankruptcy law began with political compromises to obtain the 1898 Bankruptcy Act.


There are a variety of criticisms of medical data mining which has led, in some cases, to the technology being overlooked as a tool. This paper presents a discussion of six of the strongest arguments against the application of data mining to the complex field of human medicine. The aim of the paper is to raise the predominant issues and suggest solutions whilst also opening the issues for further consideration by both medical and information technology communities.


Post 9 /11, the United States as a country that became victims of the WTC attacks try to construct a new discourse called terrorism. In the process, the context of terrorism is associated with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Wahhabi as an Islam movement that originated and developed in Saudi Arabia, regarded as an extreme ideology and acts of terrorism have been inspired al-Qaeda and other Islamic radical groups. Libforall Foundation as an international institution that promotes the values of freedom and tolerance is an effective medium for propaganda to the public. Internet ability to reach audiences in the world, making this site www.libforall.com an effective means to influence Muslim's World in order to reduce the apeal of extremism and discredit the Wahhabi religious. The research problem is how Libforall Foundation 's propaganda on the site www.libforall.com being constructed. The destination of this study was to determine the construction of Libforall Foundation to Wahhabi on the site www.libforall.com.
Data that taken in this study is the presentation of 6 articles on the Background page (www.libforall.com site), and 1 links article (continued page) that is labeled as 'extra read all about it' and literature data are also consistent with the material research. In accordance with the objectives to be achieved in this research, the text element to be the main component in the sense of propaganda carried out by Libforall Foundation Categorization through emphasis and choice of words used by Libforall Foundation, will describe the type and technique used when making propaganda. Organizational approach (organitational approach), in which the media manager as an active part in the establishment and production of news (text) to create an article on the site to be a strength of www.libforall.com to determining the content of the article. Collaboration between Abdurrahman Wahid and C. Holland Taylor as co-founder of Libforall Foundation into a force in determining the content of the message the article. An appropriate tool to uncover the propaganda Libforall Foundation construction on the site www.libforall.com used an qualitative approach with a model of discourse analysis techniques Teun Van Dijk. The elements of social cognition that characterizes this model consider that the text was influenced by external elements, one of whom was the author or the text maker. According to Van Dijk-makers in the media texts contain specific purpose with emphasis on the constellation of forces that occur during the production and reproduction. The objects of the research in this textual analysis and reinforced by elements of social analysis of the sosial context and cognition. From the results of this study, it can be concluded that the propaganda carried on www.libforall.com. Seeks to form a negative image of Wahhabi to influence Muslims in order to reduce and discredit the Wahhabi ideology throughout the world.


The impact of cultural processes on personal and social changes is one of the important research issues not only in contemporary social sciences but also for simulation of future development scenarios and evidence-based policy decision making. In the context of the theoretical concept of cultural values, based on the system theory and theory of social capital, the impact of cultural events could be analyzed and simulated by focussing on the construction/deconstruction of social capital, which takes place throughout the actor's cultural participation. The main goal of this research is the development of measuring metrics, and agent-based simulation model aimed at investigation of the social impact of cultural processes.  This paper provides new insights of modeling the social capital changes in a society and its groups, depending on cultural participation. The proposed measurement metrics provide the measurement facility of three key components: actors, cultural events and events flow and social capital. It provides the initial proof of concept simulation results, - simplified agent-based simulation model showcase. The NetLogo MAS platform is used as a simulation environment.


Sufficiency is one important strategy for sustainable development. At an individual level, we need a better understanding of the relationship between sufficiency attitude and CO2 footprint. In this paper, we analyze sufficiency as a psychological determinant of low-carbon
 lifestyles and introduce an empirical measurement scale for individual sufficiency attitudes.Sufficiency aims at a total reduction of resource consumption, which is urgently needed to achieve our climate and sustainable development goals. This paper explores individual attitude towards
 a sufficiency-oriented lifestyle as a driver of a low carbon footprint. Survey data of 310 participants was analyzed to test whether individual sufficiency attitude manifests in people's carbon footprint. The results provide evidence for this relationship but its strength varies between
 behavioral domains ‐ that is, heating, electricity, food consumption, everyday mobility, air travel. Potential structural and individual barriers to reducing CO2 emissions are discussed as possible factors that could explain differences between the behavioral domains. We
 argue that intrapersonal factors matter for sustainable lifestyles but that policy-making and structural change should complement and facilitate voluntary endeavors to achieve low-carbon lifestyles.


Image processing pipelines are continuously being developed to deduce more information about objects captured in images. To facilitate the development of such pipelines several Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) have been proposed that provide constructs for easy specification of such computations. It is then upto the DSL compiler to generate code to efficiently execute the pipeline on multiple hardware architectures. While such compilers are getting ever more sophisticated, to achieve large scale adoption these DSLs have to beat, or at least match, the performance that can be achieved by a skilled programmer. Many of these pipelines use a sequence of convolution kernels that are memory bandwidth bound. One way to address this bottleneck is through use of tiling. In this paper we describe an approach to tiling within the context of a DSL called Forma. Using the high-level specification of the pipeline in this DSL, we describe a code generation algorithm that fuses multiple stages of the pipeline through the use of tiling to reduce the memory bandwidth requirements on both GPU and CPU. Using this technique improves the performance of pipelines like Canny Edge Detection by 58% on NVIDIA GPUs, and of the Harris Corner Detection pipeline by 71% on CPUs.


In this paper, the hemming process, which widely used in automobile industry, was studied by a method of constructing mechanical models combined with FEM simulation results. The warp producing mechanism in the straight edge- plane hemming process was analyzed in detail using this mechanical model. The reason why the warp produced at the position of near the contact point between the out panel and the position surface of hemming die during the pre-hemming process, and the phenomena of warp reducing firstly and then increasing before the position point T and the warp reducing again after point T during the final hemming process were interpreted. The work finished in this paper provides a theoretical basis to understand hemming process and a tool to analyze the reasons why warp produced in the hemming processes.


Although study abroad trips provide an opportunity for affective and cognitive learning, it is largely assumed that they improve learning outcomes. The purpose of this study is to determine whether a study abroad field trip improved cognitive learning by comparing test performance between the study abroad participants (n = 20) and their peers who did not participate (n = 365). Test performance was statistically identical between these groups before and immediately after the study abroad program. On the final exam, the study abroad participants scored significantly higher. Qualitative methods were used to identify increased engagement with the course material and the creation of new social networks as likely explanations.


This paper explores how hedonic price analysis might be used to estimate the surplus benefits of local outdoor recreation when distance to the recreational site is captured in property values. The model is characterized by the endogenous choice of distance to a local recreational area by households in coastal property markets and by the capitalization of proximity in property values. Equilibrium occurs when the reduction in the cost of a property due to a marginal increase in distance to the recreational area equals the associated loss in recreational surplus resulting from increased travel costs. The theoretical model is applied in an exploratory analysis of the "demand" for distance to the nearest public beach from which total surplus benefits are estimated.


This paper describes a flexible visualization architecture based on software agents, which enables the abstraction and reuse of rendering strategies. Using a reification of the rendering environment, the system is able to add new rendering strategies (such as distributed rendering or progressive rendering) to an existing pipeline, without any modification of the other components (controls components, display components, rendering algorithms,etc. ). The ability of changing strategies on the fly leads to a better adaptability to runtime constraints. The system uses an agent-basedgraphicpipeline, whereeach agent/componentcan be locatedon differentcomputers; communications between agents use XML/RPC and data stream in order to easily integrate existing code in the system. Agents can add specific behavior to graphic pipelines, such as saving environments to reuse them, adapt information and knowledge from another pipeline, and generally modify and improve the entire system. Various visualization and control clients exist, enabling collaboration between platforms such as PDAs, Windows, Linux, MacOS X, and Web (using Java applets).


Corner feature point detection with both the high-speed and high-quality is still very demanding for many real-time computer vision applications. The Harris and Kanade-Lucas-Tomasi (KLT) are widely adopted good quality corner feature point detection algorithms due to their invariance to rotation, noise, illumination, and limited view point change. Although they are widely adopted corner feature point detectors, their applications are rather limited because of their inability to achieve real-time performance due to their high complexity. In this paper, we redesigned Harris and KLT algorithms to reduce their complexity in each stage of the algorithm: Gaussian derivative, cornerness response, and non-maximum suppression (NMS). The complexity of the Gaussian derivative and cornerness stage is reduced by using an integral image. In NMS stage, we replaced a highly complex sorting and NMS by the efficient NMS followed by sorting the result. The detected feature points are further interpolated for sub-pixel accuracy of the feature point location. Our experimental results on publicly available evaluation data-sets for the feature point detectors show that our low complexity corner detector is both very fast and similar in feature point detection quality compared to the original algorithm. We achieve a complexity reduction by a factor of 9.8 and attain 50 f/s processing speed for images of size 640×480 on a commodity central processing unit with 2.53 GHz and 3 GB random access memory.


The post-1988 period saw the re-emergence of the 'self-determination movement' in Kashmir. The secular nationalist voice within this movement propagates the idea of Kashmiriyat - a shared cultural identity of people from different faiths. The migration of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley in the early 1990s seems to pose a challenge to the claims of secular nationalists and to the whole concept of 'Kashmiriyat'. This paper will attempt to briefly look at the concept of Kashmiriyat and its conceptualisation by Kashmiri Nationalists, while in detail it will look at the various narratives around Pandit migration to see if and how this migration poses challenges to Kashmiriyat.


Objective Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) followed by surgery in cervical cancer is widely studied with paclitaxel-ifosfamide-cisplatinum 3 weekly (TIP). Although the response rates with TIP are high, the toxicity is substantial. Therefore, this study evaluates dose-dense paclitaxel-carboplatin (TC) as an alternative. Methods In this prospective phase 2 study trial, we included 36 patients with International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) stage IB1 to IIB cervical cancer, who received 9 weeks' NACT dose-dense TC (median weekly dose paclitaxel 60 mg/m2, carboplatinum area under the curve 2.7). Radiological response was evaluated by RECIST (Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors). Optimal pathologic response (OPT) was defined as complete disappearance of tumor (complete response [CR]) or residual disease with less than 3-mm stromal invasion (PR1). Suboptimal pathologic response consisted of persistent residual disease with more than 3-mm stromal invasion (PR2). Results Nine patients had a FIGO stage IB1 (25%), 7 had stage IB2(19%), 3 had stage IIA (8%), and 17 had stage IIB disease (47%). Evaluation by magnetic resonance imaging after NACT showed 32 RECIST responses (89%) (CR in 11, PR in 21). Patients who were inoperable had insufficient reduction of the tumor to be operable (4 patients), progressive disease (1 patient), or stable disease (1 patient). Thirty patients were suitable for surgery after NACT. Pathology showed OPT in 50% (CR in 10, PR1 in 5). Thirteen patients had pathologic lymph nodes on radiological evaluation before start of chemotherapy. After chemotherapy, the lymph nodes were negative in 6 (47%) of these patients (pathologic complete remission). Postoperative chemoradiotherapy was administered in 11 patients (2 because of close resection margins, 5 because of metastatic lymph node after surgery, 2 because of close resection margins and metastatic lymph nodes after surgery, and 1 tumor >4 cm after NACT). Hematologic toxicity was acceptable with no febrile neutropenia and a low nonhematologic toxicity. The estimated 5-year overall survival was 70.8%. Conclusions Neoadjuvant TC dose-dense in cervical carcinoma has a high response rate, comparable with TIP, and an acceptable toxicity.


High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) is a promising field of research being developed as an alternative to surgery and radiation therapy for the treatment of tumours. Within this field, many current methods of calculation/simulation use approximations rather than solve the Partial Differential Equation (PDE) directly. We consider the linear acoustic equation with and without damping for a material with spatially varying properties. Our approach used spectral methods to manage the derivatives and solve the PDE. We started from the basics to tune our intuition for the problem. This allowed us to discuss some effects of phenomenological damping and to study the effects of wave reflection and refraction. Further, we were able to use these tools to investigate a possible cause of unexpected heating found clinically. To this end we used spectral numerical methods to solve the equation and applied stochastic analysis to examine the effects of variations in a few of the relevant parameters (sound speeds and the radius of an anomaly) on the outcome. This model highlighted the fact that, due to the reflection and refraction of the ultrasound waves, more heating may occur inside obstacles in the treatment path than previously expected. The stochastic review found that discrepancies in the radius of the obstacle has a much larger impact on the outcome of the HIFU treatment than discrepancies in the parameters for the speed of sound in the various media. Thus more time and resources should be allocated to properly mapping and measuring the size and shape of obstacles in the treatment path as opposed to improving the exactness of the values for the speeds of sound.


Essential tremor (ET) is one of the most common tremor disorders in the world. Despite this, only two medications have received Level A recommendations from the American Academy of Neurology to treat it (primidone and propranolol). Even though these medications provide relief to a large group of ET patients, up to 50% of patients are non-responders. Additional medications to treat ET are needed. This review discusses some of the methodological issues that should be addressed for quality clinical drug development in ET.