In order to expand with validated scientific data the limited knowledge regarding the potential application of insects as innovative feed ingredients for poultry, the present study tested a partial substitution of soya bean meal and soya bean oil with defatted black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) larvae meal (H) in the diet for growing broiler quails (Coturnix coturnix japonica) on growth performance, mortality, nutrients apparent digestibility, microbiological composition of excreta, feed choice, carcass and meat traits. With this purpose, a total of 450 10-day-old birds were allocated to 15 cages (30 birds/cage) and received three dietary treatments: a Control diet (C) and two diets (H1 and H2) corresponding to 10% and 15% H inclusion levels, respectively (H substituted 28.4% soya bean oil and 16.1% soya bean meal for H1, and 100% soya bean oil and 24.8% soya bean meal for H2, respectively). At 28 days of age, quails were slaughtered, carcasses were weighed, breast muscles were then excised from 50 quails/treatment, weighed, and ultimate pH (pHu) and L*, a*, b* colour values were measured. Breast muscles were then cooked to assess cooking loss and meat toughness. For the digestibility trial, a total of 15 28-day-old quails were assigned to the three feeding groups. The excreta samples were subjected to chemical and microbiological analysis. The same 15 quails were then simultaneously provided with C and H2 diets for a 10-day feed choice trial. Productive performance, mortality and carcass traits were in line with commercial standards and similar in all experimental groups. With the exception of ether extract digestibility, which was lower in H1 group compared with C and H2 (P=0.0001), apparent digestibility of dry matter, CP, starch and energy did not differ among treatments. Microbial composition of excreta was also comparable among the three groups. Feed choice trial showed that quails did not express a preference toward C or H2 diets. Breast meat weight and yield did not differ among C, H1 and H2 quails. Differently, the inclusion of H meal reduced meat pHu compared with C. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that H. illucens larvae meal can partially replace conventional soya bean meal and soya bean oil in the diet for growing broiler quails, thus confirming to be a promising insect protein source for the feed industry. Further research to assess the impact of H meal on intestinal morphology as well as on meat quality and sensory profile would be of utmost importance.


During the early postnatal period, GABAB receptor activation facilitates L‐type calcium current in rat hippocampus. One developmental process that L‐type current may regulate is the change in expression of the K+Cl− co‐transporter (KCC2) and N+K+2Cl− co‐transporter (NKCC1), which are involved in the maturation of the GABAergic system. The present study investigated the connection between L‐type current, GABAB receptors, and expression of chloride transporters during development. The facilitation of L‐type current by GABAB receptors is more prominent in the second week of development, with the highest percentage of cells exhibiting facilitation in cultures isolated from 7 day old rats (37.5%). The protein levels of KCC2 and NKCC1 were investigated to determine the developmental timecourse of expression as well as expression following treatment with an L‐type channel antagonist and a GABAB receptor agonist. The time course of both chloride transporters in culture mimics that seen in hippocampal tissue isolated from various ages. KCC2 levels increased drastically in the first two postnatal weeks while NKCC1 remained relatively stable, suggesting that the ratio of the chloride transporters is important in mediating the developmental change in chloride reversal potential. Treatment of cultures with the L‐type antagonist nimodipine did not affect protein levels of NKCC1, but significantly decreased the upregulation of KCC2 during the first postnatal week. In addition, calcium current facilitation occurs slightly before the large increase in KCC2 expression. These results suggest that the expression of KCC2 is regulated by calcium influx through L‐type channels in the early postnatal period in hippocampal neurons. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol 2009


L-Proline enhanced the growth of Staphylococcus aureus in high-osmotic-strength medium, i.e., it acted as an osmoprotectant. Study of the kinetics of L-[14C]proline uptake by S. aureus NCTC 8325 revealed high-affinity (Km = 1.7 microM; maximum rate of transport [Vmax] = 1.1 nmol/min/mg [dry weight]) and low-affinity (Km = 132 microM; Vmax = 22 nmol/min/mg [dry weight]) transport systems. Both systems were present in a proline prototrophic variant grown in the absence of proline, although the Vmax of the high-affinity system was three to five times higher than that of the high-affinity system in strain 8325. Both systems were dependent on Na+ for activity, and the high-affinity system was stimulated by lower concentrations of Na+ more than the low-affinity system. The proline transport activity of the low-affinity system was stimulated by increased osmotic strength. The high-affinity system was highly specific for L-proline, whereas the low-affinity system showed a broader substrate specificity. Glycine betaine did not compete with proline for uptake through either system. Inhibitor studies confirmed that proline uptake occurred via Na(+)-dependent systems and suggested the involvement of the proton motive force in creating an Na+ gradient. Hyperosmotic stress (upshock) of growing cultures led to a rapid and large uptake of L-[14C]proline that was not dependent on new protein synthesis. It is suggested that the low-affinity system is involved in adjusting to increased environmental osmolarity and that the high-affinity system may be involved in scavenging low concentrations of proline.


The auditory steady state response (ASSR) has recently gained attention with respect to estimates of hearing sensitivity and configuration of hearing loss. The present investigation compared behavioral thresholds to estimated ASSR thresholds in subjects with confirmed CANS lesions to determine if this population can be accurately evaluated with ASSR techniques. Comparisons were made between the experimental group and a normal control group matched for age and hearing sensitivity. ASSR thresholds were obtained for the carrier frequencies of 500 and 2000 Hz with a 46 Hz modulation rate and compared to behavioral thresholds. Within and between group comparisons were made. The control group demonstrated strong correlation between their behavioral and estimated ASSR thresholds which significantly contrasted the neurological group. Additionally, individuals with neurological impairment of the CANS exhibited elevated thresholds that were on average 24 dB greater at 2000 Hz than their behavioral thresholds. These results suggest that individuals with neurological insult may appear as hearing impaired or having greater hearing loss than is actually present. As a result, the ASSR may demonstrate the potential to assist in the detection of CANS dysfunction.


The National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP) is the largest cancer screening program for low‐income women in the United States. This study updates previous estimates of the costs of delivering preventive cancer screening services in the NBCCEDP. METHODS: We developed a standardized web‐based cost‐assessment tool to collect annual activity‐based cost data on screening for breast and cervical cancer in the NBCCEDP. Data were collected from 63 of the 66 programs that received funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the 2006/2007 fiscal year. We used these data to calculate costs of delivering preventive public health services in the program. RESULTS: We estimated the total cost of all NBCCEDP services to be $296 (standard deviation [SD], $123) per woman served (including the estimated value of in‐kind donations, which constituted approximately 15% of this total estimated cost). The estimated cost of screening and diagnostic services was $145 (SD, $38) per women served, which represented 57.7% of the total cost excluding the value of in‐kind donations. Including the value of in‐kind donations, the weighted mean cost of screening a woman for breast cancer was $110 with an office visit and $88 without, the weighted mean cost of a diagnostic procedure was $401, and the weighted mean cost per breast cancer detected was $35,480. For cervical cancer, the corresponding cost estimates were $61, $21, $415, and $18,995, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: These NBCCEDP cost estimates may help policy makers in planning and implementing future costs for various potential changes to the program. Cancer 2014;120(16 suppl):2604‐11. © 2014 American Cancer Society.


Abstract Corn-finished cattle are the backbone of the US beef production system. Traditionally cattle are fed a total-mixed ration (TMR) where all feed ingredients are mixed together, delivered, and fed daily to cattle. Previous research evaluated complete self-fed finishing rations where the diet is placed into a self-feeder. With advancements in technology and varieties of corn, the purpose of this study was to determine the differences in finishing cattle gains, feed efficiency, carcass merit, and cost of production on a TMR ration as compared to a self-fed finishing ration. Thirty-five steers and heifers were sorted into 8 pens and assigned to one of two finishing diet treatments: traditional TMR or self-fed finishing ration. There were 3 pens of heifers and 1 pen of steers per treatment group. There were no differences based on the sex of the cattle. Calves on the self-fed finishing diet had a greater ADG and total gain. Self-fed calves also tended to have a heavier hot carcass weight, greater marbling score, and greater average carcass value than calves on TMR. There was no difference in yield grade. Calves on the self-fed ration had a greater average daily intake and tended to have a higher feed:gain conversion ratio. Cost of gain was $0.58 more for self-fed calves. Summary Corn-finished cattle are the backbone of the US beef production system. Traditionally cattle are fed a total-mixed ration (TMR) where all feed ingredients are mixed together, delivered, and fed daily to cattle. Previous research evaluated complete self-fed finishing rations where the diet is placed into a self-feeder. With advancements in technology and varieties of corn, the purpose of this study was to determine the differences in finishing cattle gains, feed efficiency, carcass merit, and cost of production on a TMR ration as compared to a self-fed finishing ration. Thirty-five steers and heifers were sorted into 8 pens and assigned to one of two finishing diet treatments: traditional TMR or self-fed finishing ration. There were 3 pens of heifers and 1 pen of steers per treatment group. There were no differences based on the sex of the cattle. Calves on the self-fed finishing diet had a greater ADG and total gain. Self-fed calves also tended to have a heavier hot carcass weight, greater marbling score, and greater average carcass value than calves on TMR. There was no difference in yield grade. Calves on the self-fed ration had a greater average daily intake and tended to have a higher feed:gain conversion ratio. Cost of gain was $0.36 more for self-fed calves.


Diagnostic criteria for the early stages of alcoholism are unclearmaccordingly, especially in young problem drinkers, emphasis should be on symptomatic treatment and shifting environmental support away from drinking. Alcohol use is frequently a precursor and a corollary of other drug use. Active intervention by the family physician can be very effective. Starting at age 15, the medical history should include a survey of alcohol consumption.


A case study is presented to determine the source of the energetic electron layer frequently observed along the high-latitude magnetopause. Measurements by the Cluster spacecraft show bursts of field-aligned electrons occurring during time periods with high potential for dayside reconnection. These properties are compared with the expected signatures from several sources including escape from the exterior cusp, acceleration in a reconnection region, and release from the dayside trapping region through reconnection. The observed properties are most consistent with the electrons being released from the magnetosphere due to reconnection. In this model the electrons would flow along the newly reconnected IMF draped along the magnetopause and propagate along the high-latitude magnetopause. These observations demonstrate an active source for populating the energetic particle layer frequently observed along and just outside the high-latitude magnetopause.


This is the tale in first person of how I discovered the "Tensive target organ damage/Monitoring prehypertension syndrome", which received an acknowledgement of paternity with the nosographic eponym of "Cugini's syndrome". The presentation is made with the intention of showing how the research methodology and clinical reasoning can act as an epistemological guide , primarily in detecting and, secondarily in defining such a syndromic picture. I will narrate, in an anecdotal way, the history of this syndrome that has origin in 1980 when I received the invitation to approach, as Visiting Professor, the Chronobiology Laboratories of Minnesota University, directly from their legendary Chief, Prof. Franz Halberg, the Founder of the discipline "Chronobiology". As an invited participant to an international project of research named: "International Womb-to-Tomb Chronome Initiative", devoted to standardize the time-qualified reference limits of blood pressure from neonatal to old age, I could use the first available equipments (Pressurometers) for executing the Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring. Accordingly, I started to collect the ABPM of a large sample size of clinically healthy subjects. Collection continued going back and forth between Italy and USA. In this activity of recruitment for creating a database of true normotensives and true hypertensives, I had the chance to meet some office normotensives who inexplicably showed initial signs of hypertensive retinopathy , a sign of "Target Organ Damage" (TOD), while, unexpectedly, were showing no supranormal BP values at the ABPM. In order to explain the retinal TOD, I suspected that they were true non-hypertensives but not true normotensives (presumably normotensives alias putative normotensives). Therefore, I compared the Daily Mean Level of their 24-h systolic (S) and diastolic (D) BP values [DML(SBP/DBP)] with the analogous estimate of the true normotensives. With surprise I could see that the retinopathic putative normotensives, despite the lack of surpranormal at the ABPM, had their DML(SBP/DBP) significantly increased, just in between true normotension and true hypertension. It was the year 1997, when I called this intermediate BP regimen: "ABPM-diagnosable prehypertension", alias "monitoring prehypertension", alias "pressurometric prehypertension", alias "masked prehypertension", and described the "Minimal-change hypertensive retinopathy/monitoring prehypertension syn- drome". The association of a minimal tensive TOD with a monitoring prehypertension in office normotensives received a confirmatory certainty in other consecutive investigations, performed by me from 1997 to 2002, dealing with minimal signs respectively of: 1. interventricular septum hypertrophy in native hearts, 2. interventricular septum hypertrophy in novel transplanted hearts, 3. gestational impaired blood flow uterine arteries, 4. intrauterine growth retardation, 5. endothelial dysfunction. In all these clinical pictures, I could demonstrate that the initial tensive TOD was associated to a significant elevation of DML(SBP/DBP) just in between normotension and hypertension as per a monitoring prehypertension . Accordingly, I enlarged the appellative of the syndromic picture in "Minimal signs of TOD/monitoring prehypertension", alias "Tensive target organ damage/Monitoring prehypertension". Importantly, in 2007 and 2009 this clinical association has been eponimically called: "Cugini's syndrome" in an international context.


Inferences on the parameter estimates of Ordinary Least Square (OLS) estimator in regression model when regressors exhibit multicollinearity is a problem in that large standard errors of the regression coefficients which cause low t-statistic value often result into the acceptance of the null hypothesis. This paper, therefore, makes efforts to investigate the effect of multicollinearity on the power rates of the OLS estimator. A regression model with constant term (β0) and two independent variables (with (β1 and (β2 as their respective regression coefficients) that exhibit multicollinearity was considered. A Monte Carlo study of 1000 trials was conducted at eight levels of multicollinearity (0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.7, 0.75, 0.8, 0.9 and 0.99) and sample sizes (10, 20, 40, 80, 100, 150, 250 and 500). At each specification, the true regression coefficients were set at unity while 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5 were taken as their hypothesized values. Results show that at each hypothesized value of β0 the power rate is the same at all the levels of multicollinearity at a specified sample size and that the error rate decreases asymptotically. Furthermore as the hypothesized value increases, results do not only show that the power rate increases but tends faster to one asymptotically. The pattern of effect of power rate of β1 and β2 is the same as that of β0 except that at each hypothesized value the power rate decreases as level of multicollinearity increases at a specified sample size. Consequently, increasing the sample size increase the power rate of the OLS estimator in all the levels of multicollinearity.


An exergetic optimization is developed to determine the optimal performance and design parameters of a solar photovoltaic (PV) array. A detailed energy and exergy analysis is carried out to evaluate the electrical performance, exergy destruction components, and exergy efficiency of a typical PV array. The exergy efficiency of a PV array obtained in this paper is a function of climatic, operating, and design parameters such as ambient temperature, solar radiation intensity, PV array temperature, overall heat loss coefficient, open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current, maximum power point voltage, maximum power point current, and PV array area. A computer simulation program is also developed to estimate the electrical and operating parameters of a PV array. The results of numerical simulation are in good agreement with the experimental measurements noted in the previous literature. Finally, exergetic optimization has been carried out under given climatic, operating, and design parameters. The optimized values of the PV array temperature, the PV array area, and the maximum exergy efficiency have been found. Parametric studies have been also carried out.


In Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse, Frans H. van Eemeren brings together the dialectical and the rhetorical dimensions of argumentation by introducing the concept of strategic maneuvering. Strategic maneuvering refers to the arguer's continual efforts to reconcile aiming for effectiveness with being reasonable. It takes place in all stages of argumentative discourse and manifests itself simultaneously in the choices that are made from the topical potential available at a particular stage, in adaptation to audience demand, and in the use of specific presentational devices. Strategic maneuvering derails when in the specific context in which the discourse takes place a rule for critical discussion has been violated, so that a fallacy has been committed. Van Eemeren makes clear that extending the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation by taking account of strategic maneuvering leads to a richer and more precise method for analyzing and evaluating argumentative discourse.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the long-term effects of colposuspension in spayed female dogs with urinary incontinence and identify preoperative anatomic or urodynamic measurements associated with a successful outcome.

DESIGN
Prospective study.

ANIMALS
23 client-owned spayed female dogs with urinary incontinence.

PROCEDURE
Prior to surgery, a history was obtained, and a physical examination, CBC, serum biochemical analyses, urinalysis, bacterial culture of a urine sample, vaginourethrocystography, urethral pressure profilometry, and leak point pressure test were performed. Colposuspension was performed, and preoperative tests were repeated 2 months after surgery. Clients were interviewed 2 weeks, 1 month, and 1 year after surgery.

RESULTS
22 dogs were followed up for 1 year. Twelve had complete urinary control 2 months after surgery, and 3 had complete urinary control 1 year after surgery. Dogs with normal urinary control at 2 months had an increased leak point pressure (LPP), compared with preoperative measurements, and their LPP was the same as normal dogs. Eight dogs had complete urinary control, and 9 were considered greatly improved 1 year after surgery when medical treatment was added to the effect of colposuspension. Client satisfaction was high, with 19 of 22 (86%) owners being pleased with their decision to have surgery performed. The only predictors of complete urinary control 2 months after surgery were a more caudal position of the external urethral opening in relation to the pubis on preoperative radiographs and a longer overall urethral length.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Colposuspension alone will result in complete urinary control in few dogs with urinary incontinence but may improve urinary control sufficiently that owners will be pleased. Preoperative vaginourethrocystography may be helpful in predicting response to surgery, and the LPP test correlates with improved urinary control.


Abstract—The integrated solar combined cycle (ISCC) system has a series of advantages such as increasing the system power generation, reducing the cost of solar power generation, less pollutant and CO2 emission. In this paper, the parabolic trough collectors with direct steam generation (DSG) technology are considered to replace the heat load of heating surfaces in heat regenerator steam generation (HRSG) of a conventional natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) system containing a PG9351FA gas turbine and a triple pressure HRSG with reheat. The detailed model of the NGCC system is built in ASPEN PLUS software and the parabolic trough collectors with DSG technology is modeled in EBSILON software. ISCC-DSG systems with the replacement of single, two, three and four heating surfaces are studied in this paper. Results show that: (1) the ISCC-DSG systems with the replacement heat load of HPB, HPB+LPE, HPE2+HPB+HPS, HPE1+HPE2+ HPB+HPS are the best integration schemes when single, two, three and four stages of heating surfaces are partly replaced by the parabolic trough solar energy collectors with DSG technology. (2) Both the changes of feed water flow and the heat load of the heating surfaces in ISCC-DSG systems with the replacement of multi-stage heating surfaces are smaller than those in ISCC-DSG systems with the replacement of single heating surface. (3) ISCC-DSG systems with the replacement of HPB+LPE heating surfaces can increase the solar power output significantly. (4) The ISCC-DSG systems with the replacement of HPB heating surfaces has the highest solar-thermal-to-electricity efficiency (47.45%) and the solar radiation energy-to-electricity efficiency (30.37%), as well as the highest exergy efficiency of solar field (33.61%).


Recurrent benign esophageal strictures that are refractory to dilation can be difficult to manage. We report a novel technique for treatment of a recurrent esophageal stricture using a minimally invasive endoscopic and transgastric approach. The patient is a 40-year-old women who developed a recurrent distal esophageal stricture after repair of an esophageal perforation. Multiple prior dilations had been unsuccessful in achieving sustained esophageal patency, and the patient presented with a complete distal obstruction demonstrated on barium esophagram. Two flexible endoscopes were used: one placed through the mouth and another through a gastrostomy. While the transilluminated lesion was visualized from below the obstruction was traversed with an endoscopic aspiration needle from above. A guidewire was placed through the needle and pulled out the gastrostomy. Both the esophageal lesion and the gastrostomy tract were then serially dilated over the wire. After dilation the residual stricture was resected using a circular stapler placed through the dilated gastrostomy tract. After this procedure the patient maintained esophageal patency with a diminished need for dilation. Details of our technique are described and the literature is reviewed.


A description and discussion of the vast linguistic diversity in the capital of the United Kingdom. LONDON today is an enormous Tower of Babel, where in addition to the common language, English, many other languages are spoken. On Tuesday 13 March 2001, as part of the Lunch Hour Lecture Series at University College London, Professor Reinier Salverda discussed the linguistic diversity of contemporary London, presenting recent data on the other languages spoken there, as well as focussing on the social aspects of this linguistic diversity, in particular issues of language policy and language management. The following is a slightly adapted version of that presentation.


The dramatic impact that vascular diseases have on human life quality and expectancy nowadays is the reason why both medical and scientific communities put great effort in discovering new and effective ways to fight vascular pathologies. Among the many different treatments, endovascular surgery is a minimally-invasive technique that makes use of X-ray fluoroscopy to obtain real-time images of the patient during interventions. In this context radiopaque biomaterials, i.e. materials able to absorb X-ray radiation, play a fundamental role as they are employed both to enhance visibility of devices during interventions and to protect medical staff and patients from X-ray radiations.
Organic-inorganic hybrids are materials that combine characteristics of organic polymers with those of inorganic metal oxides. These materials can be synthesized via the sol-gel process and can be easily applied as thin coatings on different kinds of substrates. Good radiopacity of organic-inorganic hybrids has been recently reported suggesting that these materials might find applications in medical fields where X-ray absorption and visibility is required.
 The present PhD thesis aimed at developing and characterizing new radiopaque organic-inorganic hybrid materials that can find application in the vascular surgery field as coatings for the improvement of medical devices traceability as well as for the production of X-ray shielding objects and garments.
Novel organic-inorganic hybrids based on different polyesters (poly-lactic acid and poly-e-caprolactone) and polycarbonate (poly-trimethylene carbonate) as the polymeric phase and on titanium oxide as the inorganic phase were synthesized. Study of the phase interactions in these materials allowed to demonstrate that Class II hybrids (where covalent bonds exists between the two phases) can be obtained starting from any kind of polyester or polycarbonate, without the need of polymer pre-functionalization, thanks to the occurrence of transesterification reactions operated by inorganic molecules on ester and carbonate moieties.
Polyester based hybrids were successfully coated via dip coating on different kinds of textiles. Coated textiles showed improved radiopacity with respect to the plain fabric while remaining soft to the touch. The hybrid was able to coat single fibers of the yarn rather than coating the yarn as a whole. Openings between yarns were maintained and therefore fabric breathability was preserved. Such coatings are promising for the production of light-weight garments for X-ray protection of medical staff during interventional fluoroscopy, which will help preventing pathologies that stem from chronic X-ray exposure.
A means to increase the protection capacity of hybrid-coated fabrics was also investigated and implemented in this thesis. By synthesizing the hybrid in the presence of a suspension of radiopaque tantalum nanoparticles, PDMS-titania hybrid materials with tunable radiopacity were developed and were successfully applied as coatings.
A solution for enhancing medical device radiopacity was also successfully investigated. High metal radiopacity was associated with good mechanical and protective properties of organic-inorganic hybrids in the form of a double-layer coating. Tantalum was employed as the constituent of the first layer deposited on sample substrates by means of a sputtering technique. The second layer was composed of a hybrid whose constituents are well-known biocompatible organic and inorganic components, such as the two polymers PCL and PDMS, and titanium oxide, respectively. The metallic layer conferred to the substrate good X-ray visibility. A correlation between radiopacity and coating thickness derived during this study allows to tailor radiopacity simply by controlling the metal layer sputtering deposition time. The applied metal deposition technique also permits easy shaping of the radiopaque layer, allowing production of radiopaque markers for medical devices that can be unambiguously identified by surgeons during implantation and in subsequent radiological investigations. Synthesized PCL-titania and PDMS-titania hybrids strongly adhered to substrates and show good biocompatibility as highlighted by cytotoxicity tests. The PDMS-titania hybrid coating was also characterized by high flexibility that allows it to stand large substrate deformations without detaching nor cracking, thus being suitable for application on flexible medical devices.


This study investigated the effectiveness of surface treatment of Poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) denture base resin on tensile bond strength between PMMA/silicone-based soft liner. A total of 25 specimens were fabricated and assigned into five groups (n = 5). The surfaces of PMMA were treated with maleic anhydride, maleic anhydride-styrene-vinyl-acetate, n-butylmaleate-styrene-vinyl-acetate, or n-pentamaleate-styrene-vinyl-acetate prior to Primo adhesive primer application and silicone liner placement. The Primo adhesive primer on applied group untreated dentuse base resin served as control. The tensile test was performed using a universal testing machine. Fractured surfaces were observed under Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and spectroscopic interpretation of the interfaces was done by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR). Test results showed that surface treatment increased interfacial strength giving the highest value for n-butylmaleate-styrene-vinyl acetate treated group. SEM micrographs revealed that the specimens with n-butylmaleate-styrene-vinyl-acetate and n-penta maleate-styrene-vinyl-acetate terpolymers underwent cohesive failure. FTIR analysis indicated secondary interactions such as hydrogen bonding, possibly on acrylic resin surfaces, caused by the use of maleic anhydride and its terpolymers, and the adhesive.


We aimed to characterize neuronal and corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) pathways at the acute phase of a model of colitis in rats. Male rats received an intracolonic injection of either vehicle (controls) or trinitrobenzenesulfonic acid (TNBS) and were killed 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12, or 24 h later. Coronal frozen sections of the brain were cut and mRNAs encoding the rat c-fos, CRF1 receptor, and CRF2alpha,beta receptors were assayed by in situ hybridization histochemistry. Localization of these transcripts within CRF-immunoreactive (CRF-ir) neurons of the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of the hypothalamus was also determined. Intracolonic TNBS induced c-fos mRNA expression in brain nuclei involved in the autonomic, behavioral, and neuroendocrine response to a stimulus (PVN, amygdala, locus coeruleus, parabrachial nucleus, nucleus of the solitary tract) and in circumventricular organs (lamina terminalis, subfornical organ, area postrema). CRF pathways, particularly in the PVN, were activated in this model as represented by a robust signal of c-fos and CRF1 receptor transcripts in the PVN and numerous CRF-ir neurons expressed c-fos or CRF1 receptor transcripts in the PVN of TNBS-treated animals. No expression of CRF2 receptor transcripts was observed in the PVN, either in basal conditions or after TNBS. These neuroanatomical data argue for an involvement of CRF pathways, through CRF1 receptor, within the PVN in TNBS-induced colitis.


Relatively affluent individuals from various corners of the globe are increasingly choosing to migrate, spurred on by the promise of a better and more fulfilling way of life within their destination. Despite its increasing scale, migration academics have yet to consolidate and establish lifestyle migration as a subfield of theoretical enquiry, until now. This volume offers a dynamic and holistic analysis of contemporary lifestyle migrations, exploring the expectations and aspirations which inform and drive migration alongside the realities of life within the destination. It also recognizes the structural conditions (and constraints) which frame lifestyle migration, laying the groundwork for further intellectual enquiry. Through rich empirical case studies this volume addresses this important and increasingly common form of migration in a manner that will interest scholars of mobility, migration, lifestyle and culture across the social sciences.


The spark plasma sintering technique was used to fabricate ceramics from Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3– PbTiO3 ceramic layers which were prepared by tape casting and TGG method used BaTiO3 templates as seeds. During heat treatment, epitaxial grain growth occurred on the BaTiO3 surfaces and formed <001> textured lead magnesium niobate-lead titanate, Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-0.325PbTiO3 (PMN-32.5PT) ceramics. The phase compositions and microstructure were investigated. The results indicated that this method was an alternative sintering technology to synthesize dense lead-based relaxor ferroelectric ceramics.


Abstract Aims To provide up‐to‐date estimates of how changes in the prevalence of electronic cigarette (e‐cigarette) use in England have been associated with changes in smoking cessation activities and daily cigarette consumption among smokers in England. Design Time–series analysis of population trends. Setting England. Participants Participants came from the Smoking Toolkit Study, which involves repeated, cross‐sectional household surveys of individuals aged 16 years and older in England. Data were aggregated on approximately 1200 past‐year smokers each quarter (total n = 50 498) between 2007 and 2017. Measurements Prevalence of e‐cigarette use in current smokers was used to predict (a) prevalence of quit attempts among last‐year smokers, (b) overall quit rates among last‐year smokers and (c) mean cigarette consumption per day among current smokers. Prevalence of e‐cigarette use during a quit attempt among last‐year smokers was used to predict (a) quit success rate among last‐year smokers and (b) overall quit rates among last‐year smokers. Findings Overall quit rates increased by 0.054% [95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.032–0.076, P < 0.001] and 0.050% (95% CI = 0.031–0.069, P < 0.001) respectively for every 1% increase in the prevalence of e‐cigarette use by smokers and e‐cigarette use during a quit attempt. Quit success rates increased by 0.060% (95% CI = 0.043–0.078, P < 0.001) for every 1% increase in the prevalence of e‐cigarette use during a quit attempt. No clear evidence was found for an association between e‐cigarette use and either prevalence of quit attempt (BAdj = 0.011, 95% CI = −0.046 to 0.069, P = 0.698) or cigarette consumption (BAdj = 0.019, 95% CI = −0.043 to 0.082, P = 0.542). Conclusion Changes in prevalence of e‐cigarette use in England have been positively associated with the overall quit rates and quit success rates but not clearly associated with the prevalence of quit attempts and mean cigarette consumption.


With growth of PV market in tropical region, it is necessary to investigate the performance of different types of PV technology under the tropical weather conditions. Singapore Polytechnic was funded by Economic Development Board (EDB) to set up a solar PV test-bed for the research on performance of different types of PV modules in the country. The PV test-bed installed the nine different types of PV systems that are integrated to power utility grid for monitoring and analyzing their operating performances. This paper presents the 12 months operational data of nine different PV systems and analyses on performances of installed PV systems using energy yield and performance ratio. The nine types of PV systems under test have shown their energy yields ranging from 2.67 to 3.36 kWh/kWp and their performance ratios (PRs) ranging from 70% to 88%. Keywords—Monocrystalline, Multicrystalline, Amorphous Silicon, Cadmium Telluride and thin film PV.


A system dynamic model was construction to evaluate the water balance for in-situ oil shale conversion. The model is based on a systems dynamics approach and uses the Powersim Studio 9™ software package. Three phases of an in situ retort were consider; a construction phase primarily accounts for water needed for drilling and water produced during dewatering, an operation phase includes the production of water from the retorting process, and a remediation phase water to remove heat and solutes from the subsurface as well as return the ground surface to its natural state. Throughout these three phases, the water is consumed and produced. Consumption is account for through the drill process, dust control, returning the ground water to its initial level and make up water losses during the remedial flushing of the retort zone. Production of water is through the dewatering of the retort zone, and during chemical pyrolysis reaction of the kerogen conversion. The document discusses each of the three phases used in the model.


NEEDS AND VALUES FOR SUSTAINABLE FISHERIES Setting the Stage for Sustainable Pacific Salmon Fisheries Strategy, E.E. Knudsen, D.D. MacDonald, and C.R. Steward The Needs of Salmon and Steelhead in Balancing Their Conservation and Use, C.V. Burger Science and Management in Sustainable Salmonid Fisheries: The Ball is Not in Our Court, G.F. Hartman, C. Groot, and T. G. Northcote The Importance of "Stock" Conservation Definitions to the Concept of Sustainable Fisheries, K.D. Hyatt and B.E. Riddell The Elements of Alaska's Sustainable Fisheries, F. Ulmer Review of Salmon Management in British Columbia: What Has the Past Taught Us? D.W. Narver Aboriginal Fishing Rights and Salmon Management in British Colombia: Matching Historical Justice with the Public Interest, P. Copes STOCK STATUS The Status of Anadromous Salmonids: Lessons in Our Search for Sustainability, J.E. Williams Endangered Species Act Review of the Status of Pink Salmon From Washington, Oregon, and California, J.J. Hard, R.G. Kope, and W.S. Grant Review of the Status of Coho Salmon from Washington, Oregon, and California, L. Weitkamp, T.C. Wainwright, G.J. Byrant, D.J. Teel, and R.G. Kope Status Review of Steelhead from Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and California, P.J. Busby, T.C. Wainwright, and G.J. Bryant Status and Distribution of Chinook Salmon and Steelhead in the Interior Columbia River Basin and Portions of the Klamath River Basin, R.F. Thurow, D.C. Lee, and B.E. Rieman Status and Stewardship of Salmon Stocks in Southeast Alaska, B.W. Van Alen Kamchatka Steelhead: Population Trends and Life History Variation, K.A. Savvaitova, K.V. Kuzischin, and S.V. Maximov EXISTING MANAGEMENT International Management of Fraser River Sockeye Salmon, J.C. Woodey The History and Status of Pacific Northwest Chinook and Coho Salmon Ocean Fisheries and Prospects for Sustainability, G.S. Morishima and K.A. Henry Managing Pacific Salmon Escapements: The Gaps Between Theory and Reality, E.E. Knudsen Research Programs and Stock Status for Salmon in Three Transboundary Rivers: the Stikine, Taku, and Alsek, K. Jensen HABITAT ASSESSMENT The Effects of Forest Harvesting, Fishing, Climate Variation, and Ocean Conditions on Salmonid Populations of Carnation Creek, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, P.J. Tschaplinski Habitat Assessment in Coastal Basins in Oregon: Implications for Coho Salmon Production and Habitat Restoration, K.K. Jones and K.M.S. Moore An Overview Assessment of Compensation and Mitigation Techniques Used to Assist Fish Habitat Management in British Columbia Estuaries, C.D. Levings Human Population Growth and Sustainability of Urban Salmonid Streams in the Lower Fraser Valley, O.E. Langer, F. Hietkamp, and M. Farrell ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION Minimizing Ecological Impacts of Hatchery-Reared Juvenile Steelhead on Wild Salmonids in a Yakima Basin Watershed, G.A. McMichael, T.N. Pearsons, and S.A. Leider Economic Feasibility of Salmon Enhancement Propagation Programs, H.D. Radtke and S. W. Davis The New Order in Global Salmon Markets and Aquaculture Development: Implications for Watershed-Based Management in the Pacific Northwest, G. Sylvia, J.L. Anderson, and E. Hanson Alaska Ocean Ranching Contributions to Sustainable Fisheries, W.W. Smoker, B.A. Bachen, G. Freitag, H.J. Geiger, and T.J. Linley MODELING APPROACHES The Proportional Migration Selective Fishery Model, P. W. Lawson and R.M. Comstock A Simulation Model to Assess Management and Allocation Alternative in Multi-Stock Pacific Salmon Fisheries, N.J. Sands and J. Hartman Defining Equivalent Exploitation Rate Reduction Policies for Endangered Salmons and Stocks, J.G. Norris Decadel Climate Cycles and Declining Columbia River Salmon, J.J. Anderson The Effect of Environmentally Driven Recruitment Variation on Sustainable Yield From Salmon Populations, S.P. Cramer Using Photosynthetic Rates to Estimate the Juvenile Sockeye Salmon Rearing Capacity of British Columbia Lakes, K.S. Shortreed, J.M.B. Hume, and J.G. Stockner HABITAT PROTECTION AND RESTORATION Protecting and Restoring the Habitats of Anadromous Salmonids in the Lake Washington Watershed, an Urbanizing Ecosystem, K.L. Fresh and G. Luchetti Rehabilitating Stream Channels Using Large Woody Debris with Considerations for Salmonid Life History and Fluvial Geomorphic Processes, L.G. Domingues and C.J. Cederholm Development of Options for the Reintroduction and Restoration of Chinook Salmon into Panther Creek, Idaho, D.W. Reiser, M.P. Ramey, and P. Devries Effectiveness of Current Anadromous Fish Habitat Protection Procedures for the Tongass National Forest, Alaska, C.H. Casipit, J. Kershner, T. Faris, S. Kessler, S. Paustian, L. Shea, M. Copenhagen, M. Bryant, and R. Aho Using Watershed Analysis to Plan and Evaluate Habitat Restoration, N.B. Armantrout Watershed Restoration in Deer Creek, Washington - A Ten-Year Review, J.E. Doyle, G. Movassaghi, M. Fischer, and R. Nichols Integrating History into the Restoration of Coho Salmon in Siuslaw River, Oregon, M. Booker TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY Community Education and Cooperation Determine Success in Watershed Restoration: The Asotin Creek Model Watershed Plan, A. Thiessen and L. Vane Spring-Run Chinook Salmon Work Group: A Cooperative Approach to Watershed Management in California, N. Bingham and A. Harthtorne Creating Incentives for Salmon Conservation, R.M. Fujita and T. Foran Long-Term Sustainable Monitoring of Pacific Salmon Populations Using Fishwheels to Integrate Harvesting, Management and Research, M.R. Link and K.K. English Sanctuaries for Pacific Salmon, J.A. Lichatowich, G.R. Rahr, III, S.M. Whidden, and C.R. Steward One Northwest Community - People, Salmon, Rivers, and the Sea: Towards Sustainable Fisheries, D.D. MacDonald, C.R .Steward, and E.R. Knudsen INDEX


Obesity becomes a health problem worldwide. WHO even states that obesity is already a global epidemic, so obesity has become a health problem that must be addressed. Obesity is a problem should be aware of because prolonged obesity causes various problems. Basically, obesity in children will cause socio-psychological impact. Overweight children tend to refrain themselves from social interactions, are limited in carrying out physical activities in school, and will increasingly immersed in the habit of eating with large portions.The aim of this research is to get the model of Addesants children's empowerment through the Formation of Nutrition Awareness Movement in High School in order to implement the strategy of handling Obesity problem in Tomohon City and whether the developed model was effective to overcome obesity problem in adolescent. This research was a quantitative analytic research, with a prospective research design with a sample size of 90 high school students who are obese and 16 teachers. The data were collected from July to September 2017, began with training of teachers on Lifestyle (diet and eating behavior, physical activity, anthropometry, nutrition consultation and recording and reporting). suffer from obesity for 1 month.Data analysis. The tested data is normally distributed or close to the normal distribution, in order to find out: 1). Knowledge change at the time of training was measured with two tools, i.e. pre-training level (pre test) and final level after getting the training (post test). There is a difference of knowledge on the pre-test for the teachers and post test after being given nutrition education and training, there is significant increase of knowledge after getting the training, which is statistically significant, that p value <0,000 or α <0,05. Likewise, there was weight loss in all intervention groups based on test results i.e. diet, physical activity and nutrition counseling based on paired t test results. There was a significant weight difference before and after four weeks of intervention with p value = 0,000 at α <0.05 with weight gain ranging from 2.5. - 3.5. kg.It is concluded through this research with the presence of trained teacher personnel to intervene on obesity samples giving impact of weight loss so that the model of adolescent child through the Formation of Nutrition Awareness Movement in High School as the implementation of obesity management strategy in Tomohon City can be developed because it has effectiveness in overcoming obesity problems among adolescents.


The discrepancy between the number of transplant procedures and the patients in waiting list is linked to the scarcity of suitable donors. Dynamic perfusion of marginal grafts seems to be promising in their recovery.

Twenty discarded kidneys were used to perform a preclinical study with a new hypothermic oxygenate machine perfusion. Encouraging preclinical results allowed us to perform a clinical trial, in whom 10 extended criteria donors (ECD) livers and 10 ECD kidneys were perfused with the new machine and then transplanted, and compared with control groups (30 ECD liver transplant and 30 ECD kidney transplant preserved in cold storage).

Overall graft dysfunction was 10% in study groups, compared to 31.6% in control group (P < 0.001). The peak of aspartate aminotransferase within 7-days post liver transplant was 637 U/L in control group compared to 344 U/L of liver study group (P = 0.006). Patients receiving a kidney graft with more than 2 hours of hypothermic oxygenate perfusion treatment had lower rate of delayed graft function than control group (0% vs. 40%, p = 0.04).

Preclinical analyses demonstrated the absence of damage at histological examination, the improved metabolic activity and a diminished expression of genes related to ischemia/reperfusion injury, especially in case of hyperbarism application during perfusion. Further studies are needed to confirm this hypothesis.
On the other hand, the clinical phase of present study documented the safety and efficacy of a new type of machine perfusion, which is low-cost and, unlike the already present in commerce, was effective and safe in both liver and kidney transplantation settings.


Immigration policy is a minefield of controversial issues, and among the most explosive are those programs that permit low-skilled foreign nationals to work in the same labor market as U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens. Because such endeavors have been undertaken in the past, they have a track record and have been subject to extensive research. There is no need to speculate about what might happen if any new such venture – such as that proposed by the Bush Administration on January 7, 2004 – were to be enacted. The outcome is easily predicted."


Some experiments were designed and performed in order to elucidate the mechanism of re-volatilization in silica traps using flame AAS. A water-cooled U-shaped silica trap and a slotted silica tube trap were used, while organic solvent aspiration was employed for re-volatilization. Analytes were Bi, Au, Mn, Cd and Pb. The detailed experiments have shown that heating is not necessarily associated with re-volatilization: however, a direct contact between flame and active silica surface is required. The effect of the critical C/O value in the flame was also investigated and found to be important.


Marine environments represent a rich source of bioactive secondary metabolites that may be harnessed for use in a therapeutic context. Two novel compounds, peloruside A and laulimalide, isolated from the marine sponges Mycale hentsheli and Cacospongia mycofijiensis, respectively, both demonstrate useful pharmacological properties in mammalian cells. These compounds share major similarities with microtubule-stabilising agents. Like other agents in this class, peloruside A and laulimalide bind to the β-tubulin subunit of microtubules, the primary cytoskeletal element of eukaryotic cells. These compounds enhance polymerisation dynamics between ternary microtubule structures and severely hinder necessary cytoskeletal rearrangements within the cell.  Over the course of a patient's treatment, cancerous cells may develop multi-drug resistance phenotypes. P-glycoprotein drug efflux pumps play a major role in the development of therapy resistance in many cancers, as the current generation microtubule-stabilising agents are easily removed from diseased cells by upregulated efflux mechanisms. Unlike agents already in clinical application, both peloruside A and laulimalide are poor substrates for removal by these mechanisms, making them and their synthetic derivatives interesting as potential treatments for drug-resistant tumours.  Peloruside A and laulimalide exhibit potent nanomolar anti-mitotic activities in vitro and arrest cell cycle progression in G₂/M phase, leading to cell death – a characteristic mode of action among microtubule-stabilising agents. Unlike all known agents in this class, peloruside A and laulimalide share a secondary, unique binding region in β-tubulin. In the past decade our understanding of this region has developed, revealing a second, unique mechanism for stabilisation of microtubules.  Using mammalian cells to model physiological tubulin, the present study investigates the predicted role of aspartic acid 297 of human βI-tubulin in the binding association of both peloruside A and laulimalide. This particular amino acid is predicted to hydrogen bond with both compounds, contributing to their activity as stabilisers.  It was revealed that the introduction of a point mutation in D297 resulted in a small but highly consistent resistance phenotype to both compounds, but not to microtubule-stabilising agents that bind to the traditional, taxoid site on β-tubulin. It was concluded that aspartic acid 297 is likely to be one of the amino acids directly involved in the binding association of peloruside A and laulimalide to β-tubulin, contributing partial compound stabilisation. The rational synthesis of future analogues may benefit from these findings in the design of molecules with enhanced interactions at this particular amino acid residue.


ABSTRACT The CRISPR-Cas system has rapidly reached a huge popularity as a new, powerful method for precise DNA editing and genome reengineering. In Synthetic Biology, the CRISPR-Cas type II system has inspired the construction of a novel class of RNA-based transcription factors. In their simplest form, they are made of a CRISPR RNA molecule, which targets a promoter sequence, and a deficient Cas9 (i.e. deprived of any nuclease activity) that has been fused to an activation or a repression domain. Up- and downregulation of single genes in mammalian and yeast cells have been achieved with satisfactory results. Moreover, the construction of CRISPR-based transcription factors is much simpler than the assembly of synthetic proteins such as the Transcription Activator-Like effectors. However, the feasibility of complex synthetic networks fully based on the CRISPR-dCas9 technology has still to be proved and new designs, which take into account different CRISPR types, shall be investigated.


The Scotia Sea opened to fill the widening space created between the dominantly-westward motion of the South American plate and the dominantly-eastward motion of the South Sandwich Trench and its ancestors, as seen from Antarctica. Presently this space opens along an east-west azimuth, and is partitioned into complex transform motions on two large fault zones at the southern and northern edges of the Scotia Sea, and post-17 Ma seafloor spreading in the East Scotia Sea back-arc basin just west of the trench. A patchwork of basins and extended microcontinents within the floor and margins of the Scotia Sea show that, in the past, other divergent plate motions saw to the growth of much of the area west of the back-arc basin by seafloor spreading and continental extension.

Two different assumptions about the tectonic history of the Scotia Sea steer interpretations of these basins and microcontinents. The first is predicated on a 19th Century view of the regional geology in which 'the Andes are to be seen again in Graham Land'; that is, on the assumption that the Scotia Sea grew by the disruption of a compact segment of an initially-continuous convergent Antarctic-South American continental margin. The second assumes that the Scotia Sea grew within the space generated by the relative motions of the major plates behind the active continental margin.

The oldest remnants of the Scotia Sea's growth are Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks of Tierra del Fuego and South Georgia. These rocks can be interpreted in terms of the growth of a back-arc basin, the Rocas Verdes basin, at the active continental margin of Gondwana. They are alternatively interpretable as records of basins that formed during NE-directed South American–Antarctic relative plate motions in the supercontinent interior.

In Tierra del Fuego, remnants of small extensional basins with Paleogene sedimentary fills record the onset of WNW-directed motion of the South American plate at ~50 Ma. Ongoing plate motion in this sense culminated in the development of a large and organised mid-ocean ridge in the west Scotia Sea, expressing divergence of the South American plate from a plate overriding at the South Sandwich Trench, and the smaller Powell Basin between this overriding plate and the Antarctic plate. Magnetic anomaly records show that the West Scotia Ridge was active at 30–6 Ma and that the Powell Basin was opening at 30–22 Ma. Powell Basin has alternatively been interpreted as a back-arc basin and the west Scotia Sea as 'back-arc in the broad sense'.

A long history of interpretations concern the growth of the remainder of the Scotia Sea floor, in the small Protector, Dove and Scan basins and the central Scotia Sea at the same time as spreading on the West Scotia Ridge. They are constrained by short sequences of magnetic polarity reversal anomalies, which can be modelled to show changes in spreading rate at the same times as changes in the more complete west Scotia sequence of reversal anomalies. Interpretations like these require a complex circuit of small plates in the Scotia Sea after 30 Ma, a state that is suggested to have been driven by a similarly complex pattern of trench migration with both northerly and southeasterly components away from the northern and southern edges of the Scotia Sea.

More recent interpretations of these basins are tectonically simpler, taking as their starting point knowledge of the bounding major plate motions. They fall into two time categories. In the younger category, the smaller basins are related to relative motions between an east-moving (and much slower) trench, and the South American plate. Their growth happens to accommodate regional plate divergence that was ongoing in the period between the development of Paleogene continental extensional basins in Tierra del Fuego and the ~30 Ma onset of spreading at the West Scotia Ridge. In the older category, the central Scotia Sea is related to N-S directed Jurassic–Cretaceous divergence of the South American and Antarctic plates in Gondwana breakup and subsequent excision from the South American plate by development of the South Sandwich Trench at a collision zone between oceanic floor of that plate and the continental Antarctic Peninsula.


Proceedings: AACR Annual Meeting 2014; April 5-9, 2014; San Diego, CA

The ethanol extracts of the root of Korean herb Angelica gigas Nakai (AGN) have promising anti-cancer, anti-nociceptive and other activities in rodent models. It is currently believed that the pyranocoumarin decursin and its structural isomer decursinol angelate (DA) in such extracts contribute to the in vitro anti-cancer activity.

We and others have demonstrated that both decursin and DA were extensively converted to decursinol (DOH) in rodents. However, our in vitro experiments using human and rodent S9 fractions suggested the hypothesis that decursin and/or DA might be metabolized differently in humans. Given the notable difference in the biological activities between decursin/DA and

DOH, we conducted a single oral dose pharmacokinetic study of these phytochemicals in healthy volunteers to address a key question for human translatability of preclinical animal studies of decursin, DA or AGN extract. Knowing that chemicals other than decursin and DA in AGN had minimal effect on their absorption and metabolism in rodents, we used an AGN-based dietary supplement as the study drug in compliance with the FDA and institutional requirements. In all, 20 healthy subjects (10 men and 10 women) had completed the study in full.

AGN product was very well tolerated by all subjects as evidenced by plasma biochemistry, complete blood cell count and physical examination. Analyzing plasma samples using UHPLC-MS/MS showed that, though humans metabolized DA slightly slower than rodents, both decursin and DA were extensively converted to DOH. Gender and racial/ethnicity do not appear to dramatically affect the PK parameters. Since we show here that humans metabolize decursin and DA in similar pattern with rodents, the anti-cancer efficacy, safety, tissue distribution and pharmacodynamic biomarker data generated in rodent models will likely be relevant for human translation. In spite of the limited number of healthy individuals in the trial, this project demonstrated feasibility for our team to consider translational research in disease-oriented populations.

Citation Format: Jinhui Zhang, Li Li, Thomas W. Hale, Wayne Chee, Chengguo Xing, Cheng Jiang, Junxuan Lu. Single oral dose pharmacokinetics of cancer chemopreventive phytochemicals from Angelica gigas Nakai in men and women. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 3255. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-3255


THE IDEALIZATION OF DYING AT HOME: THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF HOME-BASED PALLIATIVE CAREGIVING The impetus to provide home-based palliative care is growing in an effort to curtail health care costs and to provide a more therapeutic milieu for dying and death to occur. Despite an expanding body of research focusing on the provision of palliative care at home, there has been little attention given to the historical, social, economic, political, and ideological structures and processes that play a role in shaping family caregivers' experiences with providing home-based palliative care. This ethnographic study approached this problem by examining the social context of home-based palliative caregiving, with the overall purpose of uncovering how larger structures and processes influence family caregiver experiences with providing home-based palliative care. The investigator conducted 130 hours of field work in the homes of 13 palliative caregivers (and 12 patients), and interviewed 13 active caregivers, 47 previous caregivers, 28 health care providers, nine health care administrators, and one publicly known lobbyist for the assisted suicide movement. Through this research, home-based palliative caregiving was revealed as more complicated than typically represented. Under ideal conditions, home-based palliative caregiving would result in life-enriching experiences, marked by negotiated decision making, careful consideration of caregivers' needs, respectful interactions with health care providers, and equitable access to health care. However, a number of factors stemming from idealized assumptions about dying at home and the contexts of health care provision resulted in some caregivers feeling "pressured" to provide home care, and consequently, left some of them feeling that their obligations to care were exploited by the health care system. Recent shifts toward moving the provision of health care closer to home not only changed some of the caregivers in profound ways but also transformed the home setting into one that was infused with the influences of biomedicine. Long-standing philosophical divisions between mainstream medical practice and the ideals upheld by palliative care have inhibited the development of coordinated and consistent systems of palliative care that could ultimately benefit both patients at the end-of-life and their caregivers. The findings of this study demonstrate a need to re-think the ways in which home care for the dying is conceptualized, pointing to a need to foster critical consciousness in order to explore how taken-for-granted assumptions influence and sometimes dominate the provision of health care at home. Such awareness will ultimately pave the way toward a health care system and society that genuinely respects and honours the obligations, choices, and needs of family members who provide palliative care at home.


Food is fundamental for humans to survive and vital for development. Food security is a major issue and sustaining it is a challenge for the countries of the world. With climate change and other environmental andsocial factors greatly influencing the current chances for world food security, it is of prime importance for countries to work towards achieving it. A major part of the poor and vulnerable section of people lives in the developing and poor countries with rampant food insecurity issues. To achieve the UN"s Millennium Development goal of halving hunger by 2015, food security measures are implemented in poor and developing countries with the help of world organizations to alleviate poverty and hunger.This paper studies the situation in India, where poverty and hunger is a major block for the development progress. India has proven its authority in various fields with a fast developing economy. On the other hand, poverty and hunger prevail among almost half of the country"s people. The country has taken various measures to attain food security and curb hunger among the poor. The major welfare measure in the country is the food distribution schemes implemented by the government. The performance among different states in the country varies due to various factors. The performances of the country as a whole and of the southern state of Tamil Nadu are taken into consideration for this paper. The paper will deal with the performance and related issues such as policies, administration, operations and social influences on the food distribution system in a comparison between Tamil Nadu and the rest of the country.Based on the official records on procurement and distribution of food grains as well as on literature studies on the food security situation in India and Tamil Nadu state, this paper suggests that there is a need to modify the mechanisms that constitute the distribution system, which can be learnt from Tamil Nadu state where the performance is better than the average for India as a whole. Even though Tamil Nadu faces similar problems asother States, the better performance of Tamil Nadu does not affect the food distribution system in the country. At the national level, the situation is worse with magnified problems of performance affecting the food distribution system.


Some trauma-memory-oriented psychotherapists advise clients to review old family photo albums to cue suspected ''re- pressed'' memories of childhood sexual abuse. Old photos might cue long-forgotten memories, but when combined with other suggestive influences they might also contribute to false mem- ories. We asked 45 undergraduates to work at remembering three school-related childhood events (two true events provided by parents and one pseudoevent). By random assignment, 23 subjects were also given their school classes' group photos from the years of the to-be-recalled events as memory cues. As pre- dicted, the rate of false-memory reports was dramatically higher in the photo condition than in the no-photo condition. Indeed, the rate of false-memory reports in the photo condition was substantially higher than the rate in any previously pub- lished study.


ABSTRACT A mutant of Methylobacterium extorquens AM1 with lesions in genes for three formate dehydrogenase (FDH) enzymes was previously described by us (L. Chistoserdova, M. Laukel, J.-C. Portais, J. A. Vorholt, and M. E. Lidstrom, J. Bacteriol. 186:22-28, 2004). This mutant had lost its ability to grow on formate but still maintained the ability to grow on methanol. In this work, we further investigated the phenotype of this mutant. Nuclear magnetic resonance experiments with [13C]formate, as well as 14C-labeling experiments, demonstrated production of labeled CO2 in the mutant, pointing to the presence of an additional enzyme or a pathway for formate oxidation. The tungsten-sensitive phenotype of the mutant suggested the involvement of a molybdenum-dependent enzyme. Whole-genome array experiments were conducted to test for genes overexpressed in the triple-FDH mutant compared to the wild type, and a gene (fdh4A) was identified whose translated product carried similarity to an uncharacterized putative molybdopterin-binding oxidoreductase-like protein sharing relatively low similarity with known formate dehydrogenase alpha subunits. Mutation of this gene in the triple-FDH mutant background resulted in a methanol-negative phenotype. When the gene was deleted in the wild-type background, the mutant revealed diminished growth on methanol with accumulation of high levels of formate in the medium, pointing to an important role of FDH4 in methanol metabolism. The identity of FDH4 as a novel FDH was also confirmed by labeling experiments that revealed strongly reduced CO2 formation in growing cultures. Mutation of a small open reading frame (fdh4B) downstream of fdh4A resulted in mutant phenotypes similar to the phenotypes of fdh4A mutants, suggesting that fdh4B is also involved in formate oxidation.


Background: Studies exploring the possible protective effect of coffee and tea consumption on dementia have shown inconsistent results so far. We aimed to investigate whether consumption of tea and different types of coffee at midlife are associated with dementia later in life and whether sex or ApoE4 influence such association. Methods: We included 7381 participants from the Norwegian HUNT Study. Self-reported questionnaires assessed daily consumption of coffee and tea at baseline. After 22 years, individuals 70 years or older were screened for cognitive impairment. Results: General coffee consumption and tea consumption was not associated with dementia risk. Compared to daily consumption of 0–1 cups of coffee, daily consumption of ≥8 cups of boiled coffee was associated with increased dementia risk in women (OR: 1.83, 95% CI: 1.10–3.04, p-value for trend = 0.03) and daily consumption of 4–5 cups of other types of coffee was associated with a decrease in dementia risk in men (OR: 0.48, 95% CI: 0.32–0.72, p-value for trend = 0.05). Furthermore, the association between boiled coffee and increased dementia risk was only found in ApoE4 non-carriers. Differences by sex or ApoE4 carrier status were not supported by strong statistical evidence for interaction. Tea consumption was not associated with dementia risk. Conclusion: type of coffee may play a role in the direction of the association between coffee-drinking habits and dementia later in life.


Objective The aim of the study was to investigate oral health-related knowledge, attitudes and habits and their relationship to perceived oral symptoms among 12-year-olds and differences between boys and girls. Material and methods The study population consisted of children (n = 588) in 15 randomly selected elementary schools in Turku, Finland. Associations between oral health-related habits, knowledge and attitudes with perceived oral symptoms and gender differences were evaluated with χ2-test, Mann-Whitney U-test and logistic regression analysis. Results Oral health promoting habits but not knowledge or attitudes associated significantly with absence of oral symptoms. Girls reported a higher percentage of several health promotional habits than boys. Girls reported more frequently gingival bleeding and less frequently dental calculus than boys did. The most common oral symptom was gingival bleeding. Conclusions The present findings suggest some gender-related differences in oral health habits, attitudes, as well as perceived oral symptoms in 12-year-olds. There seems, however, not to be gender differences in relation to knowledge or the association of health habits with perceived oral symptoms. It is important to maintain health promotion at schools and additional efforts should be aimed at translating knowledge into action.


Background/Aims: The chromosome 4q27 region harboring IL2 and IL21 is an established risk locus for ulcerative colitis (UC) and various other autoimmune diseases. Considering the strong coincidence of primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) with UC and the increased frequency of other autoimmune disorders in patients with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), we investigated whether genetic variation in the IL2/IL21 region may also modulate the susceptibility to these two rare cholestatic liver diseases. Methods: Four strongly UC-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the KIAA1109/TENR/IL2/IL21 linkage disequilibrium block were genotyped in 124 PBC and 41 PSC patients. Control allele frequencies from 1,487 healthy, unrelated Caucasians were available from a previous UC association study. Results: The minor alleles of all four markers were associated with a decreased susceptibility to PSC (rs13151961: p = 0.013, odds ratio (OR) 0.34; rs13119723: p = 0.023, OR 0.40; rs6822844: p = 0.031, OR 0.41; rs6840978: p = 0.043, OR 0.46). Moreover, a haplotype consisting of the four minor alleles also had a protective effect on PSC susceptibility (p = 0.0084, OR 0.28). A haplotype of the four major alleles was independently associated with PSC when excluding the patients with concomitant inflammatory bowel disease (p = 0.033, OR 4.18). Conclusion: The IL2/IL21 region may be one of the highly suggestive but so far rarely identified shared susceptibility loci for PSC and UC.


Flexible work accommodations provided by employers purport to help individuals struggling to manage work and family demands. The underlying model for change is accommodation—helping individuals accommodate their work demands with no changes in the structure of work or cultural expectations of ideal workers. The purpose of this article is to derive a Work Redesign Model and compare it with the Accommodation Model. This article centers around two change initiatives—Predictability, Teaming and Open Communication and Results Only Work Environment—that alter the structure and culture of work in ways that enable better work and better lives.


The cultural imagery of women is deeply ingrained in our consciousness. So deply, in fact, that feminists see this as a fundamental threat to female autonomy because it enshrines procreative heterosexuality as well as the relations of domination and subordination between men and women. Diana Meyers' book is about this cultural imagery - and how, once it is internalized, it shapes perception, reflection, judgement, and desire. These intergral images have a deep impact not only on the individual psyche, but also on the social, political, and cultural syntax of society as a whole. Meyer's argues for the necessity of crafting a dissident, empowering, and "emancipatory counter-imagery" for women. Rigorous, well written, and accessible, the reach of Gender in the mirror is arguably catholic, and addresses the interests or readers across an impressive range of intellectual disciplines.


In this work, we present a high-performance and scalable architecture for isogeny-based cryptosystems. In particular, we use the architecture in a fast, constant-time FPGA implementation of the quantum-resistant supersingular isogeny Diffie-Hellman (SIDH) key exchange protocol. On a Virtex-7 FPGA, we show that our architecture is scalable by implementing at 83, 124, 168, and 252-bit quantum security levels. This is the first SIDH implementation at close to the 256-bit quantum security level to appear in literature. Further, our implementation completes the SIDH protocol 2 times faster than performance-optimized software implementations and 1.34 times faster than the previous best FPGA implementation, both running a similar set of formulas. Our implementation employs inversion-free projective isogeny formulas. By replicating multipliers and utilizing an efficient scheduling methodology, we can heavily parallelize quadratic extension field arithmetic and the isogeny evaluation stage of the large-degree isogeny computation. For a constant-time implementation of 124-bit quantum security SIDH on a Virtex-7 FPGA, we generate ephemeral public keys in 8.0 and 8.6 ms and generate the shared secret key in 7.1 and 7.9 ms for Alice and Bob, respectively. Finally, we show that this architecture could also be used to efficiently generate undeniable and digital signatures based on supersingular isogenies.


In this note we describe, on the one hand, the formal institutional structure of the Argentine fiscal federalism. Then, on the other hand, we show how fiscal federalism really works in Argentina. We analyze data on fiscal behavior of the federal and provincial governments during the nineties. The goal of this note is precisely to point that one of the main issues of the current situation in Argentina is precisely the difference between 'formal' and 'real' institutions. At the heart of such difference is the lack of enforcement of national laws and formal inter-provincial agreements. We illustrate this by studying how formal rules to the provincial borrowing have functioned during the last decade.


A method of assessment is described which can be used by trainees at the end of their vocational training in general practice. The assessment allows trainees to make ratings and comments on their teaching practices that can be returned confidentially to their trainers. The results of this assessment suggest that trainees in the Northumbria vocational training scheme are reasonably satisfied with their trainers and training practices.


Supply chain management is a critical issue when dealing with the fashion industry. When managing retail, Demand Management is an area that requires investigation because retail is usually the only contact point between the company and its customers. This paper focuses on two luxury fashion industries; fashion apparel and shoes, watches and jewellery. The goal is to understand how the players in these markets deal with their retail channel and the Demand Management process and to find out which are the main drivers that influence their behaviour. Management practices are analysed using the case study methodology. The findings show that a relationship exists between the company's features, such as ( the configuration and control of the retail stores) and the products they sell (the duration of the products lifecycle) and the use of retail and Demand Management levers which have been grouped into five main families; information management; demand forecasting; assortment planning; orders and replenishments m...


Cassava is becoming increasingly important as an industrial raw material in China. However, an insufficient supply of cassava raw materials and the expanding demand for cassava in downstream-processing industries restricts the development of the cassava industry in China. This paper studies how to increase the scale of cassava planting and promoting cassava production efficiency using output-oriented Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) modeling. Overall Technical Efficiency (OTE), Pure Technical Efficiency (PTE), and Scale Efficiencies (SE) of the cassava-production system in the major cassava production areas of China are calculated using Variable Returns to Scale (VRS). Results reveal that, in addition to the Guangdong province, the OTE of Guangxi, Hainan, Fujian, Yunnan, and Jiangxi is inefficient, with an OTE of less than 1. The largest cassava-planting province, Guangxi, has the lowest SE with 0.551. The PTE of Guangxi is close to the minimum with 0.344. The OTE of Guangxi is also the lowest among the five provinces with 0.190. This study also presents ways to improve production efficiency. Results reveal that Guangxi has a large ratio of transverse adjustment on average. In the Guangxi province, 1.70% of the service cost and 1.72% of the labor cost need to be eliminated to keep the current output scale. Meanwhile, service and labor costs need to be reduced by 3164.85 and 3209.92, respectively, to achieve the best production efficiency. Further industrialization and large-scale cassava cultivation, increased yield, and strengthened cooperation with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Africa are suggested as policy options to improve the cassava system in China.


Background and objective: A need exists for a safe and effective oral preanaesthetic medication for use in children undergoing elective surgery. The study sought to define the dose of oral ketamine that would facilitate induction of anaesthesia without causing significant side-effects. Methods: We studied 80 children undergoing elective surgery under general anaesthesia who received oral ketamine 4, 6 or 8 mg kg−1 in a prospective, randomized, double-blind placebo controlled study. We compared the reaction to separation from parents, transport to the operating room, the response to intravenous cannula insertion and application of an anaesthetic facemask, the induction of anaesthesia and recovery from anaesthesia. Results: In the group receiving ketamine 8 mg kg−1, the children were significantly calmer than those of the other groups, and anaesthesia induction was more comfortable. Recovery from anaesthesia was longer in the group receiving ketamine 8 mg kg−1 compared with the other groups, but no differences between the groups were observed after 2 h in the recovery room. Conclusions: It is concluded that oral ketamine 8 mg kg−1 is an effective oral premedication in inpatient children undergoing elective surgery.


Plant formations at Victoria Falls. Miss GIBBS27 has published an enumeration of the plants collected in two localities in southern Rhodesia during a period of three months. The list is a long one, and the new species are numerous. A second part of the paper describes the plant formations in the vicinity of Victoria Falls, three distinct regions being recognized: (i) The veldt, or open forest growth, which is found throughout southern Rhodesia, extending on both sides of the Zambesi River as far as the eye can see; (2) a region limited to the immediate banks of the Zambesi and the islands above Victoria Falls, in which Eugenia guineensis is dominant; (3) a region including the bog edge of Livingstone Island and that of the rainy forest in general, dominated by Eugenia cordata. The four plates reproduce eight photographs of characteristic plants and plant formations. J. M. C.


Biodigesters have been used to convert biomass into biogas and biofertilizers. This energy use has been important for the reduction of solid waste pollution in the environment. This work aims to analyse the viability of the use of pig biofertilizer produced by an Indian biodigester prototype, monitored by a data acquisition system. The biodigester used was an Indian prototype built on a low cost material that is easy to acquire (polyvinyl chloride-PVC). After the biofertilizer production, we tested its efficiency and viability under conditions of vegetation house in the cultivation of sunflower plants. The experimental design was completely randomized in a factorial arrangement with 4 concentrations of biofertilizer (0, 40, 80 and 120 kg N ha-1) × 4 harvest periods (14, 21, 25 and 29 days after sowing). We evaluated biometric and vigor parameters by measurements of stem diameter, height of the aerial part, number of leaves and production of fresh and dry matter of roots, aerial and total parts, as well as the relative chlorophyll content. We performed the experiment with five repetitions using two plants each and we submitted the data to analysis of variance (ANOVA) and polynomial regression using the statistical software Sisvar 5.4. The functional Indian biodigester prototype produced a biofertilizer of excellent quality and viability as a biofertilizer for the initial growth of sunflower plants. The biofertilizer served as a nutritional source in the sunflower crop, since it provided increases in all the growth parameters analyzed in relation to the control group (plants in the absence of biofertilizer), especially in the concentration of 120 kg N ha-1.


Background Previous epidemiological studies have shown significant associations between chronic periodontitis (CP) and chronic kidney disease (CKD), but the causal relationship remains uncertain. Aiming to examine the causal relationship between these two diseases, we conducted a bidirectional two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis with multiple MR methods. Methods For the casual effect of CP on CKD, we selected seven single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) specific to CP as genetic instrumental variables from the genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in the GLIDE Consortium. The summary statistics of complementary kidney function measures, i.e., estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and blood urea nitrogen (BUN), were derived from the GWAS in the CKDGen Consortium. For the reversed causal inference, six SNPs associated with eGFR and nine with BUN from the CKDGen Consortium were included and the summary statistics were extracted from the CLIDE Consortium. Results No significant causal association between genetically determined CP and eGFR or BUN was found (all p > 0.05). Based on the conventional inverse variance-weighted method, one of seven instrumental variables supported genetically predicted CP being associated with a higher risk of eGFR (estimate = 0.019, 95% CI: 0.012–0.026, p < 0.001). Conclusion Evidence from our bidirectional causal inference does not support a causal relation between CP and CKD risk and therefore suggests that associations reported by previous observational studies may represent confounding.


The major challenge to ocular drug delivery is poor bio-availability of the delivered drug, due to the anatomy of the eye. This work presents an approach to address this problem, using novel contact lens drug delivery vehicles.
Antihistamines were used as a model drug due to their physical properties and molecular weight. 15% of the world's population suffer from allergic reactions confirming antihistamines as a relevant ocular pharmaceutical.
A novel pilot scale wet cast moulding process and methods to measure critical lens parameters were developed. This facilitated comparison of the manufactured lenses to commercial lenses. The refractive index of the lenses fabricated and commercial lenses was 1.33. Equilibrium water content was 70 % for both commercial and fabricated lenses. % of light transmitted varied from 96 - 97.5 % for fabricated lenses, which compared to 98 % for commercial lenses ACUVUE©. This is significant to the field of study as the novel manufacturing system developed allowed for an accurate assessment of drug delivery from contact lenses. Other research groups have performed drug release studies on films and discs which do not have the same thickness and shape as contact lenses. Another advantage of the manufacturing system developed was that it allowed control over lens composition and drug loading via direct casting.
Drug-laden polymer particles were investigated as a means of attenuating drug release. Zero order drug release from these drug-laden polymer particles was achieved. Drug loaded polymer particles were loaded onto contact lenses to create novel drug delivery vehicles which delivered 5.84 μg of cetirizine over 24 hours.
The activation energy for the polymerisation of HEMA with AIBN initiator was calculated to be 70.8 kJ.mol-1. When drug-laden polymer particles were added to the HEMA monomer, the activation energy dropped to 60.7 kJ.mol-1. This result proved that the activation energy for the polymerisation of contact lens monomers could be decreased by the presence of polymer particles. This reduction in activation energy could result in lower cost hydrogel formation, as less energy would be required. Furthermore, it was observed that formulations with two monomers exhibited an increase in activation energy of up to 17.82 KJ.mol-1. Results obtained in this study determined that polymer particles can impact the polymerisation reaction of contact lens monomers and affect the polymers physical properties and this area warrants further investigation.


THE POSITION Under general supervision performs a variety of non-sworn law enforcement duties, attends a formalized education program in preparation for employment as a Police Officer and performs related work as required. Police Officer Trainee is a full time, nonsworn, temporary classification intended to prepare individuals to become sworn police officers. Upon successful completion of a Police Academy approved by the Fullerton Police Department, a Police Officer Trainee shall be appointed to Police Officer.


Significance The conduction of protons through the highly restricted paths of transmembrane proteins is an essential process of living systems and an intriguing problem in modern physical chemistry. The small size of the influenza M2 proton channel makes it an ideal system for the study of proton transport across a membrane. Additionally, the M2 channel has medical relevance as an anti-flu drug target. These high-resolution structures of the channel were obtained by crystallizing the protein in a membrane-like environment and reveal networks of hydrogen-bonded waters that change with temperature and pH. The locations of these waters, in conjunction with molecular dynamics simulations that predict their hydrogen bond orientations, provide insight into the mechanism of proton stabilization and transduction within the channel. The matrix 2 (M2) protein from influenza A virus is a proton channel that uses His37 as a selectivity filter. Here we report high-resolution (1.10 Å) cryogenic crystallographic structures of the transmembrane domain of M2 at low and high pH. These structures reveal that waters within the pore form hydrogen-bonded networks or "water wires" spanning 17 Å from the channel entrance to His37. Pore-lining carbonyl groups are well situated to stabilize hydronium via second-shell interactions involving bridging water molecules. In addition, room temperature crystallographic structures indicate that water becomes increasingly fluid with increasing temperature and decreasing pH, despite the higher electrostatic field. Complementary molecular dynamics simulations reveal a collective switch of hydrogen bond orientations that can contribute to the directionality of proton flux as His37 is dynamically protonated and deprotonated in the conduction cycle.


The McCarran-Ferguson Act (MFA) exempts various aspects of state insurance operations from federal antitrust enforcement. This exemption is a source of longstanding controversy, due in part to its potentially harmful effect on consumers in product pricing. In hurricane insurance, there is a burgeoning debate concerning insurers' use of predictive computer models rather than shared loss data to set premiums for the industry. By using these models in hurricane-prone states, insurers have increased the price of hurricane insurance dramatically. Where these new prediction methods are used, MFA exemption may facilitate supracompetitive pricing in ways its architects could not have foreseen. This Note analyzes MFA's economic effects on model-based pricing in hurricane insurance to argue for judicial revision of the Act. Through an effects test, it proposes conditioning eligibility for antitrust exemption on the economic benefits of a challenged activity exceeding its costs.


The available data on the thermodynamic stability of supramolecular biological structures and variations in the chemical composition of living organisms have allowed a macrothermodynamic model of biological evolution to be developed experimentally. In this model, the tendency toward a minimum of the specific Gibbs function of the formation of supramolecular structures of living organisms causes variations in the chemical composition and structure of living systems. It is shown that in the course of ontogenesis and phylogenesis, as well as long-lasting stages in the evolution of the organic world, the biosystems (as a result of the thermodynamic direction of evolutionary processes of the formation of supramolecular structures) are enriched with energy-intensive chemical substances, which displace water from these biosystems. The change in the composition and structure of biostructures of an adaptive character is also explained from the angle of macrothermodynamics.


Antioxidants are specific substances that oxidize themselves and in this way they protect other sensitive bioactive food components against destruction. At the same time they restrict the activity of free radicals and change them to less active forms. Large group of antioxidants are polyphenols, which affect sensory properties of fruit, vegetable and some drinks, like colour (anthocyans), taste (flavonoids) or odour (phenols). The significant source of polyphenolic compounds are wines. Polyphenols (in optimal amount and combination), found mainly in red wines, have very complex (positive) effects on organism. The aim of this work was to determine chosen antioxidant properties of the best-selling quality red wines Blaufränkisch and St. Laurent, originating from different Slovak vineyard areas. Total polyphenols content was determined with phenol Folin-Ciocalteau ́s reagent and antioxidant activity was determined using DPPH stable free radical. Both parameters were determined by UV-VIS absorption spectrometry. The determined total polyphenol contents in observed wines were within the interval 1579 – 2734 mg.L (Blaufränkisch), respectively 1409 – 3276 mg.L (St. Laurent). Antioxidant activity in wines was within the interval 80.2 – 86.4 % (Blaufränkisch), respectively 71.0 – 84.8 % (St. Laurent). The differences between results of measured antioxidant properties (total polyphenol contents and antioxidant activities) of the wines originating from some vineyard Slovak areas were statistically significant.


The authors investigate the impact of exchange rate movements on wage determination in unionized labor markets. Using a simple model of international oligopoly, the authors show that organized labor has a rational incentive to accept lower wages in the face of a currency appreciation. They examine this proposition empirically using a matched worker-firm data set for Portugal and, though the impact varies considerably with worker characteristics, find results consistent with the predictions of the model.


Arthrodesis of the proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joint of the finger is an established procedure for advanced osteoarthritis. As there are different techniques of fusion, it seems necessary to evaluate the results. Primary outcome of this review was to evaluate different arthrodesis methods of the PIP joint and describe different numbers of non-unions. Secondary outcome was to evaluate time to consolidation. Respective complications, if mentioned, were listed additionally. The review process was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. The selected databases were PubMed, Medline, Embase, Google Scholar and Cochrane Library. Studies reporting outcomes of the arthrodesis with a defined technique and radiological consolidation were included. Complication rates and types were recorded. In total, 6162 articles could be identified, 159 full-texts were assessed and 64 studies were included. Methodological quality was assessed using Methodological Index for Non-Randomized Studies. A total of 1923 arthrodeses of the PIP joint could be identified. Twelve different surgical techniques were described, four of these techniques with compression at the arthrodesis site. The most frequently used techniques were K-wires (n = 743, 14 studies), tension-band (n = 313, 15 studies) and compression screws (n = 233, 12 studies). The lowest rate of described non-unions in compression techniques was 3.9% with the compression screw. The highest non-union rate of 8.6% was achieved by interosseous wiring. All the described techniques can achieve the goal of fusing an osteoarthritic joint. There is a tendency in the more recent literature for the use of compression techniques.


A technique for the training of multiple-valued neural networks based on a backpropagation learning algorithm employing a multilevel threshold function is proposed. The optimum threshold width of the multilevel function and the range of the learning parameter to be chosen for convergence are derived. Trials performed on a benchmark problem demonstrate the convergence of the network within the specified range of parameters.


In recent Chinese development the focus for improving sustainable building design has been on urban development. However, a large fraction of the country's population continues to live in rural areas (approximately 600 million); therefore providing and encouraging sustainable development in those areas is important too. This has been recognised in Chinese government initiatives commencing in 2005. Research has been undertaken to record and analyse village development in China's Yunnan Province. Villages vary considerably from cities including ownership of land and buildings, and local cultural influences. The redevelopment and sustainability outcomes also vary. Factors identified as affecting potential success include: village management and the level of enthusiasm of residents to participate in the development process; types of redevelopment encouragement offered (such as support for tourism and craft industries); the degree to which villagers themselves, have knowledge/interest in, sustainable/green design; the ways by which architects and planners are involved in the process; and the level of existing skills/knowledge available. Research has entailed visiting a range of villages and discussing sustainability issues with residents and also with architects and planners. Building surveys have also been performed. Outcomes of the research suggest optimum ways in which sustainable environmental development in villages can occur.


A spontaneously metastasizing, well-defined mouse lymphoma was chosen as an in vivo model to study the effect of tumor-host interaction on gene expression in liver sinusoidal endothelial cells. Forty-nine bovine aortic endothelial cell (BAEC) genes, recently isolated by a differential screening approach of a cDNA library enriched for tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) suppressed genes, were investigated. Four of these genes were finally selected because they were affected differentially by host immuno-competence, TNF-alpha, and tumor cells. Sequence analysis showed them to encode the bovine polyubiquitin (A4), elongation factor 1alpha (B2), the acidic ribosomal phosphoprotein PO (C3), and the ribosomal protein S2 (E10). Gene expression was analyzed by dot-blot or Northern blot analysis. TNF-alpha and tumor cell conditioned supernatant suppressed the genes additive in BAEC but not in other endothelial cells except for bovine capillary endothelial cells. Ex vivo-isolated liver endothelial cells of tumor-bearing syngeneic DBA/2 mice showed strong downregulation of these four genes in comparison to normal control values. In contrast, endothelial cells of tumor-bearing immuno-incompetent Balb/c (nu/nu) mice showed no downregulation but upregulation of these genes. Consistently, all four genes were also downregulated when BAEC were incubated with supernatants derived from ex vivo-isolated liver metastases from immuno-competent but not from -incompetent mice. Thus, the expression of a group of genes involved in protein translation and processing was more profoundly altered in endothelial cells in vivo than in vitro, suggesting that microenviromental factors and cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions play an important role.


We develop an optimization technique to compute local solutions to synthesis problems subject to integral quadratic constraints (IQCs). We use the fact that IQCs may be transformed into semi-infinite maximum eigenvalue constraints over the frequency axis and approach them via nonsmooth optimization methods. We develop a suitable spectral bundle method and prove its convergence in the sense that, for an arbitrary starting point, the accumulation points of the sequence of serious iterates are critical. Our new way to look at IQCs is particularly suited for systems with large state dimension, because we avoid the use of Lyapunov variables. We present two numerical tests which validate our approach in the case of parametric uncertainties.