Shear wave resonances at frequencies between about 0.1 and 10Hz are a ubiquitous feature of ambient noise and controlled source seismic data acquired on sedimented sea floors. They are a major factor in the ambient noise field and mask many useful seismic arrivals. For controlled source experiments shear wave resonances are a major source of incoherent, signal generated noise and coda. The peaks of the ambient noise spectra associated with the resonances, however, can be used to infer the sediment rigidity and thickness. The theory of Godin and Chapman (1999) has been used to infer shear velocity and sediment thickness from the resonance peaks in horizontal component power spectra for two sites in the Pacific. At ODP Site 843B (OSN-1), about 225km southwest of Oahu, the sediment thickness is known from drilling and we can infer from the resonances that the uppermost shear velocity is about 24.5m/s. At the Hawaii-2 Observatory (H2O) Site, half-way between Hawaii and California, we predict a sediment thickness above the first chert layer of about 13m by assuming the same uppermost shear velocity as at OSN-1. Work was funded by The National Science Foundation and the Free University of Amsterdam. Shear Wave Resonances in Sediments on the Deep Sea Floor I. Zeldenrust & R. A. Stephen, AGU 2000 Poster page 3 of 16 Figure 1: The Ocean Seismic Network Site (OSN-1) is 225km southwest of Oahu in 4407m water depth (Stephen et al, 1999; Collins et al, in press). The Hawaii-2 Observatory (H2O) is half-way between Hawaii and California on the retired Hawaii-2 telecommunications cable and is in 4970m water depth (Duennebier, 2000; Chave et al, 1997). Shear Wave Resonances in Sediments on the Deep Sea Floor I. Zeldenrust & R. A. Stephen, AGU 2000 Poster page 4 of 16 Figure 2: This true amplitude spectrogram summarizes the vertical component ambient noise in the band 1mHz to 7.5Hz for over 110days of the broadband borehole seismometer deployment at OSN-1. The constant frequency bands between 0.2 and 1Hz correspond to shear modes or reverberations within the sediment column. Shear Wave Resonances in Sediments on the Deep Sea Floor I. Zeldenrust & R. A. Stephen, AGU 2000 Poster page 5 of 16 Figure 3: This true amplitude spectrogram summarizes the ambient noise on a single horizontal component similar to Figure 1. Shear Wave Resonances in Sediments on the Deep Sea Floor I. Zeldenrust & R. A. Stephen, AGU 2000 Poster page 6 of 16 Figure 4: Vertical and horizontal (x) component spectrograms are shown for 1 month of data from the new Hawaii-2 Observatory site. These figures have the same time, frequency and color scales as Figures 2 and 3 for OSN-1. The sediment resonances are more clearly defined and extend to higher frequencies on the horizontal component data. Shear Wave Resonances in Sediments on the Deep Sea Floor I. Zeldenrust & R. A. Stephen, AGU 2000 Poster page 7 of 16 Figure 5: The geometric and arithmetic means of all of the spectra for the OSN-1 vertical component (Figure 2) are shown. Also shown are the largest and least spectral values at each frequency. The USGS high and low noise models (land models) are based on a synthesis of data from land and island stations. The very high levels from 3mHz to 0.2Hz are caused by the large (Mw=7.9) Balleny Islands earthquake on Julian Day 84/1998. Shear Wave Resonances in Sediments on the Deep Sea Floor I. Zeldenrust & R. A. Stephen, AGU 2000 Poster page 8 of 16 Figure 6: Vertical component spectra from the seafloor, buried and borehole installations at OSN-1 are compared with the spectra from the buried installation at H2O and the KIP GSN station on Oahu. H2O has extremely low noise levels above 5Hz and near the micro-seism peak from 0.1-0.3Hz. H2O has high noise levels below 50mHz. Otherwise H2O levels are comparable to OSN borehole and KIP levels. The sediment resonances at H2O near 1 and 3 Hz are very prominent. Shear Wave Resonances in Sediments on the Deep Sea Floor I. Zeldenrust & R. A. Stephen, AGU 2000 Poster page 9 of 16 Figure 7: Horizontal component spectra from the seafloor, buried and borehole installations at OSN-1 are compared with the spectra from the buried installation at H2O and the KIP GSN station on Oahu. The sediment resonance peaks at H2O in the band 0.3-8Hz are up to 30dB louder than background and far exceed the microseism peak at 0.1-0.3Hz. That the resonant peaks are considerably higher for horizontal components than for the vertical component is consistent with the notion that these are related to vertically propagating shear wave multiples. Shear Wave Resonances in Sediments on the Deep Sea Floor I. Zeldenrust & R. A. Stephen, AGU 2000 Poster page 10 of 16 The Godin-Chapman Method The Godin and Chapman method assumes a power-law profile for the shear speed in the sediments and it assumes that the sediments are underlain by a rigid boundary. The depth dependence of the shear modulus is given by: where ρ0 is the density which is assumed constant, c0 is the uppermost shear velocity, z is depth and ν gives the power law dependence. The two-way travel time for a vertically propagating shear wave in the sediment layer is: where H is the thickness of the sediment. The normalized frequency. corresponds to the fundamental resonance when ν=2/3. The relationship between the resonant frequencies, fn, and their ordinal number, n, is approximately linear: where m is related to ν by: . From the slope and intercept of the resonant frequencies one can compute the ratio: . Then given either the sediment thickness or the uppermost shear velocity one can compute the other quantity. Shear Wave Resonances in Sediments on the Deep Sea Floor I. Zeldenrust & R. A. Stephen, AGU 2000 Poster page 11 of 16 Figure 8: We can use the resonances at OSN-1 to compute a typical uppermost shear velocity for deep sea sediments because the sediment thickness at OSN-1 is known from drilling (242m). The resonant frequencies for OSN are 0.39, 0.90, and 1.36Hz as shown in this figure of the spectra for the buried seismometer at OSN-1. Shear Wave Resonances in Sediments on the Deep Sea Floor I. Zeldenrust & R. A. Stephen, AGU 2000 Poster page 12 of 16 Figure 9: A plot of the resonant frequencies from Figure 8 versus ordinal number gives: F = 0.485, b = -0.087, ν = 0.562, ratio =2.22. Using the known sediment thickness at OSN-1 of 242m we can estimate the uppermost shear velocity as 24.5m/s. Shear Wave Resonances in Sediments on the Deep Sea Floor I. Zeldenrust & R. A. Stephen, AGU 2000 Poster page 13 of 16 Figure 10: The sediment resonances at H2O are very well established and it is possible to pick six unambiguous resonant frequencies (1.06, 2.53, 4.44, 5.68, 7.30, and 9.00Hz) on the horizontal component data. Shear Wave Resonances in Sediments on the Deep Sea Floor I. Zeldenrust & R. A. Stephen, AGU 2000 Poster page 14 of 16 Figure 11; A plot of the resonant frequencies from Figure 10 versus ordinal number gives: F = 1.58, b = 0.52, ν = 0.40 and ratio = 5.28. Assuming that the uppermost shear velocity at OSN-1 is a good estimate of the uppermost shear velocity at H2O gives the sediment thickness at H2O of 13m. This is probably the thickness to the first interbedded chert layer. Shear Wave Resonances in Sediments on the Deep Sea Floor I. Zeldenrust & R. A. Stephen, AGU 2000 Poster page 15 of 16


BACKGROUND
Although serum prealbumin is considered a valid indicator of nutritional status in hemodialysis patients, there is relatively little evidence that its determination is of major prognostic significance. In this study, we aimed to determine the independent association of serum prealbumin with survival in hemodialysis patients, after adjusting for serum albumin and other indicators of protein energy nutritional status.

METHODS
Serum prealbumin was measured in more than 1600 maintenance hemodialysis patients. We determined the correlations among prealbumin and other indicators of nutritional status, including serum albumin, and bioimpedance-derived indicators of body composition. The relationship between serum prealbumin and survival was determined using proportional hazards regression.

RESULTS
The serum albumin was directly correlated with the serum prealbumin (r = 0.47, P < 0.0001), but still explained <25% of the variability in prealbumin. Prealbumin was inversely related to mortality, with a relative risk reduction of 6% per 1 mg/dL increase in prealbumin, even after adjusting for case mix, serum albumin, and other nutritional indicators. The increase in risk with lower serum prealbumin concentrations was observed whether the serum albumin was high or low.

CONCLUSION
In hemodialysis patients, the serum prealbumin provides prognostic value independent of the serum albumin and other established predictors of mortality in this population.


Defective interfering particles (DIPs) are products of inner deletion mutants of viruses that reproduce at the disbursement of the parent virus. This review article aimed at reviewing current science on DIPs of their molecular and immunological features, role in disease progression and persistence, impact on vaccine production and viral vectors, and future directions. Defective interfering particles are very important to the field of biotechnology and genetic engineering due to their nature of stimulating the immune system and attenuating some of the live viruses during live-attenuated vaccine production, however, they have a devastating effect like interfering with vaccine production, that is decreasing the viral titer, and facilitate pathogenesis and persistence of some viral infections.


Background and aims : The present studies show that the theoretical discussions and the applications of ergonomics have not been seriously handled in our country, Iran. So, the aim of the current study was to present an appropriate method which could help in increasing the productivity and decreasing the risk factors of ergonomics in socio-technical systems. Methods: During the present study, a theoretical model was developed to guide the "ergonomic intervention processes" and its evaluation and application was carried out for an educational organization (EO). The faculty members were selected as the subjects of statistical survey and simple random sampling was performed. The level of musculoskeletal disorders was evaluated in control and treatment groups. Comparative analysis of the obtained data was carried out using fuzzy numbers and their level of confinement. Results: According to the results of present study with the help of ergonomic interventions, an increase in the activity of staff members, increased revenue, expansion of work with the least number of manpower and a decrease in the overall expenses was seen as compared to the base year. In addition, the analysis of questionnaires with fuzzy approach has shown that the level of musculoskeletal disorders in the experimental group was less as compared to that of control group. Conclusion: The results obtained by the use of macro and micro ergonomic interventions (Total ergonomics) have proved that these methods were successful by increasing the innovation and motivation of the staff members to solve the organizational problems as compared to the base year. The decrease of musculoskeletal disorders among the members resulted to an increase of performance in different units of the educational organization. Micro ergonomics, Productivity, Musculoskeletal disorders, Fuzzy logics.


The analysis of geophysical well log data from 20 deep wells in western and central Pennsylvania, southern New York, and northern West Virginia confirms the presence of anomalies in the distribution and thickness of the Lower Ordovician Beekmantown, Middle Ordovician Trenton, Lower Devonian Oriskany, and Middle Devonian Onondaga and Tully rock units. The nonuniformity of these rock units occurs in an area of western Pennsylvania referred to by W. R. Wagner in 1976 as the Olin basin. The margins of this feature are delineated by Upper Cambrian and Lower Ordovician growth faults. Wagner considered these faults to be extensions of Precambrian basement faults. A structural depression in southwestern Pennsylvania and northwestern West Virginia hosted the depocenters of many of the Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian sediments. This feature coincides geographically with the southern boundaries of the Late Cambrian Olin basin. Displacement along Precambrian basement faults coincident with this structure could have accounted for the distribution and thickness of the Beekmantown sediments in this region. The correlation of bentonite layers of the Trenton Group in western Pennsylvania indicates that faulting coincident with this depression appears to have affected the distribution and thickening of sediments across this basin. Limited, renewed displacement of Wagner's Upper Cambrian growth fault as a positive flexure, resulting in an uplift of basement highs in Devonian time, might have accounted for the minimum deposition of the Oriskany, Onondaga, and Tully units in western and north-central Pennsylvania. End_of_Article - Last_Page 1920------------


Argininemia results from a deficiency of arginase (EC 184.108.40.206), the last enzyme of the urea cycle in the liver. We examined the molecular basis for argininemia by constructing a genomic library followed by cloning and DNA sequencing. Discrete mutations were found on two alleles from the patient, a product of a nonconsanguineous marriage. There was a four-base deletion at protein-coding region 262-265 or 263-266 in exon 3 that would lead to a reading-frame shift after amino acid residue 87 and make a new stop codon at residue 132. The other was a one-base deletion at 77 or 78 in exon 2 that would lead to a reading-frame shift after residue 26 and make a stop codon at residue 31. For confirmation, genomic DNAs from the patient and from her parents were amplified by the polymerase chain reaction method. The patient was shown to be a compound heterozygote, inheriting an allele with the four-base deletion from the father and the other allele with the one-base deletion from the mother. These data seem to be the first evidence of a case of argininemia caused by two different deletion mutations.


A key enabler for the emerging autonomous and cooperative driving services is high-throughput and reliable Vehicle-to-Network (V2N) communication. In this respect, the millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies hold great promises because of the large available bandwidth which may provide the required link capacity. However, this potential is hindered by the challenging propagation characteristics of high-frequency channels and the dynamic topology of the vehicular scenarios, which affect the reliability of the connection. Moreover, mmWave transmissions typically leverage beamforming gain to compensate for the increased path loss experienced at high frequencies. This, however, requires fine alignment of the transmitting and receiving beams, which may be difficult in vehicular scenarios. Those limitations may undermine the performance of V2N communications and pose new challenges for proper vehicular communication design. In this paper, we study by simulation the practical feasibility of some mmWave-aware strategies to support V2N, in comparison to the traditional LTE connectivity below 6 GHz. The results show that the orchestration among different radios represents a viable solution to enable both high-capacity and robust V2N communications.


Summary. We report a case of disseminated aspergillosis in a hitherto healthy 24‐year‐old woman during her 24th week of pregnancy. Relevant findings at autopsy revealed innumerable septate, dichotomously branched (45°) hyphae compatible with Aspergillus in lung and liver tissues. Cerebral histology showed cerebral vessels occluded by hyphae causing cerebral infarction. There was no evidence of invasive aspergillosis in the placenta and fetal tissues. Aspergillus sp. was confirmed by amplification of a specific 357‐base‐pair amplicon from a paraffin block containing lung tissue. This case illustrates a previously uncharacterized spectrum of disseminated aspergillosis, indicating the need for a heightened awareness that Aspergillus species are opportunistic agents for invasive and disseminated infection in pregnancy.


In this paper, the incremental solution building capability of Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm (ACOA) is exploited using a Tree Growing Algorithm (TGA) augmented with the efficiency of Nonlinear Programming (NLP) methods leading to a hybrid ACOA-TGA-NLP algorithm for the effective layout and pipe size optimization of pumped/gravitational sewer networks. Solution of layout and pipe size optimization of sewer network requires the determination of pipe locations, pipe diameters, average pipe cover depths, drop and pump heights minimizing the total cost of the sewer network subject to operational constraints. The resulting problem is a highly constrained Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) problem presenting a challenge even to the modern heuristic search methods. In the proposed method, the TGA is used to construct feasible tree-like layouts out of the base layout defined for the sewer network, the ACOA is used to optimally determine the pipe diameters of the constructed layout, and finally NLP is used to determine the pipe slopes from which the remaining characteristics of the network such as pump/drop locations and heights are determined. In the NLP stage of the model, the velocity and flow depth constraints are expressed in terms of the slope constraints which are easily enforced as box constraint of the NLP solver leading to a considerable reduction of the search space size. The proposed hybrid ACOA-TGA-NLP has two significant advantages over other available methods. First, this method can be used for both pumped and gravitational sewer networks. Second, the computational effort is significantly reduced compared to alternative methods. Another method is also proposed here in which the layout of the network is determined by an ad-hoc method based on engineering judgment while the component design of the network is carried out by ACOA-NLP method as defined above. Proposed hybrid methods are used to solve a benchmark example from the literature and a hypothetical test example and the results are presented and compared with those produced by the existing methods such as SPST-DDDP, SDM-DDDP and GA-DDDP. The results indicate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed methods and in particular the ACOA-TGA-NLP method. In fact, the optimal solution of ACOA-TGA-NLP is 149, 64.1, 22.2 and 13.6% cheaper than those of ACOA-NLP, SPST-DDDP, SDM-DDDP and GA-DDDP methods, respectively, for the benchmark text example. Furthermore, ACOA-TGA-NLP yields a solution 80% cheaper than that of ACOA-NLP method for hypothetical test example.


: The long-term results of treatment in 130 patients with foci of crushing in the cerebral hemispheres were studied in follow-up periods of 12 months to 12 years. It was established that compensation of the disturbed functions of the central nervous system and the extent of social-occupational adaptation are dependent on the time and volume of the operative intervention, the severity of brain damage, the patients' age, the type and degree of manifestation of the hypertensive-dislocation syndrome, and the application of a complex of intensive therapy measures. A higher level of social-occupational adaptation is achieved when the focus of brain destruction is removed within the bounds of the destruction zone and before the development of the dislocation syndrome.


This paper proposes a novel converter topology that interfaces four power ports: two sources, one bidirectional storage port, and one isolated load port. The proposed four-port dc/dc converter is derived by simply adding two switches and two diodes to the traditional half-bridge topology. Zero-voltage switching is realized for all four main switches. Three of the four ports can be tightly regulated by adjusting their independent duty-cycle values, while the fourth port is left unregulated to maintain the power balance for the system. Circuit analysis and design considerations are presented; the dynamic modeling and close-loop design guidance are given as well. Experimental results verify the proposed topology and confirm its ability to achieve tight independent control over three power-processing paths. This topology promises significant savings in component count and losses for renewable energy power-harvesting systems.


Notch signaling pathway is an important developmental pathway and has been implicated in both mammary gland development and tumorigenesis. Several studies investigating Notch signaling in mouse mammary gland implied that Notch signaling is an important factor in the determination of the luminal cell type. Clinical studies on breast tumors as well as studies in transgenic mouse models overexpressing active Notch receptors suggested an oncogenic function of Notch in the mammary gland connecting it to the poor breast cancer prognosis. However the physiological role of Notch signaling and its downstream mechanisms remain unclear. Analysis of Transgenic-EGFP Notch reporter mouse mammary epithelium revealed that Notch signaling is active specifically in a subset of hormone receptor positive cells. More sensitive FACS analysis consistently shows EGFP expression in HR+ luminal cells and reveals a weaker signal in a subset of basal (CD24lo) cells. Additionally mRNA analysis revealed that Notch active luminal cells are expressing Wnt4 ligand. To unveil the role of the Notch signaling in the Wnt4 expressing HR+ cells, we conditionally deleted RBP-Jκ, Notch signaling mediator, in Wnt4 expressing subpopulation of hormone receptor positive cells via Wnt4Cre. Abrogation of RBP-Jκ resulted in loss of progesterone receptor expression in 90% of cells bearing the RBP-Jκ deletion while estrogen receptor expression remained intact, implicating RBP-Jκ in regulation of progesterone receptor expression. To test whether Notch signaling regulates PR expression in the entire HR+ population, we analyzed mammary epithelium in which RBP-Jκ has been conditionally deleted via MMTV-Cre in progenitor cells revealing the presence of a subpopulation of luminal hormone receptor positive cells that differentiate independently of Notch signaling. Time directed deletion of RBP-Jκ via intraductally injected Adeno-Cre virus into the adult mouse mammary ductal system through the nipple additionally confirmed that RBP-Jκ is required for progesterone receptor expression. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assay showed that RBP-Jκ binds two out of four putative RBPJκ binding sites in the progesterone receptor promoter. Inhibition of Notch signaling in vivo via intraductal injection of γ-secretase inhibitor, DAPT, resulted in reduced progesterone receptor expression strongly suggesting that Notch-related RBP-Jκ signaling is responsible for PR expression. In this project we are proposing that there are two different populations of HR+ cells: one defined as Wnt4 expressing subpopulation of HR+ cells in which PR expression is dependent of Notch signaling, and another one defined as Wnt4 non expressing subpopulation of HR+ cells which is independent of Notch signaling. Since Notch signaling is able to replace ER signaling and activate ER target genes in the endocrine therapy resistant cell lines, Wnt4 expressing population of HR+ luminal cells might play a crucial role in the acquiring of the resistance.


This article focuses on the utilisation of a bridging technique to overcome contact-making barriers in adolescents. Interruptions or contact boundary disturbances block contact making, as it becomes fixed and prevents the natural and healthy process of organismic self-regulation. A combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches were followed and a single system experimental design, A–B–A–A, was applied in the original study. Qualitative data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews with parents and teachers, and therapeutic intervention with adolescents. Quantitative data were collected from pre- post- and follow-up-intervention assessments, during which the bridging technique was utilised. Fourteen adolescent participants were selected by school teachers and therapists from three different schools, with their parents and teachers: a mainstream school for high-functioning children, a school for children with learning disabilities and a school for children with intellectual disabilities. These adolescents presented behavioural symptoms: aggression, self-mutilation, personal emotional symptoms: depression, suicidal tendencies, as well as contact-making disturbances. The findings indicated that the bridging technique shows potential in working with adolescents to overcome contact-making barriers.


right of first publication of such papers, in complete form; however, CSBE/SCGAB has no objections to publication, in condensed form, with credit to the Society and the author, in other publications prior to use in Society publications. Permission to publish a paper in full may be requested from the CSBE/SCGAB Secretary, 2028 Calico Crescent, Orleans, ON, K4A 4L7 or contact email@example.com. The Society is not responsible for statements or opinions advanced in papers or discussions at its meetings. The Canadian Society for Bioengineering The Canadian society for engineering in agricultural, food, environmental, and biological systems. La Société Canadienne de Génie Agroalimentaire et de Bioingénierie La société canadienne de génie agroalimentaire, de la bioingénierie et de l'environnement


We propose that social psychological findings on the intuitive bases of moral judgment have broad implications for moral education. The "five foundations theory of intuitive ethics" is applied to explain a longstanding rift in moral education as an ideological disagreement about which moral intuitions should be endorsed and cultivated. The Kohlbergian moral reasoning side has sought to limit the domain of moral education to Harm and Fairness-related moral concerns, whereas character education approaches have tried also to cultivate intuitions concerning the Ingroup, Authority and Purity foundations. Recent attempts to merge the two lines of moral education have not fully addressed this ideological rift, for example by delineating how a single approach could reconcile opposing groupand individual-focused conceptions of moral education. We conclude that psychological research on moral intuition offers a descriptive account of human morality that reveals problems with attempts to create a normative basis for moral education from either side of the ideological divide.


The stress induced in a workpiece under nanocutting are analyzed by an atomic-scale model approach that is based on the energy minimization. Certain aspects of the deformation evolution during the process of nanocutting are addressed. This method needs less computational efforts than traditional molecular dynamics (MD) calculations. The simulation results demonstrate that the microscopic cutting deformation mechanism in the nanocutting process can be regarded as the instability of the crystalline structure in our atomistic simulations and the surface quality of the finished workpiece varies with the cutting depth.


The deficiency of segmentation labels is one of the main obstacles to semantic segmentation in the wild. To alleviate this issue, we present a novel framework that generates segmentation labels of images given their image-level class labels. In this weakly supervised setting, trained models have been known to segment local discriminative parts rather than the entire object area. Our solution is to propagate such local responses to nearby areas which belong to the same semantic entity. To this end, we propose a Deep Neural Network (DNN) called AffinityNet that predicts semantic affinity between a pair of adjacent image coordinates. The semantic propagation is then realized by random walk with the affinities predicted by AffinityNet. More importantly, the supervision employed to train AffinityNet is given by the initial discriminative part segmentation, which is incomplete as a segmentation annotation but sufficient for learning semantic affinities within small image areas. Thus the entire framework relies only on image-level class labels and does not require any extra data or annotations. On the PASCAL VOC 2012 dataset, a DNN learned with segmentation labels generated by our method outperforms previous models trained with the same level of supervision, and is even as competitive as those relying on stronger supervision.


This paper describes functions and architecture of a VLC ASIC chip specially designed for a parallel processing HDTV video encoder. It is designed to have several operating modes which is very flexible in that it can process in a master or slave sub-picture encoding module of an HDTV encoder, as well as in a standalone encoder for several video input formats according to MPEG-2 MP@ML. The VLC chip is fabricated using 0 . 8 ~ CMOS gate array technology, and runs at 27MHz clock rate.


Covering perfect hash families provide a very compact representation of a useful family of covering arrays, leading to the best asymptotic upper bounds and fast, effective algorithms. Their compactness implies that an additional row in the hash family leads to many new rows in the covering array. In order to address this, subspace restrictions constrain covering perfect hash family so that a predictable set of many rows in the covering array can be removed without loss of coverage. Computing failure probabilities for random selections that must, or that need not, satisfy the restrictions, we identify a set of restrictions on which to focus. We use existing algorithms together with one novel method, affine composition, to accelerate the search. We report on a set of computational constructions for covering arrays to demonstrate that imposing restrictions often improves on previously known upper bounds.


PURPOSE
To determine the spectrum of magnetic resonance (MR) imaging findings at the calcaneal attachment of the plantar fascia in asymptomatic volunteers.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study was approved by the institutional review board, and informed consent was obtained from all subjects. MR imaging was performed in 77 asymptomatic volunteers (mean age, 48.0 years; age range, 23-83 years) with use of a 1.5-T system. There were 40 women (mean age, 49.0 years; age range, 24-83 years) and 37 men (mean age, 48.0 years; age range, 23-83 years). Signal intensity characteristics and thickness of the medial, central, and lateral fascicles of the plantar fascia were assessed independently by two radiologists. The presence of soft-tissue edema, bone marrow edema, and bone spur formation at the attachment of the plantar fascia was noted. Datasets were analyzed with inferential statistic procedures.

RESULTS
The mean thickness of the plantar fascia was 0.6 mm (medial fascicle), 4.0 mm (central fascicle), and 2.3 mm (lateral fascicle). Increased signal intensity in the plantar fascia was seen with the T1-weighted sequence in 16 of the 77 volunteers (21%), the T2-weighted sequence in six (7.8%), and the short inversion time inversion-recovery sequence in six (7.8%). Soft-tissue edema was seen deep to the plantar fascia in five of the 77 volunteers (6.5%) and superficial to the plantar fascia in 16 (21%). A calcaneal spur was detected in 15 of the 77 volunteers (19%). Calcaneal bone marrow edema was present in four volunteers (5.2%).

CONCLUSION
T1-weighted signal intensity changes in the plantar fascia, soft-tissue edema superficial to the plantar fascia, and calcaneal spurs are common findings in asymptomatic volunteers and should be used with caution in the diagnosis of plantar fasciitis. Increased signal intensity within the plantar fascia with fluid-sensitive sequences is uncommon in asymptomatic volunteers.


The present study sought to investigate whether individuals continue to view occupations as sex-typed and to examine the relationship between gender traits and perceptions of occupations. Participants assigned Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) adjectives to job descriptions representative of Holland's six RIASEC types and also completed measures of vocational interests, gender identity, and attitudes toward women. Chi-square analyses were utilized to determine the extent to which participants assigned the BSRI adjectives to RIASEC types, while property vector fitting was used to examine whether the order predictions of the RIASEC model were met by the assignment of BSRI adjectives. Multivariate analyses of variance and covariance were utilized to evaluate gender differences and differences by condition in perceptions of the masculinity and femininity of RIASEC types and to examine the contributions of vocational interests, gender identity, and attitudes toward women in accounting for gender differences and differences by condition in perceptions of masculinity and femininity of RIASEC types. The results provided evidence that sex-typing of occupations continues to be prevalent. The findings also demonstrated that differences in perceptions of the RIASEC types were not consistent with the past literature on sex differences in interests of the RIASEC types. Implications for career counseling models and practice, limitations of the current study, and future directions are discussed.


Several HDAC inhibitors (HDACi) have proven preclinical and clinical activity against lymphoid malignancies. Histone deacetylases (HDACs) remove acetyl groups from histone and non-histone proteins to allow the transcriptional machinery access to the DNA. HDACs are grouped into four categories with classes I, II, and IV, constituting the zinc-dependent family members and class III comprising the NAD+ dependent members (also known as sirtuins). We have developed compounds that target either the zinc-dependent or the NAD+-dependent HDACs. SelSA-1 is a novel selenium-containing hydroxamic acid derivative HDACi and AS4.064 is a novel selenium analog of thiobarbituric acid and putative SIRT1 inhibitor. We have tested these compounds in several hematological cell lines. The cells (a Hodgkin Lymphoma line, L540; a CML line, K562; and an APL line, HL-60) showed decreased viability when treated with single agents. In combination, the drugs further diminished viability. As demonstrated by Annexin V staining, L540 cells undergo apoptosis when treated with 0.25 uM and 0.5 uM SelSA-1, while cells treated with 5 uM AS4.064 showed little Annexin V staining. The combination dramatically increased apoptosis. SelSA-1 appears to be acting as an HDACi as cells treated with the drug showed a dramatic increase in acetylation of Histone 3 lysine 9 and Histone 4 lysine 8. AS4.064 had minimal effect on these two sites, but cells treated with the combination showed a dramatic increase in acetylation at both sites. We have previously demonstrated an important role for c-Myc inhibition in the activity of HDACi in lymphoid malignancies. The combination of AS4.064 and SelSA-1 showed enhanced inhibition of c-Myc protein levels in L540 cells. The acetylation of p53 is important for apoptosis; therefore, we examined the acetylation status of several lysine residues after treatment with the drugs in L540 cells. SelSA-1 increased acetylation of lysines 320 and 382 in a dose-dependent manner, but their acetylation residues was not further enhanced by the addition of AS4.064. Acetylation of lysine 373 was relatively unaffected by either single agent, but the drug combination dramatically enhanced K373 acetylation. Lysine 120 is important for the specific activation of pro-apoptotic p53 targets. SelSA1 increased K120 acetylation and the combination further enhanced acetylation. We are currently using qRT-PCR and SuperArrays to identify other genes important for regulating the response to this drug combination. In summary, both the novel SIRT1 inhibitor, AS-64, and the novel HDACi, SelSa-1, show growth inhibitory and pro-apoptotic activity in multiple hematological lines, alone and in combination. Inhibition of all HDAC classes, including the NAD+ catalyzed deacetylases, show activity in hematological malignancies. Clinical development of these agents is warranted. Citation Format: Kimberly A. Scata, Arun K. Sharma, Dhimant Desai, Shantu Amin, Mark H. Kirschbaum. A novel sirtuin inhibitor, AS4.064, enhances apoptosis and acetylation of targets in hematological lines in combination with the novel HDACi, SelSA-1. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1009. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-1009


Background: Elevated levels of circulating estrogens are linked to breast cancer risk among postmenopausal women; however, little is known about the importance of patterns of estrogen metabolism and the role of specific estrogen metabolites (EM). Estrogen metabolism entails hydroxylation at sites C2, C4 or C-16, and conjugation (predominantly via methylation, sulfation or glucuronidation). Recent research, primarily laboratory studies, has focused on the possible carcinogenic role for 4-hydroxyestrogens (4-hydroxyestrone (4-OHE1) and 4-hydroxyestradiol (4-OHE2)) and 16-alpha-hydroxyestrone (16 - OHE1), and an anti-carcinogenic role for 2-methoxyestradiol (2-MeOE2). Further, the catechol estrogen 2-hydroxyestrone (2-OHE1) has been postulated to be either weakly estrogenic or antiestrogenic. The recent development of sophisticated laboratory methods to measure these metabolites in sera from large epidemiologic studies may provide clues to breast carcinogenesis and potentially help identify women who would benefit from chemopreventive endocrine therapies. Study Design and Methods: We analyzed a panel of 15 EM in bloods drawn from participants in the Columbia Missouri Serum Bank Cohort who were identified for a nested case-control study of postmenopausal breast cancer. Between 1977 and 1987, 7224 women provided blood samples, and were followed for incident breast cancer through December 2004. We included 197 breast cancer cases and 215 frequency matched controls who were postmenopausal at blood draw and not using exogenous hormones. Analysis of variance models were used to evaluate mean differences in logarithmically-transformed hormone levels. Correlations between EM were evaluated by Pearson9s rho. In addition, logistic regression models, which controlled for matching factors and known breast cancer risk factors, were used to calculate quartile-specific relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). To adjust for potential confounding effects of the parent estrogens (E1, E2 and E3)), which comprise >65% of the total EM, RRs were also calculated based on percent of the total EM. Results: Overall, total EM (the sum of all of the individual EM) did not vary between cases and controls. Absolute levels of individual EM did not differ significantly between cases and controls, although the methoxyestrogens tended to be lower in cases, with levels of 2-methyoxyestrone-3-methyl ether (3-MeOE1) and 2-MeOE2 being of borderline significance (p=0.06 and 0.09, respectively). Levels of estrone (E1) and estradiol (E2) were slightly but not significantly higher among cases. Compared to women in the lowest quartile of 3-MeOE1, women in each of the remaining quartiles had a significant 50% reduction in breast cancer risk (RR were 0.51, 0.52 and 0.47 for moderate through high levels), but no trend was evident. For 2-MeOE2, risk was reduced in women in the highest v lowest quartile, with RR=0.49, 95% CI-0.26–0.91. There was some evidence that women in the upper three quartiles of E1, E2 and estriol (E3) had higher risks than women in the lowest quartiles, but no consistent trends in risk were noted, and except for the quartile of moderately high E3, none of the risk estimates were statistically significant. For 2-OHE1, no pattern of risk was evident for the absolute levels; however, based on the percent of total EM, RRs declined with increasing levels (p=0.08). As expected, correlations between EM and their respective parent estrogens (E1 and E2) were high (Pearson9s rho varied from 0.62–0.85). Conclusions: Preliminary analyses of metabolic patterns suggest that women with high levels of circulating methyoxestrogens and low catechol estrogens may have a reduced risk of postmenopausal breast cancer. Efforts are ongoing to disentangle the unique and potentially competing effects of these highly correlated hormones. Citation Information: Cancer Prev Res 2011;4(10 Suppl):A90.


On 26 November 2019, SEIS, the first broadband seismometer designed for the Martian environment (Lognonné et al., 2019) landed on Mars, thanks to National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) InSight mission. On 6 April 2019 (sol 128), the InSight Science team detected the first historical "marsquake" (NASA news release). Before it was recorded, the InSight Science team developed the InSight blind test (hereafter, IBT), which consists of a 12-month period of continuous waveform data combining realistic estimates of Martian background seismic noise, 204 tectonic, and 35 impact events (Clinton et al., 2017). This project was originally designed to prepare scientists for the arrival of real data from the upcoming InSight mission. This article presents the work carried out by middle and high school students during this challenge. This project offered schools the opportunity to participate in and strengthen the link between secondary schools and universities. The IBT organizers accepted the approach to enable 14 schools to take part in this scientific challenge. After a training process, each school analyzed the IBT dataset to contribute to the collaborative School Team catalog. The schools relied on a manual procedure combining analyses in time and frequency domains. At the end, a combined catalog was submitted as one of the IBT entries. The IBT organizers then assessed the catalog submitted by the consortium of schools together with the results from science teams (Van Driel et al., 2019). The schools achieved a total of 15 correct detections over a short time period. Although this number may seem modest compared with the 239 synthetic marsquakes included in the IBT waveform data, these correct detections were entirely made during class time. All in all, the students seemed to be fully engaged, and this exercise seemed to increase their scientific inquiry skills to fulfill their task as a team.


Cytological identification of blasts in cerebrospinal fluid in acute leukemia, lymphoid or myeloid, in adult and child, at diagnosis or during follow up lead to the diagnosis of leukemic meningitidis. Suitable CNS therapy based on a defined "CNS status" following an international standardized classification, lead to decrease cerebrospinal relapses. Established in 1993, this classification allows to treat patients based on their CNS status. Based on the red blood cells count, nucleated cells count and presence of blasts, it requires a standard technical procedure that guarantees the comparability of results coming from different medical laboratory. To improve the quality of cerebrospinal fluid analysis, in acute leukemias, preanalytical guidelines (turn around time), analytical guidelines (cytocentrifugation, adding serum protein, speed and duration of cytocentrifugation) and postanalytical guidelines (duration of conservation) are set by the Groupe francophone d'hématologie cellulaire.


As a fundamental study to clarify the agglomeration and coalescence of alumina inclusions in molten steel from the viewpoint of interfacial chemical interactions, it has been experimentally verified for the first time that significant agglomeration force is exerted between alumina particles in aluminum deoxidized molten steel by using a newly established experimental method. In this method, the agglomeration force exerted between alumina particles in molten steel is directly measured separately from the effect of molten steel flow. In addition, it has been quantitatively demonstrated that the contact angles measured between aluminum deoxidized molten steel and an alumina plate are larger than those between the molten iron-oxygen alloy and the alumina plate, which have already been measured by other researchers. Moreover, it has also been indicated by analyzing the actual measurement values of agglomeration force with an interaction model taking contact angles and interfacial properties into consideration that the agglomeration force between the alumina particles in aluminum deoxidized molten steel derives not from the van der Waals force but from the cavity bridge force occurring due to molten steel, which is unlikely to wet the alumina particles. Meanwhile, it has been assumed that the agglomeration force on spherical alumina inclusions in aluminum deoxidized molten steel calculated on the basis of the interaction model according to the cavity bridge force is greater than the buoyant force and drag force, and the alumina inclusions once coming into contact are therefore not prone to be simply dissociated even under molten steel flow. Thus, they maintain the agglomeration state and are subsequently sintered and form comparatively solidly bonded alumina clusters.


The main research questions examined in this thesis concern the interaction between an increasing State Pension Age (SPA) and health in the UK. The conclusions drawn from this investigation cast further light on the equality of an increasing SPA, including whether individuals in different circumstances will be able to continue working until reaching retirement age. In particular, this research suggests that inequality and the social gradient of health should be taken into account when designing a policy as influential as the State Pension. To explore the relationship between continued employment and health, a Dynamic Microsimulation Model is constructed. This projects individual health trajectories using English Longitudinal Study of Ageing data onto a representative Census base population. Within this framework, current and counterfactual SPA policy scenarios are used to assess the relative impact. This thesis furthers our understanding of the impact that the currently legislated SPA policy may have over the next 30 years. The study found a decline in overall health within the population of the UK throughout life. Each year the SPA was delayed resulted in an increasing proportion of individuals projected to fall into poor health before reaching the SPA. The results indicate that those in lower NS-SEC groups experiencing poor health at significantly earlier ages. This was found to be likely to lead to a much larger proportion of those in low NS-SEC groups experiencing difficulty remaining in employment before reaching SPA than their high NS-SEC group counterparts. The level of feedback between employment status and health was additionally found to be influential when defining the impact of a SPA change. It was found that if employment leads to an improvement in health, additional working years might protect individuals from an overall decline in health. If however continued employment is detrimental to health, declines in health may be exacerbated, leading to a rapid reduction in health state when nearing SPA. It was identified that allowing individuals to retire following 45 years of contributions has the potential to significantly decrease the number of individuals falling into poorer health while being under SPA. Conversely, the 50 years of contributions suggested by the Cridland (2016) Independent Review of the State Pension Age was found to pose little benefit in this regard. The health measure utilised was found to be influential when assessing the impact of policy. The study utilised the subjective Self-Reported Health measure, as well as an objective Hand-Grip Strength measure. Significantly different results were obtained, dependent on both the measure of health used and the manner in which conceptualisations of health were made.


The temporal and geochemical evolution of arc magmatism that culminated in porphyry Cu ± Mo ± Au deposit formation has been studied in three separate Neo-Tethyan arc systems in central and eastern Iran, and western Pakistan. Porphyry Cu-Au deposits in the Lut block of eastern Iran formed in the middle Eocene at the end of a period of extensive Paleocene-Eocene volcanism; porphyry Cu-Mo deposits in the Kerman belt of central Iran formed in the middle Miocene at the end of a period of voluminous Eocene-Oligocene volcanism; and porphyry Cu-Au deposits in the Chagai belt of western Pakistan formed in four pulses during the Eocene, early Miocene, middle-late Miocene, and late Miocene-Pliocene, after a prolonged period of arc magmatism that began in the Late Cretaceous (and is still active).

In each region, the late porphyry-related magmas are more geochemically evolved and more hydrous (as evidenced by the presence of hornblende phenocrysts) than the preceding volcanic rocks. We suggest that this reflects maturation of the arc magmatic system over a period of tens of millions of years, leading to the generation of more evolved, volatile-rich magmas at later stages of the arc's history. High magmatic water contents are a prerequisite for the shallow crustal emplacement of arc magmas and the subsequent generation of potentially ore-forming subvolcanic magmatic-hydrothermal systems.

It is thus suggested that the fertility of arc magmas within a given arc terrane can be assessed by observing the relative timing of plutonic suites (later suites are more prospective), noting the common presence of hornblende or biotite phenocrysts (indicating high magmatic water contents), and through lithogeochemical fingerprinting of magmatic fractionation processes (relatively high Sr/Y and La/Yb ratios, and Eun/Eu* ratios ≈1, indicating abundant early hornblende fractionation and suppression of plagioclase crystallization in hydrous magmas).


This is the first part of some thoughts toward how to open up again the question of the theoretical issues around the expressivity of the body, especially given the example of silent cinema. It is an old semiotic problem of what meanings words convey and what the body without words can be said to "express." After deciding that "silence" is not the operative concept we want I return briefly to the no-word advocates like Bela Balasz, and "pure cinema" theorists Germaine Dulac, Jean Epstein, and Louis Delluc, as well as to Christian Metz who was highly dismissive of what he called the "gibberish" of the silent screen. Peter Brooks comes in for some scrutiny for coming so close in his "Text of Muteness" chapter in The Melodramatic Imagination, but I find that he still sits on the fence, wanting to give the day to silent expression, but then signaling a preference for words. So I keep asking what is meant by the phrase "words cannot express," wanting to know if this means that they fall short or that other signs must take up the slack, or that words will never substitute for gestures. Concluding with Lillian Gish's essay on "Speech Without Words" and Asta Nielsen's position that the American cinema had too many words, I call this an exercise in defining a problem although I do not consider this project anything more than "to be continued."


Points on load-displacement paths of thin shells subjected to proportional loading, at which the second and/or the third derivative of the displacement components with respect to the load parameter vanishes, are termed 'special points'. Such points represent global characteristics of the state of deformation of the shell in the sense that for the respective values of the load parameter the mentioned rate(s) of all displacement components at all points of the shell must vanish. It will be shown that special points on load-displacement paths correspond to special points of one order lower on the Det KT–λ diagram, where Det KT is the determinant of the tangent stiffness matrix within the framework of the finite element method and λ is a dimensionless load parameter. Points of inflection on load-displacement diagrams, for example, correspond to extreme values on the Det KT–λ diagram. The main reason for the occupation with special points on load-displacement paths is that points of inflection and flat points on these paths correspond to special points on eigenvalue curves in the context of accompanying linear stability analyses of geometrically non-linear prebuckling analyses of thin shells by the finite element method, investigated in a companion paper.


Dual-interval compression test was carried out with Gleeble-1500D thermal simulation testing machine on the 304 austenitic stainless steel used for nuclear power. The first-interval strain was 0.3, and the second 0.05, and the dual-interval strain rates is 0.1s-1, dual-interval temperatures of thermal deformation were 950°C, 1000°C, and 1050°C respectively. The softening behavior with thermal deformation at different temperatures and time intervals was studied. It was shown in the study that the occurrence of static softening was very easy for the material; the activation energy for static recrystallization Qrex was 383.45 kJ / mol in case of true strain of 0.3 and strain rate of 0.1s-1.


The generation and segregation of AFLP (amplified fragment length polymorphism) markers were studied in European while birch. The recently published technique is based on PCR amplification of restriction fragments from digested total DNA by utilizing known oligomers (adapters) linked to the ends of the fragments. PCR primers partially complementary to the adapters and the restriction site are used to create the marker bands. In the present work EcoRI or TaqI were used for digestion.The primers had three arbitrary bases at the 3' ends for selective amplification of only a subset of the initial fragments. Each primer produced about 40 marker bands, of which about 10 in each case were found polymorphic between the parents of the full-sib progeny trees studied. When the segregation of alleles in the progeny was studied at 31 polymorphic loci, 29 of these were confirmed to express Mendelian ratios. The results indicate that the AFLP markers are very suitable for fingerprinting and genetic marker mapping in the birch. We found them superior to RAPD markers particularly in repeatability. The AFLP technique also produced substantially more polymorphic loci per PCR reaction. It was possible to use an automated DNA sequencer for marker band scanning after initial evaluation of the marker profiles on agarose gel.


Background Economic contribution by internal migrant workers, in particular the workers in Export Processing Zones (EPZ) in Sri Lanka, is well recognized, yet the social and health consequences are unknown. Objective To systematically review the health issues affecting female internal migrant workers in EPZ in Sri Lanka Methods A literature review was conducted through electronic databases and hand searches of grey literature. Studies eligible for inclusion were those reported health or social issues among females employed in an industry within EPZ from 1978 to 2012. Studies were selected using a defined checklist for their methodological quality and in relation to measurement of health status. Results Of the 550 studies identified, eight publications were included for the review. The respondents were relatively young and educated females, and the large majority have migrated predominantly from rural areas to work in garment factories located in urban centers. These studies described health issues related to nutrition, reproductive health, mental health, musculo-skeletal disorders and gender issues. The review identified high prevalence of nutritional deficiencies such as underweight and anaemia; risky sexual behavior; and psychological disorders among female factory workers. Migrant workers had higher prevalence of anaemia and psychological depression than their nonmigrant counterparts. As a positive effect, women experienced empowerment through gaining income and new knowledge. Conclusions Female migrant workers generally tend to exhibit some disadvantage due to health risks, and are more likely to be subject to ill-health than non-migrants. More rigorous research is needed to determine true health impacts within this population.


This study aims to analyze the factors that influence the poverty rate in Indonesia in the period of 1981-2013. This research uses Error Correction Model to estimate the empirical poverty model. The findings may be explained as follows: Economic growth does not influence the poverty reduction; meanwhile inflation has a significant positive effect on the poverty level. Foreign direct investment as an indicator of economy openness has a negative impact on the poverty. In addition, Gini ratio as an income equality measurement has no significant influence on the poverty level. These findings show that the poverty level depends on macroeconomic instability especially price level.  Higher inflation rate leads to higher rate of poverty in the country. Furthermore, the central government should keep the monetary sector using tight monetary policy to eliminate the poverty level. Keywords: Gross Domestic Product, investment, inflation, Gini ratio, poverty. JEL Classifications: E01, E31, I32


This study investigates how assistive technology tools are used in the classroom by students in reading and writing disabilities in the school years immediately prior to moving to gymnasium. Through observations and interviews with two students and two teachers this study also considers if the use of these tools can lead to increased accessibility and goal fulfilment, and whether these elements are prerequisites for success. The result shows that the students use laptops in the classroom, primarily for writing longer texts, and that in order to be successful, an early start, equipment, time and positive attitudes towards the tools are important. The students use the tools in the classroom, but they have very different feelings about how included they are in the class. The participants see a clear link between the use of assistive technology tools and increased goal fulfilment.


OBJECTIVE
The treatment of a diffuse and severe case of amelogenesis imperfecta represents a challenge for the dental team and in particular for the dentist who perform the prosthetic restorations.

CLINICAL CONSIDERATIONS
The enamel alterations, which are characteristic of the disease, determine different problems that need to be carefully planned and solved before the beginning of the treatment, with particular regard to the materials used to perform the restorations. In order to create the best conditions to perform the prosthetic restoration, the treatment plan should be multidisciplinary. In addition, the young age of the patients usually affected by the disease imposes a very conservative and cautious approach. The main goals of the therapy are represented by the need to protect the occlusal dental surfaces from the abrasion and provide a satisfactory esthetic result. In particular, dental abrasions if not treated may determine the loss of the vertical dimension as well as a diffuse and marked dentinal hypersensitivity.

CONCLUSIONS
A correct treatment plan and the use of the new adhesive ceramic materials made it possible to obtain good results both from a functional and esthetic point of view with a much more conservative approach compared with the traditional one.

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE
This clinical report describes the prosthetic rehabilitation of an adult female patient with a diffuse amelogenesis imperfecta using feldspathic ceramics for the esthetic regions and monolithic lithium disilicate material for the posterior areas.


Dear Sir:

In the treatment of acute ischemic stroke, the proofs of effectiveness for endovascular thrombectomy have become more robust in recent times, but some questions remain on whether the effectiveness differs across different devices (e.g. Trevo, Merci, and Solitaire). In the absence of studies that have directly compared these devices with one another, comparative information relies on the results of meta-analyses, and particularly on indirect meta-analytic comparisons conducted with a network design.

In 2013, we published the first network meta-analysis in this field [1] in which we evaluated three devices (Merci, Trevo, and Solitaire) based on pivotal randomized trials. Both Trevo and Solitaire were found to be more effective than Merci, but the information was not sufficient to determine if Solitaire was more effective also than Trevo.

Between 2013 and 2015, numerous randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating these devices have been made available. Three "traditional" pairwise meta-analyses, that synthesized the effectiveness data resulting from direct comparisons, have been published in the Journal of Stroke [2], JAMA [3], and Journal of American College of Cardiologists [4], but no network meta-analysis based on the more mature evidence currently available has been conducted.

The meta-analysis by Hong et al. [2] (15 trials) found that endovascular recanalization therapy was associated with increased good outcomes (0-2 modified Ranking Scale) compared to the controls given standard therapy (including intravenous tissue plasminogen activator in 9 trials); the odds ratio (OR) was 1.79 (95% confidence interval, 1.34 to 2.40). Likewise, the meta-analysis by Badhiwala et al. [3] (8 RCTs) found that, as compared with thrombolysis, the endovascular interventions increased the rate of functional independence at 90 days (0-2 modified Ranking Scale) with an OR of 1.71 (95% confidence interval: 1.18 to 2.49). Also the meta-analysis by Elgendy et al. [4] investigated the trials comparing thrombectomy with standard thrombolysis (8 RCTs), and its results were virtually identical to those reported by Badhiwala et al. [3].

However, no indirect comparisons between individual devices were made in these three meta-analyses even though, for practical reasons, this information can be of great interest.

In this report, we describe one such network meta-analysis with indirect comparisons focused on these devices. Our description of these results was limited to a re-analysis of the standard pairwise meta-analysis data published by Badhiwala et al. [3] (see Table 1 of Reference 3; total number of patients=2,387), which we re-evaluated by application of a Bayesian network meta-analysis [5]. As in Badhiwala's study, our clinical material consisted of 8 RCTs comparing a stent-based endovascular intervention (treatment group) with thrombolysis (controls). Four of these trials did not employ, in the treatment group, a single device but three or more of these (typically: Penumbra or Trevo or Merci or Solitaire) while the remaining four trials employed Solitaire. The ESCAPE trial, in which Solitaire was employed in 66% of the patients of the treatment group, was classified among the four studies employing Solitaire. Functional independence at 90 days was our end-point. The OR, accompanied by its 2.5% to 97.5% credible interval (CrI), was the outcome measure of our analysis. Since we anticipated some heterogeneity in the clinical material, our primary analysis used the random-effect model, but also the fixed-effect one was tested [5].

The results of our Bayesian meta-analysis (random-effect model) showed that the patient group receiving any device had a numerical, but not significant higher incidence of functional independence than the controls (OR=1.20; CrI: 0.71 to 1.91). In contrast, the group receiving Solitaire had a significantly better incidence of this end-point as compared with the controls (OR= 2.52; CrI: 1.51 to 4.33). In the indirect comparison between Solitaire and any stent, the former had a significantly better effectiveness (OR=2.11; CrI: 1.06 to 4.48).

Figure 1 shows the ranking in effectiveness, an information that is typical of all Bayesian analyses; Solitaire ranked first (median rank=1; CrI: 1 to 1) followed by any stent (median rank=2; CrI: 2 to 3) and by thrombolysis (median rank=3; CrI: 2 to 3). The results in terms of OR calculated according to the fixed effect model were quite similar (data not shown in detail) even though, as expected, the CrIs were somewhat narrower. According to this model, the indirect comparison between Solitaire and any stent showed an OR of 2.07 (CrI: 1.43 to 2.97).

Figure 1.

Comparative effectiveness of two endovascular interventions and thrombolysis evaluated according to Bayesian network meta-analysis (8 randomized studies; end-point=functional independence at 90 days). The figure shows the histogram of rankings estimated ...

There was a significant degree of heterogeneity in the clinical material (8 RCTs) included in the meta-analysis by Badhiwala et al. [3]; this is generally considered a negative factor that limits the value of the evidence concerned [6]. To study in more depth the degree of heterogeneity of this clinical material, in a separate analysis [6] we selected the four RCTs that directly compared Solitaire with thrombolysis and we carried out a traditional pairwise meta-analysis. Interestingly enough, the pooled results from these 4 trials (end point: functional independence at 90 days) showed no heterogeneity with a significantly better effectiveness for the Solitaire group (pooled odds-ratio=2.47; 95% confidence interval: 1.84 to 3.33; I2=0%, P value for heterogeneity=0.689) [6].

In summary, the main advantages of our re-analyses of this clinical material include the evaluation of the most updated evidence on this topic and the use of a statistical technique that allows an indirect comparison between the devices. Our indirect comparisons indicate that Solitaire has a significantly better effectiveness than that of the other devices. However, owing to the well-known limitations of network meta-analyses [5] and to the presence of heterogeneity in the overall series of 8 RCTs, our findings represent a hypothesis that needs further confirmation from other trials.


1. The cells of early amphibian embryos contain ellipsoidal yolk granules. When a granule lies within the mitotic spindle, it is orientated with its long axis parallel to the direction ofthe spindle fibres. Yolk granules lying in the cytoplasm of cells are not specially orientated unless they lie in narrow spaces between cell surfaces; this is true in cells of the moving invagination streams, in the flask cells of the young blastopore, and in elongated cells of the neural groove and lens. 2. The breaking strain of cell surfaces was tested by bringing the cells into surfaces of known strength and observing whether they withstood the applied tension. The evidence indicates: ( a ) That the breaking strain of cells from gastrula and tail-bud embryos is some tens of dynes per centimetre. ( b ) That the breaking strain is not the same in all cells, being highest in neural tissue and lowest in endoderm during the stages mentioned. ( c ) That the breaking strain gradually increases with age. ( d ) That in the neural groove stage the strength of the outer concave surface of the groove is greater than that of the inner convex surface. 3. It is suggested that changes in surface tensions may be of importance in bringing about morphogenesis. The possibility is envisaged that the changes in tension may be connected with orientated fibrizations of the surface proteins.


A lattice Boltzmann method that can recover the first coefficient of viscosity and the specific heat ratio correctly has been adopted for one-step aeroacoustic simulations because it can recover the speed of sound correctly. Instead of solving the Navier-Stokes equations as in the case of direct numerical simulation, the lattice Boltzmann method only needs to solve one transport equation for the collision function. Other flow properties are obtained by integrating this collision function over the particle velocity space. The lattice Boltzmann method is effective only if appropriate nonreflecting boundary conditions for open computational boundaries are available, just like the direct numerical simulation. Four different nonreflecting boundary conditions are commonly used with direct numerical simulation for one-step aeroacoustic simulations. Among these are the characteristics-based method, the perfectly matched layer method, the C 1 continuous method, and the absorbing layer method. Not all nonreflecting boundary conditions are applicable when used with the lattice Boltzmann method; some might not be appropriate, whereas others could be rather effective. This paper examines some existing nonreflecting boundary conditions plus other new proposals, their appropriateness, and their suitability for the lattice Boltzmann method. The assessment is made against two classic aeroacoustic problems: propagation of a plane pressure pulse and propagation of acoustic, entropy, and vortex pulses in a uniform stream. A reference solution is obtained using direct numerical simulation assuming a relatively large computational domain without any specified nonreflecting boundary conditions. The results, obtained with a computational domain half the size of that used for the direct numerical simulation calculations, show that the absorbing layer method and the extrapolation method with assumed filter perform the best.


Objective Bone formation is a hallmark of osteoarthritis (OA). It has been speculated that bone formation may occur because of ossification at the bone-cartilage unit, that is, bone formation directly involving the calcified cartilage (CC). This study aimed to investigate the thickness of the CC and subchondral bone (SCB) in relation to the severity of the overlying articular cartilage (AC) degeneration. Design We investigated femoral heads from 20 patients with OA and 15 healthy subjects with design-based stereology using systematic uniform random sampling of the entire joint surface. This was combined with the Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) OA cartilage histopathology assessment system, thus obtaining focal OARSI grades paired with thickness measurements of AC, CC and the SCB. Results The patients with OA had thicker CC (mean 159; 95% CI 144 to 177 µm) compared with the healthy subjects (mean 132; 95% CI 113 to 1550 µm; p=0.036), and this difference was even higher in areas without loss of AC thickness (OARSI grade ≤3); 187 (95% CI 164 to 214) µm vs 132 (95% CI 113 to 155) µm (p=0.001). In the patients with OA, a thicker SCB was observed in areas with loss of AC thickness (OARSI grade ≥4), but not in areas without loss of AC thickness (OARSI grade ≤3). Conclusion The study showed that thicker CC is present in early stages of OA, suggesting that bone formation by endochondral ossification is an early phenomenon of OA. Thickening of the SCB was present, but only in areas with denuded bone. Suggesting that also appositional bone growth occurs and that it may be a consequence of changed biomechanics.


To evaluate the clinical significance of thioredoxin in diabetic patients, serum thioredoxin levels measured with a recently established sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit were compared with clinical laboratory data and complications in 174 patients with Type 2 diabetes. Thioredoxin levels were significantly higher in diabetic patients (mean value, 38 ng/ml) than in healthy controls (21 ng/ml) (p < 0.05). Fasting blood sugar and hemoglobin A1c did not correlate with thioredoxin. Plasma non-esterified fatty acids levels were significantly higher in patients with higher thioredoxin levels ( ‡ 40 ng/ml) than in those with lower thioredoxin levels (< 40 ng/ml) (p < 0.001). There was a significant correlation both between thioredoxin and non-esterified fatty acids in patients with diet/exercise therapy (p < 0.01) and between thioredoxin and fasting immunoreactive insulin in those treated with diet/exercise or oral hypoglycemic agents (p < 0.05). Thioredoxin did not correlate with diabetic complications. In conclusion, serum thioredoxin levels may reflect the status of insulin resistance in Type 2 diabetic patients


This paper presents a consistent and arbitrage-free multifactor model of the term structure of interest rates in which yields at selected fixed maturities follow a parametric multivariate Markov diffusion process with "stochastic volatility." The yield of any zero-coupon bond is taken to be a maturitydependent affine combination of the selected "basis" set of yields. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions on the stochastic model for this affine representation. We include numerical techniques for solving the model, as wcll as numerical techniques for calculating the prices of term-structure derivative prices. The case of jump diffusions i \ also considered.


Spectrum sensing method for cognitive wireless cloud computing (CWC) network is very challenging since there are several different communication systems should be detected at very low SNR (as low as -22 dB). In this paper, we propose a kurtosis based spectrum sensing method which can be applied efficiently in such environment. The proposed method uses kurtosis estimation of received samples. Its value will be equal or close to 3 when only gaussian noise samples exist in the received signal. This kurtosis estimation's used to distinguish between the present or absent of primary signal by comparing with a predefined threshold. Simulation's done to evaluate its performance. Results show that the proposed method performs much better than energy detection especially at low SNR, even below -20 dB. It also gives benefit in much simple implementation for CWC network since it doesn't need knowledge of primary signal's parameters.


Before the first humans depart for Mars in the next decade, hundreds of tons of martian water-ice must be harvested to produce propellant for the return vehicle, a process known as in situ resource utilization (ISRU). We describe here an instrument, the Agnostic Life Finder (ALF), that is an inexpensive life-detection add-on to ISRU. ALF exploits a well-supported view that informational genetic biopolymers in life in water must have two structural features: (1) Informational biopolymers must carry a repeating charge; they must be polyelectrolytes. (2) Their building blocks must fit into an aperiodic crystal structure; the building blocks must be size-shape regular. ALF exploits the first structural feature to extract polyelectrolytes from ∼10 cubic meters of mined martian water by applying a voltage gradient perpendicularly to the water's flow. This gradient diverts polyelectrolytes from the flow toward their respective electrodes (polyanions to the anode, polycations to the cathode), where they are captured in cartridges before they encounter the electrodes. There, they can later be released to analyze their building blocks, for example, by mass spectrometry or nanopore. Upstream, martian cells holding martian informational polyelectrolytes are disrupted by ultrasound. To manage the (unknown) conductivity of the water due to the presence of salts, the mined water is preconditioned by electrodialysis using porous membranes. ALF uses only resources and technology that must already be available for ISRU. Thus, life detection is easily and inexpensively integrated into SpaceX or NASA ISRU missions.


An attractive alternative for communications in areas in which there is little or no telecommunications infrastructure is to use multi-hop packet radio networks (MPRNets). One major design issue in MPRNets is the formulation of medium access control (MAC) protocols. Spatial TDMA (S-TDMA) is a "conflict-free" multiple access for MPRNets, which ensures that a packet transmission, whenever made, is successful. High S-TDMA system capacities can be achieved by incorporating traffic load information into the MAC protocol design. Previous investigations into traffic controlled S-TDMA (TCS-TDMA) protocols used fixed transmission powers. Clearly, the application of power control to these systems could improve the spatial reuse factor. In this paper a suitable power control scheme has been applied to S-TDMA. As the cost of implementing power control is relatively small, and the performance gains are substantial, a prudent design should include power control. As would be expected the introduction of power control would markedly improved the delay performance of S-TDMA.


The use of information and communication technologies, particularly those related to the consolidation of the Internet as a social and business networking medium, has led governments to move forward in enabling the e-government. The aim of this effort has not only been to transform the future of governmental public service delivery, but also to promote democratic participation. The literature shows that depending on how the e-government is implemented and advertised to society, its applications have economic, social and political impacts. E-government implementation may foster active democratic participation, but depending on how it is implemented it may also prevent citizens and enterprises from using it for social and economic development. Based on the theoretical concepts defining the e-government and supported by an empirical approach, this article discusses the results of a nationwide survey conducted by CGI.br/NIC.br aimed at assessing the use of the e-government by Brazilian citizens and enterprises.


The optimal allocation of vaccines to population subgroups over time is a challenging health care management problem. In the context of a pandemic, the interaction between vaccination policies adopted by multiple agents and the cooperation (or lack thereof) creates a complex environment that affects the global transmission dynamics of the disease. In this study, we take the perspective of decision-making agents that aim to minimize the size of their susceptible populations and must allocate vaccine under limited supply. We assume that vaccine efficiency rates are unknown to agents and we propose an optimization policy based on Thompson sampling to learn mean vaccine efficiency rates over time. Furthermore, we develop a budget-balanced resource sharing mechanism to promote cooperation among agents. We apply the proposed framework to the COVID-19 pandemic. We use a raster model of the world where agents represent the main countries worldwide and interact in a global mobility network to generate multiple problem instances. Our numerical results show that the proposed vaccine allocation policy achieves a larger reduction in the number of susceptible individuals, infections and deaths globally compared to a population-based policy. In addition, we show that, under a fixed global vaccine allocation budget, most countries can reduce their national number of infections and deaths by sharing their budget with countries with which they have a relatively high mobility exchange. The proposed framework can be used to improve policy-making in health care management by national and global health authorities.


Nowadays, Public Relations (PR) is dominated by female which eventually creates a term called the velvet ghetto. It supposed to be a celebration of female existence within public setting. On the contrary, past researches found the emergence of three main genderbased issues, those are
the glass ceiling phenomenon, which leads to the salary gap and stereotyping. Students of Public Relations hold the expectation as the future PR practitioner. In addition students are agent of change, who could, by intellectuality, change gender bias perspectives. Hence, it is necessary to reveal student's perception, in order to know exactly what they percept related to this social
phenomenon and why did perception happen. This research supported by several important theories, especially theory on perception and feminist theory. Along the same line, it also consist of explanation on PR, PR practitioner,
women in development, concept of gender and definitively three main issues as researcher has mention previously.
Researcher utilized the descriptive qualitative approach. In order to find potential informants, researcher relied on the Snowball technique. Eventually researcher determined five informants who gave oral and written approval to be interviewed and had enough knowledge and experience
related to researcher's point of interest. These informants were PR students academic year 2003 who already completed the field work in advanced. Students argued that the glass ceiling phenomenon happen because of the patriarchal culture
within a company, where PR practitioner would represent it. It remain consider unfair and definitively showed inequality. While the salary determination should rely on the working result, not by gender role that most people usually attributed towards each sex, male and female.
Informant percept on the stereotyping that each practitioner should have awareness when facing tough choices, between professionalism and pride. All of those perceptions were influenced by cultural background, past experience, believed values and the news. The feminist theory used to explain where did the gender issue stemmed. Along the same line, it emphasized on gender inequality. Hence, feminist theory has a connection to the gender issue within PR world. In addition, media has a strong influence on gender construction, which shown through its
presentation within society. Researcher believed that this issue had already positioned within social dynamic. Researcher expects PR students to conduct similar topic, only much better, broader and deeper in analyzing.
Researcher also expects to enhance knowledge in its implementation not just within academic life but also social and professional life.


End-point attached, covalently bound heparin has been shown to be effective in preventing activation of the coagulation cascade by biomaterials. Data concerning its possible influence on bacterial attachment and resistance to biomaterial-associated infection are, so far, lacking. In the present work, the in vitro adherence of Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis and Escherichia coli, one isolate of each species, to plain poly(vinyl chloride) (plain PVC) and heparin coated poly(vinyl chloride) (EPA-PVC) segments was compared. Also, the influence of precoating the segments with human normal plasma for 2 h was studied. 35S-Methionine was used to radiolabel bacteria. The segments were exposed to bacterial suspensions of approximately 10(7) colony forming units (CFU) per milliliter at 37 degrees C for 0.5-6 h. Following repeated washing in phosphate buffered saline (PBS), radioactivity associated with the segments was measured. Plain PVC as compared to EPA-PVC bound significantly more cells of all three tested species. Plasma precoating significantly decreased adherence of the tested species to plain PVC but did not affect the binding to EPA-PVC. However, after precoating with human plasma, EPA-PVC compared to plain PVC showed a higher binding of S. aureus which might possibly be due to bridging effects of fibronectin or other plasma proteins, interacting with S. aureus.


The complex multidisciplinary problems and challenges in our society require deep problem solvers in science, management and engineering who are also capable of interacting with and understanding specialists from a wide range of disciplines and functional areas. Industry refers to these people as T-shaped professionals. The T-shaped professional model has been the reference for the bachelor and master curricula in Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology. The bachelor provides the broad academic background in the domain of aerospace engineering. The life cycle of the engineering process and contextual storylines of famous persons in aviation, aeronautics or space form the cement and thread for the themes of the bachelor curriculum. The bachelor develops the academic intellectual skills and attitudes to analyse, apply, synthesize, and design, and prepares for the master. The master programme aims to develop the basic competences acquired in the bachelor to a higher level in terms of knowledge, critical reflection, making judgements and working independently. While "engineering and design" is the central theme of the bachelor, "research" is the theme of the master. This curricular framework gives the bachelor and master an own profile and identity. They use state-of-the-art content that is interwoven with thematic design projects and trainings for personal and system building skills, using international standard text books, up-to-date teaching methods, excellent facilities, with a focus on the aircraft and spacecraft throughout the programmes. Excellence programmes are available for the top 5 percent students in both bachelor and master. In these honours classes self-regulated students define their personal learning objectives and levels to be attained. Their key concept is that of open-ended learning and autonomy. In the bachelor the excellence programme substitutes design projects in the regular curriculum by one ambitious and compelling project with a high societal relevance and visibility. In the master it is a halfyear add-on programme about taking the lead in the creation and operation of new products, systems or processes, and developing awareness and understanding of the importance and strategic impact of research and technological developments on society.


The gamekeeper played an important role in the development of modern gamebird shooting but has been peripheral in many analyses of the sport, which have tended to focus on the poacher, the landed elite, or the game laws. This study places the gamekeeper in a central position and, for a selection of counties, provides a detailed examination and comparison of changes in gamekeeper numbers between 1851 and 1921. The influence on gamekeeper numbers of population changes, estate area, landowner numbers and poaching prosecutions were also examined. Significant differences were found between the counties in gamekeeper numbers, and the magnitude and timing of changes in these. Average estate area varied greatly with no direct link to the area of the county, or to the number of gamekeepers on an estate. The type of quarry and interest of the landowner were important in determining the number of gamekeepers employed. In some counties, there may have been a link between the level of poaching and gamekeeper numbers, but there were significant differences between the counties. The results indicated a complex, regionally nuanced, picture in which factors such as the location, primary quarry and poaching pressure, as well as the interests of the landowner and the depth of his pockets, determined gamekeeper numbers.


The problem of the research includes the process of learning to perform the formations of the individual and grouping fast break stages which is one of the important topics in handball, especially for students of the college of Physical Education and Sports Sciences in the third stage, and it is one of the difficult tasks that students suffer from, as it includes tactical exercises with mostly teamwork. The objectives of the research include the preparing and designing of hypermedia and tactical exercises for the fast break in handball for students, as well as identifying the effect of hypermedia and tactical exercises in the formations of the fast break of individual and grouping for students. As for the hypothesis of the research, it includes the positive effect of the overlapping hypermedia and the tactical exercises on the formations of the individual and grouping fast break in handball for students. The researchers use the experimental research by designing two equal groups (experimental and control) with a pre and post-test. As for the research sample, it consisted of (19) students who were selected in a simple random way, divided into two groups, an experimental group (10) and a control group (9). The homogeneity and equality of the two groups were confirmed. The formations of the fast break under study were determined as follows: individual fast break grouping fast break (2v1) grouping fast break (3v2) grouping fast break (4v3). Hypermedia software is designed to be within the Internet (online) and special servers have been rented for this purpose, as well as preparing tactical exercises for developing break formations. Then the pre-measurement has carried out, the main experiment has conducted, and then the post-measurement has carried out. A set of conclusions has been reached after conducting a statistical analysis on the results, the most important of which is the following: The use of hypermedia has an effective effect in developing the performance of individuals and grouping fast break formations for students in handball. Also, the proposed tactical exercises effectively affected the development of the performance of the individual and grouping fast break formations for students in handball.


This study aims to investigate, from an institutional perspective, the implications of thenew anti-corruption law in Viet Nam with a particular focus on its impact on civil societyand individual rights to report on corruption. The overarching research question is: How doformal and informal institutions affect whistle-blowers possibilities to engage in combat ofcorruption in Viet Nam? To blow the whistle in Viet Nam can be problematic, withconsequences such as loosing his/hers job and social exclusion. Whistle-blowers in VietNam today seem to have an insufficient confidence to official authorities. Moreover, aproblem of significance is that whistle-blowers have to state their name and contact detailswhen reporting on corrupt acts to competent agencies. Another problem is that civil societyis strongly connected to the CPV (Communist Party of Viet Nam).


People prefer beautiful visual artworks. Aesthetic experiences to beautiful and ugly images are different. Studies on neuroaesthetics showed different neural responses to beautiful stimuli compared to ugly stimuli. The first stage of aesthetic experience of a visual artwork is visual perception of the stimulus. Most research about aesthetic processing focused on stimuli presented consciously. Little is known about whether aesthetic processing can occur unconsciously. Previous research suggested that both beautiful paintings and attractive faces can elicit activation of the reward circuitry in our brain. Attractive faces break through continuous flash suppression more quickly than unattractive faces. Thus, it is possible that unconscious processing of beautiful paintings is different from that of less beautiful paintings. In two experiments, the present study adopted continuous flash suppression paradigm to investigate whether aesthetic ratings of western paintings influenced the time for stimuli to break suppression. We also compared the suppression effect of achromatic (Experiment 1) and chromatic (Experiment 2) noise pictures. noises were presented to the dominant eye. The results of Experiment 1 showed that paintings with low aesthetic ratings took significantly longer time to break into awareness, comparing to paintings with average and high aesthetic ratings. The reaction times were not significantly different between paintings with average and high aesthetic ratings. In Experiment 2, however, the times for breaking suppression were not significantly different among the three categories of paintings. Moreover, the effect of suppression was different between different noises, such that reaction times were longer under suppression by chromatic noises (Experiment 2) than achromatic noises (Experiment 1). These results suggested different unconscious processing of western paintings with different aesthetic ratings. Similar to attractive faces, paintings with high and average aesthetic ratings were easier to be detected under suppression. Our findings provided evidence that aesthetic processing can occur unconsciously under suppression by achromatic noises. The present study also suggested that the suppression effect of achromatic noises is different from that of chromatic noises. Chromatic noises may interfere with the color information of paintings and disrupt the aesthetic perception of paintings.


The Motivation and goal of this paper is to propose dynamic distributed unicast and multicast routing algorithms for multiple classes of QoS guaranteed networks. In such networks we assume each link is able to provide multiple classes of QoS guarantee by reserving different amount of resource. In this paper, we tint propose a distributed unicast routing algorithm, DCSP (Distributed Constrained Shortest Path), to find a QoS constrained least cost path between each 0-D (Originating-Destination) pair. Two class reduction schemes, the linear and logarithmic policies, are proposed to avoid exponential growth of the number of end-to-end QoS classes. Based on DCSP, two distributed multicast routing algorithms, DCSPT (Distributed Constrained Shortest Path Tree) and DTM (Distributed Takahashi and Mutsuyama), are then proposed to find QoS constrained minimum cost trees. Our numerical results show that DCSP performs very well as compared to previously proposed centralized algorithms and it works better with the linear class reduction method. For the multicast routing algorithms, the DCSPT with linear class reduction algorithm yields the best performance.


EFFECTS OF CLEANING AGENTS ON THE PROPERTIES OF TWO DIFFERENT THERMOPLASTIC RETAINER MATERIALS Jennifer M. Brehove, DMD Marquette University, 2021 Objective: There are several different thermoplastic retainer materials and cleaning methods available to fabricate and clean clear retainers. Some studies have investigated the changes in properties of clear retainers after being exposed to different staining agents, varying levels of mechanical strain, and different cleaning agents. However, there are few studies that compare different thermoplastic materials to each other when being subjected to these different types of stresses. The aim of this study is to evaluate the changes in properties of two commonly used thermoplastic retainer materials, polyethylene terephthalate (PETG) and ethylene/propylene (EP), after exposure to different retainer cleaning agents over 28 cleaning cycles. Methods: Samples were prepared by thermoforming sheets of Clear Splint Biocryl (PETG) and Invisacryl C (EP) with a Biostar, then cut into flat rectangular pieces. These samples were tested for surface roughness, color change, and flexural modulus after they were cleaned with four different types of retainer cleaning materials. Measurements were taken at three different time points for surface roughness and color change, while the flexural modulus was measured at the end of the experiment. Statistical analysis was completed with analysis of variation (ANOVA), t-tests, and post-hoc analysis. P values less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The color change of both materials increased over time. Most of the color change for Invisacryl occurred between baseline and cleaning cycle 16. Listerine affected the color change of Biocryl the most, whereas there was no difference in cleaning method for the Invisacryl group. There was no significant difference in surface roughness for either material when cleaned with any of the cleaning methods at any time point. However, Invisacryl had a significantly higher surface roughness than Biocryl. Finally, there was no difference in elastic modulus between any of the cleaning methods for each material. There was a significant difference between the two materials, with Biocryl being the stiffer material than Invisacryl. Conclusion: Any of the cleaning methods evaluated in this study are recommended for use on PETG and EP materials, except for Listerine due to its ability to significantly impact a color change on Biocryl. When comparing the two retainer materials, Invisacryl C retainers are not recommended for patients with poor hygiene due to their increased surface roughness. On the other hand, Biocryl is recommended to patients with severe pre-treatment rotations, spaces, and intruded teeth due to its increased elastic modulus.


Background and Objective: Stroke is one of the two leading causes of mortality worldwide and leads to 9.7% of the world's total deaths. Identifying risk factors that increase the likelihood of stroke or the factors that are associated with its occurrence may have an important role in reducing this disease. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of symptomatic extracranial artery stenosis in patients with ischemic stroke (IS) admitted in Imam Khomeini Hospital of Urmia in 2011–2012 and its relationship with cardiovascular risk factors. Materials and Methods: This is a descriptive-analytic study in which 149 patients admitted in the neurology department of Imam Khomeini Hospital in Urmia, who had been diagnosed with ischemic cerebrovascular accident (CVA), were examined by a neurologist and the findings of disease record, examination, computed tomography scan, and color Doppler ultrasonography were compared, and the patients with symptomatic extracranial stenosis were entered into this study and a pre-prepared questionnaire was completed about their condition. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 16. Results: The results of this study showed that the prevalence of carotid artery stenosis in patients with stroke is 40.3% and having a history of myocardial infarction (MI) is the only factor associated with an increase in the incidence of carotid artery stenosis in patients with ischemic CVA, and there is no relationship between different risk factors for cardiovascular diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, cigarette smoking, previous CVA, previous transient ischemic attack, and hyperlipidemia and carotid artery stenosis. Conclusion: Patients with a history of MI have a higher incidence of carotid artery stenosis and heart attack as a risk factor for stroke