Recent research has resulted in a number of recommended changes in how fitness professionals should prescribe target workloads and calculate the energy cost of exercise. The principal changes are in the use of oxygen consumption reserve (VO2R) as an alternative to percentage of maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) for prescribing exercise intensity, the use of net VO2 rather than gross VO2 for the calculation of caloric expenditure during exercise, and a modification of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) equation for calculating the oxygen cost of leg cycle ergometry. The VO2R method of prescribing exercise workloads is similar to the heart rate reserve (HRR) method of prescribing target heart rates, i.e. the target workload is established at a given percentage of the difference between maximal and resting VO2. Several recent studies have shown that there is a discrepancy between the exercise intensity at given percentages of HRR and VO2max, but that HRR and VO2R yield equivalent exercise intensities. The use of VO2R in exercise prescription provides more accurate target workloads, especially for individuals with a low fitness level. Net VO2 during exercise is that amount above resting VO2 due to the exercise itself. A recent recommendation is to employ net VO2 in the calculation of the caloric expenditure during exercise, so as not to overestimate potential bodyweight loss. Several recent studies of leg cycling ergometry have yielded equations for the estimation of VO2 that include a term for unloaded cycling, i.e. the oxygen cost of moving the legs against zero resistance. The equations from these studies provide more accurate estimations of cycling VO2 than the existing ACSM equation, and a new standardised equation has been developed and adopted by the ACSM. The new equation is especially useful for improving the accuracy of VO2 estimates during low intensity leg cycle ergometry. The ACSM equation for bench stepping has also been modified to include a term for resting metabolism.


Highly skilled musicians encounter great difficulty when attempting to communicate information concerning the timbre of musical tones. This can be a barrier to effective teaching in that musicians tend to think of individual sounds as unified single events rather than complex compounds that establish timbre characterizations. When taken into the realm of visual representation, understanding can be more easily achieved. The utilization of a Spectral Dynamics real‐time analyzer has allowed coached student performers to react to a spectral display and has proven useful in tone quality development. Of special concern has been the reduction of excessive harshness when producing loud tones, and clarity when producing soft tones, both common problems in performance. Further definition concerning the interaction of pitch, harmonic content, and the equal loudness curves has been useful in a better mutual understanding of this process and it may also be pertinent for traditional music theorists as well.


We demonstrate the dissipative soliton mode locking in a diode pumped Yb:GdYSiO5(Yb:GYSO) laser operating in the positive dispersion regime. We obtain stable passively mode-locked pulses with strong positive chirp and with very steep spectral edges. The central wavelength is 1050 nm with bandwidth of about 4 nm, autocorrelation trace shown the typical pulse duration is about 3.5 ps. We obtain the maximum average power of 558 mW for a 3.3-W absorbed pump power, with 22% slope efficiency, and a 78-MHz pulse repetition frequency.


ABSTRACT Intermittent rivers are prevalent in many countries across Europe, but little is known about the temporal evolution of intermittence and its relationship with climate variability. Trend analysis of the annual and seasonal number of zero-flow days, the maximum duration of dry spells and the mean date of the zero-flow events is performed on a database of 452 rivers with varying degrees of intermittence between 1970 and 2010. The relationships between flow intermittence and climate are investigated using the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) and climate indices describing large-scale atmospheric circulation. The results indicate a strong spatial variability of the seasonal patterns of intermittence and the annual and seasonal number of zero-flow days, highlighting the controls exerted by local catchment properties. Most of the detected trends indicate an increasing number of zero-flow days, which also tend to occur earlier in the year, particularly in southern Europe. The SPEI is found to be strongly related to the annual and seasonal zero-flow day occurrence in more than half of the stations for different accumulation times between 12 and 24 months. Conversely, there is a weaker dependence of river intermittence with large-scale circulation indices. Overall, these results suggest increased water stress in intermittent rivers that may affect their biota and biochemistry and also reduce available water resources.


Results are reported of a three-year study participated in by the Laboratory for Applications of Remote Sensing of Purdue University, the Center for Advanced Computation of the University of Illinois, and the Geographic Applications ·Program of the U. S. Geological Survey. The outcome of the study has been a demonstration of the feasibility of applying digital analysis of satellite data to land use inventory and mapping. Advancements have been made in the areas of data analysis techniques, data processing products. and education and training of personnel within the potential user agency.


Rohingya Muslims have been subjected to structural violence committed by the Government of Myanmar and the military junta for several decades. The sheer refusal of rights of these people is a classic example of structural violence as explained by Johan Galtung's Theory of Structural Violence which stipulates that violence occurs in three forms: Direct, Cultural and Structural - all of which have been committed against Rohingya Muslims. The combination of direct and cultural violence leads to the continuation of the structural violence as seen in the 1982 Citizenship Act that legitimizes and institutionalizes the violation of rights of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. The research is based on the qualitative method and secondary data. The paper primarily focuses on the application of the Theory of Structural Violence in the case of Rohingya Muslims and highlights the problems faced by the Rohingya due to this ostracism. It also aims to look at the standing of other states in the region pertaining to this issue.


Recently transdermal drug delivery systems (TDDS) based on polymeric nanocomposites have been widely researched by polymer and biomedical scientists for the remedy of various diseases. Thus to develop an efficient patch, we have synthesized guar gum-g-polyacrylamide by free radical polymerization using potassium persulphate as an initiator. The transdermal membranes were fabricated via solution casting, by incorporating different wt% of nanosilica and diltiazem hydrochloride to the synthesized copolymer. The resulting copolymer and the nanocomposite membranes were characterized using solid state 13C nuclear magnetic resonance, Fourier transform infrared spectra, thermo-gravimetric analysis, electron microscopy and viscometry. A hydro-swelling study and surface contact angle measurement showed that the membrane containing 1 wt% nanosilica was the most hydrophobic. The in vitro drug release patterns of all the transdermal membranes showed that the nanocomposite containing 1 wt% nanosilica provides the best result with 8.58 and 24.76% drug release after 5 and 20 h, respectively. Furthermore, the nanocomposite formulation exhibited good cyto-compatibility and non-irritant behaviour, which are primary requirements for an efficient transdermal drug delivery system.


Herewith we introduce a new palliative method to cure prostate cancer patients. The following method realises thermocontrast impact on patient's coverlet using the composit of medicinal agents containing O/NO/CO in one technological cycle of staged treatment. This method ensures noninvasive administration of highly active medicinal agent of cacanceroid properties together with bactericidal, fungicidal, virulicidal, detoxicating, immunocorrecting, oxygenating, vasodilating and other properties wich are conducive to enhancement of treatment efficaciousness and to quality of life improving among prostate cancer patients.


DNA nanotechnology, and DNA computing in particular, has grown extensively over the past decade to end with a variety of functional stable structures and dynamic circuits. However, the use as designer elements of regular DNA pieces, perfectly complementary double strands, has remained elusive. Here, we report the exploitation of CRISPR-Cas systems to engineer logic circuits based on isothermal strand displacement that perform with toehold-free double-stranded DNA. We designed and implemented molecular converters for signal detection and amplification, showing good interoperability between enzymatic and nonenzymatic processes. Overall, these results contribute to enlarge the repertoire of substrates and reactions (hardware) for DNA computing.


Wind energy gains more attention day by day as one of the clean renewable energy resources. We predicted wind speed vertical extrapolation by using extended power law. In this study, an extended vertical wind velocity extrapolation formulation is derived on the basis of perturbation theory by considering power law and Weibull wind speed probability distribution function. In the proposed methodology not only the mean values of the wind speeds at different elevations but also their standard deviations and the cross-correlation coefficient between different elevations are taken into consideration. The application of the presented methodology is performed for wind speed measurements at Karaburun/Istanbul, Turkey. At this location, hourly wind speed measurements are available for three different heights above the earth surface.


Abstract Over the past few years, there has been an increasing recognition of the value of public involvement in health technology assessment (HTA) to ensure the legitimacy and fairness of public funding decisions [Street J, Stafinski T, Lopes E, Menon D. Defining the role of the public in Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and HTA-informed decision-making processes. Int J Technol Assess Health Care. 2020;36:87–95]. However, important challenges remain, in particular, how to reorient HTA to reflect public priorities. In a recent international survey of thirty HTA agencies conducted by the International Network of Agencies for HTA (INAHTA), public engagement in HTA was listed as one of the "Top 10" challenges for HTA agencies [O'Rourke B, Werko SS, Merlin T, Huang LY, Schuller T. The "Top 10" challenges for health technology assessment: INAHTA viewpoint. Int J Technol Assess. 2020;36:1–4]. Historically, Australia has been at the forefront of the application of HTA for assessing the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of new health technologies to inform public funding decisions. However, current HTA processes in Australia lack meaningful public inputs. Using Australia as an example, we describe this important limitation and discuss the potential impact of this gap on the health system and future directions.


The discontinuous current mode boost power factor (PF) correction converter features a zero-current turn-on for the switch, no reverse recovery in diode, and constant frequency operations. However, when the duty cycle is constant in a line cycle, the input current contains rich third harmonic which has a phase difference of π with respect to the fundamental component. The harmonic results in not only a lower PF but also larger peak and RMS current values of the main power components, which lead to a higher conduction and switching turn-off loss. In this paper, a variable duty cycle control scheme is proposed to make the input current contain only third harmonic which is in phase with fundamental component, while remaining the same PF at a certain input voltage as that of constant duty cycle control. A method of fitting the duty cycle is further proposed for simplifying the circuit implementation. The efficiency is improved as the critical inductance increases and the peak and RMS current values consequently decrease. The proposed method also achieves an output voltage ripple or the output storage capacitance reduction. The experimental results from a prototype of 120 W are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.


This guide aims to help prospective and practising coaches learn how to return injured athletes to competition safely, quickly, and at the highest level of function possible. The book contains answers to commonly asked questions, such as: How serious is the injury? What can I do to speed up the rehabilitation process? and when can the athlete be expected to return to competition?.


This article examines the no new taxes pledge that has been signed by President Bush and 258 members of Congress. Although it is intended to restrict the size of government, the authors believe that the pledge probably hinders rather than helps efforts to restore fiscal responsibility. Evidence from trends in aggregate taxes and spending, the success or failure of budget rules, and the voting records of pledge signers casts doubt, the authors assert, on the view that signing the pledge is an effective effort to starve the beast or an act of fiscal responsibility. If all of the signers uphold the pledge, it will prove impossible to repeal any part of the 2001, 2002, and 2003 tax cuts before President Bush leaves office, though the legislation could expire as scheduled even if all the signers supported extension, they find. The authors also think that the pledge may also have implications for appropriate budget scoring rules.


Lowe, C. R., and Khosla, T. (1972).Brit. J. industr. Med.,29, 45-49. Chronic bronchitis in ex-coal miners working in the steel industry. Data are presented comparing ventilatory capacity and prevalence of chronic bronchitis in 3 012 ex-coal miners and 9 361 non-miners of similar age and social class, all employed at the time of the investigation in two intergrated steel works in South Wales. The ex-miners had substantially more chronic bronchitis and a poorer ventilatory capacity than the non-miners irrespective of age and smoking habits. Among smokers, 24·9% of ex-miners aged 45 to 54 had chronic bronchitis compared with 18·6% of non-miners. The corresponding prevalence rates among non-smokers of the same age group were 12·0 and 7·7 respectively. Smoking was a more important factor than coal mining. For example, the non-miners aged 45 to 54 who smoked had a higher prevalence rate of chronic bronchitis (18·6%) than the ex-miners who had never smoked (12·0%). Smoking also appeared to be a more important factor than age. For the non-miners who had never smoked there was no increase in prevalence with age; it remained at about 5% in adult life (25 to 34) until near retirement (55 to 64). Among the ex-miners the ventilatory capacity showed a decline with increasing number of years spent below ground, with a tendency to level off after 10 to 15 years. The mean ventilatory capacity of ex-miners aged 45 to 54 years who had worked 10 or more years below the ground equalled the mean level of non-miners 10 years older, in the age group 55 to 64 years. The possibility that the movement of bronchitics out of coal mines may explain these differences is discussed.


Background There is a higher prevalence of depression in women of low socioeconomic status (SES) than other women. Further, previous depression is the best predictor of future depression. Therefore, due to the negative effects of maternal depression on the fetus and subsequent child, particularly in combination with low SES, depression is ideally treated before pregnancy. During the year before pregnancy and by SES, we aimed to assess the odds of a physician visit associated with maternal depression and the mean number of physician visits in women by depressive status. Methods We used population-based registry data of 243,933 women with 348,273 singleton live births in British Columbia from 1999 - 2009 and estimated family SES decile using tax-file data. Mixed effects logistic regression, adjusting for maternal age and parity, was used to calculate odds ratios and a two-sided, two-sample test was used to compare proportions. STATA 14 was used for analyses. Results Compared to women of middle SES (Decile-6), women of low SES (from Decile-1, Decile-2) had higher odds of more than 20 physician visits whether depressed (aOR = 1.46 (95% CI: (1.15, 1.86); aOR = 1.26 (95% CI: (0.98, 1.61)) or non-depressed (aOR = 1.26 (95% CI: (1.13, 1.41); aOR = 1.24 (95% CI: (1.11, 1.38)) during the year before pregnancy. During pre-pregnancy, depressed women had more than three times the mean number of physician visits than non-depressed women: (8.56 (8.38, 8.73) versus (2.59 (2.57, 2.61), P < 0.00005. Conclusions Physicians have ample opportunities to assess women of child-bearing age for depression and to refer for appropriate treatment. It is particularly important that physicians pay extra attention to identify depression in those of lower SES who are likely to become pregnant. Further, identifying depression and providing appropriate referral for treatment in all women who are likely to become pregnant, are already pregnant or are caring for children is important. In such a way, the possible negative effects of prenatal and post-partum depression, along with the interactive effects of low SES on the child, might be reduced.


Pigeons were punished with mild shock for pecking during one of two components of a multiple schedule. They eventually recovered so that they pecked at the same rate during both components. In one experiment they were extinguished after recovering. When punishment was maintained during extinction, they extinguished faster during the punished, than during the unpunished component. When punishment was stopped during extinction, they extinguished faster during the unpunished than during the previously punished component. In another experiment, punishment was programmed first during neither of the two components, then during one, then during both, and finally during the other component. The extent of recovery decreased with each successive cycle. It is concluded that, if transient emotional states are ignored, reward and punishment are symmetrical in their effects.


PURPOSE OF REVIEW
The development of next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies is transforming the practice of medical genetics and revolutionizing the approach to heterogeneous hereditary conditions, including skeletal muscle disorders. Here, we review the different NGS approaches described in the literature so far for the characterization of myopathic patients and the results obtained from the implementation of such approaches in a clinical setting.

RECENT FINDINGS
The overall diagnostic rate of NGS strategies for patients affected by skeletal muscle disorders is higher than the success rate obtained using the traditional gene-by-gene approach. Moreover, many recent articles have been expanding the clinical phenotypes associated with already known disease genes.

SUMMARY
NGS applications will soon be the first-tier test for skeletal muscle disorders. They will improve the diagnosis in myopathic patients, promoting their inclusion into novel therapeutic trials. At the same time, they will improve our knowledge about the molecular mechanisms causing skeletal muscle disorders, favoring the development of novel therapeutic approaches.


Many organic and inorganic pollutants, including heavy metals are being transported and mixed with the cultivated soils and water. Heavy metals are the most dangerous pollutants as they are nondegradable and accumulate and become toxic to plants and animals. An experiment was conducted in the glasshouse to evaluate the potential of Acacia mangium as a phytoremediator to absorb heavy metals from contaminated soils. A. mangium seedlings were planted in the growth media (soil + different levels of copper). The different levels of Cu were: T0 (control, soil), T1 (50 ppm Cu), T2 (100 ppm Cu), T3 (200 ppm Cu), T4 (300 ppm Cu) and T5 (400 ppm Cu). The highest growth performance such as basal diameter, height and number of leaves was in T1. The highest biomass was recorded in T1. Highest accumulation of Cu (93.55 ppm) and Zn (79.13 ppm) were recorded in T5 while Cd (8.88 ppm) in T3. Cu was highly concentrated in the roots, Cd was accumulated in the leaves and roots, whereas, Zn was in stems and leaves. A. mangium showed high translocation factor (TF) and low bioconcentration factor (BCF) values in soil at higher metal concentrations as well as it was able to tolerate and accumulate high concentrations of Cd, Cu and Zn. It may be concluded that this species can be a good efficient phtyoremediator for heavy metals (Cd, Cu and Zn) contaminated soils to mitigate soil pollution.


BACKGROUND:In the setting of protocolized glycemic control, the relationship between postoperative glycemic variability on major adverse events (MAEs) after cardiac surgery is unknown for patients with increased preoperative hemoglobin A1C (HbA1C >6.5%). In this study, we sought to establish (a) whether postoperative glycemic variability is associated with MAEs after CABG surgery and (b) whether preoperative HbA1C could identify patients at increased risk of postoperative glycemic variability. METHODS:Patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting with or without valvular surgery from January 2008 to May 2011 were enrolled in this prospective, single-center, observational cohort study. Demographic, intraoperative, and postoperative outcome data were obtained from institutional data collected for the Society of Thoracic Surgery (STS) database. The primary outcome, MAE was a composite of in-hospital death, myocardial infarction (MI), reoperations, sternal infection, cardiac tamponade, pneumonia, stroke, or renal failure. Glycemic variability in the postoperative period was assessed by the coefficient of variation (CV). CV was used as quartiles for the multivariate logistic regression. Variable selection in multivariable modeling was based on clinical and statistical significance and was performed in a hierarchical fashion. RESULTS:Of the 1461 patients enrolled, 9.8% had an MAE. Based on the established target of HbA1C <6.5% for the diagnosis of diabetes mellitus, we considered HbA1C as a binary variable (<6.5% and ≥6.5%) in our primary analysis. Multivariate logistic regression analyses for the preoperative variables only revealed that preoperative HbA1C (odds ratio [OR], 1.6; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.1–2.3; P = 0.02), history of MI (OR, 1.9; 95% CI, 1.3–2.8; P = 0.001), and STS risk score per quartile (OR, 1.7; 95% CI, 1.4–2.1; P < 0.001) were associated with MAEs. When postoperative variables were included in the analyses, postoperative glycemic variability (CV per quartile) in the intensive care unit (OR, 1.3; 95% CI, 1.1–1.5; P = 0.03), mean glucose levels averaged over the first 4 postoperative hours (OR, 1.2; 95% CI, 1.0–1.4; P = 0.03), history of MI (OR, 1.8; 95% CI, 1.2–2.6; P = 0.004), and STS risk score per quartile (OR, 1.6; 95% CI, 1.3–2.0; P < 0.001) were associated with MAEs. Glycemic variability as assessed by CV was increased postoperatively in patients with preoperative HbA1C ≥6.5% (0.20 ± 0.09 vs 0.16 ± 0.07, P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS:Postoperative glycemic variability is associated with MAEs after cardiac surgery. Glycemic variability is only measured when the patient leaves the intensive care unit, and there is no opportunity to intervene earlier. Preoperative HbA1C identifies risk for postoperative glycemic variability and may provide a more rational guide for targeting measures to reduce variability.


Customer relations provide a valuable link between customers and the companies who produce the products they buy and the services they use. Every organisational member carries out actions which reflect the existence of counter-knowledge (i.e., obsolete knowledge and inappropriate knowledge structures) which in turn can lead to detrimental effects on customers. A decision to reorientate counter-knowledge takes an extended period of time to produce significant results as this process involves the integration of existing capabilities with newly acquired knowledge. Crucially, however, it also involves the unlearning of capabilities which are no longer relevant. Unlearning is the process by which firms eliminate old logics and behaviours and make room for new ones. With the development of this paper, we intend to address the following question: How can managers help to correct counter-knowledge in order to foster customer relations? These relationships are examined through an empirical investigation of 164 small and medium enterprises in the Spanish construction industry. Our results show that an unlearning context (i.e., the examination of lens fitting, the framework for changing individual habits and the framework for consolidating emergent understandings) is an important solution for the process of counteracting the negative effects of counter-knowledge (e.g., misunderstandings and misconceptions). The results also shed light on a tangible means for managers to enhance customer relations through unlearning practices.


Novel copper ketoiminate compounds were synthesized and for the first time applied for additive-free solution-based deposition of nanoscale copper oxide thin films. The two closely related compounds, namely the bis[4-(2-ethoxyethyl-imino)-3-pentanonato]copper, [Cu(EEKI)2], and bis[4-(3-methoxypropylimino)-3-pentanonato]copper, [Cu(MPKI)2], were characterized by means of elemental and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), as well as electron impact mass spectrometry (EI-MS). The advantages of these compounds are that they are liquid and possess excellent solubility in common organic solvents in addition to an optimum reactivity towards ambient moisture that enables a facile solution-based approach to nanoscale copper oxide thin films. Moreover, no additives or aging is needed to stabilize the solution processing of the copper oxide layers. [Cu(MPKI)2] was tested in detail for the deposition of copper oxide thin films by spin coating. Upon one-step annealing, high-quality, uniform, crystalline copper oxide thin films were deposited on Si, SiO2, as well as on quartz substrates. Structural, morphological and compositional characteristics of the copper oxide nanostructures were investigated in detail by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and a combined analysis using Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS) and nuclear reaction analysis (NRA). It was possible to control the copper oxide phases (CuO and Cu2O) by systematic tuning of the post-deposition annealing conditions. The functional properties in terms of optical band gap were investigated using UV/Vis spectroscopy, while the transport properties, such as resistivity, mobility and carrier concentration were analyzed employing Hall measurements, which confirmed the p-type conductivity of the copper oxide layers.


Radio and automobiles have been a standard pairing for some 50 years. With electric vehicles (EVs) connected to the power grid now available, FM Radio Data System (RDS) technology can provide value as a low-cost global solution for EV smart-grid connectivity with various digital real-time data transmissions, such as command-control, information, and advisories. This paper reviews the cooperative work between General Motors and e-Radio Inc. to investigate various concepts with respect to the capability of FM RDS to support such industry standards as SAE J2847/1 and SEP 1.0. This development work has resulted in a fully functional prototype.


Proper management of infectious waste containing radioactive material depends on three program elements. First, screening methods are required to identify medical waste containing radioactive material. Second, a means of managing the volume of waste identified has to be developed. Management includes identifying the radioisotopes, dealing with the physical requirements of the waste (e.g., the need for cold storage), and treating the material as a mixed waste. Finally, methods to limit production of waste at its source must be implemented. This includes educating the radioactive material users, enabling them with the means of reducing waste volume, and giving them feedback on how well they are implementing the waste reduction practices. Health Phys. 64(2):187-191; 1993


Federated learning allows mobile clients to jointly train a global model without sending their private data to a central server. Extensive works have studied the performance guarantee of the global model, however, it is still unclear how each individual client influences the collaborative training process. In this work, we defined a new notion, called FedInfluence, to quantify this influence over the model parameters, and proposed an effective and efficient algorithm to estimate this metric. In particular, our design satisfies several desirable properties: (1) it requires neither retraining nor retracing, adding only linear computational overhead to clients and the server; (2) it strictly maintains the tenets of federated learning, without revealing any client's local private data; and (3) it works well on both convex and non-convex loss functions, and does not require the final model to be optimal. Empirical results on a synthetic dataset and the FEMNIST dataset demonstrate that our estimation method can approximate Fed-Influence with small bias. Further, we show an application of Fed-Influence in model debugging.


: Fracture of the left maxillary tuberosity during surgical extraction of multiple teeth, involving the maxillary sinus and pterigomaxillary fossa in a male patient with classic hemophilia due to factor VIII deficiency, is reported. The subject was treated by a private dentist and afterwards admitted at the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery unit of the "20 de Noviembre" Hospital, ISSSTE, where extraction was completed and the fracture detected at surgery. The patient was then referred to Hematology and substitute therapy of factor VIII for two weeks was prescribed but, eventually, persistent bleeding led to suturing the external carotid.


Microstructures and properties of plasma surfaced NiCrBSi+20%WC/12Co layer prepared on the die steel (H13) substrate were investigated. The study showed that the interface boundary existed between the layer and substrate. Compared with the typical microstructures of welded joint, the similar columnar grains in the layer perpendicular to the interface line were observed, which were never seen in the plasma sprayed coating. The conclusion could be drawn that the bonding between the NiCrBSi+20%WC/12Co layer and H13 substrate belonged to the metallurgical cohesion. The XRD analysis showed that the main phases in the layer included γ-(Fe, Ni), Cr7BC4, Ni4B3, Cr7C3 and Co7W6, which brought higher strength and higher hardness to the surfaced layer than the H13 substrate.


OBJECTIVE To define the potential role of proinsulin-like molecules as risk factors for cardiovascular disease. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Fasting concentrations of proinsulin, des-31,32-proinsulin, and insulin, and of insulin 2 h after a 75-g glucose load, were measured in 1,034 nondiabetic europid subjects and 257 south Asian subjects and related to prevalent coronary heart disease (Minnesota-coded electrocardiographic criteria or ischemic chest pain). In 137 south Asian subjects, the fasting concentrations were related to incident coronary heart disease over a 6.5-year follow-up. RESULTS The standardized odds ratios for prevalent coronary heart disease were as follows: fasting insulin, 1.29 (1.11–1.49), P = 0.0006; 2-h insulin, 1.25 (1.08–1.45), P = 0.003; proinsulin, 1.23 (0.99–1.53), P = 0.058; and des-31,32-proinsulin, 1.32 (1.03–1.69), P = 0.026. The odds ratios were similar in the two ethnic groups. These relationships became insignificant when controlling for age, sex, and BMI. The standardized odds ratios for incident coronary heart disease were as follows: fasting insulin, 0.99 (0.63–1.55), P = 0.97; proinsulin, 1.13 (0.72–1.78), P = 0.59; and des-31,32-proinsulin, 1.00 (0.61–1.63), P = 1.00. CONCLUSIONS We have found similar relationships between concentrations of proinsulin-like molecules and prevalent coronary heart disease, as are observed for insulin in these nondiabetic subjects, although these molecules comprise only ∼ 10% of all insulin-like molecules. It appears biologically implausible that these relationships represent cause and effect.


This paper analyses secular changes and interannual variability in the wind wave, swell, and significant wave height (SWH) characteristics over the North Atlantic and North Pacific on the basis of wind wave climatology derived from the visual wave observations of voluntary observing ship (VOS) officers. These data are available from the International Comprehensive Ocean–Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS) collection of surface meteorological observations for 1958–2002, but require much more complicated preprocessing than standard meteorological variables such as sea level pressure, temperature, and wind. Visual VOS data allow for separate analysis of changes in wind sea and swell, as well as in significant wave height, which has been derived from wind sea and swell estimates. In both North Atlantic and North Pacific midlatitudes winter significant wave height shows a secular increase from 10 to 40 cm decade 1 during the last 45 yr. However, in the North Atlantic the patterns of trend changes for wind sea and swell are quite different from each other, showing opposite signs of changes in the northeast Atlantic. Trend patterns of wind sea, swell, and SWH in the North Pacific are more consistent with each other. Qualitatively the same conclusions hold for the analysis of interannual variability whose leading modes demonstrate noticeable differences for wind sea and swell. Statistical analysis shows that variability in wind sea is closely associated with the local wind speed, while swell changes can be driven by the variations in the cyclone counts, implying the importance of forcing frequency for the resulting changes in significant wave height. This mechanism of differences in variability patterns of wind sea and swell is likely more realistic than the northeastward propagation of swells from the regions from which the wind sea signal originates.


The nearest neighbor condition implies that when searching for a mean-square optimal fixed-rate quantizer it is enough to consider the class of regular quantizers, i.e., quantizers having convex cells and codepoints which lie inside the associated cells. In contrast, quantizer regularity can preclude optimality in entropy-constrained quantization. This can be seen by exhibiting a simple discrete scalar source for which the mean-square optimal entropy-constrained scalar quantizer (ECSQ) has disconnected (and hence nonconvex) cells at certain rates. In this work, new results concerning the structure and existence of optimal ECSQs are presented. One main result shows that for continuous sources and distortion measures of the form d(x,y)=/spl rho/(|x-y|), where /spl rho/ is a nondecreasing convex function, any finite-level ECSQ can be "regularized" so that the resulting regular quantizer has the same entropy and equal or less distortion. Regarding the existence of optimal ECSQs, we prove that under rather general conditions there exists an "almost regular" optimal ECSQ for any entropy constraint. For the squared error distortion measure and sources with piecewise-monotone and continuous densities, the existence of a regular optimal ECSQ is shown.


In recent years, there has been a great interest in fractional dier- ential equations due to their frequent appearance in various elds, and their more accurate models of systems under consideration provided by fractional derivatives. In particular, fractional order telegraph equations have been con- sidered and solved for many researchers, using dierent methods. In this paper we derived the solution of two homogeneous space-time fractional telegraph equations using the generalized dierential transform method. The derivatives are considered in Caputo sense and the solutions are given in terms of gen- eralized Mittag-Leer function and the generalized Wright function. Further, various graphics are included which show the behavior of the solution ob- tained, and results given earlier by Momani, Odibat and Momani, Yildrim, Garg and Sharma, and Garg et al. are obtained as particular cases of ones our.


A comprehensive review of the roles played by the airflow, wetting and spin finish on the air-jet texturing process is given. The results of an experimental investigation of the air-jet texturing process using residual spin finish, yarn-to-yarn static and kinetic friction, filament strength, filament diameter, and on-line tension measurements and high-speed cine-photography are reported. Filament yarn motion in different regions of the texturing nozzle during dry and wet texturing was analyzed. During the study it was found that water acted as lubricant to reduce friction between the filaments in the wet texturing process as the filament yarn traveled through the nozzle enabling easier relative motion of the filaments resulting in enhanced entanglement. Wet texturing also reduced spin finish on the yarn surface, which in turn, caused an increase in static friction between the filaments of the textured yarn resulting in better fixing of the loops and consequently superior yarns.


We reported previously that human interleukin-lp converting enzyme (ICE) is regulated by the CrmA serpin encoded by cowpox virus. We now report the mechanism and kinetics of this unusual inhibition f a cysteine proteinase by a member of the serpin superfamily previously thought to inhibit serine proteinases only. CrmA possesses several characteristics typical of a number of inhibitory serpins. It is conformationally unstable, unfolding around 3 M urea, and stable to denaturation in 8 M urea upon complex formation with ICE. CrmA rapidly inhibits ICE with an association rate constant (ko,,) of 1.7 x lo' M ~ s-', forming a tight complex with an equilibrium constant for inhibition (ICi) of less than 4 x 10"' M. These data indicate that CrmA is a potent inhibitor of ICE, consistent with the dramatic effects of CrmA on modifying host responses to v i rus infection. The inhibition of ICE by CrmA is an example of a "cross-class" interaction, in which a serpin inhibits a non-serine proteinase. Since CrmA possesses characteristics shared by inhibitors of serine proteinases, we presume that ICE, though it is a cysteine proteinase, has a substrate binding geometry strikingly close to that of serine proteinases. We reason that it is the substrate binding geometry, not the catalytic mechanism of a proteinase, that dictates its reactivity with protein inhibitors.


In Indonesia, especially in its intra urban areas or in between two urban areas, there are some problems of disparity, ineffective and inefficient mobility and degradation of environment. It becomes worst due to the decaying of its mass public transports. That is why this research will focus on improving public transports for two connected urban areas, Jakarta-Bandung. In its existing condition, there are several kinds of public transports, such as train, shuttle service, and private car. Each transport mode has a unique system and characteristic. Each passenger will choose their mode when it meets his or her criteria. In fact, the mode has not been chosen proportionally. There are a conflict between railway mode and toll way mode. The result is the decaying of train service. Thus the research has to concentrate more deeply in the development of railway transport. Moreover, this research will explore user characteristics and their preferences, and develop mode choice model with multinomial logit model. For advance research, we can use ISIL (Information System of Integrated Logistics). It is a concept that can provide an answer to this problem. The objective of ISIL is to contribute to integration at the conceptual level of all technical data related to a product throughout its life cycle. The concept used is the "Extended Enterprise". We give guidance for applying the concept ISIL in the field that interests us here.


The periodic maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) of turbine blades in thermal power plants are essential to maintain a stable power supply. During MRO, older and less-efficient power plants are put into operation, which results in wastage of additional fuels. Such a situation forces thermal power plants to work under off-design conditions. Moreover, such an operation accelerates blade deterioration, which may lead to sudden failure. Therefore, a method for avoiding unexpected failures needs to be developed. To detect the signs of machinery failures, the analysis of time-series data is required. However, data for various blade conditions must be collected from actual operating steam turbines. Further, obtaining abnormal or failure data is difficult. Thus, this paper proposes a classification approach to analyze big time-series data alternatively collected from numerical results. The time-series data from various normal and abnormal cases of actual intermediate-pressure steam-turbine operation were obtained through numerical simulation. Thereafter, useful features were extracted and classified using K-means clustering to judge whether the turbine is operating normally or abnormally. The experimental results indicate that the status of the blade can be appropriately classified. By checking data from real turbine blades using our classification results, the status of these blades can be estimated. Thus, this approach can help decide on the appropriate timing for MRO.


I Mozambique many areas are not connected to the national grid because of financial reasons. The renewable energy technology is adequate as a solution for this problem because it would avoid the environmental impact and the increase of air pollution. Hence, the techno-economic assessment of hybrid solar energy was performed for residential application considering a small community of 50 households, each consuming about 1 kWhe and 3 kWhth per day. HOMER, the energy modeling software for hybrid renewable energy system (HRES), was used for reaching this objective.The techno economic study of a domestic hot water system was performed using RETscreen as HOMER could not be used since it does not model solar collectors.To model the PV system using HOMER software, the load and the solar resource were assessed, considering the economics, system components, optimization and sensitivity analysis, which enabled the determination of the optimal system configuration and evaluation of how the system is sensitive with different values of primary load, global solar, interest rate and project lifetime.As a result, the maximum power of the collector was found to be 1.93 kW, hot water storage volume of 138.1 l and 3.05 m2 flat plate collectors. The pre-tax IRR - assets is of 14.5 %, the simple payback period is of 8.6 years to return the investment and the 7.4 years of equity payback.The PV system with the optimal system configuration consisting of a 0.3 kW PV array, 4 HI-Fase 200 Ah batteries and a 0.5 kW converter. The initial capital for PV system is of $3.945, operating cost of $82 per year, levelized COE of $1.604/kWh and the total NPC is $4.591.The sensitivity analysis for PV system has shown that the best estimate scenario with a primary load of 1 kWh/d, global solar of 4.5 kWh/m2/d, interest rate of 11 % and 25 years project lifetime is 0.4 kW PV, 4 HI-Fase 200 Ah batteries and 0.5 kW converter.


New Literary History publishes essays on topics of theoretical significance within and beyond literary studies. The journal especially welcomes two types of contribution: 1) articles that engage with literary and cultural theory, including concepts of period, genre, or style, questions of hermeneutics and the reading process, problems of representation, and the relations between literary studies and other disciplines; 2) articles addressing general theoretical or methodological questions that are of interest to scholars in a wide range of fields. Contributors should bear in mind New Literary History 's international and intellectually diverse readership.


The pancreatic elastase I gene (ELA1) is selectively transcribed to high levels in pancreatic acinar cells. Pancreatic specificity is imparted by a 100-base pair enhancer that activates transcription in β-cells of the islets of Langerhans as well as in acinar cells. Adjacent to the enhancer is a silencer that renders transcription specific to acinar cells by selectively suppressing the inherent β-cell activity of the enhancer. We show that the selective repression of β-cell transcription is due neither to a β-cell specific activity of the silencer nor to selective interference with β-cell-specific transcriptional activators acting on the enhancer. Rather, the silencer is effective in both pancreatic endocrine and acinar cell types against all low and moderate strength enhancers and promoters tested. The silencer appears to act in a binary manner by reducing the probability that a promoter will be active without affecting the rate of transcription from active promoters. We propose that theELA1 silencer is a weak off switch capable of inactivating enhancer/promoter combinations whose strength is below a threshold level but ineffective against stronger enhancer/promoters. The apparent cell-specific effects on the ELA1 enhancer appear due to the ability of the silencer to inactivate the weak β-cell activity of the enhancer but not the stronger acinar cell activity.


Dual fuel diesel-methane low temperature combustion (LTC) has been investigated by various research groups, showing high potential for emissions reduction (especially oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulate matter (PM)) without adversely affecting fuel conversion efficiency in comparison with conventional diesel combustion.
 However, when operated at low load conditions, dual fuel LTC typically exhibit poor combustion efficiencies. This behavior is mainly due to low bulk gas temperatures under lean conditions, resulting in unacceptably high carbon monoxide (CO) and unburned hydrocarbon (UHC) emissions. A feasible and rather innovative solution may be to split the pilot injection of liquid fuel into two injection pulses, with the second pilot injection supporting the methane combustion once the process is initiated by the first one.
 In this work, diesel-methane dual fuel LTC is investigated numerically in a single-cylinder heavy-duty engine operating at 5 bar brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) at 85% and 75% percentage of energy substitution (PES) by methane (taken as a natural gas surrogate). A multidimensional model is first validated in comparison with experimental data obtained on the same single-cylinder engine for early single pilot diesel injection at 310 CAD and 500 bar rail pressure. With the single pilot injection case as baseline, the effects of multiple pilot injections and different rail pressures on combustion emissions are investigated, again showing good agreement with experimental data.
 Apparent heat release rate and cylinder pressure histories as well as combustion efficiency trends are correctly captured by the numerical model. Results prove that higher rail pressures yield reductions of HC and CO by 90% and 75%, respectively, at the expense of NOx emissions, which increase by ∼30% from baseline. Furthermore, it is shown that post-injection during the expansion stroke does not support the stable development of the combustion front as the combustion process is confined close to the diesel spray core.


Infrastructure sector is a key driver for the Indian economy. The sector is highly responsible for propelling India's overall development and enjoys intense focus from Government for initiating policies that would ensure time-bound creation of world class infrastructure in the country. Infrastructure sector includes transport, telecommunications, energy , water, health, housing, and educational facilities have become part and parcel of human existence. It is difficult to imagine a modern world without these facilities. These are vital to the household life as well as to the economic activity. Infrastructure plays a crucial role in promoting economic growth and thereby contributes to the reduction of economic disparity, poverty and deprivations in a country. Greater access of the poor to education and health services, water and sanitation, road network and electricity is needed to bring equitable development and social empowerment. It is an important pre-condition for sustainable economic and social development. Infrastructural investments in transport (roads, railways, ports and civil aviation), power, irrigation, watersheds, hydroelectric works, scientific research and training, markets and warehousing, communications and informatics, education, health and family welfare play a strategic but indirect role in the development process, but makes a significant contribution towards growth by increasing the factor productivity of land, labour and capital in the production process, especially safe drinking water and sanitation, basic educational facilities strongly influence to the quality of life of the people. Finally it concludes infrastructure helps in improving economic growth and development.


Migration of stem cells underpins the physiology of metazoan animals. For tissues to be maintained, stem cells and their progeny must migrate and differentiate in the correct positions. This need is even more acute after tissue damage by wounding or pathogenic infections. Inappropriate migration also underpins the formation of metastasis. Despite this, few mechanistic studies address stem cell migration during repair or homeostasis in adult tissues. Here, we present a shielded X-ray irradiation assay that allows us to follow stem cell migration in the planarians. We demonstrate that we can use this system to study the molecular control of stem cell migration and show that snail and zeb-1 EMT transcription factors homologs are necessary for cell migration to wound sites and for the establishment of migratory cell morphology. Our work establishes planarians as a suitable model for further in depth study of the processes controlling stem cell migration in vivo.


The paper describes an algorithm for solving scheduling problems which contain multiple, interlocking cycles, such as scheduling constraints in state transition graphs. This algorithm is based on previous work on toroidal compaction but introduces three significant improvements: it allows the designer to use upper bound or equality constraints; it does not require an initial feasible solution; and it can handle multiple loops and conditional branches in the constraint system. Experimental results demonstrate the algorithm's effectiveness.<<ETX>>


Incremental games merge the game's system and guise, casting the player in the role of a computer. This paper analyzes incremental games to show how the specific features of the genre cause the player to engage in machinic thinking. It begins with a brief overview of the incremental game genre. Then shifts to an analysis of one game in particular: Frank Lantz's Universal Paperclips (2017). Universal Paperclips puts the player in the role of an AI tasked with producing paperclips, making it a perfect example to show how the player learns to think like the machine through the overlapping roles of the player and computer, which will be elaborated through a comparison of the ways both incremental games and slot machines encourage what Natasha Dow Schüll's (2012) calls the "machine zone" in players. The study concludes by complicating these arguments with an examination of the ways in which, despite the machinic thinking that incremental games engender, the player and computer actually withdraw from each other which makes incremental games a critique of human computer interactions and a meta-game about the construction of videogames, instead of purely a speculative ontological representation of computers.


Cascade reactions and biomimetic strategies are being increasingly applied to the construction of natural and designed molecules. Such processes, in which ideally a single event triggers the conversion of a starting material to a product which then becomes a substrate for the next reaction until termination leads to a stable final product, are highly desirable not only due to their elegance, but also because of their efficiency and economy in terms of reagent consumption and purification. Often, these multistep, one-pot procedures are accompanied by dramatic increases in molecular complexity and impressive selectivity. The discovery of new molecular diversity from Nature and the demand for more efficient and environmentally benign chemical processes dictates and invites the further development of such synthetic strategies and tactics as we move into a new age of chemical synthesis. Within this article, a number of instructive examples of such synthetic strategies from the principal author's laboratories are discussed.


Aberdeen Art Gallery holds a unique collection of correspondence that belonged to a woman journalist called Caroline Phillips. As honorary secretary of the Aberdeen branch of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), otherwise known as the Suffragettes, Caroline Phillips met and corresponded with many of the leaders of the movement and was also involved in the organisation of militant action in Aberdeen.


ABSTRACT Acute tryptophan depletion (ATD) is a valuable non‐invasive nutritional tool in human and rodent research to study dysfunctions of the serotonergic system and related behavioral disorders. Serotonergic dysfunction is thought to be involved in the pathology of feather pecking behavior of laying hens, one of the most relevant welfare and production issues in modern intensive egg‐production systems. ATD temporarily compromises the influx of tryptophan (TRP) across the blood brain barrier which reduces central availability of TRP, the substrate for serotonin (5‐HT) synthesis. However, ATD has never before been developed and evaluated in birds. We hereby report that ATD in laying hens effectively depletes plasma levels of TRP to 50% of the baseline concentration, 4 hours after administration. Furthermore, ATD reduces the ratios of TRP towards aromatic amino acids (AAA) by 60% and the ratio of TRP towards large neutral amino acids (LNAA) by 70%, three hours after administration. Further studies will be needed to determine the effects of peripheral depletion on brain TRP and 5‐HT levels in birds. However, our study showed for the first time in an avian species that ATD causes lowering of plasma TRP and the ratio in plasma of TRP towards other AAA or LNAA.


This paper studies equilibria of second‐price auctions in independent private value environments with different participation costs. Two types of equilibria are identified: monotonic equilibria in which a bidder with a lower participation cost results in a lower cutoff for submitting a bid, and nonmonotonic equilibria in which a lower participation cost results in a higher cutoff. We show that there always exists a monotonic equilibrium, and further, that the monotonic equilibrium is unique for either concave distribution functions or strictly convex distribution functions with nonincreasing reverse hazard rates. There exist nonmonotonic equilibria when the distribution functions are strictly convex and the difference of the participation costs is sufficiently small. We also provide comparative static analysis and study the limiting properties of equilibria when the difference in bidders' participation costs approaches zero.


We studied ice algae utilization by benthic fauna from the northern Bering and Chukchi Seas using highly branched isoprenoid (HBI) biomarkers. We assessed whether various food acquisition strategies influence the observed HBI signatures. The proportion of phytoplankton to ice algae-sourced HBIs was determined through the H-Print approach that is presumed to reflect the percentage of sea ice organic carbon (iPOC) incorporated into tissues, relative to phytoplankton organic carbon. Cluster analysis separated 3 groups based on location and feeding strategy that were significantly influenced by annual sea ice persistence. Ice algae utilization was most significant in the northeast Chukchi Sea, where seasonal sea ice was present the longest. General feeding strategy was determined to be a significant factor in the degree of ice algae utilization. Predominant deposit feeders (both surface and subsurface) used more ice algae relative to suspension feeders. Organic carbon incorporated by predominant suspension feeders was primarily phytoplankton-based. The vast majority of all organisms sampled (~90%) incorporated a measurable quantity of iPOC. Sipunculids and brittle stars had the highest relative dependence on ice algae, while other taxa displayed plastic dietary responses, including the suspension/surface deposit feeder Macoma calcarea. This study indicates that ice algae are widely utilized in Pacific Arctic benthic food webs, but most benthic organisms displayed flexibility in consuming the available food sources. The elevated utilization of ice algae by deposit feeders may prove to be a disadvantage for these organisms if they cannot adapt to the ongoing decline of iPOC as seasonal sea ice declines.


Purpose: Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most common degenerative joint diseases in the world, characterized primarily by the progressive degradation of articular cartilage. Accumulating evidence has shown that Morusin, a fl avonoid derived from the root bark of Morus alba (mulberry) plants, exerts unique protective properties in several diseases. However, its effects on OA, speci fi cally, have not yet been characterized. Methods: In this study, we evaluated the anti-in fl ammatory effect of Morusin on mouse chondrocytes and its underlying mechanism in vitro. In addition, the protective effect of Morusin on destabilization of the medial meniscus (DMM) model was also explored in vivo. Results: In vitro, IL-1 β -induced activation of in fl ammatory factors (TNF- α , IL-6, INOS and COX2) was dramatically suppressed by Morusin. Further, Morusin treatment inhibited the expression of ADAMTS5 and metalloproteinase (MMPs), both of which regulate extracellular matrix degradation. Morusin also decreased IL-1 β -induced p65 phosphorylation and I κ B α degradation. In vivo, degradation of the articular cartilage following surgical DMM, which mimicked OA pathology, was abrogated following treatment with Morusin, thus demonstrating a protective effect in the DMM model. Conclusion: Herein, we demonstrate that Morusin reduces the OA in fl ammatory response in vitro and protects against articular cartilage degradation in vivo potentially via regulation of the NF- κ B pathway. Hence, Morusin may prove to be an effective candidate for novel OA therapeutic strategies.


Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) are incorporated into Polyimide (PI) film in both pristine and functionalized forms through in-situ polymerization. MWCNTs and NH2-MWCNTs lead to improved mechanical properties such as better tensile strength and elongation at break, as well as increased surface friction coefficient. The NH2-MWCNTs can reduce the total wear weight loss of the composite to a larger extent compared with MWCNTs. 1.0 wt% NH2-MWCNTs/PI has the lowest weight loss of 20.6 % of pure PI. Mechanism of two-stage wear procedure is discussed. We found that PI composite films with lower friction coefficient tend to lose less weight in the first stage, and the ones with better mechanical properties show better wear resistance in the whole wear procedure. Owing to the low surface energy, Natural mica is employed as the substrate for PI film.


e13526 Background: Recurrence of high-grade glioma (HGG) (WHO grade III-IV) is a nearly universal phenomenon and necessitates the development of new therapeutic modalities. Two possible immunotherapeutic modalities are checkpoint blockade with agents such as nivolumab, a blocking antibody against the inhibitory checkpoint programmed cell death-1 (PD-1), and dendritic cell (DC) vaccination. We have shown in phase 1 and 2 trials that DC vaccination against the glioblastoma (GBM)-associated antigen human cytomegalovirus pp65-lysosomal-associated membrane protein (CMVpp65) is safe and possesses potential benefit. We hypothesized that nivolumab-induced immune checkpoint blockade could enhance efficacy of DC vaccination. Therefore, we undertook a phase 1 study to evaluate safety of nivolumab in combination with CMVpp65 mRNA pulsed DC vaccination in subjects with first or second recurrence of resectable HGG. Methods: We performed a phase 1, single-center, randomized study of nivolumab alone versus nivolumab + DC vaccination prior to planned surgical resection for both groups. We administered nivolumab 3 mg/kg IV q2weeks for 8 weeks followed by surgery and planned continuation of nivolumab. For the group receiving nivolumab + DC vaccination, we administered 3 vaccines before surgical resection with both groups receiving 5 planned post-resection DC vaccines. Primary endpoint was safety assessment using NCI-CTCAE 4.03. Results: We enrolled 6 subjects (4: GBM, 1: anaplastic astrocytoma, 1: anaplastic oligodendroglioma) with 3 receiving nivolumab alone and 3 receiving nivolumab + DC vaccination. Age range was 45-63 years subjects. We documented similar adverse events in both groups with most common grade 1-2 toxicities being fatigue (2 subjects, nivolumab alone) and thrombocytopenia (2 subjects, nivolumab + DC vaccine). Grade 4 toxicities included wound infection (2 subjects, nivolumab + DC vaccine) and meningitis (1 subject, nivolumab + DC vaccine). While we designed the study to enroll 66 subjects, we terminated the study early in light of CheckMate 143 phase III data showing nivolumab did not improve overall survival in recurrent GBM. Conclusions: Safety of nivolumab + DC vaccination in recurrent HGG is similar to nivolumab alone. Continued evaluation of new therapeutics including immunotherapy is underway for this patient population. Clinical trial information: NCT02529072.


In January of 1964 a 20-year prospective study of urinary tract infections was begun at the Southern California Permanente Medical Group in Panorama City, California. This paper is concerned with 368 females, aged 2 through 14 years, who had their first infection diagnosed between January 1964 and August 31, 1969.
 No benefit could be demonstrated to Sulfisoxazole therapy exceeding 2 weeks for the first infection and 6 weeks for the second infection nor to treating with ampicillin instead of sulfisoxazole.
 A higher recurrence rate was found in those patients who, at the time of the first infection, had minimal abnormalities on urinalysis, infection with an organism other than E. coli, fever, or no symptoms.
 Recurrences of 40% and 60% were diagnosed after the first two infections respectively. Usually the patients with a recurrent infection were asymptomatic. It is therefore felt that the physician must take an active part in informing the patient of the need to return and contacting her if she fails to do so. The follow-up period should extend for at least 6 years after the last infection.


As the fields of digital humanities and digital history have grown in scale and visibility since the 1990s, legal history has largely remained on the margins of those fields. The move to make material available online in the first decade of the web featured only a small number of legal history projects: Famous Trials; Anglo-American Legal Tradition; The Proceedings of the Old Bailey Online, 1674–1913. Early efforts to construct hypertext narratives and scholarship also included some works of legal history: "Hearsay of the Sun: Photography, Identity and the Law of Evidence in Nineteenth-Century Courts," in Hypertext Scholarship in American Studies; Who Killed William Robinson? and Gilded Age Plains City: The Great Sheedy Murder Trial and the Booster Ethos of Lincoln, Nebraska. In the second decade of the web, the focus shifted from distributing material to exploring it using digital tools. The presence of digital history grew at the meetings of organizations of historians ranging from the American Historical Association to the Urban History Association, but not at the American Society for Legal History conferences, the annual meetings of the Law and Society Association, or the British Legal History Conference. Only a few Anglo-American legal historians took up computational tools for sorting and visualizing sources such as data mining, text mining, and topic modeling; network analysis; and mapping. Paul Craven and Douglas Hay's Master and Servant project text mined a comprehensive database of 2,000 statutes and 1,200,000 words to explore similarities and influence among statutes. Data Mining with Criminal Intent mined and visualized the words in trial records using structured data from The Proceedings of the Old Bailey Online, 1674–1913. Locating London's Past, a project that mapped resources relating to the early modern and eighteenth century city, and also made use of the Old Bailey records. Digital Harlem mapped crime in the context of everyday life in the 1920s. Only in the past few years has more digital legal history using computational tools begun to appear, and like many of the projects discussed in this special issue, most remain at a preliminary stage. This article seeks to bring into focus the constraints, possibilities, and choices that shape digital legal history, in order to create a context for the work in this special issue, and to promote discussion of what it means to do legal history in the digital age.


A tracking simulator is an online simulation system that achieves a permanent state synchronization with the targeted process by dynamically calibrating the model state after comparing process measurements with model results. Tracking simulators are a powerful industrial application that can be utilized as a plant-wide virtual sensor for process monitoring and diagnosis as well as a predictive tool to provide production forecasts based on the current state of the plant. In a tracking simulator, the online calibration is performed by a dynamic estimation method. One of the most adopted dynamic estimaton methods is implicit dynamic feedback, which is based on the adjustment of model parameter using feedback controllers to align simulation results and process outputs. Thus far, PI controllers have been the most popular approach for the implementation of implicit dynamic feedback estimators. Other feedback control techniques could be employed to improve the reliability of applications based on this estimation method. This paper presents an implicit dynamic feedback estimation approach based on sliding mode controllers (SMC) for industrial tracking simulation systems. In contrast to PI controllers, SMC controllers can be more easily tuned and they are robust against uncertainties related to the simulation model behavior and measurement noise. In this work, the SMC-based approach for estimation of tracking simulation systems is described, implemented and tested using a representative laboratory-scale process.


This paper gives a non-linear growth model, which explains the development of an economy through stages somewhat similar to the Rostovian stages. Non-linearity is introduced by including the inaugmentable factor of land or natural resources in the production function along with labor and capital, and by recognising that net saving is not a linear homogeneous function of income alone, but might be affected by the distribution of income and the interest rate and tends to be negative when per capita income is very low. Furthermore, population growth is assumed to follow a NeoMalthusian pattern. The effects of non-neutral as well as neutral technical progress are discussed in this paper.


The prevalence of IBS varies from 12 to 30% worldwide. Several studies suggested negative effect of IBS on the health related quality of life (HR-QoL). Workers started measuring the effect of IBS on the HR-QoL with several assessment and evaluation instruments.   objective of this study is to assess and evaluate the effect of IBS on the HR-QoL among Sudanese patients using generic Arabic translated questionnaire. This is a descriptive and cross sectional survey study in which 613 patients were enrolled (293 male (47.8%), 320 females (52.8%). All Participants meet the Rome criteria-II for IBS.  Data was collected via structured questionnaire with 25 questions on the quality of life (25-IBSQoL). There was 67.35% of the study population whom, at least, agreed that IBS is a health worry; (53.48%) were agreed that IBS restricted their activity and social life; 56.83% agreed that IBS affecting their emotional mode. 37.75% of the study population agreed that IBS affecting their sexual life This study concluded that the IBS negatively affecting the quality of life of Sudanese patients in this study in a variable manner. Participants seemed to lack the knowledge and awareness of their condition. Keyword: IBS, quality of life, Sudanese, questionnaire.


Four meanings of medical necessity have emerged, evolved, and dominated past and current health policy debates about the appropriate level of service coverage under Canada's health insurance program. To explore the shift in definition, provincial government and national health care association position papers responding to federal legislative and policy reviews of Canada's health insurance program from 1957 to 1984 were examined, as were more current reports on medical necessity. Four meanings of medical necessity predominated: "what doctors and hospitals do"; "the maximum we can afford"; "what is scientifically justified"; and "what is consistently funded across all provinces." These meanings changed with time as different stakeholder associations and governments redefined the concept of medical necessity to achieve different policy objectives for health service coverage under Canada's health insurance program.


Novel self-testable pressure sensors based on phase change have been fabricated. The sensors were built in a glass-silicon-glass sandwich structure. Water acted as the phase change material (PCM) was injected into the cavity of the pressure sensor. Applying voltage to the heating resistor, the PCM boiled. The vapor produced by phase change can produce high enough self-testable output. Therefore, the method had been used for large-scale pressure sensors. The design and simulation of the new structure, the main fabrication process, and the experimental results on the self-testable function were presented. The self-testable output is up to 3.0% of the full-scale output


Are you looking for a book to use in your small group or Sunday class? Do you interact with people who think the Bible can be used to say whatever we want? Are you ready for a refresher in the basics of solid evangelical henneneutics? Then here's the book for you! Anyone who wants to use the Bible accurately would benefit from reading and using Stein's Playing by the Rules. Robert Stein is professor of New Testament at Bethel Theological Seminary. He has published several books on hermeneutics, focusing in particular on the gospels. Playing by Rules condenses some of his earlier work for a general audience. His inclusion of many useful diagrams aids this. However, Stein has also added new material to address recent trends in interpretation. He views the goal of interpretation as discovering what the text "means" (p. 18). But where does this meaning come from? Our postmodem culture claims that the text can mean one thing to me and another to you. In other words, the reader is the source of meaning. Stein cogently refutes this idea and makes a strong defense of the traditional view that the author gives a text its meaning. His book develops the rules by which we, the readers, can most accurately discover that meaning. Stein's second chapter is basically a glossary of the most important technical terms used in the book. This is very useful as it clarifies his vocabulary before confusion occurs. This chapter alone is a useful reference to have. He also has an interesting chapter on the Spirit's involvement in hermeneutics. His analysis of 1 Cor. 2: 14 is both a good example of how to apply his rules and also shows that the Spirit's role is not "to cover for laziness in the study of the Word of God" (p. 70)! While the first part of his book focuses on general rules for interpretation, the second examines eleven literary forms found in the Bible. His points are clear and concise, often arranged into guidelines for practical use. These sections contain many examples. One thing which was missing, how-


Hanyu Pinyin (Romanised Mandarin) is used in the teaching and learning of Mandarin as a third language in UiTM. As the time allocated for teaching Hanyu Pinyin is insufficient for learners many of whom are exposed to Mandarin for the first time to satisfactorily comprehend the intricacies of its sound system, therefore it is necessary to devise some self-learning materials for learners to enable them to control and monitor their learning process in the absence of facilitator. In order to create an environment conducive for self learning Hanyu Pinyin, a web-based instruction is suggested to incorporate into the curriculum. This is an internet enabled web-based instruction. It generally applies to any kind of instructional materials delivered over the Internet accessed by browser-equipped computer users. The specify objective of this project is to design a web based instruction (WBI) especially for Bumiputra Mandarin learners. The WBI is the instructional materials that are used in the learning system that involves the network operation center (NOC), the WWW resources, the learners, instructors and the regularly conducted lectures of fulltime teaching staff. This instruction is designed on the basis of ISD (Instructional system design) methodology. This approach involves four phases; 1.analysis and design, 2.development, 3.implementation and 4.evaluation of the instruction. Eventually, the effectiveness of the instruction was evaluated. This research also discusses some limitations and constraints that were discovered, at the sometimes some recommendations are proposed to overcome the limitations for the future research.


Finite element model updating of a Westland Lynx XZ649 helicopter tail is presented. Eigenvalue sensitivities with respect to Young's modulus and mass density are used. Large groups based on material input data were divided to form smaller subgroups so that those parts of the model responsible for errors in the predicted eigenvalues were located. A particular new development was the use of parameter clustering based on the similarity of different columns of the sensitivity matrix. Finally the finite element model was updated successfully with regard to the lower frequency tail-bending modes.


For many causes of death a negative educational gradient has been found. This association may be partly explained by confounding factors that affect both education attainment and mortality. We correct the cause-specific educational gradient for observed individual background and unobserved family factors, using an innovative method based on months lost due to a specific cause of death re-weighted by the probability to attain a higher education level. We use men with brothers in the Swedish Military Conscription Registry (1951-1983), linked to administrative Swedish registers. These data, comprising 700,000 men, allow us to distinguish five education levels and many causes of death. The empirical results reveal that improving education from primary to higher education would lead to 20 months longer survival between 18 and 63. The reduction in death due to external causes when improving education is attributable to most of these gains. Ignoring confounding would underestimate the educational gains, especially for the low educated. Implied by our results is that if 50,000 men from the 1951 cohort had had the 1983 education distribution they would have saved 22% of the person-years between ages 18 and 63 that were lost to death.


3D-SOC technology has significant performance and power gains over 2D as interconnects can be shortened significantly. To accrue full benefits of reduced interconnect lengths large designs need to be partitioned into several dies. In this work we propose a hypergraph based multi-objective circuit partitioning scheme for 3D-SOCs that simultaneously reduces the number of inter die connections, which use through silicon vias (TSVs), and reduces additional DFT logic needed for pre-bond test of dies. An Ordered Block hypergraph partitioning scheme is proposed to achieve these objectives. Experimental results on several industrial circuits demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.


Abstract Background: Recently, coffee consumption has been related to decreased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) among those with high levels of serum γ-glutamyltransferase (GGT). We examined the association between coffee and glucose tolerance, determined by a 75 g oral glucose tolerance test, and the effect modification of serum GGT on the association. Methods: The study subjects were 5320 men aged 46–60 years who received a health examination at two Self-Defense Forces hospitals from January 1997 to March 2004. Those medicated for DM were excluded. Coffee consumption was classified into <1, 1–2, 3–4, and ≥5 cups/day. Statistical adjustment was made for age, body mass index, smoking, alcohol use, leisure-time physical activity, green tea consumption, parental diabetes, hospital, and rank in the Self-Defense Forces. Results: Men with normal glucose tolerance, isolated impaired fasting glucose (IFG), isolated impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), combined IFG/IGT, and type 2 DM numbered 3384, 398, 790, 348, and 400, respectively. The prevalence odds of isolated IGT, combined IFG/IGT, and type 2 DM, but not of isolated IFG, decreased with increasing consumption of coffee. An inverse association with coffee was observed for isolated IGT in both low (≤40 IU/L) and high (>40 IU/L) GGT groups, and for combined IFG/IGT and type 2 DM in the latter group. Conclusions: Coffee drinking is protective against glucose intolerance. A possible effect modification of GGT on the coffee-DM association warrants further studies.


This paper deals with a combined analytical-numerical approach for the study of the steady-state and transient behaviour of three-phase transformers. This approach based on magnetic equivalent circuits, takes into account the nonlinear B-H curve. The nonlinear B-H curve is constituted by a set of measurement data and can be represented by a Fourier series or by a polynomial representation. For the numerical simulations, two methods have been developed, by considering the total magnetic fluxes respectively the currents as state variables. Analytical expressions of all the self and mutual inductances are expressed in function of the magnetic reluctances of the cores. The approach has been verified on small and large distribution transformers for different steady-state cases of no-load, symmetrical and unsymmetrical loads as well as no-load switching. Numerical results compared with test results and with 2D FEM computations confirm the validity of the present approach. The present approach has been developed and applied on ten vector groups for three-limb core ('core-type') 3-phase transformers


Environmental social work and related terms have been used widely to describe an approach to social work practice that is founded on ecological justice principles. However, practice applications of environmental social work are scant and there are various terms and a range of interpretations of the practice that exist. Using a concept analysis framework, we identify the attributes and characteristics of environmental social work, develop an operational definition and use a case study to illustrate the practice of environmental social work. In this way, we seek to improve clarity, consistency and understanding of environmental social work practice among educators, practitioners and researchers. In essence, environmental social work assists humanity to create and sustain a biodiverse planetary ecosystem and does this by adapting existing social work methods to promote societal change.


The rapid growth in the integration of renewable energy sources (RES) such as wind and solar, promoted by environmental and economic (environmic) incentives, can lead to the current/voltage congestion problem when the distribution lines/cables can no longer accommodate the produced (green) power. This is a substantial challenges for distribution system operators (DSOs). For this problem, curtailing the excessive wind power, and/or expanding the capacity of the distribution lines/cables are possible (but not preferred) solutions. In an active network management scheme, energy storage can be effectively used as a short-term solution for the congestion management. This paper proposes an optimization formulation to assess the techno-economic possibility of employing storage, from DSO point of view, such that the amount of wind curtailment is minimized, and the congestion is avoided. A realistic test system is used with measured load and wind profile data across a year. The calculated optimal storage sizes and the corresponding net present values (NPVs) are compared with "do nothing" scenario in which the the excessive wind power is simply curtailed to alleviate the congestion.


Aims: Marine macroalgae are the rich source of biologically active metabolites and potential source for development of novel biotechnological products. The present study was made to explore the metabolically active compounds from the macroalgae of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Methods and Material: Different solvents such as methanol (MeOH), ethyl acetate (EtoAc), butanol (BuOH) and aqueous (H2O) extracts of nine macroalgae were tested for antimicrobial, antibiofilm and cytotoxicity (brine shrimp larvae). Results: Out of the 36 extracts 27 extracts showed antimicrobial activity against the human pathogens and 14 extracts revealed antibiofilm activities. The three EtoAc extracts of Sargassum ilicifolium, MeOH extract of Sargassum sp. and MeOH extract of Padina tetrastromatica showed inhibition against 8 pathogenic bacteria. Also, aqueous extract of Padina tetrastromatica (71.82 %) and BuOH extract of Dictyosphaeria cavernosa (71.58 %) exhibited higher antibiofilm nature. The highest cytotoxic effect was exhibited by species Actinotrichia fragilis and all its four extracts significantly (P<0.01) inhibited the brine shrimp larvae, among this aqueous extract showed the lowest LC50 value, 31.7 μg/ml, followed by EtoAc extract, 89.33 μg/ml. Conclusion: It was observed that different species have different kind of bioactive nature.


Abstract Interactions are at the core of many ecological and evolutionary forces in nature. Plant–soil interactions provide a rich example of the interconnectedness of living systems, but they are hidden from everyday view and overshadowed in the classroom by more popular teaching examples involving animals, reptiles, or invertebrates. To highlight the importance and relevance of plant–soil relationships, we devised a simple role-playing activity suitable for college students. Specifically, the activity simulates how feedbacks between plants and soil environments influence plant species abundance and community richness. With this activity, students will gain a better understanding of these prolific, but overlooked, forms of biological interactions that impact the diversity and functioning of ecosystems.


Administration on Aging and the Indian Health Service are developing or examining the feasibility of programs to support home health care on reservations and American Indian colleges are training home care paraprofessionals to provide high quality home care for frail American Indian elders. Home care links formal and informal systems of health care and is affected by social and cultural issues. These macro-level considerations provide a context for home care of cancer patients and are the focus of this article.


Sensational spikes and high-flying blocks make for great photos, but top volleyball coaches know that solid skills and teamwork are what win championships. And the place to learn those fundamentals and tactics is in practice. Competitive drills that have well-defined goals produce greater effort and performance on the practice court, which in turn leads to the individual development and team cohesiveness required to be a champion.Now, seven of the world's top coaches have put together an all-star collection of practice activities in "Volleyball Drills for Champions." Each drill is a winner and will help maximize every minute of practice time. It's the perfect tool for developing championship-level players and teams. This invaluable practice manual covers every facet of the game, as each coach provides several proven drills for each key volleyball skill: -Serving: Russ Rose, Pennsylvania State University-Passing: Lisa Love, University of Southern California-Setting: John Dunning, University of the Pacific-Attacking: Brad Saindon, Australia National Team-Blocking: Greg Giovanazzi, University of Michigan-Digging: Jim Stone, Ohio State UniversityIn addition, editor Mary Wise, head coach at the University of Florida, contributes valuable insights for designing drills and incorporating them into effective practice sessions. Now, with "Volleyball Drills for Champions," you can learn from the best and make your practices more productive every time you take the court.


Major depression is a common comorbidity associated with ischemic heart disease (IHD). There is growing evidence that psychological stress in general and depression in particular predispose to cardiovascular disease. Persons who have mental stress during daily life are at twice the risk of myocardial ischemia, and patients with post-myocardial infarction depression have higher mortality rates than nondepressed controls. These data suggest a psychophysiologic mechanism underlying the vulnerability of depressed patients to IHD. Clinical studies have demonstrated that depression is associated with a much higher risk of both cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, which could be caused by platelet activation. Physicians should maintain a heightened level of clinical suspicion for depression and depressive disorders in persons with IHD, particularly those individuals who are recovering from an acute ischemic event, such as myocardial infarction. Furthermore, depression may complicate the recovery of IHD, but in most cases depression can be effectively treated with antidepressant agents.


The article focuses on the issue of self-actualization in children and adolescents with intellectual disability. It demonstrates the importance of fostering a positive personality potential to enhance self-actualization capacity. The article discusses the role of the close and broad social environment in supporting successful activities of mentally challenged children and adolescents. It stresses the need to design custom activity-based environments to ensure self-actualization of the mentally handicapped. It provides data from several empirical studies covered by the same approach.


Why do some cities join transnational climate change networks while others do not? This study examines the factors that drive cities' participation in transnational climate change networks, such as the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and the Cities for Climate Protection program. Hierarchical analysis of 256 cities in 118 countries suggests that the degree of cities' globalization, or their level of "global cityness," is positively associated with the cities' membership in the global networks. The level of individual cities' integration into the international economy and transportation grid is crucial for sharing ideas of global environmental responsibility. This tendency is found both in global cities of both developing and developed countries. Hierarchical models also suggest that attributes of cities—not country attributes such as democracy, income level, and being an Annex I country under the Kyoto Protocol—account for cities' memberships in transnational networks.


DNA adsorption is the initial stage of gene therapy for drug delivery systems and solid phase extraction methods of DNA purification. High pore volume and high adsorption capacity are simple requirements not only for producing 'smart' drug delivery systems but also the development of purification kits. Silica is the most used material for this purpose. The present study aimed at elucidating the calf thymus DNA biosorption process by the characterization of calf thymus DNA and silica to increase the efficiency of the currently used silica material. Mesoporous silica has long been used for DNA adsorption and silica aerogel is the new adsorbent investigated in the present study. When DNA solution was freeze dried on a silica wafer, self-assembled super helices formed as shown by atomic microscopy (AFM). Thus DNA existed not as single molecules but as large sized agglomerates in water. Thus it could be adsorbed in the macropores and on the external surface of adsorbents. Adsorption of calf thymus DNA to a silica aerogel, a mesoporous silica gel and a silica wafer was investigated in the present study. Silica aerogel was synthesized from TEOS by a supercritical ethanol drying process. The DNA adsorption capacity of the silica aerogel was nearly two times that of the mesoporous silica gel due to its macroporous structure and its higher silanol content. Silica aerogel was found to be a very promising material for DNA adsorption. Therefore silica aerogel can be considered as a good candidate for the delivery of DNA.


Abstract The aim of this paper is to construct a fractal with the help of a finite family of F− contraction mappings, a class of mappings more general than contraction mappings, defined on a complete metric space. Consequently, we obtain a variety of results for iterated function systems satisfying a different set of contractive conditions. Some examples are presented to support the results proved herein. Our results unify, generalize and extend various results in the existing literature.


Mobile-Dose has been designed for a very innovative use: the integration in a robotic machinery for automatic preparation of radioactive doses, to be injected to patients in Nuclear Medicine Departments, with real time measurement of the activity under preparation. Mobile-Dose gives a constant measurement of the dose during the filling of vials or syringes, triggering the end of the filling process based on a predefined dose limit. Several applications of Mobile-Dose have been delivered worldwide, from Italian hospitals and clinics to European and Japanese ones. The design of such an instrument and its integration in robotic machineries, was required by an Italian company specialised in radiation protection tools for nuclear applications, in the period 2001-2003. At the time of its design, apparently no commercial instruments with a suitable interfacing capability to the external world existed: we designed it in order to satisfy all the strict requirements coming from the medical aspects (precision within 10%, repeatability, stability, time response) and from the industrial conceiving principles that are mandatory to ensure a good reliability in such a complicated environment. The instrument is suitable to be used in standalone mode too, thanks to its portability and compactness and to the intelligent operator panel programmed for this purpose.


Abstract. In this paper, we present Par@Graph, a software toolbox to reconstruct and analyze complex climate networks having a large number of nodes (up to at least 106) and edges (up to at least 1012). The key innovation is an efficient set of parallel software tools designed to leverage the inherited hybrid parallelism in distributed-memory clusters of multi-core machines. The performance of the toolbox is illustrated through networks derived from sea surface height (SSH) data of a global high-resolution ocean model. Less than 8 min are needed on 90 Intel Xeon E5-4650 processors to reconstruct a climate network including the preprocessing and the correlation of 3 × 105 SSH time series, resulting in a weighted graph with the same number of vertices and about 3.2 × 108 edges. In less than 14 min on 30 processors, the resulted graph's degree centrality, strength, connected components, eigenvector centrality, entropy and clustering coefficient metrics were obtained. These results indicate that a complete cycle to construct and analyze a large-scale climate network is available under 22 min Par@Graph therefore facilitates the application of climate network analysis on high-resolution observations and model results, by enabling fast network reconstruct from the calculation of statistical similarities between climate time series. It also enables network analysis at unprecedented scales on a variety of different sizes of input data sets.


Background: The treatment of HIV infection during pregnancy significantly and substantially reduces the risk of mother‐to‐child transmission. Although triple therapy is the standard of care for management of HIV infection in adults, the safety of many approved antiretroviral agents in pregnancy is not currently established. Methodology: An open‐label pilot study conducted in Thailand and the UK of the safety of saquinavir soft‐gel capsules 1200 mg three times daily administered in the second and third trimester of pregnancy in combination with local standard‐of‐care antiretroviral therapy. Infants received local standard‐of‐care antiretroviral therapy after delivery. Steady‐state pharmacokinetics were performed in a subset of mothers at 4 weeks after the commencement of saquinavir therapy and paired samples collected from the mother and infant cord blood at delivery. Results: Eighteen antiretroviral‐naive pregnant women with a mean viral load of 4.2 log10 and CD4 cell count of 481/mm3 were recruited. All patients received zidovudine and 3 (all in the UK) received lamivudine. There were no serious adverse events and no discontinuations due to adverse events. Viral load declined by 1.6 log10 at week 4 and was less than 400 copies/mL at delivery in 16/17 mothers. Sixteen live births were recorded, with two in utero deaths—one secondary to an accident and the second due to antiphospholipid syndrome. Both deaths were considered by investigators to be unrelated to study therapy. All infants were HIV negative at subsequent follow‐up and no fetal abnormalities were observed. Pharmacokinetic data suggested that mothers had relatively low exposures to saquinavir despite an excellent virologic response. Saquinavir was not detected in cord blood. Discussion: Saquinavir soft‐gel capsules are well tolerated during pregnancy and are not associated in this small study with birth abnormalities. Transmission of HIV infection from mother to child was successfully prevented in all cases. Low maternal exposures of saquinavir were noted. However, these did not appear to affect virologic efficacy of the combination. Samples from cord blood indicate minimal fetal exposure to saquinavir.


An experiment was conducted at the Agronomy farm of the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science (IAAS), Rampur, Nepal in 2008/09. The experiment was laid out in factorial design in spit plot arrangement consisting of date of sowing as main factor and wheat genotypes as sub factor. Wheat genotypes were sown in 22 November for normal sowing and 29 December for late sowing condition. These were assessed against Helminthosporium leaf blight and leaf rust severity in a naturally inoculated environment. Result showed that wheat genotypes differed significantly with respect to flag leaf area, flag leaf duration and plant height. Genotype BL-3064 showed the lower decline (624.9 to 615.1) in chlorophyll content whereas RR-21 showed highest decline (471.2 to 360.4) in chlorophyll content from normal to late sowing, possibly contributing to resistant to the disease. The AUDPC value revealed that genotypes BL-3625 and BL-3623 had increased level of resistance due to lower AUDPC value and higher flag leaf duration. The results of this study suggest that genotypes BL-3623, BL-3625, BL-3063 and BL-3064 could be the option in warm and humid regions of Terai condition so far as resistant to Helminthosporium leaf blight and leaf rust are concerned. Agronomy Journal of Nepal (Agron JN) Vol. 3. 2013, Page 109-116 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/ajn.v3i0.9012


The energy consumption for space cooling is growing faster than for any other end use in buildings, more than tripling between 1990 and 2016. The efficient use of energy is important to reduce the consumption of electricity of conventional air conditioning. This chapter presents a thermal analysis of absorption and adsorption chillers for conditioning the airspace in a building, controlling the hot maximum temperature at the generator input with a modulating tempering valve (MTV) programmed in TRNSYS and Excel software. The energy performance of the system was maximized based on the tilt of the solar collector, storage tank specific volume, and input generator temperature. The results showed that 35 and 27 l/m 2 of specific volume is a good choice for absorption and adsorption chiller without MTV, and 23 and 22 l/m 2 were selected absorption and absorption chillers using the MTV at a fixed tilt angle of 7° of the solar collector and selecting a minimum temperature at the generator input of 111 and 109°C for absorption chiller without and with MTV, respectively, and 75°C for adsorption chiller without and with MTV. The use of MTV represented a significant reduction of the heater energy for both chillers, mainly for absorption chiller.