This study
presents a boosted vehicle detection system. It first hypothesizes potential
locations of vehicles to reduce the computational costs by a statistic of the edge
intensity and symmetry, then verifies the accuracy of the hypotheses using
AdaBoost and Probabilistic Decision-Based Neural Network (PDBNN) classifiers,
which exploit local and global features of vehicles, respectively. The
combination of 2 classifiers can be used to learn the complementary relationship
between local and global features, and it gains an extremely low false positive
rate while maintaining a high detection rate. For the MIT Center for Biological
& Computational Learning (CBCL) database, a 96.3% detection rate leads to a
false alarm rate of approximately 0.0013%. The objective of this study is to
extract the characteristic of vehicles in both local- and global-orientation,
and model the implicit invariance of vehicles. This boosted approach provides a
more effective solution to handle the problems encountered by conventional
background-based detection systems. The experimental results of this study
prove that the proposed system achieves good performance in detecting vehicles
without background information. The implemented system also extract useful
traffic information that can be used for further processing, such as tracking,
counting, classification, and recognition.


Abstract Background: Gastric ulcer includes benign mucosal and sub-mucosal lesions in the stomach wall. Gastrointestinal ulcers particularly stomach ulcer can be due to increased acid secretion. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of aqueous extract of Satureja hortensis on gastric ulcer induced by acetic acid in rats. Methods: This experimental study was conducted on 60 female wistar rats weighing 200-250 g in the Biology Research Center of Zanjan, 2014. The rats were randomly divided into four groups (control, sham, 50mg/kg Satureja extract, and 80 mg/kg Satureja extract). Rats were operated after 24 hours fasting and gastric ulcers were induced by luminal application of 0.12 ml acetic acid solution (60%). On the first, fourth, seventh, tenth, and fourteenth days after oral administration of the Satureja hortensis extract, the stomach was excised (the rats related to any special day had received the extract separately) and the ulcer size was measured. Data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA. Findings: Using the aqueous extract of Satureja hortensis resulted in significant ulcer healing in both intervention groups. Mean neutrophil, macrophage, and fibroblast count on the seventh, tenth and 14th day of intervention was significantly decreased in the intervention groups compared to the fourth day and compared to the control and sham groups. Conclusion: With regards to the results, it seems that the aqueous extract of Satureja hortensisis has significant healing effect on gastric ulcer induced by acetic acid.


Vegetation coverage is an important indicator in regional ecological environment monitoring and plays a key role in its quality assessment. We consider Landsat7 ETM+ in 2000 and Landsat8 in 2016 as data sources using a different time phase partial image substitution method to eliminate cloud effects and an NDVI dimidiate pixel model to invert the vegetation coverage of the two time phases. We further classify them into five grades, provide statistics and analyse the areas of different grades at different time periods, while monitoring the spatial evolution of vegetation coverage over the past 16 years in Tongren. Experimental results showed that: (1) the different time phase partial image substitution method could reduce the influence of clouds on vegetation extraction; (2) in Tongren, the vegetation coverage area was decreased from 17,300.1 km2 to 17,224.8 km2 (i.e. decreased by 75.3 km2); (3) the areas of grade I and V increased by 0.42% and 15.08%, respectively, whereas the areas of grade II, III and IV decreased by 3.15%, 6.98% and 5.37%, respectively, which indicates that most of the area containing lower amount of vegetation gradually altered into an area containing a higher coverage of vegetation, whereas a few areas became bare land; and (4) the vegetation areas decreased due to expansion of cities and construction of dams, while vegetation increased due to the cultivation of crops and trees. Research shows that the overall evolution of vegetation coverage in Tongren is considerably good. However, while undertaking future development in the mountainous Karst region, one should be aware of the land's intensive use and environmental protection.


Caofeidian is a large harbor being constructed in north of China. It is greatly meaningful to investigate the pollution situation of this area. In this paper, firstly, a tidal flow and pollutant transport numerical model based on Delft 3D-FLOW was established and verified by measured data to simulate and analyze phosphate distribution in Caofeidian sea area. Then, phosphate concentration under six hydrological conditions (spring, middle and neap tides of flood season; and spring, middle and neap tides of dry season) was computed by this numerical model, and the comparisons were made between the computed phosphate concentration at the boundary of the mixing zones and corresponding water quality standards. At last, the allowances discharge amount and cut rate of phosphate of each outfall was calculated. The results show that the high phosphate concentration appears the sea area around the river outlets of Douhe and Shahe, and the phosphate concentration of Douhe and Shuanglonghe rivers' mixing zones exceed their allowed standard values, the total phosphate discharge from these rivers must be cut down.


We present an interactive graphical user interface for textile displays. While electronic displays are emerging in a variety of domains their interfaces have not kept pace with their use. Our work has resulted in an intuitive interface on cloth, a common surface present in numerous user settings, including a wide variety of medical settings. In addition to using cloth as a display mechanism, our interface allows interaction with the interface, by direct manipulation of the cloth. Interaction gestures flow from the cloth metaphor, and include natural actions such as pinching and stretching the cloth surface, as well as more traditional interactions such as touch. We discuss the design and development process behind creating our prototype interface, and treat in significant detail the development of our gestured interactions. We go on to describe applications for our system, which include applications for every-day users, as well as expert users in the medical domain. Finally we include user feedback on our interface, and with this feedback we discuss our conclusions and examine areas for future work.


Purpose: Psychological interventions targeting fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) are effective in reducing fear and distress. Process evaluations are an important, yet scarce adjunct to published intervention trials, despite their utility in guiding the interpretation of study outcomes and optimizing intervention design for broader implementation. Accordingly, this paper reports the findings of a process evaluation conducted alongside a randomized controlled trial of a psychological intervention for melanoma patients. Methods: Men and women with a history of Stage 0–II melanoma at high-risk of developing new primary disease were recruited via High Risk Melanoma Clinics across Sydney, Australia and randomly allocated to receive the psychological intervention (n = 80) or usual care (n = 84). Intervention participants received a tailored psycho-educational resource and three individual psychotherapeutic sessions delivered via telehealth. Qualitative and quantitative data on intervention context, processes, and delivery (reach, dose, and fidelity), and mechanisms of impact (participant responses, moderators of outcome) were collected from a range of sources, including participant surveys, psychotherapeutic session audio-recordings, and clinical records. Results: Almost all participants reported using the psycho-educational resource (97%), received all intended psychotherapy sessions (96%), and reported high satisfaction with both intervention components. Over 80% of participants would recommend the intervention to others, and a small proportion (4%) found discussion of melanoma-related experiences confronting. Perceived benefits included enhanced doctor-patient communication, talking more openly with family members about melanoma, and improved coping. Of potential moderators, only higher FCR severity at baseline (pre-intervention) was associated with greater reductions in FCR severity (primary outcome) at 6-month follow-up (primary endpoint). Conclusions: Findings support the acceptability and feasibility of a psychological intervention to reduce FCR amongst individuals at high risk of developing another melanoma. Implementation into routine melanoma care is an imperative next step, with FCR screening recommended to identify those most likely to derive the greatest psychological benefit.


The use of optimization techniques to satisfy a set of specifications Is becoming more common. However, these processes may fail if the initial device, when considered with the specifications is "over-constrained." This paper proposes an approach to identifying this form of failure through the use of Case-Based Reasoning and three inter-related models of the device (structural, behavioral and mathematical). When a potential failure is found, the system makes structural changes to the device to bypass the failure.


Human peripheral blood monocytes maintained in culture for 18 h were examined for killing of normal human keratinocytes and squamous carcinoma cells. Keratinocytes grown under conditions which maintain the undifferentiated state were highly sensitive to killing but these cells became resistant to killing after induction of differentiation. A line of squamous carcinoma cells obtained from an undifferentiated tumor (designated as UM-SCC-11B) was sensitive to killing while a second line obtained from a more well-differentiated tumor (designated as UM-SCC-22B) was resistant. Several observations suggested that interaction of monocytes with the squamous epithelial cells was mediated, in part, through thrombospondin (TSP). Monocytes synthesized TSP and were positive by immunofluorescence for surface TSP. The normal and malignant squamous epithelial cells also expressed surface TSP as well as unoccupied TSP receptors and our previous studies have shown that both TSP and its receptor are much more prominently displayed on the undifferentiated cells than on the differentiated cells. A series of anti-TSP monoclonal antibodies inhibited killing. These included an antibody directed against the Mr 25,000 NH2-terminal region of the molecule which has heparin-binding activity and three antibodies the epitopes of which lie within the Mr 140,000 non-heparin-binding fragment of TSP. High concentrations of exogenously added TSP as well as the recombinant form of the heparin-binding domain from the TSP molecule also partially inhibited killing while laminin and fibronectin were ineffective. Taken together, these data suggest that TSP and TSP receptors on monocytes and squamous epithelial cells play a role in monocyte-mediated killing of the squamous epithelial cells.


Information technology outsourcing (ITO) continues to be an important market and research topic in 2016. The client-vendor relationship has been identified as one of the key driver to foster successful outsourcing engagements. But another stakeholder besides client and vendor that presumably highly influences this relationship is neglected in ITO research so far: the advisor. This research-in-progress paper propose to investigate how and why advisory services impact the relationship of clients and vendors and the project success in ITO engagements. To answer our research question, we build on principal-agent theory and social exchange theory as our theoretical lenses to explain the impact of advisory services on the client-vendor relationship. We develop our preliminary research model with three hypotheses and introduce our research design using a case study-based, mixed-method approach. Our planned outcome is a model explaining the role of advisors for improving ITO success. We conclude with an outlook about our next steps and the study's planned contributions.


Inductive logic programming (ILP) is a subfield of machine learning that uses logic programming as its input and output language. While the language of logic programming places ILP as one of the most expressive approaches to machine learning, it also causes the space of candidate solutions to be potentially infinite. ILP systems therefore need to be able to efficiently search through a possibly infinite space, often imposing limits on the hypothesis language in order to be able to handle large problems. We address two problems in the domain of bottom-up ILP systems: their inability to use negation and their efficiency.
Bottom-up approaches to ILP rely on the concept of bottom clauses of examples. Bottom clause of a given example includes all known positive facts about it in the background knowledge, causing a bottom-up ILP system to be unable to reason with negation. One approach that enables such systems to use negation is the closed world specialisation (CWS). The method attempts to learn rules that hold for incorrectly covered negative examples, and then adds the negated rule to the hypothesis body. In this manner the use of negation is enabled using only positive facts. Existing uses of CWS use it to further specialise the output theory, which consists of clauses containing only positive literals that achieved the best scores. We show that such application of CWS is prone to lead to suboptimal solutions and provide two alternative uses of CWS inside of the hypothesis generation process. We implemented the two approaches as the ProGolemNot and ProGolemNRNot ILP systems, both based on the ProGolem system. We show that the two proposed systems both perform at least as well in terms of achieved accuracies as the base ProGolem system or its variant using CWS to further specialise the output hypothesis. Experimental comparison of the two systems also shows that they are equivalent in terms of the quality of their outputs, while Pro-GolemNRNot needs less time to derive the solution.
ILP systems tend to spend most of the time computing the coverage of candidate hypotheses. In bottom-up systems the quantity of candidate hypotheses to be tested also depends on the number of literals in the bottom-clause of a randomly chosen example that forms the lower bound of the search space. In the thesis we define the concept of pairwise saturations. Pairwise saturations allow us to safely remove literals from a given bottom clause under the assumption that the final hypothesis also covers some other randomly chosen example. Safe removal of these literals does not require explicit coverage testing and can be performed faster. We implemented pairwise saturations along with their generalisation to n-wise saturations in the ProParGolem system. Experiments show that the speedups obtained from using pairwise saturations are highly dependent on the background knowledge structure. We observed speedups of up to factor 1.44 without loss of accuracy.
We combine ProGolemNRNot with ProParGolem in ProParGolemNRNot – an ILP system that uses pairwise saturations and CWS. We use ProParGolemNRNot to learn simple geometric concepts using data obtained from simulated depth sensors. In the devised experiment the system can use previously learned concepts to describe new ones. Thee solutions found by the system are intuitively correct and achieve high accuracy on test data.


In our age of ubiquitous digital displays, adults often read in short, opportunistic interludes. In this context of Interlude Reading, we consider if manipulating font choice can improve adult readers' reading outcomes. Our studies normalize font size by human perception and use hundreds of crowdsourced participants to provide a foundation for understanding, which fonts people prefer and which fonts make them more effective readers. Participants' reading speeds (measured in words-per-minute (WPM)) increased by 35% when comparing fastest and slowest fonts without affecting reading comprehension. High WPM variability across fonts suggests that one font does not fit all. We provide font recommendations related to higher reading speed and discuss the need for individuation, allowing digital devices to match their readers' needs in the moment. We provide recommendations from one of the most significant online reading efforts to date. To complement this, we release our materials and tools with this article.


Not only the physical distance of the student to the teacher characterizes Long Distance Learning (LDL) , but also the need of any kind of communication between them. This communication must be provided by some kind of technology. Nowadays the world wide web appears as the best tool to assure this communication, through educational interactive applications. Workflow Modeling has proven to be an appropriate tool to model LDL courses, representing, specifying clearly all the activities to be executed, their relationships and the agents responsible for their execution. This paper presents a method to be usedin LDL courses modeling. The complete workflow to be followed with the aim of creating a new course (authoring workflow) is also presented.


"The student of the future will be an Explorer" says Marshall McLuhan. At its earliest age, school education should have as a primary goal the awareness of learning through research, through discovery and through interdisciplinary activities. The study area of Mathematics is developing towards all these modern purposes. Carl Friedrich Gauss known as the prince of Mathematics, defines the domain as the "Queen of the sciences". He is right. Certain scientific areas such as Theoretical Physics are, in reality, mathematical sciences with axioms that correspond to reality. Researcher in Theoretical Physics, J. M. Jordan, suggests that physical sciences should be considered public knowledge and that Mathematics should be a part of it. The latter shares many similarities with physical sciences from which we mention the usage of hypothesis' logical study. Apart from this, intuition and experiments also play important roles while formulating hypotheses in both mathematics and other sciences. Experimental Mathematics continues to gain an increasing importance among hard sciences due to computerising and simulation. This article aims to be the continuation of the article "Visual solutions for learning in the virtual environment" offering an understanding beyond the written world of mathematical formulas. It is a pleasurable experience of freely experimenting that makes students forget about the boring teaching methods. The article depicts an interactive experience in the virtual environment of educational software.
The use of modern technologies in school is part of the natural evolution of lifelong learning and suggests a natural solution to modern challenges in learning and students' needs. Their integration into the traditional process of teaching-learning-assessment is an opportunity to integrate technological innovations with the interaction and involvement offered by the traditional study methods.
It is not an easy process, but all the difficulties can be overcome. The teacher must feel free to critically respond, but at the same time, creative to new technologies. Under no circumstances, can he/she ignore this aspect if he/she wants to communicate with his/her students.
The real importance of teaching-learning-assessment that combines traditional pedagogical methods with of ICT, is related to potential. This type of learning is an opportunity to create experiences that can provide the proper type of teaching and learning in a specific time and place, for a specific student not only at school, but home as well. This kind of learning could become global, could transcend the formal boundaries of countries and could bring together groups of students from different cultures and meridians. In this context, the usage of the ICT use in school could become one of the major achievements of our century.


BACKGROUND
Children with cancer are reported to experience many symptoms during the cancer trajectory. However, minimal qualitative research has been conducted that explores children's and families' experiences of symptoms. An understanding of the symptom trajectory, grounded in children's and families' experiences, is essential to providing comprehensive and sensitive care to children with cancer and their families.

AIM
This paper reports a study designed to explore and describe the symptom course in childhood cancer as experienced by children and their families.

DESIGN
Guided by the philosophy of interpretive interactionism, a longitudinal qualitative study was undertaken. A purposive sample of 39 families of children with cancer who resided in Western Canada participated. The children ranged in age from 4.5 to 18 years and varied in their cancer diagnoses.

METHODS
Multiple data collection methods included formal and informal interviewing and participant observation. Data were analysed by the constant comparative method. Development of illness narratives added to an understanding of children's and families' experiences.

FINDINGS
A substantive theory entitled 'Children's and Families' Lived Experience of Childhood Cancer Symptoms' emerged from the findings. This depicts the experience of cancer in relation to children's changing symptom trajectory. A core category of the theory, 'passage through the transition periods', shows how changing symptom experiences affected children's and families' ways of being in the world. These were reflected in six transition periods: (1) it is just the flu; (2) it is more than the flu; (3) it hits home; (4) it is nasty; (5) it is not so bad, it is pretty good; and (6) it is 'dragsville'. The changing roles and responsibilities of family members, and how the family existed in the cancer world, varied depending on the transition period through which they were passing.

CONCLUSIONS
Transition periods not only reinforce the dynamic nature of the experience of childhood cancer but, more importantly, show how symptoms can greatly affect the quality of children's and families' day-to-day living. Interpreting cancer in the context of the symptom trajectory provides nurses with a new perspective for understanding childhood cancer, and will assist in the development of symptom relief strategies that will help to contain symptoms and improve overall quality of life for children and families.


Title IX fails to provide the tools or guidelines necessary to equalize opportunities for all student athletes in the collegiate setting despite the government's continuous effort to explain the law. This failure is because judicial precedent has largely developed around the binary proportionality test of compliance. Title IX was originally intended to equalize educational opportunities for male and female students in order to remedy past discrimination in our society. However, the application of Title IX has frequently created fewer opportunities in athletics due to the unintended relationship between the proportionality standard and the social phenomenon that is the commercialization of college sports. This comment will highlight recent historical challenges with Title IX's application in college athletics with a focus on men's gymnastics. This comment proposes that the Office for Civil Rights revoke their policy letter outlining the binary proportionality test, so that universities will be incentivized to use more qualitative measures of compliance. Finally, this comment will highlight developing legal issues with the application of the binary proportionality test on transgender athletes.


The genome of the geminivirus tomato golden mosaic virus (TGMV) consists of two circular DNA molecules designated as components A and B. We have constructed Nicotiana benthamiana plants that are transgenic for the three overlapping open reading frames, AL1, AL2, and AL3, from the left side of TGMV A. In the transgenic plants, the AL open reading frames are under the control of the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) 35S promoter. In TGMV infectivity assays, seven of 10 transgenic lines complemented TGMV A variants with mutations in AL1, AL2, or AL3 when co-inoculated with the B component. The 35S-AL construct was transcribed as a single RNA species in the transgenic plants, indicating that AL1, AL2, and AL3 were expressed from a polycistronic mRNA. This differs from the complex transcription pattern in TGMV-infected plants, which contains five AL transcripts. There was no quantitative correlation between the efficiency of complementation in the infectivity assay and the level of expression of transgenic AL RNA in the leaves of a transgenic line. One line that failed to complement defects in AL1, AL2, and AL3 in infectivity assays contained high levels of transgenic AL RNA and functional AL1 protein. These results provide evidence that chromosomal position can affect the cell- and tissue-specific transcription of the 35S promoter in transgenic plants. Comparison of the complementing plants and wild-type infected plants may provide insight into the TGMV infection process and the use of the CaMV 35S promoter for gene expression in transgenic plants.


Banter utterances can always switch from a face-enhancing to a face-threatening or aggressive act. Little is known about the prosodic expression of genuine (derogatory) vs. mock (supportive) impoliteness in German and Polish. To determine whether the face-enhancing vs. face-threatening realizations of an utterance correlate with specific accent patterns and different prosodic cues in the speech signal, four utterances were recorded by four German and four Polish speakers (2f/2m for each language) in the two attitude conditions, derogatory vs. supportive. Acoustic analysis reveals that derogatory utterances are characterized by higher intensity and lower f0 variability (expressed as f0 standard deviation) in both languages. Polish speakers employ a wider intensity range than German speakers. German speakers produce their supportive utterances at a faster tempo. It was also found that the languages differ in the nuclear pitch-accent types used in the different conditions. The Polish speakers show a strong preference for rising accent patterns in the supportive and falling patterns in the derogatory condition. In a perception experiment, 29 German and 49 Polish subjects rated the 32 utterances recorded in their language on an uncalibrated 'degree-of-friendliness' scale. The results confirm that listeners are able to discriminate between genuine and mock impoliteness. Index Terms : mock impoliteness, genuine impoliteness, intonation, prosody, Polish, German


By means of an effective equation model for the propagation of pressure waves in a bubbly liquid, the normal modes of oscillation of regions of bubbly liquid in an otherwise pure liquid are calculated for some simple geometries. It is shown that the frequencies of oscillation of such bubble clouds can be much lower than those of the constituent bubbles in isolation and fall well within the range where substantial wind-dependent noise is observed in the ocean. A comparison with some experimental data strongly supports the theoretical results. >


Correlation between gramidicin C biosynthesis and sporulation in the process of Bac. brevis var. G.B. cultivation under various aeration conditions was studied. It was shown that biosynthesis of gramicidin C was characteristic of the young cells and its level was the highest during the culture active growth. The time of the sporulating forms appearance depended on the aeration rate which defined the quantitative composition of the population during the phase of the culture active growth and the stationary phase. Under the optimal aeration conditions the spore formation started during the phase of the culture active growth after some decrease in the maximum level of the cell productivity with respect to the antibiotic. When the aeration rate was increased the spore formation was shifted to later periods of the culture development, i.e. the stationary phase and the phase of the cell autolysis, the gap between the highest levels of gramicidin C buosynthesis and the beginning of sporulation being increased. Under certain aeration conditions the spore formation was not observed, while gramicidin C was synthesized. A conclusion has been made that there is no correlation between gramacidine C biosynthesis and sporualtion in Bacillus brevis var. G.B.


Reliable prediction of fatigue crack growth rates in aerospace materials and components underpins the so-called defect-tolerant approach to lifing. In this methodology the presence or appearance of defects and cracks in components is accepted. However, safe operation is guaranteed by regular inspections and health monitoring, and ensuring (by means of reliable modelling) that no crack may grow far enough to reach the critical size in the interval between inspections. Under such circumstances it is clear that particular attention has to be paid to the development and validation of predictive modelling capabilities for fatigue crack propagation. The situation is complicated by the fact that it is often a challenge to represent correctly the in-service loading experienced by a cracked component. In practice, on top of the major cycles associated with each flight (LCF component), cycles of higher frequency and lower amplitude are also present (HCF component). Sensitivity to dwell at maximum load is also often observed. Furthermore, it is well established that complex load sequences involving overloads and underloads result in fluctuations of fatigue crack growth rates (retardation and acceleration) that must be accounted for in crack growth calculations. In the present study we consider the application of an approach due to Noroozi et al. [1] to the analysis of R-ratio effects in Ti-6Al-4V material, on the basis of the experimental crack growth rate data collected under the auspices of AGARD programme [2]. The approach shows promising results, and has the capacity to capture loading sequence effects.


This paper presents an "impossible interview" to Professor Camillo Golgi, placed in time in December 1906. The Italian Professor Golgi from Pavia has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine ex aequo with the Spanish anatomist Santiago Ramón y Cajal. Both scientists have obtained the award for their work on the anatomy of the nervous system. However, they have opposite views on the mechanisms underlying nervous functions. Golgi believes that the axons stained by his "black reaction" form a continuous anatomical or functional network along which nervous impulses propagate. Ramón y Cajal is the paladin of the neuron theory, a hypothesis questioned by Golgi in his Nobel lecture of Tuesday, December 11. After the ceremony, an independent journalist has interviewed Professor Golgi in the Grand Hotel in Stockholm. Excerpts about his education, his main scientific discoveries, and his personal life are here given (reconstructing the "impossible interview" on the basis of Golgi's original writings).


A transformation from diffusion fields to wave fields is examined as an approach to inverting eddy current nondestructive evaluation (NDE) data. An analytic inversion to the transformation is used as a means to gain insight into robustness issues associated with the method. A discretized version of the transformation is utilized to solve a 1-D inverse problem with a direct "wave-based" approach. Because the transformation lacks robustness, two regularization schemes are used to stabilize the inversion, which are themselves enhanced by an averaging algorithm. The technique is shown to be unstable when applied to sources which are not ideal impulse functions, in which case the transformation can be stabilized via low-pass filtering. The transformation is not useful with time-harmonic sources and is therefore limited to pulsed eddy current inspections.


Fiber optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs) are based on the third-order nonlinear susceptibility of glass fibers. If two strong pumps and a weak signal are fed into a fiber, an idler is generated. Signal and idler can grow together if pump power is high enough, and phase matching occurs. Until recently, impressive performance of fiber OP As has been demonstrated in different respects. However, secondary effects should be addressed before OPAs can be utilized in practical applications. Here we report some of these effects, either exploiting them as in the parametric processor such as optical logic gates, inverted and non-inverted wavelength converter, and ultra-wideband monocycle and doublet pulses generator, or suppressing them as in the optical amplifier for WDM systems.


From the library of cloned fragments of human DNA we have isolated two recombinant plasmids containing alphoid DNA sequences pBRHS13, pBRHS65. Both cloned sequences hybridized in situ predominantly to pericentromeric regions of chromosome 18 and with less intensity to pericentromeric regions of chromosomes 2, 9, 20, and were characterized by populational copy number polymorphism in homologous chromosomes. These sequences may appear very useful in the diagnostics and cytogenetic analysis of chromosomal aberrations and in studies of polymorphisms of heterochromatic regions of human chromosomes.


During a period when serious writing on the American Labor movement was at an absolute premium, the contributors to New Politics magazine created a body of literature distinguished by its clear-eyed vision of the limits and prospects of the working class. Assuming neither an "end of ideology" nor the "destruction of the working class," these writings are characterized by a precision matching their high purpose. This collection of essays is unique in providing voice to insurgent members of such unions as the National Maritime Union, the Seafarers' International, the Brotherhood of Painters, the Federation of Teachers, the Miners' Union and others. Rank and filers describe their efforts to achieve membership participation and control of their unions. Progressive unions like Harry Bridge's West Coast longshoremen's union and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union are examined, as are some traditionally more conservative "business" unions. Officials of some of these unions comment and are answered by their critics. This volume will be particularly useful to those interested in problems of work and labor in American society, problems of social organization, problems of mass and elite behavior in American industry, and to those who have come to realize that the working class, whether in ethnic or Americanist guise, remains a potent force in the political, economic and social life of the United States in the seventies.


1. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) 2. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR) 3. Declaration recognizing the competence of the Human Rights Committee under article 41 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to receive Inter-State Communications 4. Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; Individual Communications (OP) 5. International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) 6. Declaration recognizing the competence of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination under article 14 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination 7. International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid 8. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 9. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) 10.Non-reservation under Article 28 with respect to article 20 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Inquiry Procedure) 11.Declaration under article 21 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Inter State Communications) 12.Declaration under article 22 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Individual Communications)


Introduction: Acute respiratory failure (ARF) is a common medical emergency. Pre-hospital management includes controlled oxygen therapy, supplemented by specific management options directed at the underlying disease. The aim of the current study was to characterise the accuracy of paramedic diagnostic assessment in acute respiratory failure. Methods: A nested diagnostic accuracy and agreement study comparing pre-hospital clinical impression to the final hospital discharge diagnosis was conducted as part of the ACUTE (Ambulance CPAP: Use, Treatment effect and Economics) trial. Adults with suspected ARF were recruited from the UK West Midlands Ambulance Service. The pre-hospital clinical impression of the recruiting ambulance service clinician was prospectively recorded and compared to the final hospital diagnosis at 30 days. Agreement between pre-hospital and hospital diagnostic assessments was evaluated using raw agreement and Gwets AC1 coefficient. Results: 77 participants were included. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (32.9%) and lower respiratory tract infection (32.9%) were the most frequently suspected primary pre-hospital diagnoses for ARF, with secondary contributory conditions recorded in 36 patients (46.8%). There was moderate agreement between the primary pre-hospital and hospital diagnoses, with raw agreement of 58.5% and a Gwets AC1 coefficient of 0.56 (95% CI 0.43 to 0.69). In five cases, a non-respiratory final diagnosis was present, including: myocardial infarction, ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, liver failure and sepsis. Conclusions: Pre-hospital assessment of ARF is challenging, with limited accuracy compared to the final hospital diagnosis. A syndromic approach, providing general supportive care, rather than a specifically disease-orientated treatment strategy, is likely to be most appropriate for the pre-hospital environment.


Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), such as Water Distribution Networks (WDNs), deploy digital devices to monitor and control the behavior of physical processes. These digital devices, however, are susceptible to cyber and physical attacks, that may alter their functionality, and therefore the integrity of their measurements/actions. In practice, industrial control systems utilize simple control laws, which rely on various sensor measurements and algorithms which are expected to operate normally. To reduce the impact of a potential failure, operators may deploy redundant components; this however may not be useful, e.g., when a cyber attack at a PLC component occurs. In this work, we address the problem of reducing vulnerability to cyber-physical attacks in water distribution networks. This is achieved by augmenting the graph which describes the information flow from sensors to actuators, by adding new connections and algorithms, to increase the number of redundant cyber components. These, in turn, increase the \textit{cyber-physical security level}, which is defined in the present paper as the number of malicious attacks a CPS may sustain before becoming unable to satisfy the control requirements. A proof-of-concept of the approach is demonstrated over a simple WDN, with intuition on how this can be used to increase the cyber-physical security level of the system.


Abstract This chapter offers a comparative overview of immigrant trajectories and integration outcomes of Russian-Jewish youths (the so-called 1.5 generation) who immigrated to Israel and Germany with their families over the last 25 years. At the outset, I compare Israeli and German reception contexts and policies and present the generic features of the 1.5 immigrant generation. Next I overview the Israeli research findings on Russian Israeli 1.5ers – their schooling, social mobility, cultural and linguistic practices, parents' role in their integration, and juxtapose them with (still limited) German data. The final section presents two recent German studies of young Russian-Jewish adults and the initial findings from my own study among these immigrants living in four German cities. My interviews with 20 men and women, mostly successful professionals or entrepreneurs, indicate that their upward social mobility was facilitated by the continuous welfare support of their families, school integration programs, and low financial barriers to higher education. Despite common occupational and social downgrading of the parental generation in both countries, the 1.5-ers in Israel had to struggle harder to overcome their inherent immigrant disadvantage vs. native peers to access good schools and professional careers. Most young immigrants deem full assimilation in the host country's mainstream unattainable and opt instead for a bilingual and/or bicultural strategy of integration.


Abstract Rhopalocercous cercariae were found in the gonads of duck mussels, Anodonta anatina (Linnaeus, 1758) collected from the Sluch River (Zhytomyr oblast, Ukraine). The morphological features observed led to conclusion that this species belonged to the genus Phyllodistomum Braun, 1899. Obtained results suggested that the second intermediate hosts in the life cycle of this trematode were absent. Free-swimming cercariae were observed encysting in water. This species is similar to Phyllodistomum pseudofolium Nybelin, 1926 by overall body proportions and ratio of suckers: lengths of oral to ventral sucker 1 : 1.1; widths of the same organs 1 : 1.2. To confirm the taxonomic position of the species found and establish a possible relationship between it and P. pseudofolium an experimental infection of fish Carassius carassius (Linnaeus, 1758) as potential definitive host was performed. The infection was not successful. Descriptions and figures of all detected larval stages of Phyllodistomum sp. are provided.


This article explores how legal intermediaries facilitate or inhibit social change. We suggest the increasing complexity and ambiguity of legal rules coupled with the shift from government to governance provide legal intermediaries greater opportunities to influence law and social change. Drawing from new institutional sociology, we suggest rule-intermediaries shape legal and social change, with varying degrees of success, in two ways: (1) law is filtered through non-legal logics emanating from various organizational fields and (2) law is professionalized by non-legal professionals. We draw from case studies in the United States and France to show how intermediaries facilitate or inhibit social change.


Abstract:This article explores nineteenth-century efforts to obtain legal protection for news in relation to shifts in the media landscape in Britain. It shows how the campaign to repeal the stamp duty led a handful of London publishers to lobby for a special copyright in news. These efforts failed but not without sparking debates in Parliament and the press about how best to guarantee public access to quality journalism. Later in the century, lawsuits brought by the Times clarified the scope of protection for news articles, including reports of public speeches, but efforts to protect news and information as such continued to face opposition. The article concludes with the Copyright Act of 1911, which explicitly recognized copyright in newspaper articles but not for the underlying factual details of news that some publishers had fought for.


OBJECTIVE
To describe a useful algorithm when acute non-traumatic renal artery occlusion is suspected.

METHODS
The diagnostic and therapeutic aspects of this uncommon disease are analyzed through two cases that had been managed differently.

RESULTS
Early clinical suspicion is based upon a non-colic sudden flank pain in patients with a history of cardiac embolic events, increased serum LDH, ALAT and ASAT, proteinuria, non-lithiasic, non-functioning kidney on IVP and a normal sized non-dilated kidney on ultrasound. The next step is diagnostic angiography and fibrinolysis when indicated.

CONCLUSIONS
Intra-arterial fibrinolysis is the treatment of choice in renal artery embolism when functional recovery by angiographic and clinical criteria is present, and will be further enhanced the earlier the diagnosis is made.


Large speech corpora with word-level transcriptions annotated for noises and disfluent speech are necessary for training automatic speech recognisers. Crowdsourcing is a lower-cost, faster-turnaround, highly scalable alternative for expert transcription and annotation. In this paper, we showcase our three-step crowdsourcing approach motivated by the importance of accurate transcriptions and annotations.


Abstract This contribution summarises the first characterisation of the 12 μm warm dust ("exo-Zodi") luminosity function around Sun-like stars, focussing on the dustiest systems that can be identified by the WISE mission (Kennedy & Wyatt 2013). We use the sample of main-sequence stars observed by Hipparcos within 150pc as an unbiased sample, and report the detection of six new warm dust candidates. The ages of five of these new sources are unknown, meaning that they may be sites of terrestrial planet formation or rare analogues of other old warm dust systems. We show that the dustiest old (> Gyr) systems such as BD+20 307 are 1 in 10,000 occurrences. Bright warm dust is much more common around young (<120 Myr) systems, with a ~1% occurrence rate. We show that a two component in situ model where all stars have initially massive warm disks and in which warm debris is also generated at some random time along the stars' main-sequence lifetime, perhaps due to a collision, can explain the observations. However, if all stars only have initially massive warm disks these would not be visible at Gyr ages, and random collisions on the main-sequence are too infrequent to explain the high disk occurrence rate for young stars. That is, neither component can explain the observations on their own. Despite these conclusions, we cannot rule out an alternative dynamical model in which comets are scattered in from outer regions because the distribution of systems with the appropriate dynamics is unknown. Our in situ model predicts that the fraction of stars with exo-Zodi bright enough to cause problems for future exo-Earth imaging attempts is at least roughly 10%, and is higher for populations of stars younger than a few Gyr. This prediction of roughly 10% also applies to old stars because bright systems like BD+20 307 imply a population of fainter systems that were once bright, but are now decaying through fainter levels. Our prediction should be strongly tested by the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer, which will provide valuable constraints and input for more detailed evolution models. A detection fraction lower than our prediction could indicate that the hot dust in systems like BD+20 307 has a cometary origin due to the quirks of the planetary dynamics. Population models of comet delivery need to be developed to help distinguish between different possible origins of warm dust.


VII ABSTRACT Finland has a long history of utilizing wood as fuel, construction material and for paper production. However, modern reality raises the question of more efficient and advanced utilization of wood‐based natural products. One promising family of compounds are lignans, which are highly abundant in wood knots, especially hydroxymatairesinol (HMR). Having a complex structure and few chirally pure stereocenters, HMR could be used for preparation of valuable fine chemicals. One of the most efficient ways to utilize the complex chiral structure would be as ligands in asymmetric catalysis. Herein the development of asymmetric catalysts based on the structure of HMR is described. In the first part of the thesis, the concept of using hydroxymatairesinol as a starting material for creating asymmetric catalysts as well as molecular modeling to confirm the concept are presented. The second part of this work describes the synthetic modification of hydroxymatairesinol towards chiral diols. A series of chiral diols were prepared and examined as ligands in asymmetric catalytic reactions. Parts 3 and 4 are related to the preparation of phosphorous derivatives. Part 3 is concentrated on H‐phosphonates and phosphates prepared from the chiral diols described in the second part. In part 4, the synthesis of chiral phosphines based on the lignan backbone is described. The applications of the phosphines as ligands in rhodium catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenations are disclosed.


: The computer programm of Marschner et al. ((1974), Arztl. Lab. 20, 184-191) for the calculation of radioimmunoassay data by spline functions was improved with regard to immediate availability of quality parameters. The existing programm was adapted to a computer Siemens 4004/151. Methods are reported for obtaining an exactly reproducible and objective smoothing of spline functions. The additional modifications enable even unskilled technicians to use the programm.


Differential equation describes exchange of matter, energy, information or any other quantities; often as they vary in time and /or space. Integral transform which is particularly useful in solving differential equations. Integral transform is a very powerful mathematical tool applied in various areas of engineering and science. Using differential transformation method (DTM) to solve differential equation of the type Lane Emden equations as singular initial value problems. Also DTM was employed to solve Volterra integral equations of second kind. This paper will discuss the application of the differential transformation method, which is based on Taylor series expansion, to construct analytical approximate solution of the initial value problems.


The Acoustic Emission signal was studied in this report for tool wear monitoring in micro milling. An experiment was conducted first to collect the AE signal generated from the workpiece during cutting process for characteristic analysis, training the system model and finally testing the system performance. In the system development, Acoustic Emission (AE) signals were first transformed to the frequency domain with different feature bandwidth, and then the Learning Vector Quantization (LVQ) algorithms was adopted for classifying the tool wear condition based on the generated AE spectral features. The results show that the frequency domain signal provides the better characteristics for monitoring tool wear condition than the time domain signal. In considering the capability of the AE signal combined with LVQ algorithms, the sharp tool condition can be detected successfully. At the same time, 80% to 95% of the classification rate can be obtained in this study for the worn tool test. Moreover, the increase of the feature bandwidth improved the classification rate for the worn tool case and 95% of classification rate for the case with 10 kHz feature bandwidth.


To the Editor. —Transmission of cytomegalovirus (CMV) from infected donors to recipients is a serious concern in the transplantation of bone marrow, kidneys, and other vascularized organs. Because the immune systems of these recipients are severely compromised by cytotoxic drug and systemic steroid therapies, primary or secondary infection with CMV may cause a variety of clinical diseases, such as hepatitis, pneumonitis, and retinitis. Usually, serologic testing of corneal donors and recipients for antibodies to CMV is not performed. However, when presented with a positive serologic test result from a multiple organ donor, the corneal surgeon may feel uncomfortable in accepting a cornea for transplantation into a patient whose serologic CMV status is unknown. In fact, we know of at least two instances in which tissue was refused by a corneal surgeon solely on the basis of a positive CMV test result from the donor. Since seropositivity in the general population


The relevance of the study is due to the fact that the increasing risks of global and local environmental crises put forward new demands to ensure national, economic, political, public ecological safety, including ecological safety of the educational space. The right to a favorable environment is one of the fundamental rights of citizens; therefore, ensuring ecological safety and comfort of the educational environment for the formation of a person focused on harmonious interaction with nature and protected from environmental threats becomes very important. The purpose of the study is aimed at the analysis of different approaches to the ecological safety of the University educational environment, the identification of mechanisms and conditions of the very process. The results of the study reveal that the system of ecological safety of the University educational environment is the combination of regulatory, training, educational, medical, recreational activities, aimed at harmonious interaction of man with the biosphere and the ecosphere. The ecological safety of the educational environment is determined by the compliance degree of the actual parameters of the environment ecological state with their optimal indicators for the preservation of the health of the educational process participants. The main elements of the mechanism to ensure environmental safety of the University educational environment are revealed: a comprehensive environmental assessment of the University and its surrounding area, environmental monitoring and effective management decisions in this area. The main conditions for the effectiveness to ensure environmental safety in the University educational environment are the use of the regulatory framework, the use of organizational and administrative impact and financial support, the unity of all participants' activity in the educational process in this area. The Materials of the article are of theoretical and practical value for the development of educational and methodical complexes on ecology and environmental pedagogy, teachers' training and retraining programs, as well as programs aimed at the formation of ecological safety of the University educational environment.


We develop an analytical framework to study experimental design in two-sided platforms. In the settings we consider, customers rent listings; rented listings are occupied for some amount of time, then become available. Platforms typically use two common designs to study interventions in such settings: customer-side randomization (CR), and listing-side randomization (LR), along with associated estimators. We develop a stochastic model and associated mean field limit to capture dynamics in such systems, and use our model to investigate how the performance of these estimators is affected by interference effects between listings and between customers. Good experimental design depends on market balance: we show that in highly demand-constrained markets, CR is unbiased, while LR is biased; conversely, in highly supply-constrained markets, LR is unbiased, while CR is biased. We also study a design based on two-sided randomization (TSR) where both customers and listings are randomized to treatment and control, and show that appropriate choices of such designs can be unbiased in both extremes of market balance, and also yield low bias in intermediate regimes of market balance. Full paper available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.05670.


An important consideration in regularized image restoration is the evaluation of the regularization parameter. Various techniques exist in the literature for the evaluation of this parameter, which depend on the assumed prior knowledge about the problem. These techniques evaluate the regularization parameter either at a separate preprocessing step or by iterating based on the completely restored image, therefore requiring many restorations of the image with different values of the regularization parameter. The authors propose a nonlinear frequency-domain adaptive regularized iterative image restoration algorithm. According to this algorithm a regularization circulant matrix is used that corresponds to the assignment of a regularization parameter to each discrete frequency. Therefore, each frequency component is appropriately regularized. The resulting algorithm produces more accurate results and converges considerably faster than the algorithm that uses one regularization parameter for all frequencies. The regularization matrix is updated at each iteration step, based on the partially restored image. No prior knowledge about the image or the noise is required. The development of the algorithm is based on a set-theoretic regularization approach, where bounds on the weighted error residual and stabilizing functional are updated in the frequency domain at each iteration step. The proposed algorithm is analyzed theoretically and tested experimentally. Sufficient conditions for convergence are obtained in terms of a control parameter, which is specified by the conditions for convergence and optimality of the regularization parameters at each discrete frequency location. Finally the proposed algorithm is compared experimentally with other related algorithms.


A part of the course of the brook Pulcovca (or Poolkovka) affords some very remarkable sections, which throw great light on the nature of the district near St. Petersburg. About twelve miles south of that city, between the two roads from Petersburg to Tzarskoe Celo, which separate at Podgory, at the foot of the hill of Pulcova; a small stream, originating in some inconsiderable gullies, which drain the bogs on the west of the upper road, finds its way through a deep ravine to the village of Bolshoy Pulcova, where, issuing through a gorge in the escarpment on which the village is built, and along which is continued the lower or old road to Tzarskoe Celo, it enters the great bogs which extend towards Petersburg, and changing its name of Pulcovca for that of Chorny Rechca, or Black Stream, it flows by Coopchina, or Cupchina, through a small valley in the diluvian marl, to the Neva at Alexandrofsky. On following the stream downwards, from the little bridge over which the upper road crosses it, nothing shews itself for a considerable distance but the blue clay, which forms the lowest stratum in the valley of the Ligovca; but the very regular sweeps which the river makes from G to D (Plate 24), and the repetition of cliffs almost exactly alike, at F, E, &c. exhibiting only blue clay and diluvium, although much higher than those, which, lower down, afford such complete sections of the limestone, are apt to perplex any one


Bidirectional cavopulmonary shunt is an alternative palliative procedure for patients with congenital cyanotic heart disease, specially those patients less than "ideal" candidates for a Fontan's procedure. We present our results with this shunt in patients with tricuspid atresia. Twenty patients with tricuspid atresia were operated on with this shunt, with these associated defects: 20 atrial septal defect, 17 ventricular septal defect, 10 pulmonary stenosis, 1 pulmonary atresia and 1 transposition of the great arteries. Sex: 10 males and 10 females; the age was 27 days to 6 years (mean 1.8 years), the weight was 3.2 kg to 24 kg (mean 10.7 kg), the mean pulmonary artery pressure was 11 to 24 mmHg (mean 17 mmHg), pulmonary vascular resistance was 1.5 to 5 UW (mean 3.1 UW). Postoperative oxygen saturation improved 15 to 120%. All patients survived the surgical procedure. Three patients died in the immediate postoperative period, 2 due to a complications in the postoperative period and 1 due to sepsis. There were two late deaths, 1 sudden death after 6 months of the shunt, and 1 due to sepsis after a Fontan's procedure. Four patients presented pleural effusion and 2 pericardial effusion, they resolved well. We have 15 patients alive and well, in functional class I, and minimal cyanosis. We can conclude that this surgical procedure is useful in the management of patients with tricuspid atresia.


Psoriasis is a chronic autoimmune condition that causes the rapid build-up of skin cells. This build-up of cells causes scaling on the skin's surface. Inflammation and redness around the scales is fairly common. Typical psoriatic scales are whitish-silver and develop in thick, red patches. Sometimes, these patches will crack and bleed.


Vegetative insecticidal proteins (Vips) are produced by different bacterial species including Bacillus cereus and Bacillus thuringiensis during vegetative stage. They have broad spectrum toxicity against various pests including Lepidopteran. This study aimed to investigate the biological activity of Vip3Aa protein against beet armyworm (Spodoptera exigua). The 88.5-kDa recombinant Vip3Aa protein was produced in E. coli as a soluble protoxin. The purified Vip3Aa protoxin was processed by either trypsin or midgut proteases to yield a 62-kDa active toxin. At day 7 post feeding to the S. exigua 2nd instar lavae, the LC50 values of the Vip3Aa protoxin, the trypsin-activated Vip3Aa toxin, and the midgut proteases-activated Vip3Aa toxin were 556, 277, and 43 ng/cm2, respectively. The midgut epithelial cells of the S. exigua 3rd instar larvae fed with Vip3Aa protoxin for 1 and 2 days were observed under scanning electron microscope (SEM). The epithelial cells were found swollen, misshaped, and lysed.


Objectives: Clinical and surgical procedures heavily depend on acquiring and transmitting medical information by electronic devices and media in the form of medical images. In this process the quality of these images are degraded by noise, making denoising mandatory. Methods/Statistical Analysis: In this paper de noising algorithms in wavelet domain for mammographic images (used for detection of breast cancer in women) are considered. A modified approach for de noising of mammographic images using Multi Wavelet Transform has been proposed with four different thresholding techniques.These Multi wavelets possess important properties like orthogonality, symmetry and compact support simultaneously.Performance of denoising methods improves considerably due to these properties. Findings: Proposed method is applied on large data set of digital mammographic images freely available as mammographic data base by MAIS. DMWT based denoising scheme with four different types of thresholding estimates, namely Bayesian shrink, Visu shrink, neighborhood shrink and modified neighborhood shrink is applied on data set and compared the performance of proposed denoising algorithm with dwt based existing denoising methods. Higher the value of σ (noise variance) for Gaussian noise considered lower is the value of PSNR, obtained, whatever is the transformation and techniques applied. Even among the DMWT: GHM,CL and SA4, SA4 gives the best response for all the cases. Applications/Improvements: The results are compared on the basis of Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) in dB. Results clearly indicate the superiority of the proposed method in all the four cases over exiting wavelet based method. This new improved method will help a lot in diagnosis of breast cancer more accurately and the correct prognosis can save many lives.


Culture is a term that can be described as many different inter-related meanings according to the characteristics of a group of people who share similar beliefs and values (Datesman & Kearny, 2005). The aim of a quantitative study is to classify and count statistics, and to interpret the data in relation to the research problem under investigation. This research will give a brief overview of the cultural values of Americans. The research process includes collecting variables and evaluating measurements. This research quantitatively examines Americans' culture, values, and beliefs, such as their religious preference, educational choice, preferable number of children, number of hours worked per week, sex values, and family income situations, and to see if these variables represent Americans' views. This research will explore the differences of ideas between Americans and their views towards different issues, as well as to discover facts about their beliefs and preferences in their lives. This analysis will enhance the understanding of shared cultures and promote communication for people who come from different backgrounds.


A novel digital image watermarking method based on wavelet domain fractal coding is presented in this paper. Employing the invariant parameters of the wavelet domain fractal transformation, we can retrieve the information embedded into the original image. In the watermarking scheme, the original collage map is altered to embed the watermark into the wavelet domain. Experiments show that the watermarking method is robust against image compression attack


The centrifugal pump is the common mechanical equipment, which is extensively applied in the water conservancy, ships and other projects. In this paper, the centrifugal pump body structure was analyzed based on the actual working conditions, and the structure was also optimized. The research results show that the maximum equivalent stress of pump body structure is in the tongue, when the grid cell size is 6mm, the maximum equivalent stress is 36.843MPa; The maximum equivalent stress increases as the grid cell size decreases, and the unit number increases rapidly as the grid cell size decreases; When the wall thickness of pump is selected appropriately, the material can be saved about 6%, and the optimized structure of pump can be also meet the structural performance requirements.


It is imperative to establish the distribution and density of soil fungal communities as a requisite for formulating strategies for management of ear rot infections and mycotoxin contamination. In a two seasons study, short (SR) and long rainy (LR) seasons, we investigated the distribution of Aspergillus and Fusarium fungi causing ear rots and producing mycotoxins from 120 soil samples collected from maize fields under push-pull (PP) and maize monocrop (MM) systems in Western Kenya. Cultural methods were used for identification of Aspergillus and Fusarium species, while molecular techniques were used for confirmation of Fusarium section Liseola. Detection of total aflatoxins in cultures of section Flavi isolates was carried out by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). A total of 338 fungi were isolated; 80% were identified as Aspergillus and 4.4% Fusarium. The distribution of fungi was significant with season but not cropping systems. The frequency of occurrence was higher during the LR (68.4%) than the SR (31.6%). In cropping systems, the frequency of occurrence of Aspergillus flavus was higher in MM (60.2%) than PP (39.8%). However, Aspergillus parasiticus was more frequent in PP (71.4%) than MM (28.6%); and during the SR (78.6%) than the LR (21.4%). Majority (81.3%) of A. flavus and A. parasiticus were toxigenic. There was low recovery of Fusarium species in soil samples. These findings show that soils from both cropping systems are potential for Aspergillus infection and aflatoxins contamination; however, low Fusarium distribution in soil suggest external inoculum source for Fusarium ear rot infections common in most maize fields in Western Kenya.

 Key words: Aspergillus, Fusarium section Liseola, push-pull, soil.


"Welcome to Sarajevo," Semir said. "You see that everything is exactly the same—no gas, no water, no electricity, shelling, and sniping." Three hours earlier I had arrived back in Bosnia to work with children with special needs and was startled to find myself in a city with brightly lit shops, including a Benetton in the main street, and full cafes. One hour later the city's fragile power supply had given in to the heaviest December snowfall in 10 years, and Sarajevo was plunged into foggy gloom. So now I sat huddled under blankets in the flat of Dr Narcisa Pojskic and her husband, Dr Semir Beslija, two physicians who had stayed in Sarajevo throughout the war. Dr Beslija had divided his time between clinical duties in the city and the front line. Dr Pojskic had helped to set up and run the mental health project of one of the larger nongovernmental organisations. Both viewed the peace plan with a mixture of cautious optimism and ambivalence.

They were all too aware of the flaws. They could not, for example, imagine how the unprecedented creation of a supposedly unified state with three separate armies was supposed to work. Nor did they believe that Bosnians expelled from cities remaining under Serb control would exercise their right to return. "So the Serbs will have their ethnically pure state, at least in the immediate future," said Semir. And the reality of an undivided Sarajevo had yet to be brought about. On the day the Dayton agreement was signed in Paris there had been some 300 sniping incidents and four shells lobbed into the city. The following day demonstrating Serbs had blocked convoys through the Karazic controlled suburbs of Iliza. "We do not feel it is peace yet," Narcisa explained. "We can smell it, but until …


As one of the modern manufacture technology, high-speed precision grinding takes an important part in the modern manufacture field. With the development of the technology on high-speed spindle unit, linear precision high-speed feed unit, manufacture of grinding wheel, measurement etc, a great deal of research achievements make it possible for high-speed precision grinding. In this paper, using PMAC (Programmable Multi-Axis Controller)—PC as the central controller, a new kind of high-speed precision grinder is designed and manufactured. The servo control technology of linear motor is investigated. The dynamic performances of the machine are analyzed according to the experimental results. Elliptical workpieces have been machined with this new high-speed precision grinder. Based on these research results, a very helpful approach is provided for the precision grinding of complicated workpieces, and these results promote the development of high speed grinding too.


This paper proposes a co-operation framework for multiple role-based case-based reasoning (CBR) agents to handle the product recommendation problem for e-commerce applications. Each agent has different case structure with intersecting features and agents exploit all information related to the problem by co-operation, which is accomplished through the merge of distributed cases in order to form cases having better representation of the problem. The presented merge algorithm handles noisy distributed cases by negotiation on the difference values of the intersecting features. The role-based CBR agents merge the distributed cases by introducing a global heuristic function, which is used to evaluate the relevance of merged cases. The heuristic function exploits the relevancy of each merged case within the viewpoint of each agent and the satisfied/unsatisfied problem constraints. The viewpoint of an agent is represented by the value of consistency of distributed components of merged cases and agent s individual relevance values of the merged cases. Finally, the proposed framework has been tested for elective course recommendation.


In this paper we present for the first time mid-gap CoSi/sub 2/ metal gates obtained by total gate silicidation meaning that the silicidation process decay itself once the reaction front arrives down to the gate oxide and no more polysilicon is left. Metal gate are required for FDSOI but they may also be useful for low gate-resistance bulk RF devices. For simplicity, we have investigated totally silicided gates within a 0.1 /spl mu/m CMOS bulk technology. In the next step, CoSi/sub 2/ metal gates were processed after the poly CMP step (first CMP in damascene process) in order to protect source and drain from deep silicidation. Low gate resistivity transistors were obtained, exhibiting good performances without degradation in gate leakage, subthreshold slope nor in drive and off currents compared with reference poly-silicon gate transistors.


What is lacking for the renewal of the earth is not so much ethical consensus as political will. The myth of "man" as the self-sufficient and autonomous master of "inanimate" nature has been ingrained for centuries, and it will take a powerful force to dislodge it. However, we are in a unique period of convergence--a time when we might be transformed by the truth if we only seek it. This new spiritual awakening represents a conscious commitment to a common cause that lies beyond individual self-interest. The commitment has been kindled by a perception that we are creatures intimately connected with the rest of creation and to the power that has called us into being. And it is a commitment carried out in action through a disciplined way of life. If we want to heal the earth, we have to get better ourselves, because it is the way we think and live and act that is harming the earth. We have much to learn from participants in Alcoholics Anonymous, who have learned the secret of proclaiming the good news by doing it, one step at a time, by living it, day by day. The first step is acknowledgment that, as a society--indeed, as the human race-we are at the bottom and cannot get back up. Once we admit we have hit the bottom, there is hope for the environment because we have taken the first step to recovery.


The incoherence of sunlight has long been suspected to have an impact on solar cell energy conversion efficiency, although the extent of this is unclear. Existing computational methods used to optimize solar cell efficiency under incoherent light are based on multiple time-consuming runs and statistical averaging. These indirect methods show limitations related to the complexity of the solar cell structure. As a consequence, complex corrugated cells, which exploit light trapping for enhancing the efficiency, have not yet been accessible for optimization under incoherent light. To overcome this bottleneck, we developed an original direct method which has the key advantage that the treatment of incoherence can be totally decoupled from the complexity of the cell. As an illustration, surface-corrugated GaAs and c-Si thin-films are considered. The spectrally integrated absorption in these devices is found to depend strongly on the degree of light coherence and, accordingly, the maximum achievable photocurrent can be higher under incoherent light than under coherent light. These results show the importance of taking into account sunlight incoherence in solar cell optimization and point out the ability of our direct method to deal with complex solar cell structures.


In this paper, we answer several open questions related to diversity-multiplexing tradeoffs (DMTs) for point-to-point and multiple-access (MAC) MIMO channels. By analyzing the DMT performance of a simple code, we show that the optimal MAC-DMT holds even when the channel remains fixed for less than Knt+nr-1 channel uses, where K is the number of users, nt is the number of transmit antennas of each user, and nr is the number of receive antennas at receiver. We also prove that the simple code is MAC-DMT optimal. A general code design criterion for constructing MAC-DMT optimal codes that is much more relaxed than the previously known design criterion is provided. Finally, by changing some design parameters, the simple code is modified for use in point-to-point MIMO channels. We show the modified code achieves the same DMT performance as the Gaussian random code.


From hospital accounting data on 402 patients, this study calculated annual, lifetime and perdiem cost, assessed the relationship to cost risk group, diagnosis, payer, and DRG, and estimated how the cost burden was shared between hospitals and third-party payers. Conclusions were as follows: Annual impatient hospital cost for adults with AIDS averaged +22,300, incurred during an average of 38 hospital days. Lifetime inpatient hospital costs averaged +38,200, incurred during an average of 62 hospital days. Patients with AIDS did not make more intensive use of hospital ancillary services than the average medical/surgical patient. They incurred exceptional per diem costs for laboratory and pharmacy services, but this was offset by lower operating room costs. Cost did not bear a statistically significant relationship to risk group in adult patients, but hospital utilization, and thus annual cost, ws very different for pediatric patients. There was limited evidence of a relationship between cost and diagnosis and between cost and payer. Eighty-two percent of the total cost was reimbursed by third-party payers: Medicaid (28 percent), Blue Cross (26 percent), Medicare (3 percent) and commercial insurance and other payers (25 percent). We estimate that self-pay patients paid 13 percent of the cost, and that 5 percent was unreimbursed.


The study of Influencing factors of traffic accidents is an important research direction in the field of traffic safety. In this paper, the traffic accidents of Shanghai Expressway from April to June 2014 were excavated using association rule mining which generated lots of frequent item sets. The strong rules hidden in these frequent item sets often uncover the association between influencing factors of accidents, which can be used to reduce the occurrence of accidents by breaking them. The rules can also be used to probe usual scenes of accidents, and some corresponding security improvement measures can be taken to prevent the accidents, and ultimately improve the city's traffic safety level. General speaking, association rule mining can produce tons of weak rules, the study first designed a method to calculate minimal Support value of training parameters, and further put forward a way to extract strong rules automatically. The results of the experiments showed that these methods proposed in the paper are effective. Therefore, an automatic modeling algorithm using association rules was finally established to promote the effective application of association rule mining on intelligent transportation system.


Summary In Western Europe, corporate (social) responsibility (CR) has become a popular concept that no major company can afford to ignore. However, what about the major companies from the new Central-Eastern Europe (CEE) Member States? The present paper is one of the first attempts to analyse the understanding and relevance of the CR of some major CEE companies that are leaders in sustainability reporting. This analysis is conducted in direct comparison with a similar analysis on major Western European companies. Methodologically, the paper intertwines two qualitative strands of research: an analysis of 19 CR reports (12 from CEE and 7 from Western Europe) provides a general impression about the understanding of CR across different socio-political contexts. This report-based depiction is complemented by two surveys of 22 companies (11 from CEE and 11 from Western Europe). The surveys show the relevance that the companies attach to specific CR issues. Overall, the paper concludes that the understanding of CR is context-specific, but also that, in the case of major companies that are leading in CR reporting, the differences are not as stark as one might expect.


OBJECTIVE
Therapeutic strategies for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD: Crohn's disease and Ulcerative Colitis) have improved but the risk for HPV infection in patients under immunomodulatory/biologic treatment is unclear. Objective of the study is to identify the attitude of patients and caregivers to cervical screening. To determine the prevalence of HPV and cervical lesions in IBD patients receiving immunomodulatory/biological treatment.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
IBD patients treated with immunomodulators were enrolled from November 2016 to September 2017, thanks to a multidisciplinary cooperation. A survey was administered to enrolled patients as well as to a selected network of IBD expert physicians. Patients who consented underwent gynecological examination, smear, HPV DNA test, colposcopy, vaginal and cervical microbiological swabs.

RESULTS
294 patients from AMICI Onlus Association, 119 patients from the hospital clinic, 30 doctors from national IBD centers participated to the survey. 19 patients from the IBD clinic underwent cervical screening. More than 90% of doctors consider their patients at risk of cervical cancer. A low prevalence of high-risk genotypes and related HPV lesions and an increased prevalence of bacterial vaginosis emerged in the studied population.

CONCLUSIONS
Biological drugs could lead to a positive immunomodulation towards HPV infection. In IBD patients an alteration of the vaginal and intestinal microbiota seems to be coexisting.


We examined the role of molluscan mesograzers (periwinkles Littorina littorea, limpets Testudinalia testudinalis and chitons Ischnochiton ruber) in mediating macroalgal succession after a mass mortality of sea urchins Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis in a subtidal cobble bed in Nova Scotia, Canada. Experimental exclusions of mesograzers from cobbles encrusted with smooth (Phymatolithon) or rugose (Lithothamnion) coralline algae resulted in the establishment of a variety of ephemeral filamentous algae, suggesting that these small (2 to 5 mm) but abundant herbivores are the dominant agents controlling early succession and community organization in this habitat. In removing inhibitive effects of early successional species, molluscan grazing facilitated the establish- ment of fleshy perennial species Fucus evanescens and Chondrus crispus, which occasionally escaped grazing at small size to attain a growth refuge on the cobbles. Algal biomass and species richness were greater on Lithothamnion than Phymatolithon, suggesting that rugose crusts provide more favourable microhabitats for recruitment or survival of various macroalgae. The distribution of mesograzers differed between coralline types, likely influencing the rate and intensity of grazing: periwinkles foraged on both types of crust, whereas limpets occurred primarily on Phymatolithon and chitons on Lithothamnion. All non-coralline algae were consumed when urchins were experimentally reintroduced to the cobble bed, returning the assemblage to the urchin barrens state.


It soon increased its business threefold, but at the next division of profits the bonus was a small one; all the profits had gone out of the hands of those who supplied the means into those of the officials. Another case I think of is that of an insurance co pany which has its agents in every small town and village of England, and which advertises its capital as consisting of millions. Who has gathered the fruits? There are menm now living in wealth and affluence upon the proceeds of the institution; but what of the mass of poor people who supplied the means of enriching them? When one thinks of the old-fashioned mutual insurance intended for the benefit of its members, and now how speculators can make use of it to put the proceeds into their own pockets, there apparently eexists a great social scandal, and a remedy ought to be found. Whatever common sense or justice dictates, I am told that financially the system is quite correct.-I am, etc., Hampstead, N.W., Dec. 23rd, I9OI. SAMUEL WILKS.


This report comprises a critical commentary and appraisal of my DProf project "Digital Futures: e-commerce and sustainable development". It should be viewed alongside the evidence of achievement from the project. There are six items of evidence contained in the project folder alongside this report:
i. A brochure produced for the project launch on 1 February 2000
2. "Mind over Matter" -a pamphlet by Charles Leadbeater published part-way through the project in September 2000 (Leadbeater. 2000)
3. "Dot-com ethics" -a pamphlet by James Wilsdon published part-way through the project in January 2001 (Wilsdon. 2001)
4. A brochure produced for the final project conference on 1 March 2001
5. A summary reportwhich draws out the cross-cutting conclusions and recommendations (Wilsdon & Miller. 2001)
6. "Digital Futures: living in a dot-com world"- a book containing the full research findings of the project (ed. Wilsdon. 2001)
The overarching aim of the Digital Futures project was to investigate the complex web of issues surrounding e-commerce and sustainable development, and recommend ways in which government and business could maximise the
sustainability benefits, and minimise the costs, of the emerging digital economy.
The project drew together a consortium of government departments, companies, think-tanks and research organisations. Its formal activities ran from 1 October 1999
to i March 2001, and consisted of three main phases:
Phase 1 (i October iQQQ- f1 January 2000)
-A detailed scoping paper was prepared on the key issues relating to e-commercea nd sustainable development.
-A consortium of think-tanks and research organisations
was established to undertake research into the various aspects of the debate.
-Fifteen corporate partners were recruited to support the project, and participate in the research process.
-UK Government support and funding was obtained for Phases 2&3.
Phase 2 (1 February- 15 September 2000)
-Each of the eight research organisations was commissioned to produce a detailed paper on a particular theme.
-Detailed research was carried out using a variety of methodological approaches (desk-based analysis, interviews, opinion polling etc.)
-Project partners in government and business were actively involved in the research to ensure it reflected a diversity of views.
Phase 3 (i6 September 2000 - 1 March 2001)
-A series of workshops were held with project stakeholders, to discuss the research findings of Phase 2.
-The eight research reports were edited into a book.
-A summary report was written, drawing out the main conclusions and recommendations.
-A one-day conference was held on 1 March 2001 for 200 decision-makers from government, business, academia and the voluntary sector.
My role within the project was that of overall co-ordinator and editor of the book and summary report. I was also the lead researcher on one of the eight research themes.
Whilst the project was underway, and in the year that has elapsed since its formal completion, I have been reflecting on the lessons learned. This report is a critical commentary based on that process of reflection. It consists of an introduction to the project, an outline of its aims, objectives and methodology, an account of the project's
main activities, and full details of the project's results and conclusions.
The main outcomes of the project were a book and summary report (see evidence of achievement), which offered the first comprehensive analysis of the relationship
between e-commerce and sustainable development. The third significant outcome of the project was a one-day conference exploring these issues. The project also led to a range of follow-up research and practical activities, which are detailed in the final chapter. The final chapter also includes a reflection of the impact the project has had
on my sphere of professional activity, and on myself as a researcher and practitioner.


Vascular remodelling occurs during many forms of cardiovascular disease (CVD). This vascular remodelling can be either symmetrical as observed in arteriosclerotic conditions (e.g. natural vascular aging, transplant arteriosclerosis and in-stent restenosis (ISR)), or asymmetrical as observed in atherosclerosis. An integral part of the pathology of symmetrical vascular remodelling is the formation of a "neointimal layer", also known as "intimal medial thickening" (IMT), whereby cells (widely considered to be vascular smooth muscle cells (vSMC)) accumulate within the vessel and obstruct circulatory blood flow. Currently, there are two predominant and contrasting fields of thought as to the origin of these neointimal cells: 1. resident vSMCs and 2. resident vascular stem cells. While this thesis discusses both theories in detail; it focuses on the role of a stem cell antigen 1 positive (Sca1+) resident vascular stem cell, and shows evidence of its contribution to vascular remodelling both in vitro and in vivo. Previously, a Sca1+ adventitial cell has been shown to co-localise at the adventitial medial boundary with the hedgehog (Hh) signalling activation morphogen Shh and its receptor Patched 1. Moreover, Patched 1+ cells are present in the medial and intimal layers following vascular injury and remodelling. Therefore, the aim of this thesis was to investigate the role of Sca1+ adventitial progenitor cells (APC) during vascular remodelling, with a focus on exploring the role of Hh- responsive Sca1+ APC contribution to IMT. Characterisation of two widely used model cell lines (Sca1+ ESC and Sca1+ C3H) and APC highlighted variable expression profiles. Additionally, in vitro exposure of Sca1+ APC and Sca1+ C3H to Shh demonstrated contrasting maintenance of "stemness" responses (with Shh inducing significant maintenance of "stemness" in Sca1+ C3H but not in Sca1+ APC). Importantly, in vitro exposure of Sca1+ APC to Shh activated Hh signalling, and induced cellular proliferation and SMC differentiation, a process that was attenuated using the Hh specific inhibitor cyclopamine. Crucially, in vivo analysis demonstrated that Sca1+ APC proliferate/expand following injury-induced vascular remodelling, and Sca1+ Hh responsive cells were found in the neointima of remodelling vessels. In vivo analysis also demonstrated that the recapitulation of Hh signalling during vascular remodelling is essential to pathological IMT (as confirmed by significant attenuation of vascular remodelling following treatment with the cyclopamine). To conclude, Hh responsive Sca1+ resident vascular stem cells are key to the progression of pathological vascular remodelling and ultimately cardiovascular disease.


The explosive increase since the beginning of the 1990s in the number of publications reporting PCR-based methods for detection or molecular typing of foodborne pathogens has attracted the attention of end-user laboratories. However, the well-recognized difficulties in reproducing published tests because of variation in performance of PCR thermal cyclers (Schoder et al. 2003), in efficiency of different DNA polymerases, and in the presence of PCR inhibitors in the sample matrix, have hampered implementation in end-user laboratories. This particularly applies to laboratories with quality-assurance programmes. It is necessary to have PCR-based methods available as internationally recognized standards (Hoorfar and Cook 2002). Currently, lack of international standards often forces end-user laboratories to spend substantial resources on adaptation of the published tests. Although many commercial PCR kits are available, it is important that endusers and reference laboratories have access to openformula, noncommercial and nonproprietary PCRs in which the information on target gene and reagents are fully available. The prerequisite for a PCR, published in the scientific literature, to be adopted as a standard is that it has to be nonproprietary, and to have been validated through multicentre collaborative trial according to the international criteria (Anon. 2001, 2002b; Hoorfar and Cook 2002). Multicentre trial validation of noncommercial PCRs for detection of zoonotic pathogens has been performed by a European validation and standardization project (FOOD-PCR: http://www.pcr.dk) involving 35 laboratories from 21 countries (Hoorfar 1999; Malorny et al. 2003). A major drawback of most published PCRs, surprisingly even to date, is that they do not contain an internal amplification control (IAC). An IAC is a nontarget DNA sequence present in the same sample reaction tube, which is co-amplified simultaneously with the target sequence. In a PCR without an IAC, a negative response (no band or signal) can mean that there was no target sequence present in the reaction. But, it could also mean that the reaction was inhibited, as a result of malfunction of thermal cycler, incorrect PCR mixture, poor polymerase activity and, not least, the presence of inhibitory substances in the sample matrix. Conversely, in a PCR with an IAC, a control signal will always be produced when there is no target sequence present. When neither IAC signal nor target signal is produced, the PCR reaction fails. Thus, when using a PCR-based method in routine analysis, an IAC, if the concentration adjusted correctly, will indicate false-negative results. It is the false-negative results that turn a risk into a threat for the population, whereas a false-positive result merely leads to a clarification of the presumptive results by re-testing the sample. The European Standardization Committee (CEN), in collaboration with International Standard Organization (ISO) has proposed a general guideline for PCR testing that requires the presence of IAC in the reaction mixture (Anon. 2002a). Therefore, only IAC-containing PCRs may undergo multicentre collaborative trials, which is a prerequisite for standardization. Scientific journals must provide the source of new PCRbased methods suitable for standardization. Therefore, we propose that henceforward the editorial boards of applied microbiology journals require inclusion of an IAC in diagnostic PCR reported in submitted manuscripts. This could be performed by providing a specific section devoted to PCR in their Instruction to Authors.


Unlike previous forms of budesonide absorbing from the ileal and ascending colon region, the new-generation budesonide-MMX contains a formula, that allows absorption throughout the whole colon. Budesonide is degraded in the liver by cytochrome P450 3A enzyme, but so far, there is no study examining the relationship between the budesonide's effect and the enzyme activity. CYP3A5 is absent in 90% of the European/caucasian population due to a functional loss mutation (CYP3A5*3), whereas patients with the wild-type CYP3A5*1 allele may be expected to have increased metabolism. The most common genetic polymorphisms in CYP3A4 (CYP3A4*1B and CYP3A4*22) result in increased and decreased expression, respectively.

 We enrolled 33 patients with UC in this prospective study until January of 2021. Patients received 9 mg oral budesonide-MMX once daily until 8 weeks. Laboratory parameters (cholesterol, triglyceride, CRP) and serum hormone levels (parathormone, dehydroepiandrosterone and cortisol) were monitored before and after the 8-week therapy to follow metabolic and hormonal changes. During these visits, body composition analysis was also performed with InBody 770 machine to observe the adverse effects of budesonide-MMX in respect of body fat mass, body mass index, protein content of the body and bone mineral content. We examined the CYP450 3A (CYP3A5 and CYP3A4) enzyme genotype of the patients, to see, whether the different alleles of this drug-degrading enzyme affect the efficacy and safety.

 33 patients had received the 2-month therapy. By the end of follow-up, based on partial Mayo score, 26 (78.8%) patients experienced remission and 6 patients (18.2%) were primary non-responders. Mean pMayo score decreased from 4.18 to 1.63 (p<0.001). No significant changes were observable regarding body composition. Serum cholesterol level showed significant increase (p<0.001), while triglyceride and CRP did not show significant changes. Serum cortisol levels were decreased (p<0.001), while PTH and DHEA showed no significant decrease. Only two patients experienced side effects: one of them hypertonia, headache and acnes, while the other mild diarrhoea. 3 patients have CYP3A5*1/*3 genotype, and 16 have CYP3A5*3/*3. There was no significant difference between the two groups, regarding safety and efficacy. Only 1 patient have CYP3A4*1B genotype, while the rest have CYP3A4*1, hence, no statistics could be performed.

 In our study, budesonide-MMX proved to be safe and effective in the therapy of UC, however, cholesterol was elevated in the serum. Based on our cohort, different genotypes of CYP3A don't have an impact on the effect of the drug, however, CYP3A allele variants are rare, therefore, further examinations should be performed.


Context: The self-adjusting file (SAFs) is reported to be resistant to file separation in laboratory tests. No information is currently available regarding SAF separation during clinical use. Aim: To conduct preliminary clinical survey among experienced SAF users in order to establish the prevalence of SAF separation during clinical use and to study how were such cases treated. Materials and Methods: A questionnaire was sent to experienced SAF users to make inquiries regarding incidence of SAF separation and how were such events treated. Only responses from operators who had used 50 SAFs or more were included in the present study. Fisher's exact test was used to compare file separation occurrence. Results: A total of 2517 SAFs had been used by these operators, and 15 cases of file separation were reported (0.6%). Twelve of these 15 separated files could be retrieved within a few minutes using Hedström files, with no additional dentine removal required. In the three cases in which the separated files could not be retrieved, the separated file segment was successfully bypassed. Conclusions: The SAF might separate during clinical use, but the incidence of such an event was low. In most such cases, the separated file segment was easily and quickly retrieved without additional removal of dentin.