OBJECTIVE
We attempted to examine non-malignant central nervous system (CNS) neoplasms incidence rates for workers at 8 jet engine manufacturing facilities in Connecticut. The objective of this manuscript is to describe difficulties encountered regarding these analyses to aid future studies.

METHODS
We traced the cohort for incident cases of CNS neoplasms in states where 95% of deaths in the total cohort occurred. We used external and internal analyses in an attempt to obtain the true risk of non-malignant CNS in the cohort. Because these analyses were limited by data constraints, we conducted sensitivity analyses, including using state driver's license data to adjust person-year stop dates to help minimize underascertainment and more accurately determine cohort risk estimates.

RESULTS
We identified 3 unanticipated challenges: case identification, determination of population-based cancer incidence rates, and handling of case underascertainment. These factors precluded an accurate assessment of non-malignant CNS neoplasm incidence risks in this occupational epidemiology study.

CONCLUSIONS
The relatively recent (2004) mandate of capturing non-malignant CNS tumor data at the state level means that, in time, it may be possible to conduct external analyses of these data. Meanwhile, similar occupational epidemiology studies may be limited to descriptive analysis of the non-malignant CNS case characteristics.


. The article looks at the problem of the development of Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University and the Europeanization of its education policy. The ways to improve the efficiency of research, through participation in international grant projects in particular, are in the focus of this paper. The fact that the papers by the University's scientists are published in various SCOPUS indexed journals is evidence of the high quality and impact of their research outputs. It is an important factor in improving the University's academic performance; it has allowed Precarpathian National University to rise to the level of the leading higher education institutions of Ukraine. The University has significantly increased its participation in various joint Ukrainian– European research projects; distinguished European scientists are invited to make presentations at the international conferences and symposiums held by the University. An ambitious project of reconstructing the astronomy observatory on Pip Ivan, a peak in the Carpathians, is being carried out in cooperation with the University of Warsaw. The Precarpathian National University has successfully implemented the double degree programme; now its students can receive the degree from Precarpathian National University and a European university. There has been developed a comprehensive programme of further Europeanization of the University's policies.


The NOVA Gas Transmission Ltd. (NGTL) gas pipeline system is expanding northwards as the producers search for and find new gas reserves. This growth has taken the system into the discontinuous permafrost zone, and also into new design problems. One such problem is the structural integrity of a pipeline subjected to the settlement differentials that occur between frozen and unfrozen soils. Adequate integrity design for differential settlement is required by design codes, such as CSA Z662, but the procedures and criteria must be established by the pipeline designers. This paper presents the methodology of pipeline integrity design for differential settlements used on a number of pipeline projects in Northwest Alberta. Outlined in the paper are the procedures, rationales and models used to: (a) locate discontinuous permafrost; (b) quantify the potential differential settlement; (c) predict pipeline stresses and strains; (d) establish strain limits; and (e) determine the pipe wall thickness to withstand those potential differential settlements. Several design options are available and are briefly discussed. For the projects mentioned, the heavy wall pipe option was identified as a cost effective design for medium to large differential settlements.


Current literature for congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) focuses on the comparison of the overall mortality in CDH patients. Only a few studies concentrate on analyzing the unstable patients who could not achieve surgical repair, as well as those who could but did not survive after. Hence, this study aimed to analyze the effects of various parameters on the timing of death. A retrospective analysis was performed by using the data of all CDH patients from 2003 to 2016 at a single tertiary center. Patients who were diagnosed with left-sided CDH and expired were included in the study regardless of the cause. Of the 66 expired patients, 5 were excluded due to right-sided CDH. The study population constituted a total of 61 patients, of which 31 patients expired prior to CDH repair, and 30 patients expired at different times after CDH repair. Multinomial regression analysis identified that the ECMO need (B = 20.257, p = 0.000, OR: 62.756, 95% CI 10.600–371.384) and O/E LHR (B = 20.376, p = 0.000, OR: 70.663, 95% CI 48.716–102.415) values were the independent predictors that influenced mortality in this cohort. Prenatal pulmonary measurements are the major predictors determining the severity of the disease in patients with CDH.


Objective: To investigate the clinical manifestation, pathological features, management and prognosis of chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD)-related membranous nephropathy following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT). Methods: Clinical and pathological data from 3 patients with nephrotic syndrome following allo-HSCT were retrospectively analyzed. Results: cGVHD-related membranous nephropathy occurred in 3 out of 150 patients (2%) undergoing allo-HSCT in our BMT unit. 3 patients, with two male and one female, median age of 15 years, and median interval of 11 months between diagnosis and post-transplantation, typically presented with full nephrotic syndrome, including heavy proteinuria (median 8.1 g/24h), edema, hypoalbuminemia (median 29.6 g/L), and hypercholesterolemia (median 11.7 mmolL). A major finding of renal biopsy that was consistent with membranous nephropathy in early stage was diffusely thickened glomerular basement membranes (GBMs) with deposits of IgG along it. All patients showed evidence of cGVHD. Two patients responded well to steroid, with gradual improvement of clinical symptoms and disappearance of proteinuria, and are still alive without evidence of relapse. But the other one died of disseminated hemorrhagic varicella one month following immunosuppressive therapy. Conclusion: These findings suggest that the kidney may be the target organ of alloimmunity, and membranous nephropathy may be one of clinical manifestations of cGVHD, which is response to steroid, resulting in disappearance of proteinuria. It is necessary for transplant physicians to keep in mind the possibility of cGVHD-related membranous nephropathy when a case of nephritic syndrome is encountered.


The aim of this paper was to examine the application of the local stress method in the fatigue life assessment of rib-to-crossbeam joints of orthotropic decks. The hot spot stress approach and the effective notch stress approach were used. The fatigue life predicted by the local and nominal stress method was compared with the experimental results.


The purpose of this research is to know the legal protection for woman domestic workers regulated in fundamental international law on the protection of women. The results of this research are identified that the legal protection of woman domestic workers rights is consistent with International convention. According to Convention Decent work for domestic workers, minimum standard by the convention are basic rights of domestic worker, information on terms and conditions of employment, hours of work, remuneration, occupational safety and health, social security, standards concerning child domestic workers, standards concerning live-in workers, standards concerning migrant domestic workers, private employment agency measures to be put in place, dispute settlement, complaints and enforcement. In addition, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) contains the obligation to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women in the field of economy and employment.


Islanded, renewably powered microgrids require energy storage or emergency generation to overcome intermittency. Batteries and fossil fuel generators have traditionally filled these roles. However, liquid air energy storage (LAES) is a promising alternative. Using power in excess of immediate demand, a LAES system can liquefy and cryogenically store ambient air. When renewable generation abates, the liquid air can be expanded through a turbine to provide power to the microgrid. This study explores energy recovery from a dual Stirling cycle LAES system. Liquid air is generated by a commercial Stirling cryocooler and stored in a vacuum dewar. A second Stirling engine utilizes the temperature difference between the liquid air and surroundings to run a small electric generator. This paper focuses on energy recovery from the cryogenic liquid air through the Stirling engine using a series of experiments. Liquid air volume as a function of time and power for varying loads were measured and used to quantify the energy recovered from the stored liquid air. Energy efficiency is calculated and recommendations for design improvements are presented. Follow-on work will include design and operation of an updated dual-Stirling LAES system. This work is part of a larger effort to determine the feasibility of different energy storage methods for small, mobile applications as well as fixed infrastructure energy storage systems.


Intra-articular fibrous bands and soft-tissue impingement under the patella after total knee replacement are a well known complications that can be diagnosed and treated arthroscopically. Arthroscopic treatment of soft-tissue impingement between femoral and tibial components in a total knee arthroplasty has been recently reported. The purpose of this article is to report one more case of this pathology of a more fibrotic type resembling a nodule in the intercondylar notch that prevents total extension and to discuss the possible origin and clinical significance. Finally, we propose a classification of the fibrotic reactions after total knee arthroplasty: (A)Multiples or complex bundles reactions; and (B)singles or isolates nodular forms: fibrous nodule in the femoropatelar area (clunk syndrome), and fibrous nodule in the intercondylar notch.


In this paper, we present the development of a tire rubber deformation sensing system that provides the critical information for understanding and estimation of wheel/ground interactions for mobile robots and vehicles. Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)-based sensors are designed and fabricated to embed on the inner tread surface to measure the tire rubber tread deformation. Analytical models of the PVDF-based sensing system are presented to capture the wheel/ground contact information and friction characteristics. The sensed deformation measurements are integrated with the onboard control system through a wireless data transmission module. Experimental results on a skid-steered mobile robot are presented to show the feasibility and estimation of wheel/ground friction characteristics using the developed sensing system.


A description is given of GATES, an expert system that assigns gates to arriving and departing flights at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK). GATES uses flight information and knowledge about current constraints to produce possible gate assignment schedules. GATES is a constraint-satisfaction expert system. To make its decisions, it uses two types of production rule: permissive rules and conflict rules. Permissive rules determine when it's appropriate to consider a particular gate for a particular flight, and permit the system to search the next level of rules to obtain an assignment. Conflict rules determine when particular flights cannot be assigned to particular gates. System operators can modify schedules by retracting rules, adjusting tolerances, and deleting information. The system was developed for a PC, thereby providing an efficient and flexible user environment. The approach is extensible to various engineering and industrial problems where limited resources and weakly defined constraints exist and in which scheduling must occur.<<ETX>>


Introduction: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common central nervous system disease that results in many symptoms such as fatigue, physical disability, etc. The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of eight-weeks aquatic aerobic exercise and balance training on physical disability and mental health in female patients with MS. Materials and Methods: In this practical and semi- experimental research, forty five women having MS with degree of physical disability 1 to 4, disease duration 12 to 48 months and aged 20 to 45 years who went to Dezfoul MS Society, Iran were randomly assigned to one of three groups (n = 15 in each group), Aquatic aerobic exercise, balance training and control. Both experimental did their exercises three times weekly each session 40 to 50 minutes for 8 weeks. Subjects filled out the Kurtzke Expanded Disability Status Scale and Goldberg and Hiller General Health Questioner before and after 8 weeks. The data were analyzed with t-test, one-way and multivariate analysis of variance and Tukey test. Results: Results indicates that in both aquatic aerobic exercise and balance training groups, physical disability significant decreases and mental health significant increases and was not significant difference in both experimental group. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that methods, aquatic aerobic and balance training are significantly effective in decreasing physical disability and increasing mental health in MS female patients.


This paper presents the three-terminal magnetotransistor based on the carrier recombination-deflection effect. Three-terminal magnetotransistor can detect vertical and lateral magnetic field direction. The structure of magnetotransistor consists of one emitter, one collector and one base contact. The devices can detect magnetic field by relying on the difference between base current and collector current (¿ICB). The result from experiments closely matched the simulated 3-D modeling with base width of 20 ¿m at substrate thickness of 600 ¿m . From the experiment, the magnetotransistor had the highest sensitivity of 10.25%/T when emitter current was at 10 mA. This research on the three-terminal magnetotransistor can achieve magnetic sensors with small size, high performance and wide range of applications.


The Assimilation in the Unstable Subspace (AUS) was introduced by Trevisan and Uboldi
in 2004, and developed by Trevisan, Uboldi and Carrassi, to minimize the analysis and forecast
errors by exploiting the flow-dependent instabilities of the forecast-analysis cycle system, which
may be thought of as a system forced by observations. In the AUS scheme the assimilation is
obtained by confining the analysis increment in the unstable subspace of the forecast-analysis
cycle system so that it will have the same structure of the dominant instabilities of the system.
The unstable subspace is estimated by Breeding on the Data Assimilation System (BDAS). AUS-
BDAS has already been tested in realistic models and observational configurations, including a
Quasi-Geostrophicmodel and a high dimensional, primitive equation ocean model; the experiments
include both fixed and"adaptive"observations. In these contexts, the AUS-BDAS approach greatly
reduces the analysis error, with reasonable computational costs for data assimilation with respect,
for example, to a prohibitive full Extended Kalman Filter.
This is a follow-up study in which we revisit the AUS-BDAS approach in the more basic, highly
nonlinear Lorenz 1963 convective model. We run observation system simulation experiments in a
perfect model setting, and with two types of model error as well: random and systematic. In the
different configurations examined, and in a perfect model setting, AUS once again shows better
efficiency than other advanced data assimilation schemes. In the present study, we develop an
iterative scheme that leads to a significant improvement of the overall assimilation performance
with respect also to standard AUS. In particular, it boosts the efficiency of regime's changes
tracking, with a low computational cost.
Other data assimilation schemes need estimates of ad hoc parameters, which have to be tuned
for the specific model at hand. In Numerical Weather Prediction models, tuning of parameters —
and in particular an estimate of the model error covariance matrix — may turn out to be quite
difficult. Our proposed approach, instead, may be easier to implement in operational models.


Control of pre-harvest summer rot in cv. Royal Gala apple in the Waikato district during the 2006/2007 growing season was evaluated. There were six treatments and an unsprayed control. Three treatments investigated the effect of timing by applying tolyfluanid, mancozeb, captan and copper sequentially at 04 day intervals in October and early November (spring), November and December (early summer) or January and February (late summer). The fourth treatment was two applications of carbendazim in early October (flowering) and there were two biological control treatments, Bacillus subtilis QST7 3 and Serratia marcescens HR42, applied at 04 day intervals from flowering (October) to harvest (February). Compared with the unsprayed treatment, the most effective control was achieved by fungicide applications during either November/December or January/February. Due to large variation in the data, differences were not statistically significant, but mean lesion diameter at final assessment for these treatments was 29% and 35% of controls, respectively. The other treatments did not control rots.


This article considers routing and uplinks scheduling in space–air–ground integrated networks. Specifically, it considers a successive interference cancellation-capable unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that collects data from ground devices operating in an Internet of Things network. Its objective is to maximize the minimum flow rate to a terrestrial gateway over a fixed time horizon. It outlines a mixed integer linear program (MILP) to optimize in each time slot: the routing from the UAV to the gateway, the set of links from ground devices to the UAV, and the flow rate over links. It also proposes a novel algorithm, called iterative flow and path reservation (IFPR), for use by the UAV to select paths. Further, IFPR uses two methods to schedule communications between ground devices and the UAV. The first method, called simplified MILP (SMILP), aims to maximize the sum rate from ground devices. The second method, called less data schedule first, prioritizes ground devices that have uploaded the least amount of data to the gateway. Numerical results show satellite links help the UAV collects 61% more data from ground devices. Moreover, as compared to the MILP, IFPR collects 23% less data. Further, for both MILP and IFPR, their Jain's fairness index reaches around one when the number of time slots is sufficiently large. Finally, when IFPR uses SMILP, the gateway collects more data but at the expense of fairness.


The International trade and transfer of art and antiquities faces problems because nations have erected very different rules with respect to movable property. All nations forbid theft, however most cultural property disputes involve an original owner and a subsequent good faith possessor. Different jurisdictions have chosen to allocate rights and responsibilities between these two relative innocents in very different ways. Disharmony in the law is seldom a good thing, but in the realm of cultural property it can be particularly damaging to the interests of nations, museums, individuals, and our collective cultural heritage. The lack of harmony ensures no overarching policy choices will be furthered, which prevents parties from anticipating legal outcomes and giving substance to policies. This article explores the default conflict of law rules which are applied to cultural property, and shows how the lex situs rule exploits the various legal rules which apply to art and antiquities. It challenges the lofty position enjoyed by the lex situs rule and proposes a radical reform of the default choice of law analysis. By employing the law of the Nation of Origin or lex originis courts can ensure the jurisdiction with the most tangible connection to an object enjoys the benefit of applying its legal rules to a given dispute. This will not only ensure the security of art and antiquities transactions, but impart much-needed transparency into the cultural property trade, and finally will decrease the theft and illegal excavation of art and antiquities. The article begins by presenting some examples of recent disputes, and the problems they present for the law and cultural heritage policy. Section II describes the fundamental difficulty of adjudicating claims between two relative innocents, and the disharmony which has resulted as different jurisdictions have resolved this conundrum in very different ways. Section III lays out the ways in which private international law impacts art and antiquities disputes. Section IV analyzes the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention, the most recent attempt to harmonize the law affecting cultural property. Section V proposes a radical reform of the choice of law enquiry taken by courts.


Motivation: Cytosine methylation is widespread in most eukaryotic genomes and is known to play a substantial role in various regulatory pathways. Unmethylated cytosines may be converted to uracil through the addition of sodium bisulphite, allowing genome-wide quantification of cytosine methylation via high-throughput sequencing. The data thus acquired allows the discovery of methylation 'loci', contiguous regions of methylation consistently methylated across biological replicates. The mapping of these loci allows for associations with other genomic factors to be identified, and for analyses of differential methylation to take place. Results: The segmentSeq R package has been extended to identify methylation loci from high-throughput sequencing data from multiple conditions. A statistical model is then developed that accounts for biological replication and variable rates of non-conversion of cytosines in each sample to compute posterior likelihoods of methylation at each locus within an empirical Bayesian framework. The same model is used as a basis for analysis of differential methylation between multiple experimental conditions with the baySeq R package. These analyses are demonstrated on a set of data derived from Dicer-like mutants in Arabidopsis to reveal complex interactions between the different Dicer-like mutants and their methylation pathways. Availability: The segmentSeq and baySeq packages are available on the Bioconductor (http://www.bioconductor.org). Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com


BACKGROUND Day-case laparoscopic fundoplication for gastro-oesophageal reflux disease was introduced in January 1997. MATERIAL AND METHODS Inclusion criteria were ASA grade 1-2, living within 30 minutes by car from the hospital, or staying over in the patient hotel the first night, with company. Initially, only selected patients were offered day-case treatment; later it was adopted as routine. The patients underwent general intravenous anaesthesia with propofol and remifentanil and were given prophylaxis against postoperative pain and nausea. The surgical procedure was Nissen-Rossetti fundoplication or semifundoplication. RESULTS 83 patients were included. Ten patients were admitted, 73 (88%) were discharged as planned 3-8 hours after the operation. Eight patients (10%) were readmitted; one of them underwent reoperation for necrosis of the gastric fundus. Eight patients visited the outpatient department without need for readmission. At seven-day follow-up, 55 discharged patients (75%) were satisfied with the day-case treatment, nine (12%) were indifferent, and nine (12%) were dissatisfied, mostly because of pain. If offered a similar operation in the future, 50 patients (68%) would have preferred and 11 (15%) would have accepted day-case treatment; 12 (16%) would not. INTERPRETATION Outpatient laparoscopic fundoplication is safe and well tolerated by the majority of patients.


Objectives: The Women's Health Questionnaire has been developed and validated in Anglo-Saxon and Swedish populations. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the Italian version of the questionnaire to determine whether cross-cultural differences exist in the perception of quality of life, and to use it to compare the quality of life in women attending menopause centers with that of women in the general population. Methods: An Italian version of the Women's Health Questionnaire (WHQ) was produced, using the forward-backward translation method to ensure conceptual equivalence, and approved by the originator. Women were recruited by random selection from the general population and from menopause centers, those taking hormone replacement therapy being ineligible. The questionnaire was completed anonymously at home and mailed to the co-ordinating center. Psychometric evaluation included tests of item convergent and discriminant validity, internal-consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, construct validity and the discriminative properties of the questionnaire. Results: The completeness of the data was good, with missing-value rates consistently low for most items. Item-scale correlations, used to evaluate internal consistency, were also good and the scaling success rate, used to measure item discriminant validity, was high for all scales. Scale scores were reliable for seven out of nine scales and test-retest reliability was excellent. There were few significant differences between the two populations of women in most of the WHQ areas. A comparison of Italian data with published data on English women showed great similarity. Conclusion: The Italian version of the WHQ is valid and reproducible. The subjective perception of the menopause and its related problems is similar in geographically and culturally different populations.


The US Supreme Court's decision in Graham v. John Deere (1966) placed neoclassical economic insights at the heart of modern patent law. But economic theory has moved on. Since the 1990s, legal scholars have repeatedly mined the discipline to propose ad hoc rules for individual industries like biotech and software. So far, however, they have almost always ignored the literature's broader lessons for doctrine. This article asks how well today's patent doctrine follows and occasionally departs from modern economic principles. The article starts by reviewing what innovation economists have learned since the 1970s. While it is conventional for legal scholars to divide the neoclassical literature into multiple competing "theories," shared mathematical methods and modeling assumptions (e.g. profit-maximization) guarantee that the neoclassical literature's various strands cannot disagree in any fundamental way. For this reason, whatever differences exist in the neoclassical literature are more accurately seen as special cases of a single underlying theory. We argue that this underlying theory must include at least three principles. The first limits reward to non-obvious inventions and explicitly entered the law through Graham's PHOSITA standard. The second principle holds that patent breadth should be chosen to balance the benefits of innovation against the costs of monopoly. Though widely recognized by judges and scholars, the principle's influence on doctrine remains remarkably incoherent. The final principle prescribes rules for allocating patent rewards where multiple inventors contribute to a shared technology. Unlike the first two principles, this insight was unknown in the 1960s and has yet to enter the law. Remarkably, patent doctrine uses a single concept – Graham's "Person Having Ordinary Skill in the Art" or "PHOSITA" – to address all three principles. This means that doctrinal solutions for one principle can have unintended impacts on the others. In some cases, this link is optional. For example, the article shows how the PHOSITA concept could be generalized to provide separate and distinct tests for, say, non-obviousness and patent breadth. However, other links are mandatory. In particular, the article shows that any doctrinal architecture built on Graham's PHOSITA test automatically allocates reward among successive inventors. Though reasonable, these default outcomes fall short of the economic ideal. The article analyzes how changes in the Utility, Blocking Patents, Reverse Doctrine of Equivalents, and the Written Description doctrines can mitigate this problem. However, other gaps are inherent and cannot be eliminated without abandoning Graham itself. This radically revised architecture would probably cause more problems than it solves.


This paper establishes a generic severity function that can be used to produce power system security risk profiles. It is illustrated by analyzing the impacts of system load attributes on the small-disturbance rotor angle stability of a power system. The load attributes contributing to the oscillatory modes can be considered as inherent uncertain variables within power systems and include load power variations, load composition, and load model parameters. Uncertainty in the renewable power generation is also incorporated in the probabilistic modelling and risk assessment to demonstrate the flexibility of the approach. A novel approach is proposed to select the severity functions to logically represent small-disturbance security margin. The risk profile of a power system has been presented considering the probability density functions (pdfs) of power system critical modal damping and a selected set of severity functions. The analysis techniques developed are illustrated with a modified version of the 68-bus NETS-NYPS power system with a high amount of renewable power penetration. The relative importance of the load attributes and the impact of these attributes on stability boundaries has been identified at varying risk levels with respect to their contribution to small-disturbance stability.


The composition and abundance of phytoplankton and the corresponding environmental conditions were investigated during a mucilage event (October 2007-February 2008) in the Sea of Marmara. The mucilage producers Gonyaulax fragilis, Skeletonema costatum, and Cylindrotheca closterium were identified as abundant species. Thallassiosira rotula was also identified in large numbers. The maximum number of G. fragilis was observed at 83,600 cells L-1 in November 2007 during the first sampling occasion on the surface layer of Izmit Bay, and T. rotula was the most abundant diatom species, with 131,040 cells L-1 in the same period. G. fragilis was recorded at 96,250 cells L-1 in the dense mucilage-containing water samples collected from Degirmendere (Izmit Bay) in January 2008, and C. closterium was the dominant (161,250 cells L-1) diatom species in the same sample. Species diversity values (H'log2) increased from November to February, displaying maximum values of 2.5-3.5 in February at almost all stations (depths of 0.5 and 10 m), caused by the balanced increase of diatom species and their individual numbers in the total phytoplankton abundance. The surface layer waters of Izmit Bay exhibited severely low nitrogen to phosphorus ratio (N:P) values (0.1-14.4) compared to the Redfield ratio (16), which could be supported by the fact that the limiting nutrient for the Sea of Marmara is nitrogen. Even though there is a lack of data from before the mucilage period, the data obtained during the lifespan of the event indicated that a mixture of several phytoplankton species might have played a key role in the mucilage formation. The high organic carbon content of the mucilage (24% org-C) and the surrounding waters support the possibility that the event could have been related to organically rich cellular exudates of phytoplankton.


IMPORTANCE
Concussions are common among children and youth. To date, the pediatric concussion literature has focused on quantitative reports of the effects of concussion and return-to-activity guidelines. However, the subjective experiences of children and youth returning to occupations postconcussion have largely been ignored. An understanding of these experiences is critical to inform effective concussion management.

OBJECTIVE
To investigate the experiences of children and youth returning to occupations after sustaining a concussion and the impacts on their future engagement in occupation.

DESIGN
Qualitative interpretive description was used for data analysis and interpretation.

SETTING
Community.

PARTICIPANTS
Children and youth ages 11 to 18 yr from a cohort study were recruited to be interviewed about their experiences of engaging in occupations postconcussion.

OUTCOMES AND MEASURES
Interviews were conducted 3 to 24 mo postconcussion, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using interpretive description to identify themes.

RESULTS
Eight children and youth (5 male, 3 female) were included. Analyses revealed three themes of the experiences of children and youth returning to occupations after concussion: diverse experiences of concussion, knowledge is key to concussion management, and concussions affect occupational engagement.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
This study highlights the importance of considering a person's needs to enable effective concussion treatment plans. The results suggest the need for an occupation-based framework to guide interventions in pediatric concussion management. What This Article Adds: Our findings indicate that children and youth report variable recovery patterns, a lack of knowledge about concussion recovery, and a negative effect of concussion on occupational engagement.


In this paper, the equivalent linearization method with a weighted averaging proposed by Anh (2015) is applied to analyze the transverse vibration of quintic nonlinear Euler-Bernoulli beams subjected to axial loads. The proposed method does not require small parameter in the equation which is difficult to be found for nonlinear problems. The approximate solutions are harmonic oscillations, which are compared with the previous analytical solutions and the exact solutions. Comparisons show the accuracy of the present solutions. The impact of nonlinear terms on the dynamical behavior of beams and the effect of the initial amplitude on frequencies of beams are investigated. Furthermore, the effect of the axial force and the length of beams on frequencies are studied.


We present an optimal power and rate control policy for delay constrained traffic in next generation TDMA wireless systems. Our solution minimizes average transmit power while satisfying a constraint on the distribution of packets lost to deadline expiration. We also provide a means to account for erroneous and delayed channel estimates. Our results show the optimal power and rate adaptation may change dramatically as mobile speed and channel estimate delay increase. Finally, we present results from a simulation of a GSM EDGE mobile. This simulation incorporates industry standard wireless channels and performance data available from the Third Generation Partnership Project. When compared to the standard fixed-SIR power control policy, our algorithm provides a significant reduction in power consumption and mitigates some of the negative effects of delayed channel estimates.


Abstract Dietary antioxidant capacity (dTAC) and dietary inflammatory index (DII) are commonly used to assess nutrition. This prospective study examined dTAC, DII, and serum biomarkers in women with breast cancer (BC). Patients were followed-up before surgery (T1), before chemotherapy (T2), at 6th (T3) and 12th months of chemotherapy (T4). Serum tumor necrosis factor alpha, interleukin 1β, interleukin 6, protein carbonyl, malondialdehyde, total antioxidant capacity (TAC), and total oxidant status levels were analyzed. Dietary antioxidant intake, dTAC, and DII were determined using a three-day dietary record. dTAC was calculated using vitamin C equivalent (VCE), oxygen radical absorption capacity (ORAC), trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC), total radical-trapping antioxidant parameter (TRAP), and ferrous ion reducing antioxidant potential (FRAP). This study included 32 women with BC and 32 controls (CG). ORAC, TEAC, TRAP, and FRAP were significantly lower in BC than in CG. During follow-up, only ORAC increased significantly at T2 compared to T1. A weak positive correlation was found between dTAC (VCE) and serum TAC levels at T2 (rho = 0.371, p = 0.036). The relationship between diet and serum biomarkers was not significant. Multicenter prospective studies on different age groups are needed to understand the association between diet and serum biomarkers levels in patients with BC.


BACKGROUND
Mealtime best practices for obesity prevention in child care have been developed from experimental studies and expert opinion. Our objective was to describe adherence to best practices in child care centers and to evaluate the association between mealtime practices and children's dietary intake.

METHODS
We conducted an observational study of 349 preschoolers, ages 36 to 72 months, from 30 child care centers in Cincinnati, Ohio (November 2009 to January 2011). Trained observers recorded providers' behaviors related to six mealtime best practice recommendations and documented children's intake (n = 60 group lunches). General linear mixed models were used to evaluate the association between practice use and children's total energy (caloric consumption) and fruit and vegetable consumption.

RESULTS
Adherence to individual mealtime best practices was variable (0%-77%). Staff sitting with children at lunch was associated with lower energy intake and higher vegetable intake. Staff eating some of the same foods was associated with higher energy intake and higher vegetable intake. Staff encouraging children to try new/less-favorite foods more than once was associated with lower fruit intake. Staff having general conversations with children (not addressed in recommendations) was associated with lower vegetable intake. Family-style meal service, staff talking about healthy foods, and staff helping children assess hunger before seconds were not significantly associated with intake.

CONCLUSIONS
Few mealtime best practices were associated with dietary intake. Given the number of meals children consume in child care and the prevalence of childhood obesity, efforts to identify mealtime practices that improve children's dietary intake are crucial for obesity prevention.


Abstract: Concerns have been raised about the appropriateness of placebo controls in clinical trials for major depressive disorder (MDD), given that there are approved treatments for this illness. Critics have argued that patients with untreated depression would be exposed to an unnecessary risk of suicide. There is also a competing concern that antidepressant drug treatment itself may induce suicidal behavior and thinking (suicidality). To examine this question, we have evaluated the rate of suicide in placebo- and active drug-treated groups of patients with MDD and various anxiety disorders participating in short-term randomized controlled trials (RCTs). We examined data from all manufacturer-sponsored short-term RCTs of 9 commonly used antidepressants in patients with MDD and various anxiety disorders. All short-term RCTs of antidepressants in patients with MDD and various anxiety disorders were included. Individual patients' data were available for all trials. Data were available for the 207 trials conducted in patients with MDD, including a total of 40,028 patients. There were 21 cases of suicide in these patients. Forty-four trials were conducted in patients with various anxiety disorders, including a total of 10,972 patients. There were 2 cases of suicide in these patients. Overall, at least 1 case of suicide occurred in 21 of the 251 trials. Sixteen of the suicides in MDD trials occurred in trials that had only an active control comparison group, and most of these (14 cases) were observed in the non-North American trials. In the placebo-controlled MDD trials, the rate ratios of suicide in the combined drug groups compared with placebo were 1.07 (0.1-63.4) and 0.5 (0.0-36.7) for the non-North American and North American trials, respectively. In the anxiety disorder studies, the overall rate ratio of suicide for the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors compared with placebo was 0.9 (0.0-71.4). Neither use of placebo nor of antidepressants in short-term RCTs was associated with an increased risk of completed suicide among patients with MDD or various anxiety disorders. Nonetheless, because of the small numbers of suicides in these trials and the subsequent lack of statistical power, an increased risk of completed suicide in association with either drug or placebo treatment cannot be definitively excluded.


Data transmission through metallic structures is commonly required in industrial control applications. In a number of these applications, mechanically penetrating the structure to pass cables and establish a wired communication link is either impossible or undesirable. Examples of such structures include metal bulkheads, pressure vessels, or pipelines. Ultrasonic signaling has been proposed as a solution for through-metal data transfer without penetrating the structure. The reverberant nature of the through-metal channel, however, can lead to significant intersymbol interference, limiting the data rate achievable by conventional single-carrier communication techniques. In this paper, we describe a through-metal communication technique that exploits the slow-varying nature of the ultrasonic channel to implement an orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexing-based rate-adaptive peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) reduction algorithm. Measurements of the proposed adaptive algorithm have demonstrated transmitted throughput rates of up to 14 Mbps while reducing PAPR by up to 3 dB and maintaining a bit error rate of 10- 5 at average transmit powers of roughly 6 dBm. This enhancement provides the required throughput and error rate to support high-rate network applications in otherwise data-limited environments.


Prefetching is a well-studied technique for addressing the memory access stall time of contemporary microprocessors. However, despite a large body of related work, the memory access behavior of applications is not well understood, and it remains difficult to predict whether a particular application will benefit from a given prefetcher technique. In this work we propose a novel methodology to classify the memory access patterns of applications, enabling well-informed reasoning about the applicability of a certain prefetcher. Our approach leverages instruction dataflow information to uncover a wide range of access patterns, including arbitrary combinations of offsets and indirection. These combinations or prefetch kernels represent reuse, strides, reference locality, and complex address generation. By determining the complexity and frequency of these access patterns, we enable reasoning about prefetcher timeliness and criticality, exposing the limitations of existing prefetchers today. Moreover, using these kernels, we are able to compute the next address for the majority of top-missing instructions, and we propose a software prefetch injection methodology that is able to outperform state-of-the-art hardware prefetchers.


Mouse lymphocytes incubated on fresh frozen sections of mesenteric lymph nodes adhere specifically to the endothelium of high endothelial venules (HEV), specialized vessels through which lymphocytes normally enter lymph nodes from the blood. An assay of the specific binding of lymphocytes to HEV in frozen sections is characterized and is used to compare the capacity of various syngeneic and allogeneic lymphocyte populations to adhere to HEV in mouse mesenteric lymph nodes. The relative adherence of lymphocyte populations to HEV in this in vitro system correlates highly with their localization in HEV a) during single-pass perfusion through the lymph node at 37°C, or b) in vivo 15 min after i.v. injection. With this assay we have shown that the binding of mesenteric node lymphocytes (MNL) to syngeneic mesenteric node HEV is constant: no significant variation was observed between individual mice, between sexes, between mice of various ages (3 weeks to 9 months), or after treatment of the lymphocyte donor with hydrocortisone acetate. B lymphocytes adhered as well as T lymphocytes and exhibited no preference for HEV bordering on B areas in the lymph node section. In general, other syngeneic cell populations bind in proportion to their content of mature lymphocytes. MNL exhibited no preferential adherence to syngeneic as opposed to allogeneic HEV, but A/J and BALB/c MNL demonstrated greater binding than C57BL/6J and AKR/Cum MNL, regardless of the HEV donor strain.


The present study was carried out in some interior areas of Pauri district of Uttrakhand to collect the information of traditionally used medicinal plants by the communities. A total of 61 medicinal plants belonging to 28 families were used by local people to cure different diseases. . Out of 61 medicinal plant species 13 plant species were having roots and rhizomes as medicinal parts, 7 species containing fruits and flowers as medicinal value, Whereas 28 plant species were having leaves as their medicinal plant parts. Almost all these medicinal plants identified were used to cure human diseases and in which 10 plant species were also used to cure diseases of cattle of the local communities. Local communities, especially, older age class, including women heavily use these traditionally available medicinal plants for health and believe that these are easily available, less expensive, and have no side effects. (Nature and Science 2010;8(6):57-61). (ISSN: 1545-0740).


Deafness is the hidden disability and the most common human sensory defects which lead to poor educational and employment prospects of childhood. Is there any association of consanguinity and hearing loss or are there any difference of association of consanguinity and hearing loss in specialized and public school children and how much risk is associated?--were the research questions of this study. Total 428 participants have been selected randomly. Hearing impaired were 186 participants and 242 participants were normal hearing school boy. This was a case control, analytical, hypotheses testing study. In normal public school children group, consanguinity was present in 2.5% parents. The rest were married with non relatives. In parents of hearing impaired children group, consanguinity was very high (17.2%). Pearson chi-square test and Odds ratio analysis was done. The value was less than 0.05 and ratio was 8.173. The 'p' value of Pearson chi-square test was less than 0.05. So, the test was highly significant at 95% confidence interval. Odds ratio showed that the risk of profound sensorineural hearing loss in the baby of parents of consanguineous marriages 8.173 times higher than that of non consanguineous marriages.


Teaching network intrusion detection, or NID (the identification of violati ons of a security policy in a computer network) is a challenging task, because stude nts need to analyze many data from network logs and in real time to identify patter ns of network attacks, making these activities visually tiring. This paper describe s an ongoing research concerned with designing and applying sounds that represent meaningful information in interfaces (sonification) to support teaching of NID. An usabi lity test was conducted with engineering students. Natural sound effects (auditory icons) and musical sounds (earcons) were used to represent network attacks. A post -activity questionnaire showed that most students preferred auditory icons for analyzing NID, and all of them were very interested in the design and application of sonifications.


Background Despite the increasing prevalence of diabetes and increasing use of electronic health (eHealth) among people with diabetes, little is known about the association between the use of eHealth and the use of provider-based health services. Objective The objective of this study was to investigate whether the use of eHealth might change patients' decisions regarding doctor-seeking behavior and whether information acquired from the internet was discussed with a doctor. Methods We used email survey data collected in 2018 from members of the Norwegian Diabetes Association (aged 18 to 89 years) diagnosed with diabetes. Using logistic regressions, we studied patients' internet-triggered changes in decisions regarding doctor visits; whether they discussed information from the internet with a doctor; and whether these topics were associated with gender, age, education, self-rated health, and self-reported anxiety/depression. Results Among the 895 informants, 75.4% (645/856) had never made an internet-triggered change of decision in any direction regarding visiting a doctor, whereas 16.4% (41/859) had decided to visit and 17.3% (148/856) had decided not to visit. The probability of changing decisions decreased with higher age and increased with the severity of self-reported anxiety/depression. Around half of the study participants (448/858, 52.2%) had never discussed information from the internet with a doctor. The probability of discussing internet information with a doctor was higher for those in bad/very bad self-rated health (odds ratio 2.12, CI 1.15-3.90) and for those with moderate self-reported anxiety/depression (odds ratio 2.30, CI 1.30-4.10). Conclusions Our findings suggest that using eHealth has a significant impact on doctor-visiting decisions among people with diabetes, especially among people aged 18 to 39 years and among those reporting anxiety/depression. It is of great importance that the information posted is of high quality and that the large differences between internet-users regarding age as well as mental and somatic health status are taken into account. More research is needed to confirm and further explore the findings of this study.


Photoelectric dual-function features in bulk crystals or flexible thin films make them excellent candidates for important and thriving applications in storage, sensing and other information fields. Based on superior advantages such as easy and environmentally friendly processing, mechanical flexibility, and ability to fabricate films and bulk single crystals; we designed a type of molecular material with a photoelectric multi-function switch, [N(NH2CH2CH2)3]2Mn2Cl12 (compound 1), which exhibits intriguing temperature-dependent dielectric and red emission switchable characteristics. This material perfectly explains the advantages of molecular materials, while 1 can also be used to fabricate a transparent unidirectional film with ultra-flexibility. Moreover, this material shows the highest record in signal contrast of ∼5 (exceeding all the known molecular materials/crystalline switches, revealing its potential to obtain high-efficiency signal-to-noise ratio), sensitive dielectric bi-stability, and excellent switching anti fatigue. These features give it a high application value in integrated circuits, optoelectronic seamless integration devices and flexible multifunctional devices.

publisher-specific, author manuscript: http://rsc.li/journals-terms-of-use


The developments in EMC modelling permit to estimate the disturbances in different kinds of circuits and installations, to define a protection philosophy and to evaluate its efficiency. Using some examples of modelling, the paper discusses whether these possibilities are useful for the standardization in progress in the European Community. It is shown that essential progress has been made in the last years in modelling field-to-transmission line coupling, crosstalk, antennas, and shielded enclosures and that these models can be applied to define parameters and environments needed for standards.<<ETX>>


The current study aimed to determine anxiety, depression, and prenatal attachment levels in patients with gestational diabetes mellitus. For a total of 486 women with GDM, the mean Prenatal Attachment Inventory (PAI) score was 67.30 ± 13.64%. In terms of the Self-Perception of Pregnancy Scale with two factors, the factor 1 score was 21.65 ± 6.72 and the factor 2 score was 11.26 ± 3.72. Based on the Hospital Anxiety and Depression ScaleAnxiety (HADS-A) scale, almost half of the patients (48.10%) had normal scores. One-third (32.50%) of the patients had high scores. Based on the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale-Depression (HADS-D) scale, more than half of the patients (59.70%) had normal scores. A few (21.80%) of the patients had high scores, requiring support. Results showed a statistically significant correlation between several factors, including the number of children, number of pregnancies, whether pregnancy was intended, emotions after being aware of pregnancy, and mean scores for the scales used in this study (p < 0.05). In the current study, although most of the pregnant women were diagnosed with gestational diabetes mellitus after becoming pregnant, prenatal attachment scores were high. Additionally, one-third of the patients with gestational diabetes mellitus had high anxiety and depression scores. Moreover, body perception was moderate, while maternal perception was high.


An interpretation of the probability flux is given, based on a derivation of its eigenstates and relating them to coherent-state projections on a quantum wave function. An extended definition of the flux operator is obtained using coherent states. We present a "processed Husimi" representation, which makes decisions using many Husimi projections at each location. The processed Husimi representation reverse engineers or deconstructs the wave function, yielding the underlying classical ray structure. Our approach makes possible interpreting the dynamics of systems where the probability flux is uniformly zero or strongly misleading. The new technique is demonstrated by the calculation of particle flow maps of the classical dynamics underlying a quantum wave function in simple model systems such as a circular billiard with and without a magnetic field.


Herpes zoster or Shingles is caused by varicella-zoster virus (VZV), the same virus that causes chicken-pox (varicella).Primary infection with varicella-zoster virus causes chicken-pox (varicella), then the virus persists in nerve ganglia of sensory but rarely motor nerves, in a latent stage.If the virus gets reactivated it causes herpes zoster, which presents as painful vesicles following a dermatome. It is more common in the elderly and the immunocompromised.Herpes zoster is a common skin and mucous membrane disease caused by reactivation of latent varicella zoster virus, which had lodged previously in nerve ganglia.Trigeminal nerve nuclei and thoracic spinal ganglia are the most commonly affected.Reactivation of latent varicella-zoster virus can be triggered by old age, that is why herpes zoster is common in the elderly, above 60 years of age. This is due to age related decline in specific cell mediated immune response to VZV. Other triggering factors are malignancies malnutrition, emotional stress, physical trauma, chronic diseases like diabetes mellitus and immunosuppression from drugs and HIV.¹,²


BACKGROUND
One of the most challenging milestones for preterm infants is the acquisition of safe and efficient feeding skills. The majority of healthy full term infants are born with skills to coordinate their suck, swallow and respiration. However, this is not the case for preterm infants who develop these skills gradually as they transition from tube feeding to suck feeds. For preterm infants the ability to engage in oral feeding behaviour is dependent on many factors. The complexity of factors influencing feeding readiness has led some researchers to investigate the use of an individualised assessment of an infant's abilities. A limited number of instruments that aim to indicate an individual infant's readiness to commence either breast or bottle feeding have been developed.

OBJECTIVES
To determine the effects of using a feeding readiness instrument when compared to no instrument or another instrument on the outcomes of time to establish full oral feeding and duration of hospitalisation.

SEARCH METHODS
We used the standard methods of the Cochrane Neonatal Review Group, including a search of the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (The Cochrane Library 2010, Issue 2), MEDLINE via EBSCO (1966 to July 2010), EMBASE (1980 to July 2010), CINAHL via EBSCO (1982 to July 2010), Web of Science via EBSCO (1980 to July 2010) and Health Source (1980 to July 2010). Other sources such as cited references from retrieved articles and databases of clinical trials were also searched. We did not apply any language restriction. We updated this search in March 2012.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomised and quasi-randomised trials comparing a formal instrument to assess a preterm infant's readiness to commence suck feeds with either no instrument (usual practice) or another feeding readiness instrument.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
The standard methods of the Cochrane Neonatal Review Group were used. Two authors independently screened potential studies for inclusion. No studies were found that met our inclusion criteria.

MAIN RESULTS
No studies met the inclusion criteria.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
There is currently no evidence to inform clinical practice, with no studies meeting the inclusion criteria for this review. Research is needed in this area to establish an evidence base for the clinical utility of implementing the use of an instrument to assess feeding readiness in the preterm infant population.


Purpose Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors have been used for patients with Alzheimer's disease. However, its pharmacokinetics in non-target organs other than the brain has not been clarified yet. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the whole-body distribution of intravenously administered 11C-Donepezil (DNP) and the AChE activity in the normal rat, with special focus on the adrenal glands. Methods The distribution of 11C-DNP was investigated by PET/CT in 6 normal male Wistar rats (8 weeks old, body weight  = 220±8.9 g). A 30-min dynamic scan was started simultaneously with an intravenous bolus injection of 11C-DNP (45.0±10.7 MBq). The whole-body distribution of the 11C-DNP PET was evaluated based on the Vt (total distribution volume) by Logan-plot analysis. A fluorometric assay was performed to quantify the AChE activity in homogenized tissue solutions of the major organs. Results The PET analysis using Vt showed that the adrenal glands had the 2nd highest level of 11C-DNP in the body (following the liver) (13.33±1.08 and 19.43±1.29 ml/cm3, respectively), indicating that the distribution of 11C-DNP was the highest in the adrenal glands, except for that in the excretory organs. The AChE activity was the third highest in the adrenal glands (following the small intestine and the stomach) (24.9±1.6, 83.1±3.0, and 38.5±8.1 mU/mg, respectively), indicating high activity of AChE in the adrenal glands. Conclusions We demonstrated the whole-body distribution of 11C-DNP by PET and the AChE activity in the major organs by fluorometric assay in the normal rat. High accumulation of 11C-DNP was observed in the adrenal glands, which suggested the risk of enhanced cholinergic synaptic transmission by the use of AChE inhibitors.


BACKGROUND
Non-specific low-back pain is a worldwide problem. More specific diagnosis could improve prognosis. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) became available in Akureyri Hospital in 2004 but its utilisation in diagnosing low-back pain has not been investigated.

OBJECTIVE
To study the use of MRI in diagnosing low-back pain, correlation of the MRI outcomes with other clinical findings and its possible effects on treatment.

METHODS
Retrospective, descriptive analysis of patients' journals. Included were all adult (18 years and older) residents of Akureyri who underwent low-back MRI in Akureyri Hospital in 2009.

RESULTS
During 2009, 159 patients (82 women) underwent low-back MRI, mean age 51 years (18-88). The most common pathological findings were connected to the lumbar disk. Disk herniation was diagnosed in 38% of the patients, 77% at the L4-L5 or L5-S1 level. MRI results correlated poorly with symptoms and clinical findings. Treatment options for disk herniation were prescription of medications (70%), referrals to physiotherapy (67%) and orthopaedic surgeons (61%). Nine patients were operated. Among patients referred to physiotherapy, 49% were first examined with MRI and thus waited longer for referral than those referred directly to physiotherapy (p=0.008). One year after the MRI, recovery rate was 51%. Prognosis was better for patients referred to physiotherapy (p=0.024).

CONCLUSIONS
MRI seems to be used for general diagnosis of low-back pain. Symptoms and MRI results correlate poorly, emphasizing the need for the doctor´s thorough weighing of clinical and MRI findings when diagnosing low-back pain. Recovery rate of patients with lumbar disk herniation improves by physiotherapy. The general use of MRI might delay treatment. Key words: Magnetic resonance imaging, clinical diagnosis, low-back pain, lumbar disk herniation, treatment, physiotherapy. Correspondence: Gunnar Svanbergsson email@example.com.


The generation of multidimensional datasets characterizing genetic, epigenetic, and functional properties of large normal and tumor-related samples is creating unique opportunities for the systems-level dissection of mechanisms associated with malignant phenotypes. Integrated data sets may lead to more efficient and specific approaches for the elucidation of therapeutic targets and biomarkers and for the identification of specific small molecule inhibitors. However, the power of these computational methods to study human cancer from an unbiased global perspective is severely compromised by the low through-put approaches necessary to functionally validate the in silico predictions. During the last years, RNA interference (RNAi) emerged as a very powerful genetic strategy to functionally interrogate the entire genome by loss-of-function studies. This cellular process can be experimentally controlled to knock down the expression of any specific gene. Our group has pioneered the development of RNAi-based genetic tools to translate RNAi studies to mammalian systems generating a shRNA-mir pooled lentiviral library that allows performing functional studies at genome-wide level. ErbB2 is a receptor tyrosine kinase found overexpressed in 20-40% of breast tumors correlating with a malignant phenotype and worse prognosis. Different targeted therapies have been developed to specifically inhibit its activity such the monoclonal antibody Herceptin, or the small tyrosine kinase inhibitor Lapatinib. Despite of the success of these inhibitors in the treatment of tumors that overexpress ErbB2, about 30% of them become resistant making necessary to look for alternative targets in these cases. The combination of the state-of-the-art computational analysis and RNAi-based technology toward system biology studies must represent a powerful tool to dissect the regulatory networks that govern the homeostasis of breast tumors. Applying this combined approach to an overexpressing ErbB2 breast cancer model we have identified the genes that are critical in those cells. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 5137. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-5137


The effect of different laboratory testing policies on the surveillance of rotavirus was assessed in eight laboratories between 1995 and 1998. In 1995, five laboratories tested all faecal specimens from children aged 5 years and under all year, two tested all specimens from children aged 4 years and under all year, and one tested all specimens from children aged 3 years and under between November and May only. Five laboratories changed their testing policy between 1995 and 1998. By 1998, three tested all specimens from children aged 5 years and under all year and two from the same age group during the 'season' only. Three laboratories had unique policies: one tested all specimens from children aged 2 years and under between January and June, one tested all specimens from children aged 4 years and under all year, and one tested specimens only on clinical request. The onset date of the rotavirus infection 'season' as determined by retrospective scrutiny of reported cases varied by up to 15 weeks between laboratories, starting as early as week 45 (November) and as late as week 13 (March). Laboratories with more restrictive testing policies yielded fewer reports of rotavirus and changes in policy within a particular laboratory affected the number of reports. Temporal and geographic trends were visible, even within the relatively small area covered by this study, and showed how laboratory testing policies affect surveillance data.


This work examines and attempts to overcome issues caused by the lack of formal standardisation when defining text categorisation techniques and detailing how they might be appropriately integrated with each other. Despite text categorisation's long history the concept of automation is relatively new, coinciding with the evolution of computing technology and subsequent increase in quantity and availability of electronic textual data. Nevertheless insufficient descriptions of the diverse algorithms discovered have lead to an acknowledged ambiguity when trying to accurately replicate methods, which has made reliable comparative evaluations impossible.

Existing interpretations of general data mining and text categorisation methodologies are analysed in the first half of the thesis and common elements are extracted to create a distinct set of significant stages. Their possible interactions are logically determined and a unique universal architecture is generated that encapsulates all complexities and highlights the critical components. A variety of text related algorithms are also comprehensively surveyed and grouped according to which stage they belong in order to demonstrate how they can be mapped.

The second part reviews several open-source data mining applications, placing an emphasis on their ability to handle the proposed architecture, potential for expansion and text processing capabilities. Finding these inflexible and too elaborate to be readily adapted, designs for a novel framework are introduced that focus on rapid prototyping through lightweight customisations and reusable atomic components.

Being a consequence of inadequacies with existing options, a rudimentary implementation is realised along with a selection of text categorisation modules. Finally a series of experiments are conducted that validate the feasibility of the outlined methodology and importance of its composition, whilst also establishing the practicality of the framework for research purposes. The simplicity of experiments and results gathered clearly indicate the potential benefits that can be gained when a formalised approach is utilised.


The flexural behaviour of 6-ply unidirectional hybrid fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) matrix composites containing a mixture of E-glass and S2-glass fibres was investigated. A high performance epoxy system comprising of Kinetix® R240 epoxy resin (combined with Kinetix® H160 epoxy hardener) was utilised for the composite matrix. Flexural testing was conducted in accordance with Procedure A of the ASTM D790-03 test standard on a universal testing machine equipped with a three-point bend test rig. In addition to varying the stacking configurations of the composite prepregs, the influence of span-to-depth ratio on the flexural properties and failure mechanisms was also studied. The failure mechanisms of the resulting fractured specimens were characterised using optical microscopy and compared with those noted by the authors in previous work.


The simulation preorder is widely used both as a behavioral relation in concurrent systems, and as an abstraction tool to reduce the state space in model checking, were memory requirement is clearly a critical issue. Therefore, in this context a simulation algorithm should address both time and space efficiency. In this paper, we rely on the notion of rank to design an efficient simulation algorithm. It turns out that such algorithm outperforms—both in terms of time and in terms of space—the best simulation algorithms in the literature, on the class of acyclic graphs.


AIM
To evaluate MGMT promoter hypermethylation as prognostic factor in a retrospective study of 104 cases of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The O(6)-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) status was evaluated by methylation-specific PCR (MSP), immunohistochemistry and Western blotting analysis in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded surgical samples.

RESULTS
The MGMT gene was found to be methylated in 29 of 101 tumors (28.7%) by MSP, according to the evaluation methods employed. By immunohistochemistry, different categories were identified on the basis of reaction intensity, percentage of positive cells and homogeneous or heterogeneous distribution. MSP did not correlate with immunohistochemistry, with the exception of the category with the highest percentage of positive cells and homogeneity of immunostaining. Western blotting analysis correlated with immunohistochemical findings (Pearson's correlation coefficient r=0.268, p=0.0211), but not with MSP. By Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, radiotherapy was a significant prognostic factor (p=0.0001). When uncensored patients alone were considered, MGMT methylation status showed a significant correlation with survival (p=0.026). Temozolomide therapy correlated with survival (p=0.022), but not with MGMT methylation. After multivariate Cox regression analysis, only radiotherapy remained as an independent prognostic factor (p=0.0001).

CONCLUSION
Correlation was inconclusive among MSP, immunohistochemistry and Western blotting analysis, despite the sophisticated score system for the immunohistochemical quantitative evaluation. MGMT expression is a complex event in which many factors beside epigenetic silencing are implicated.


Evolutionary stellar models of 44 Tauri, a multiperiodic δ Scuti star, have been developed theoretically and compared with earlier observational reports. The models depict 44 Tau at the hydrogen-shell–burning stage, when it is in radiative equilibrium with a very thin surface convective layer. Using the models, we performed calculations to obtain radial and nonradial adiabatic oscillation frequencies, and the equations were treated linearly. The results showed that the radial fundamental (6.899 cycles day-1) and first-overtone (8.961 cycles day-1) frequencies and the five nonradial modes of low harmonic degree that had been determined theoretically were in agreement with the observed values of previous authors to an accuracy of a few parts in 103. However, a difference emerged in the nonradial frequencies, which we classified as g-modes of low harmonic degree, whereas the observational reports had classified them as p-modes. In addition, even though 44 Tau has a rotation v sin i = 6.8 km s-1 (according to Solano and Fernley), which we considered negligible, we analyzed the effect of rotation. Our findings revealed that rotation modulated the oscillation frequencies of the nonrotating model on the order of 10-2.


The current study examined false memories in the week preceding the 2018 Irish abortion referendum. Participants (N = 3,140) viewed six news stories concerning campaign events—two fabricated and four authentic. Almost half of the sample reported a false memory for at least one fabricated event, with more than one third of participants reporting a specific memory of the event. "Yes" voters (those in favor of legalizing abortion) were more likely than "no" voters to "remember" a fabricated scandal regarding the campaign to vote "no," and "no" voters were more likely than "yes" voters to "remember" a fabricated scandal regarding the campaign to vote "yes." This difference was particularly strong for voters of low cognitive ability. A subsequent warning about possible misinformation slightly reduced rates of false memories but did not eliminate these effects. This study suggests that voters in a real-world political campaign are most susceptible to forming false memories for fake news that aligns with their beliefs, in particular if they have low cognitive ability.


The capability of the noncollagenous (NC1) domains of the six alpha chains of human type IV collagen to induce anti-glomerular basement membrane (GBM) nephritis in WKY rats was determined. This was accomplished by using recombinant technology to express the six NC1 domains in mammalian 293 cells and to purify the proteins using an anti-Flag affinity column. All rats injected with alpha 3(IV)NC1 and alpha 4(IV)NC1 developed proteinuria and hematuria. Rats injected with alpha 5(IV)NC1 developed mild hematuria, whereas rats injected with the alpha 1(IV)NC1, alpha 2(IV)NC1 and alpha 6(IV)NC1 domains developed neither proteinuria nor hematuria. The renal lesions induced by alpha 3(IV)NC1 and alpha 4(IV)NC1 domains were characteristic of those in patients with anti-GBM nephritis and Goodpasture syndrome. The experimental nephritis is mediated by anti-basement membrane antibodies that are targeted to alpha 3(IV)NC1 and alpha 4(IV)NC1 domains and which bind to the glomerular basement membrane. The uniqueness of the alpha 3(IV)NC1 and alpha 4(IV)NC1 domains, among the six NC1 domains, to induce severe anti-GBM disease may relate to the accessibility of epitopes in the GBM for binding of antibody. The pathogenicity of the alpha 4(IV)NC1 antibodies establishes a conundrum because the pathogenic antibodies in patients are not targeted to the alpha 4(IV)NC1, but are targeted to the alpha 3(IV)NC1 domain in anti-GBM nephritis and to the alpha 3(IV)NC1 and alpha 5(IV)NC1 domains in Alport post-transplant anti-GBM nephritis.


Abstract Small indigenous fish species play a significant role in food and nutritional security of poor communities in developing countries. Sardines (Rastrineobola argentea) are fish species of Lake Victoria known to be a good source of health‐promoting omega‐3 fatty acids. Open sun drying is a common and traditional sardine processing and preservation method. Sun‐dried products suffer from characteristic off‐flavor due to lipid oxidation which discourage product consumption and limit diversification. This study investigated the use of clove (Syzygium aromaticum) and seaweed (Kappaphycus alvarezii) water extracts as natural antioxidants to impede lipid oxidation in sun‐dried sardines. Lipid oxidation was assessed by peroxide value, volatile secondary oxidation products, and fatty acid profiles. The antioxidant capacity of extracts was evaluated by total phenolic content, 1, 1‐diphenyl‐2‐picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging, and iron (Fe2+) chelating ability. Results showed that 5, 10, and 20 g/L clove extracts significantly reduced peroxidation in sun‐dried sardines by 38.7%, 54.6%, and 56%, respectively. Clove extracts resulted in higher retention of omega‐3 fatty acids and lower concentrations of secondary lipid oxidation products as opposed to seaweed counterpart. This research has demonstrated feasibility of pretreating whole, omega‐3‐rich small sardines with natural antioxidants to avert lipid oxidation during sun drying.


The purpose of this paper is to describe a conceptual framework for managing research data in higher educational institutes. The framework presents the workflow of the data life-cycle in its various phase right from its creation, storage, organization, sharing and usage. It also attempts to address crucial issues in Research Data Management (RDM) such as data privacy, data security, copyright and licensing. The framework may help the educational institutions in managing the research data in a more efficient and effective manner.


ABSTRACT Objectives: This study aimed to determine the diagnostic utility of a Chinese test battery for evaluating cognitive loss in elderly Chinese Americans. Methods: Data from a pilot study at the Mount Sinai Alzheimer's Disease Research Center was examined. All participants were > 65 years old, primarily Chinese speaking, with adequate sensorimotor capacity to complete cognitive tests. A research diagnosis of normal mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer's disease (AD) was assigned to each participant in consensus conference. Composite scores were created to summarize test performance on overall cognition, memory, attention executive function, and language. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to assess the sensitivity of each cognitive domain for discriminating three diagnostic categories. Adjustment was made for demographic variables (i. e., age, gender, education, primary language, and years living in the USA). Results: The sample included 67 normal, 37 MCI, and 12 AD participants. Performance in overall cognition, memory, and attention executive function was significantly worse in AD than in MCI, and performance in MCI was worse than in normal controls. Language performance followed a similar pattern, but differences did not achieve statistical significance among the three diagnostic groups. Conclusions: This study highlights the need for cognitive assessment in elderly Chinese immigrants.


Abstract The pressure-volume-temperature (P-V-T) measurements of the B2 (CsCl-type) phase of KCl were performed at 9–61 GPa/1500–2600 K and up to 229 GPa at room temperature, based on synchrotron X‑ray diffraction measurements in a laser-heated diamond-anvil cell (DAC). The nonhydrostatic stress conditions inside the sample chamber were critically evaluated based on the platinum pressure marker. With thermal annealing by laser after each pressure increment, the deviatoric stress was reduced to less than 1% of the sample pressure even at the multi-megabar pressure range. The obtained P-V-T data were fitted to the Vinet equation of state with the Mie-Grüneisen-Debye model for thermal pressure. The thermal pressure of KCl was found to be as small as ~10 GPa even at 3000 K at any given volume, which is only half of that of common pressure markers (i.e. Pt, Au, or MgO). Such a low-thermal pressure validates the use of a KCl pressure medium as a pressure marker at high temperatures.


Background Indirect hyperbilirubinemia at newborn is a distinct and various epidemiological described entity, having multiple causes and mechanisms, in which bilirubin level rises to 15–20 mg%. Aim of the study The aim of the study was to evaluate the incidence of jaundice with indirect bilirubin at newborns admitted at the Newborn Department of the Childrens Clinic Hospital from Brasov, Romania. As secondary objectives we considered the associated pathology along with the usefulness of phototherapy. Patients and methods We undergone a retrospective study on 1020 patients admitted at our hospital during one year period 1st January 2012–31st December 2012. We have evaluated demographic data, clinical and laboratory data along with the prescribed therapy. Results From the 1020 studied cases in 260 there was a diagnosis of indirect hyperbilirubinemia, associated pathology consisted of urinary tract infection in 15 cases, piodermatitis in 12, otitis media in 7, acute diarrhoea in 14 cases and severe dehydration in 9 cases. Only one case complicated with kernicterus. From the 260 cases only 60 had phototherapy in the treatment schedule. Conclusion we have shown that one quarter of the jaundice at newborn is due to indirect hyperbilirubinemia and that phototherapy is still a useful treatment.


ABSTRACT This paper argues that the structured dependency thesis must be extended to incorporate political power. It outlines a political framework of analysis with which to identify who gains and who loses from social policy. I argue that public policy for older people is a product not only of social structures but also of political decision-making. The Schneider and Ingram (1993) 'target populations' model is used to investigate how the social construction of groups as dependent equates with lower levels of influence on policy making. In United Kingdom and European research, older people are identified as politically quiescent, but conversely in the United States seniors are viewed as one of the most influential and cohesive interest groups in the political culture. Why are American seniors perceived as politically powerful, while older people in Europe are viewed as dependent and politically weak? This paper applies the 'target populations' model to senior policy in the Republic of Ireland to investigate how theoretical work in the United States may be used to identify the significance of senior power in policy development. I conclude that research must recognise the connections between power, politics and social constructions to investigate how state policies can influence the likelihood that seniors will resist structured dependency using political means.


Key findings regarding the structure of trade for tomato, rape, and onion into Lusaka are (a) regional trade is an important part of Zambia's fresh produce system, (b) supply chains for tomato, rape, and onion are short, (c) the role of the modern market system is very small, and (d) the role of urban agriculture in supplying Lusaka markets for these vegetables is also small, though it is meaningful in the case of rape. Main policy implications from this and related work are that (a) investments and policies to promote regional trade are relevant for the horticultural sector, not just food staples, (b) the traditional market system needs improved hard infrastructure linked to more collaborative public/private management models and improved coordination in the supply chains, and (c) more programmatic emphasis should be placed on helping existing traders scale-up and gain better access to information to do their job more effectively.


An implementation of a two-dimensional array processor for fast Fourier transform (FFT) using a 2- mu m CMOS technology is presented. The array processor, which is dedicated to 16-point FFT, implements a 4*4 mesh array of 16 processing elements (PEs) working in parallel. Design considerations in both the chip level and the PE level are examined. A layout design methodology based on bit-slice units (BSUs) results in a very simple design, easy debugging, and a regular interconnection scheme through abutment. It contains about 48,000 transistors on an area of 53.52 mm/sup 2/, excluding the 83-pad area, and operation is on a 15-MHz clock. The array processor performs 24.6 million complex multiplications per second, and computes a 16-point FFT in 3 mu s. >


After six years in office as the editor of the Journal of Micropalaeontology, my time in post has come to an end, and as this will be my final issue of the Journal it is time to hand over the reins. At the AGM of TMS a new editor was elected; Professor Alan Lord and I know that he will do a great job. As has been reported over the last year or so at the AGM and in TMS Newsletter, there will be some significant changes afoot for the Journal which I have been involved with over the last couple of years. This negotiation has resulted in a new publishing contract for the Journal of Micropalaeontology with the Geological Society of London (GSL), and its publisher the Geological Society Publishing House (GSPH). This will relieve our Society of the financial burden of paying for the production of the Journal. We will exercise the same editorial control we have always had, and although the GSPH is run as a commercial concern by the Geological Society they, as a learned society themselves, place great emphasis on not interfering with the running of society Journals, and respect the academic nature of our science. The format of the Journal will remain the same, with continued emphasis on excellent international science and high-quality plate production. There will, however, be some significant changes regarding the way papers are submitted and dealt with. The main one will be the initiation of online submission and manuscript handling …


Differently from the prior studies that look at the determinants of Outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) location choice, based on the institution theory and employing a comprehensive and unique micro-level dataset of Chinese firms, this study is the first to integrate institutional linkages (Confucius Institute) and regional institutions into one framework and looks at the role of the location choices of Chinese OFDI. The results show that Chinese firms prefer to invest in countries with the presence and higher number of Confucius Institutes including Confucius classrooms. Moreover, the institutional linkage of Confucius Institutes can alleviate the possible negative effects caused by the distance between China and the host country, which suggests Confucius Institutes help Chinese firms against liabilities of foreignness and risks and costs of operation in more distant host countries. We also find that the availability and quality of China's regional institutions have a strong impact on local firms' willingness and capability of participating.


The published documents produced by and for the Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope contain a mass of primary data and continue to be relevant to current research particularly in the humanities. Compete sets of documents were distributed widely to Colonial and other libraries. This paper offers techniques by which these sets of documents in libraries and archives may be accessed through the use of printed bibliographies and by means of electronic resources on the Internet. Future trends are mentioned. Recommendations include first and foremost the need to compile a comprehensive analytical bibliography providing subject analysis in addition to title listing, and secondly, the pressing need to make digital surrogates of these documents in view of the sadly deteriorated state of a large proportion of the printed originals and to enable the contents to be more conveniently consulted.


A fusion between the plastid psbA promoter and the green fluorescent protein gene (gfp) was introduced into the tobacco chloroplast genome by stable plastid transformation. GFP was synthesized actively and exclusively in the chloroplasts. Tubular projections filled with GFP but containing no chlorophyll were visualized for the first time in chloroplasts of these transplastomic plants. Occasionally, the tubules connect chloroplasts with each other, suggesting the possibility of the exchange of endogenous proteins. However, the fusion of protoplasts between the transplastomic and wild-type plants showed that such chloroplast connections might be rare in mesophyll protoplasts.


The literature data are used to analyze the hygienic situation when man is exposed to constant electrical and low frequency electromagnetic radiations. The spectral characteristics and intensities of electrical fields near and on the surface of the Earth generated by natural sources of electromagnetic radiations (electrical quasi-static fields, atmospheric electricity, thunderstorm charges, electromagnetic radiation emitted by the sun and galaxies) are given. They can be employed to determine man's adaptive capabilities to the frequencies described during acute and chronic irradiation. The mechanisms of biological effects of the exposures are discussed. The methods for calculating the safety levels based on the USSR radiation safety standards and the "competing frequencies" procedure proposed can be applied to the design of electrotechnical devices and evaluation of integral hazard of constant electrical and electromagnetic fields of low frequencies.


This paper describes the updates in EVOCROS, a crosslingual ontology alignment system suited to create mappings between ontologies described in different natural language. Our tool combines syntactic and semantic similarity measures with information retrieval techniques. The semantic similarity is computed via NASARI vectors used together with BabelNet, which is a domain-neutral semantic network. In particular, we investigate the use of rank aggregation techniques in the cross-lingual ontology alignment task. The tool employs automatic translation to a pivot language to consider the similarity. EVOCROS was tested and obtained high quality alignment in the Multifarm dataset. We discuss the experimented configurations and the achieved results in OAEI 2019. This is our second participation in OAEI.


We present a comprehensive and self-consistent theory of relative-phase measurements and the associated Hermitian relative-phase operator of two harmonic oscillators. We find that since Nature does not favor any particular initial condition of the two oscillators, the relative-phase operator is not unique. We show that the relative-phase eigenstates are maximally entangled. Therefore, most relative-phase operators lack a classical correspondence, even in the high-excitation limit. Furthermore, we find that the relative phase and the excitation number difference are noncommuting, noncanonical observables and we derive a commutation relation.


List mode image reconstruction is attracting renewed attention. It eliminates the storage of empty sinogram bins. However, a single back projection of all LORs is still necessary for the pre-calculation of a sensitivity image. Since the detection sensitivity is dependent on the object attenuation and detector efficiency, it must be computed for each study. Exact computation of the sensitivity image can be a daunting task for modern scanners with huge numbers of LORs. Thus, some fast approximate calculation may be desirable. In this paper, we theoretically analyze the error propagation from the sensitivity image into the reconstructed image. The theoretical analysis is based on the fixed point condition of the list mode reconstruction. The non-negativity constraint is modeled using the Kuhn-Tucker condition. With certain assumptions and the first order Taylor series approximation, we derive a closed form expression for the error in the reconstructed image as a function of the error in the sensitivity image. The result provides insights on what kind of error might be allowable in the sensitivity image. Computer simulations show that the theoretical results are in good agreement with the measured results.


View from outside the park, depicting the arched brick facade; Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the baseball-only facility in downtown Baltimore, became the official home of the Orioles on April 6, 1992. The construction of the park was completed in essentially 33 months from the time razing previous structures on the 85-acre parcel began June 28, '89, in the area known as Camden Yards. The ballpark seats 48,876 (including standing room) and the project cost was approximately $110 million. It was designed by the Kansas City architectural firm of Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum (HOK) with direction and input from the Orioles and the State of Maryland, which owns and operates the facility through its agency, the Maryland Stadium Authority (MSA). Working under contract to HOK were the urban design firm of RTKL, the landscape architecture firm of Wallace, Roberts, and Todd, and the engineering firms of Bliss and Nyitray: Rummel, Klepper, and Kahl: and Kidde Consultants, Inc. Working under contract to the Orioles were the interior design firm of Forte Design and the graphic design firm of David Ashton and Associates. Oriole Park is state-of-the-art yet unique, traditional and intimate in design. It blends with the urban context of downtown Baltimore while taking its image from baseball parks built in the early 20th century. Steel, rather than concrete trusses, an arched brick facade, a sun roof over the gentle slope of the upper deck, an asymmetrical playing field, and natural grass turf are just some of the features that tie it to those magnificent big league ballparks built in the early 1900's. Ebbets Field (Brooklyn), Shibe Park (Philadelphia), Fenway Park (Boston), Crosley Field (Cincinnati), Forbes Fields (Pittsburgh), Wrigley Field (Chicago), and The Polo Grounds (New York) were among the ballparks that served as powerful influences in the design of Oriole Park.


Acute obstruction of a shunt may occur when the ventricular space becomes slitlike. Four patients with collapsed ventricles were treated by adding a higher pressure valve to the system. The ventricles enlarged and the patients became asymptomatic. Twelve children who had been shunted in the neonatal period had a higher pressure valve added as an elective procedure to prevent ventricular collapse. There were no episodes of shunt obstruction in the subsequent seven to 38 months.


Environmental context Ethyne is the lightest of the non-methane hydrocarbons, whose oxidation product, glyoxal, is an important precursor of secondary organic aerosol. This study explores the effects of relative humidity on the formation of secondary organic aerosol under irradiation in the presence of nitrogen oxides and sodium chloride. Results show that relative humidity can enhance aerosol formation, which provides evidence of the contribution of ethyne to organic particles. Abstract The heterogeneous photochemical oxidation of ethyne was investigated under different relative humidity (RH) conditions in the presence of nitrogen oxides and sodium chloride in a self-made indoor smog chamber. The purpose was to study the influence of RH on the formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) from C2H2. Through the experiments, we found that SOA was rarely formed at <22% RH in the presence of NaCl seed particles, and that SOA began to be formed at ≥29% RH in the presence of NaCl, which shows the importance of RH in the formation of SOA. The yield of SOA (YSOA) from C2H2 was 0.2% at 51% RH, and increased by a factor of 17.5 as RH reached 83%. The SOA yield increased with increasing RH. The geometric mean diameter of the particles increased by a factor of 1.17, 1.22, 1.28 and 1.51 at a RH of 51, 63, 74 and 83% respectively at the end of the experiment, indicating that the growth of the particle size also increased with increasing RH. Analysis of the SOA with Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometry indicated that the particles generated from C2H2 contained the functional groups –OH, C=O, C–O–C and C–C–OH, for whose absorption peaks increase with increasing RH.


Introduction: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a common neurodegenerative disease leading to the movement disorder and destruction of myelin. Physical exercise delays the onset of neurodegenerative processes by preventing the destruction of myelin and oligodendrocytes. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of high-intensity exercise preconditioning on gene expression associated with mylein synthesis and a nerve growth factor-induced gene (NGF) in hippocampus of an animal model of demyelination induced by


Since bone repair and regeneration depend on vasculogenesis and osteogenesis, both of these processes are essential for successful vascularized bone engineering. Using adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs), we investigated temporal gene expression profiles, as well as bone nodule and endothelial tubule formation capacities, during osteogenic and vasculogenic ASC lineage commitment. Osteoprogenitor-enriched cell populations were found to express RUNX2, MSX2, SP7 (osterix), BGLAP (osteocalcin), SPARC (osteonectin), and SPP1 (osteopontin) in a temporally specific sequence. Irreversible commitment of ASCs to the osteogenic lineage occurred between days 6 and 9 of differentiation. Endothelioprogenitor-enriched cell populations expressed CD34, PECAM1 (CD31), ENG (CD105), FLT1 (Vascular endothelial growth factor [VEGFR1]), and KDR (VEGFR2). Capacity for microtubule formation was evident in as early as 3 days. Functional capacity was assessed in eight coculture combinations for both bone nodule and endothelial tubule formation, and the greatest expression of these end-differentiation phenotypes was observed in the combination of well-differentiated endothelial cells with less-differentiated osteoblastic cells. Taken together, our results demonstrate vascularized bone engineering utilizing ASCs is a promising enterprise, and that coculture strategies should focus on developing a more mature vascular network in combination with a less mature osteoblastic stromal cell.


This paper was published in the 1997 Proceedings of AIESEP Singapore held at National Institute of Education, Singapore from 4-6 December 1997


Abstract According to an influential epistemological tradition, science explains phenomena on the basis of laws, but the last two decades have witnessed a neo-mechanistic movement that emphasizes the fundamental role of mechanism-based explanations in science, which have the virtue of opening the "black box" of correlations and of providing a genuine understanding of the phenomena. Mechanisms enrich the empirical content of a theory by introducing a new set of variables, helping us to make causal inferences that are not possible on the basis of macro-level correlations (due to well-known problems regarding the underdetermination of causation by correlation). However, the appeal to mechanisms has also a methodological price. They are vulnerable to interference effects; they also face underdetermination problems, because the available evidence often allows different interpretations of the underlying structure of a correlation; they are strongly context-dependent and their individuation as causal patterns can be controversial; they present specific testability problems; finally, mechanism-based extrapolations can be misleading due to the local character of mechanisms. At any rate, the study of mechanisms is an indispensable part of the human sciences, and the problems that they raise can be controlled by quantitative and qualitative methods, and an epistemologically informed exercise of critical thinking.