The objective of this study was to analyze the disorders of acid-base balance in calves with lactic acidosis using the classic model and the strong ion approach. The study included 40 calves: group I was the control group (n = 20) and group II consisted of calves with diarrhea and lactic acidosis (n = 20). The highest lactate concentration (5.49 ± 2.58 mmol/L) was documented in diarrheic calves. The diarrheic calves presented with significantly lower pH, pCO2, and concentrations of HCO3- (P < 0.01), and with higher anion gap (AG), strong ion difference (SID3, SID7), and strong ion gap (SIG) (P < 0.01) than the controls. In the group of diarrheic calves lactic acid correlated with AG (r = 0.684, P < 0.01), SID3 (r = 0.718, P < 0.01), SID7 (r = 0.494, P = 0.03), and SIG (r = 0.561, P = 0.01). There was a negative correlation between lactate and effective SID (SIDEff) (r = -0.499, P = 0.02), and total plasma concentration of nonvolatile buffers (ATot ) (r = -0.361, P = 0.04). The results indicated that in lactic acidosis there were specific disturbances with an increased concentration of unmeasured strong ions.


Many weed-controlling agents act by inhibiting the process of photosynthesis. Their mode of action is a displacement of the secondary quinone electron acceptor of photosystem II from its proteinaceous binding environment. This results in a blocking of the electron transport. Consequently plants are no longer able to produce ATP and to reduce NADP + , which eventually leads to starvation and death. In this thesis an attempt is made to characterize the interactions of herbicides with their binding environment. Several herbicides were used to measure binding kinetics in a wildtype and a triazine -resistant biotype of Common Lambsquarters, Chenopodium album L. In Chapter 1 a general introduction is given on photosynthesis, chloroplast structure and function, the chloroplast genome, and herbicide action and resistances. Chapter 2 describes the methods used to isolate chloroplasts and to measure oxygen production. Also the fluorescence induction measurements are described, which can be used as a rapid method to discriminate between herbicide-sensitive and -resistant plants. Procedures for the simultaneous isolation of total plant nucleic acids, for the separation of DNA and RNA and for the respective sequence analyses are outlined. In Chapter 3 a model is described which can be used to simulate flash- induced oxygen production by isolated thylakoids. In the literature a model was described before, which explains the observed 4-step oscillation in flash-induced oxygen evolution by assuming the existence of 4 different S-states of the oxygen evolving complex. This model is refined here by assuming the values of the miss parameters αto be dependent on both the redox state of the quinone acceptor complex (Q A .Fe.Q B ) of photosystem II and on the S-state transition involved. The best fit between theoretical and experimental oxygen evolution patterns is obtained when 4 different miss parameters are distinguished, corresponding with the 4 S-state transitions of the oxygen evolving complex. The values of two of these αparameters, notably those for the 2 nd and 4 th flash, are found to approach 0, while the other two have values of about 0.2 and 0.4. The value for the double hit parameter βis found to be about 0.06. The oxygen evolving complexes of thoroughly dark adapted chloroplasts are found to be for almost 100 % in the most stable single oxidized state S 1 . A fraction of 30 % of the reaction centers is assumed to be connected to a oneelectron donor D, which is able to reduce the S 2 - or S 3 -state of the oxygen evolving complex with a half time of 2-3 seconds. In Chapter 4 the derived model is used to determine the exchange ,parameters of herbicides with the secondary acceptor Q B . These exchanges, which influence the oxygen evolution patterns, can be determined by comparing experimental and theoretical patterns for various herbicide concentrations and flash frequencies. The I 50 -values derived from the measurements are in agreement with values measured with other methods. The resistance to triazine compounds proved to be caused by an increase in the herbicide release rather than by a lower binding rate. Configuration around a chiral carbon atom, present in two pairs of isomers of cyanoacrylate inhibitors, has a strong influence on inhibition properties. The differences are largely due to alterations in the release kinetics. This observation suggests that herbicide binding is determined mainly by physical properties, like e.g. hydrophobicity. A stationary binding, resulting in a significant electron transport inhibition, requires a strict molecular shape. In Chapter 5 partial sequence analyses from DNA and mRNA isolated from a Chenopodium album wildtype and a triazine -resistant biotype are presented. The only difference found was an adenine to guanine point mutation resulting in a serine to glycine alteration at position 264 in the D1 (herbicide binding) protein. The thesis is concluded with Chapter 6, the general discussion, in which an alternative explanation for redox reactions at the photosystem II acceptor side is presented. In this model the non-heme iron, located between the primary and the secondary acceptor of photosystem II, is proposed to play an active role in in vivo electron transport.


Rupture of the free wall of the left ventricle, a relatively common complication of acute myocardial infarction, is associated with a high mortality rate. The clinical course can vary from catastrophic, that is death, to incomplete rupture with the formation of a pseudoaneurysm. Subacute rupture is a condition that demands expeditious diagnosis and surgical repair if the patient is to survive. Surgical repair can be difficult at best. This article reports a case of subacute rupture of the left ventricle that was successfully repaired using a novel surgical technique and discusses the anesthetic implications surrounding the case.


The Bridging Cultures -Muslim Journeys grant was gifted from the NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) to libraries throughout the United States to promote understanding between American and Arab culture, history and society. The items included in the grant are organized by six themes: American  Stories, Connected Histories, Literary Reflections, Pathways of Faith, Points of View and Art, Architecture and Film and contain 25 books and 4 films. The goal of the collection was to "help public audiences in the United States become more familiar with the people, places, history, faith and culture of Muslims around the world and within the U.S." This annotated bibliography summarizes fifteen titles selected that may help scholars, students, librarians or general readers gain an understanding of the Muslim Journeys collection.


We present a measurement of the muon charge asymmetry from W boson decays using 0.3 fb^{-1} of data collected at \sqrt{s}=1.96 GeV between 2002 and 2004 with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron ppbar Collider. We compare our findings with expectations from next-to-leading-order calculations performed using the CTEQ6.1M and MRST04 NLO parton distribution functions. Our findings can be used to constrain future parton distribution function fits.


BACKGROUND/AIM
Tooth autotransplantation has been advocated for replacement of missing teeth or teeth that are unsuitable for restoration. The aim of this study was to investigate the outcomes and prognostic factors that influenced the success of tooth transplantation in a paediatric population.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Data were extracted from the records of 75 patients (89 teeth). Demographic and prognostic factors were recorded and analysed for the clinical and radiographic outcomes for periodontal ligament (PDL) and pulp healing of transplanted teeth.

RESULTS
The mean age at transplant was 13.2 years, and the mean follow-up observation period was 2.6±1.8 years with a range of 12.0 months to 9.9 years. The main reason for transplantation was to replace upper central incisors lost or missing due to dental trauma, hypodontia and dilaceration. Of the 45 teeth that were monitored for pulp revascularization, 75.6% showed clinical and radiographic signs of pulp healing and 24.4% showed signs of pulp necrosis and infection. Pulp healing was significantly related to the stage of root development of the transplant. Favourable PDL healing was observed in 87.6% of the transplants, while 13.5% showed signs of replacement resorption. PDL healing was significantly related to the stage of root formation of the transplanted tooth at the time of the surgery, the ease of handling and placement of the tooth, and the status of the alveolar bone at the recipient site at the time of the surgery. Overall success of tooth transplantation was 87.6%, and the survival rate was 94.4%.

CONCLUSIONS
Tooth transplantation carried out in children and adolescents demonstrated high success and survival, with the stage of root development influencing both the pulp and PDL healing of the transplanted teeth.


Textile effluents are the one most calumnious threat to the environment, which have a lot of chronic effect towards the human beings. Color is the main experimental variable to recognize the water has contaminated. Out of many techniques, Adsorption is attaining a specific place of importance due to its scope choosing naturally available materials. Activated Carbon from Tunic of Allium cepa (ACTAC) had been chosen as an Adsorbent, as it is abundantly available. ACTAC was used for optimization studies for the removal of selected dyes from the Textile effluents. The selected dyes are safranine, Indigoid, Alizarin Red S and Crystal violet belongs to the Azo and Anthraquinone family dyes respectively. These dyes are selected as they are not degradable easily and are very toxic in nature. The optimum percentage removal of selected dyes from the textile effluent was reported as 80, 70.95, 45 and 74 respectively.


The conduct of multicenter trials to test agents for treatment of Periodontitis is conceptually similar to that of single center trials, but the requirement that centers ultimately be combined into a single result places much more stringent requirements on uniformity and control. Multicenter trials should be considered only if numbers of subjects or the ability to generalize to other treatment settings becomes a driving theme. General guidelines for the conduct of studies of this sort are suggested and problems that occur are discussed. Despite formidable difficulties that may occur, multicenter studies provide a convincing demonstration of an agent's therapeutic efficacy for the treatment of Periodontitis. J Periodontol 1992; 63:1058-1063.


Services Computing has become an increasingly important area in the IT and business sectors. In particular, Services now account for more than half of the economy in the United States and other countries. Numerous Services Computing-related degree programs and accreditation processes are being created. However, very few systematic guidelines exist for building graduate programs for Services Computing. In this paper, we present a reference model of the Masters Program in Services Computing for academic institutions and accreditation agencies as a relevant curriculum guideline. Specifically, the core and elective courses are introduced to help build the reference program. The inter-connections between core and elective courses are also illustrated to help create concentration programs based on the introducing sequences of the courses. Some practices of delivering Services Computing related courses and conducting accreditation application process are presented in this paper to help others more rapidly initiate the adoption process of the Services Computing curriculum.


Fikret Adaman and Pat Devine (2001) responded to an article in which I criticized proposals by socialists to give markets a marginal role (Hodgson 1998). This present essay continues the debate, raises some additional issues and considers some later works by Adaman and Devine. A central problem in any economic system is the existence of conflicting plans, and some partial use of the market is required to deal with this problem. In particular, the Adaman and Devine proposal for participatory planning lacks clear and operational criteria to distinguish those cases where (according to them) markets should, and should not, be deployed. Their reference to the M-form firm does not help them in this regard. This reply further considers the inadequate treatment of tacit knowledge and innovation in that proposal. Their proposal also has the serious weakness that it allows little separation of powers and requires all but the most trivial of decisions to be submitted to an all-encompassing, unitary system of decision-making. Legitimate individual or group autonomy is thereby endangered.


A progressive "clot" formation has been reported to occur at the transected end of frog skeletal muscle fibers. It has been claimed that the transected fiber end does not form a membrane over the cut surface but ultrastructural evidence for this has not previously been offered. Transmission electron microscopic examination of longitudinal sections through the cut surface confirms the lack of formation of a membrane over the cut fiber ends when followed up to 2 hrs post-transection. The data also show a rapid localized contracture of sarcomeres at the cut surface which spreads several sarcomeres away from the cut surface. A temporal loss of sarcomere organization occurs adjacent to the cut muscle surface.


Maximum entropy spectral analysis has been applied to the annual mean magnetic data around London for the years 1839–1974. These data were compiled by Malin and Bullard. The existence of a ∼60-year spectral line is clearly found. In addition, cross power spectral density analyses using a two-channel maximum entropy method were applied to both the variations of the annual mean declination around London from 1900 to 1974 and the fluctuations of the Earth's rotation rate from 1876 to 1974. The coherence is high (0.98), and the phase angle indicates that the changes of the magnetic declinations around London lag behind the fluctuations of the Earth's rotation rate by 20±4 years.


Background: Dyshormonogenetic goiter (DG) refers to familial goitres owing to an inherited defect in the metabolism of thyroid hormones and accounts for 10-15% of all cases of congenital hypothyroidism. Aim and Objective: To identify dysmorphic features, cardiac and urogenital anomalies in patients with DG following in the pediatric endocrinology clinic. Materials and Methods: Eight adolescents following the pediatric endocrinology clinic for hypothyroidism and associated stigmata were identified with dyshormonogenesis using 99mTc radionuclide thyroid scintigraphy and confirmation by the Perchlorate discharge test during a 6-month period from January to July 2012. Screening for associated malformations was done using clinical examination, echocardiography and ultrasonography of abdomen. Results: The eight patients (two boys and six girls) had a mean age of 9.87 years. The mean duration of goitre was 36.12 months. Two patients had mental retardation and delayed developmental milestones one of whom had ectopic left kidney on renal scintigraphy. Mitral regurgitation was seen in one patient whereas renal anomalies in the form of ectopic kidney and small/contracted kidney with grade III hydronephrosis was seen in two patients. Penoscrotal hypospadias was identified in one of the patients who also had small/contracted kidney with grade III hydronephrosis and underwent pyeloplasty for the same. Dysmorphic features in the form of high arched palate, depressed nasal bridge and low set ears was seen in one patient. Conclusion: DG is associated with other extra-thyroidal congenital anomaly, some of which may need to be treated.


The purpose of the study is to examine main trends and phenomena on labor market in agriculture. In the process of studying this problem, it was revealed that most of the employed population of the region lives in rural areas. It has been determined that at present the rural labor market is characterized by decrease in the number of employed in agricultural sector of economy, deterioration in the quality parameters characterizing the use of labor, discrepancy between the level of competence of specialists and the demands of expanded reproduction and efficiency of labor resources, and growing imbalance in the demand and supply of qualified workers. It has been determined that in conditions of unemployment in rural areas, the increased shortage of professional personnel in the main mass specialties in agro-industrial production has been noted among residents. The analysis of the structure of the employed in Akmola region was done, which showed significant differences between employment in urban and rural areas. A negative trend is shown which is associated with increase in proportion of the population, whose age exceeds the working age, in the total population of the village. Comparative analysis of sectoral structure of rural employment showed a decrease in the share of people who are employed in agriculture. In the course of the study, the main reasons for the rural population flow to the city have been determined. The main factors contributing to the return of skilled workers to agricultural sector are indicated. Priority areas of labor supply for rural residents have been identified, the most important of which are the development of small and medium-sized businesses in rural areas, as well as self-employment in private households. A number of measures aimed to increase the effectiveness of functioning of labor market in rural areas are proposed.


We report on the performance and stability of distributed feedback lasers based on the solution-processed methylammonium lead iodide perovskite (CH3NH3PbI3). The CH3NH3PbI3 layers are processed via solution-casting in ambient atmosphere onto nanoimprinted second order Bragg gratings. This way, we achieve highly polarized surface-emitted lasing at room temperature with a linewidth of less than 0.2 nm and a laser threshold of 120 kW/cm2. The lasing is stable; no change in the laser emission within 15 h of pulsed excitation with a repetition rate of 1 kHz (corresponding to >5 × 107 pulses) is observed, exceeding the stability achieved for solution processed organic semiconductor lasers. Furthermore, adjustment of the grating period allowed the lasing wavelength to be varied over the entire bandwidth of the amplified spontaneous emission (between 781 and 794 nm). The fabrication process of nanoimprinting followed by solution-casting of the gain material demonstrates that stable CH3NH3PbI3 lasers are compatible with scalable production technologies and offers a route towards electrically pumped diode architectures.


Themeasured coefficient of consolidation can have a substantial degreeof variation even in a uniform clay layer. This paper examines the variability of one-dimensional consolidationsolutions through a probabilistic analysis. The spatial probabilistic characteristics for the coefficient of vertical consolidation are studied. The influence of a spatially random coefficient of consolidation on one-dimensional consolidation has been studied using the probabilistic method. In the probabilistic analysis, the adequacy of distribution model for coefficient of consolidation is tested using experimental data. A sensitivity analysis of the degree of consolidation to uncertain parameters is presented for clay soil. It is the analysis result that probability distribution type of vertical consolidation has a considerable influence on degree of consolidation. Theresults are discussed in terms of confidence level.


In the interaction between Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) and the generalist herbivorous insect Spodoptera littoralis, little is known about early events in defense signaling and their link to downstream phytohormone pathways. S. littoralis oral secretions induced both Ca2+ and phytohormone elevation in Arabidopsis. Plant gene expression induced by oral secretions revealed up-regulation of a gene encoding a calmodulin-like protein, CML42. Functional analysis of cml42 plants revealed more resistance to herbivory than in the wild type, because caterpillars gain less weight on the mutant, indicating that CML42 negatively regulates plant defense; cml42 also showed increased aliphatic glucosinolate content and hyperactivated transcript accumulation of the jasmonic acid (JA)-responsive genes VSP2 and Thi2.1 upon herbivory, which might contribute to increased resistance. CML42 up-regulation is negatively regulated by the jasmonate receptor Coronatine Insensitive1 (COI1), as loss of functional COI1 resulted in prolonged CML42 activation. CML42 thus acts as a negative regulator of plant defense by decreasing COI1-mediated JA sensitivity and the expression of JA-responsive genes and is independent of herbivory-induced JA biosynthesis. JA-induced Ca2+ elevation and root growth inhibition were more sensitive in cml42, also indicating higher JA perception. Our results indicate that CML42 acts as a crucial signaling component connecting Ca2+ and JA signaling. CML42 is localized to cytosol and nucleus. CML42 is also involved in abiotic stress responses, as kaempferol glycosides were down-regulated in cml42, and impaired in ultraviolet B resistance. Under drought stress, the level of abscisic acid accumulation was higher in cml42 plants. Thus, CML42 might serve as a Ca2+ sensor having multiple functions in insect herbivory defense and abiotic stress responses.


ABSTRACT An improved understanding of kidney cancer (KC) tumor biology has led to major advancements in the treatment of patients with metastatic disease. While agents that target the VEGF and mTOR pathways prolong survival, resistance develops for most patients within the first year of therapy. Agents that lead to durable remissions are of urgent need to patients living with this disease. For two decades, the clinical experience with high-dose bolus IL-2 has served as proof of principle that immunotherapy can produce durable responses in a small percentage of KC patients. Basic and translational investigation to elucidate the molecular mechanisms that govern the interaction between a tumor and its host immune response has helped to explain why immunotherapies too often fail to achieve satisfactory results. In KC, obstacles to effective immunotherapy may include the physiological down-modulation of the immune response through the expression of programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) on tumor cells and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4) on activated T cells, which serve to restrict the cytolytic function of tumor-infiltrating T lymphocytes, the proliferation of regulatory (CD4+ CD25+) T cells (T-regs) in response to nonspecific cytokine administration, and the immunosuppressive effects of elevated circulating VEGF levels and myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC). These insights have encouraged investigators to pursue agents that block T-cell regulation (e.g., PD-1 and CTLA-4 antibodies), inhibit tumor-induced immunosuppression (e.g. PD-L1 antibody) and more specifically activate T-cells (eg, CD-137 antibody, IL-21), and dendritic cells (e.g. AGS-003). Several of these approaches have shown encouraging efficacy in early trials both as single agents and in combination with standard therapies. However, for "targeted immunotherapy" to reach its full potential, significant work will need to be done to improve patient selection by refining proposed predictive biomarkers and overcome resistance mechanisms through the development of combination regimens. Disclosure: D.F. McDermott: BMS, Merck, Genentech - Scientific Advosry Board Partiicpation, compensated.


Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients who suffer recurrent exacerbations are a recognised clinical phenotype. Pulmonary rehabilitation is considered a cornerstone treatment in the management of COPD. The aim of this thesis was to investigate how frequent exacerbators respond to pulmonary rehabilitation in terms of clinical outcomes and inflammation. Study 1 suggested that frequent exacerbators were less likely to complete pulmonary rehabilitation (44% vs 69%; p=0.025), but those who completed experienced clinically important improvements in outcomes. Study 2 demonstrated that fibrinogen concentrations were significantly reduced in both frequent and infrequent exacerbators (p=0.033), and total leukocyte (p=0.018) and neutrophil (p=0.018) counts reduced in frequent exacerbators only upon completion of pulmonary rehabilitation. Study 3 suggested a tendency towards an increase in MKP-1 anti-inflammatory gene expression in response to corticosteroid treatment (2hr, p=0.060) in both frequent and infrequent exacerbators upon completion of pulmonary rehabilitation. Study 4 showed that an acute bout of exercise at the beginning of pulmonary rehabilitation induced increases in leukocyte counts (p=0.002) and immature neutrophils (p=0.002) in both groups. No differences in inflammatory responses to acute exercise were observed with an acute bout of exercise at the end of pulmonary rehabilitation in both groups. Study 5 suggested that frequent exacerbators recorded fewer daily steps (d=0.3) and spent less time in light (d=0.8) and moderate-to-vigorous activities (d=0.3). There were no definitive differences in inflammation between frequent and infrequent exacerbators. Overall, this thesis shows that pulmonary rehabilitation should be encouraged in frequent exacerbators as they stand to have significant improvements in clinical outcomes and resolution of inflammation.


Statistical modeling technique has pivotal role in better understanding of the software development processes. Among them neural network techniques have enhanced predictive capability than most other statistical models. This paper explains the application of principal component analysis to neural network modeling as a way to improve predictability of neural network. The purpose of principal component analysis is to augment the performance of discriminant software quality models. The accurate neural training can be done by transferring the raw data into principal components. In this paper, the significance of principal components analysis is illustrated with the help of a commercial raw dataset and subsequently neural network modeling is described. Keywords— principal components analysis, software quality, software metrics, object oriented, neural networks.


In this paper, we introduce a new approach for the acquisition of weak GNSS signals. For the GPS L1 signal, we utilize the replication property of the C/A code within each data bit to introduce a block averaging pre-processing (BAP) approach for improving receiver robustness against undesired signals. A large number of weighted signal blocks is coherently accumulated and synchronously averaged to obtain a single block with improved signal power. We present several properties of the proposed GNSS signals enhancement technique and we analyze its robustness against noise and different classes of interferers. Thus, we develop a software defined acquisition procedure using the efficient FFT correlation approach. We propose two acquisition algorithms based on the BAP approach. The first scheme implements the parallel code phase search in finding the 2-D spectrum peak using circular cross-correlations. In the second scheme, we exploit the BAP for a fast acquisition performing the frequency estimation prior to the 1-D code-phase search.


Objective: To determine the state of mental health problems among a general youth population and assess whether the Youth Aware of Mental Health (YAM) intervention can improve symptoms of depression and anxiety.
Methods: We implemented YAM with a cluster quasi-experimental study design from August 2017 through June 2019 in 29 middle schools and high schools in North Texas. Students completed the Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology, Adolescent version; the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Screener; and additional substance use questionnaires before YAM delivery and 3-6 months after implementation. Multilevel models, with students nested within schools, were used to model difference scores of depression and anxiety, controlling for various student-level and school-level characteristics. Missing data were imputed during analysis. Sensitivity analyses were performed on non-imputed data.
Results: Among 3,302 adolescents at pre-test, 27% had moderate-to-severe depression, 22% had moderate-to-severe anxiety, and 4% expressed suicidal ideation. We found that on average, compared to those who had no depression at pre-test, depression decreased at post-test by (a) 4.62 units (P < .05) for those who had severe to very severe depression at pre-test, (b) 2.92 units (P < .0001) for those who had moderate depression at pre-test, and (c) 1.5 units (P < .001) for those who had mild depression at pre-test, controlling for all other factors in the model. Similar significant decreases were observed in anxiety, controlling for student-level characteristics.
Conclusions: These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of YAM in reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety among adolescents in North Texas.


Our results suggest that ethylene oxide retention after sterilization is increased in cuprammonium cellulose plate dialyzers containing potting compound. In contrast, cuprammonium cellulose plate dialyzers without potting compound were characterized by a rapid disappearance of retained ethylene oxide after sterilization. Whether these findings explain the low incidence of SARD with cuprammonium cellulose plate dialyzers that do not contain potting material is a matter for continued study and experimentation.


Marine mammals accumulate heavy metals in their tissues at different concentrations according to trophic levels and environmental conditions. The franciscana ( Pontoporia blainvillei ) is a small coastal species inhabiting the marine and estuarine areas of the Southwestern Atlantic Ocean. Its diet includes numerous species of small fish, squid and crustaceans. The aims of this study were to (i) assess the heavy metal concentration and burden distribution in different franciscana age classes and sex, and to (ii) evaluate both the accumulation processes and the transplacental transference of zinc, cadmium, copper and total mercury. Heavy metal concentrations (wet weight) were determined in eighteen dolphins by Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry (AAS), by the cold vapour technique (mercury) or with air/acetylene flame (cadmium, zinc and copper). Liver showed the highest concentrations of mercury (max. 8.8 mg/g), zinc (max. 29.7 mg/g) and copper (max. 19.0 mg/g), whereas the highest cadmium concentrations (max. 6.7 mg/g) were found in kidney. Adults contained the highest concentrations for all heavy metals, followed by juveniles and calves in decreasing order, suggesting an age-related accumulation. No differences (p<0.05) were found between sexes within each age class. Organ burden distribution followed the same pattern for all metals and age classes: liver tissues contained maximum burdens. Mercury concentrations were higher than those of cadmium in both foetuses and newborns; and neither metal could be detected in the foetus. The analysed data suggested differences in the placental transference between metals, being significant for mercury and almost null in the case of cadmium. We can conclude that franciscana accumulates heavy metals and, due to its coastal distribution, it may be considered as a biomonitor of its environment.


Interlannguge is defined as a type of language used by second or foreign language learners in the process of learning the target language; it is an intermediate phase between first and second language. This study aims at providing a phonological description of the Baghdadi Interlanguage (henceforth BIL ) used by the Bengali workers in Baghdad province , the capital of Iraq. The primary purpose of this study is to substantiate whether this newly emerged variety is an interlanguage or a pidgin , also to solve many tutorial problems in this variety by identifying the errors of the learners of second language in the field of phonology . Data collection was based on some interviews , accompanied by a list of personal questions with four Bengali workers from both genders ( males and females ) , ( two males and two females ). It is found that this new variety is an interlanguage not a pidgin since the characteristics of interlanguage are achieved in this study throughout the stages of the developments of this newly emerged variety ( interlanguage ). The study also finds that the main phonological differences between the Baghdadi dialect and the interlanguage ( IL ) are in the consonant phonemes rather than the vowel ones.


We carried out a spectroscopic investigation of single lined white dwarfs (WDs) in double degenerate (DD) systems and discuss their binary evolution. Simulated spectra of the Hα region are used to derive upper limits on the temperature of the invisible component and thus lower limits on the cooling age. This is done for a range of hypothetical secondary masses and a minimum cooling age deduced. Results are compared with the well known parameters of the visible primary, which allows us to determine a lower limit for the cooling age difference of both WDs. Most of the ten systems in our sample have a minimum age difference of not larger than 0.5 Gyr and their small orbital separation is highly suggestive of at least one unstable mass transfer phase. However, a stable first mass transfer phase is feasible as the age difference is less then 1 Gyr. The results imply that unstable mass transfer is the most likely final contact binary scenario to have occurred in DD systems but the first mass transfer phase is not constrained.


The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)'s Pensim2 model is a dynamic microsimulation model. The principal purpose of this model is to estimate the future distribution of pensioner incomes, thus enabling analysis of the distributional effects of proposed changes to pension policy. This paper presents the results of an assessment of Pensim2 by researchers at the IFS. We start by looking at the overall structure of the model, and how it compares with other dynamic policy analysis models across the world. We make recommendations at this stage as to how the overall modelling strategy could be improved. We then go on to analyse the characteristics of most of the individual modules which make up Pensim2, examining the data used and the regression and predictions used in each step. The results from this examination are used to formulate a set of short and medium-term recommendations for developing and improving the model. Finally, we look at what might become possible for the model over a much longer time frame looking towards developing a 'Pensim3' model over the next decade or so.


We investigate the weak form of the efficient capital market hypothesis through the detection of a non-linear dynamic with potential for predictability of stock returns in the Mexican stock market. We apply the Hinich portmanteau bicorrelation test and the Brock, Dechert and Scheinkman test to the data. We observe that all the return series are characterized by a few brief periods of highly significant non-linearity. However, we cannot say that the Mexican market fails to satisfy the weak form of the efficient capital market hypothesis because the non-linear dependences appear on rare occasions and they are rapidly arbitraged away.


In general, the motion of maneuvering targets is described by acceleration model which13; is a kinematic model including position derivatives up to the second order. It is found that13; for tracking' highly maneuvering targets, it is necessary to inch:lde higher order position13; derivatives in the model. A model including derivatives of position up to the third order13; called the jerk model is presented in ref. [1]. The jerk models are found to give better13; performance while tracking agile target maneuvers. In this report, the tracking13; performance of a Kalman filter with the jerk model is evaluated and compared with that13; of a Kalman filter with acceleration model for simulated data of a target undergoing13; maneuvers.


A side-effect of the national debate about employer-provided benefits has been to focus attention on the cost of hiring and retaining employees. This has led to renewed interest in the issue of when a worker is an employee vs. an independent contractor. The IRS must make determinations regarding worker status. This determination process which has evolved through judicial precedent, is subjective and has generated substantial controversy. It is based upon Treasury regulations which include 20 common law factors used to evaluate the amount of direction and control a firm may exercise over a worker. The IRS AI Lab developed a PC-based expert system to help individuals make determinations on this issue. It is based upon the 20 common law factors and the combined expertise of a number of employment tax authorities. After being field tested in 1993, the SS-8 Determiner has been deployed in five of the IRS's seven regions. Based on this experience, annual salary savings over $1 million, or increased revenues over $22 million, will result from nation-wide implementation. An IRS district office which specializes in employment taxes and which has C++ programming expertise, is assuming responsibility for code maintenance.


In certain mass ranges, massive stars can undergo a violent pulsation triggered by the electron/positron pair instability that ejects matter, but does not totally disrupt the star. After one or more of these pulsations, such stars are expected to undergo core-collapse to trigger a supernova (SN) explosion. The mass range susceptible to this pulsational phenomena may be as low as 50–70 M☉ if the progenitor is of very low metallicity and rotating sufficiently rapidly to undergo nearly homogeneous evolution. The mass, dynamics, and composition of the matter ejected in the pulsation are important aspects for determining the subsequent observational characteristics of the explosion. We examine the dynamics of a sample of stellar models and rotation rates and discuss the implications for the first stars, for LBV-like phenomena, and for superluminous SNe. We find that the shells ejected by pulsational pair-instability events with rapidly rotating progenitors (>30% the critical value) are hydrogen-poor and helium- and oxygen-rich.


AlN multilayered films were deposited on Al substrates using RF reactive magnetron sputtering with Al targets under Ar and N2 atmosphere. Circles of deposition and annealing were repeatedly performed. Macrostructure observations, crystallographic analyses and dielectric property measurements were carried out. The grains of AlN film had a worm-like shape. When the number of layers (and cycles) increased, the (100) and (110) oriented grains weakened and the structure of film changed into (002) and (101) oriented. The capacity–frequency (C-f) curves of Cu-AlN-Al-Cu capacitors, measured at 100 Hz - 1 MHz, showed that the dielectric constant and the dielectric loss of AlN decrease with increasing number of cycles, attributed to annealing processes that influences film microstructure and the orientation of worm-like shape grains.


UNLABELLED
Multichannel magnetocardiographic (MCG) mapping is a non-invasive method, which can provide reproducible three-dimensional (3D) localization of accessory pathways (AP) and ventricular arrhythmias, before ablation procedures. More recently MCG imaging of intra-atrial reentry circuits has also been reported. So far, reported cases of MCG localization and imaging of arrhythmias were investigated during spontaneous rhythm only, although more relevant information can be obtained during dynamic electrophysiologic study (EPS). For cardiac pacing one could use an amagnetic intracardiac catheter; but this, however, would add invasivity to a non-invasive method. The aim of this study was to validate a novel approach for dynamic non-invasive EPS based on MCG in combination with amagnetic transesophageal pacing (TEP).

METHOD
A tetrapolar 7 French amagnetic catheter was developed, which provides effective TEP (with an average stimulation threshold of 10-15 mA) and simultaneous recording of two esophageal atrial electrograms. MCG data were acquired at rest, with a 36-channel MCG system (sensitivity of 20 fT/Hz(1/2)), for 90 to 300 seconds (sampling rate of 1 KHz; bandwidth of DC Hz to 100 Hz), as a function of the type of pacing procedure. 10 patients were investigated, during both continuous and programmed TEP.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
MCG during TEP was feasible and reproducible. It provided: 1) more accurate localization of AP during pacing-induced maximal preexcitation; 2) inducibility of supraventricular AR and imaging of atrial reentry circuits, not spontaneously present; 3) stabilization of the heart rate to improve the accuracy of quantitative estimate of ventricular repolarization parameters.


To study the transforming activity of the dbl oncogene and its effect on normal development in vivo, we linked dbl cDNA to promoters with different cell type specificities and used the constructs to generate transgenic mice. The promoters included the mouse alpha A-crystallin promoter, the rat insulin II promoter, and a mouse metallothionein promoter. We also generated transgenic mice carrying a recombinant cosmid clone that contains the entire dbl gene. Mice with the crystallin promoter construct developed cataracts and expressed the dbl protein in their lenses. The architecture of the lenses suggested a block to the normal pattern of differentiation and elongation of the secondary fiber cells. Mice with the insulin II promoter expressed dbl protein in the pancreas but showed no evidence of diabetes and no apparent pancreatic beta-cell defects. Similarly, mice with the metallothionein promoter expressed dbl protein in heart and testes, but showed no pathologic abnormalities in these tissues even after treatment with heavy metals. However, one family of mice carrying the metallothionein promoter construct showed cataracts and a dramatic fibroblastic dysplasia of the lens. One family with the cosmid-dbl gene showed a nearly identical lenticular dysplasia, but with a slower developmental time course. Thus, although the dbl oncogene did not induce neoplasia in any of the mice studied, it is apparently capable of interfering with the ability of the lens epithelial cells to differentiate into lens fiber cells, and of inducing metaplasia of the epithelial cells into fibroblastic cells.


CARCINOMA and lymphoma of the tonsil are more easily recognized than cured, and the ease with which a diagnosis of cancer in this area may be made is offset by the poor prognosis and poor results achieved in therapy. Although the average practitioner may have the opportunity to see only isolated examples of this condition during a lifetime of practice, its relative frequency is high when compared with the incidence of other cancers of the pharynx. The present report is concerned with evaluation of a series of 162 patients with cancers of the tonsil seen in the outpatient clinic or admitted to the Pondville Hospital (Massachusetts Department of Public Health) from 1927 to 1945 inclusive. This hospital is a state institution for the treatment of malignant disease. INCIDENCE During the period encompassed by this report there were seen 162 patients with malignant tumors in the region of the tonsil. This


This work presents a novel navigation system for social collaborative virtual environments populated with multiple characters. The navigation system ensures collision free movement of avatars and agents. It supports direct user manipulation, automated path planning, positioning to get seated, and follow-me behaviour for groups. In follow-me mode, the socially aware system manages the mise en place of individuals within a group. A use case centred around on an educational virtual trip to the European Parliament created for the REVERIE FP7 project, also serves as an example to bring forward aspects of such navigational requirements.


Older adults living alone with dementia are at greater risk of placement in long-term care homes compared with those living with others. Healthcare professionals have vital roles in supporting them to continue living in the community. Yet, little is known about how healthcare professionals fulfill these roles and what their experiences are like. The study purpose was to describe health care professionals' experiences of caring for older people with dementia living alone. Using a qualitative descriptive approach and qualitative content analysis method, 15 healthcare professionals were interviewed in Ontario, Canada. The overall theme of the findings, doing the best we can for them, involved discussing sensitive care issues with what professionals viewed as gentle realism. Walking the tightrope expressed tensions in meeting professional responsibilities. Constraints (my hands are tied) and boundaries (it's not my job, it's not my decision) described perceived limitations on professional roles. Effects of the emotional struggle involved in working with these older people were lessened by believing I did the right thing. The findings have implications for what we could do better for older people with dementia living alone, through integration of person-centered/relationship-centered principles in education programs, community agency policies, a national dementia care strategy, and culture change in community care.


This paper proposes a novel adaptive relaying scheme based on phasor measurement units (PMUs) for transmission lines. The proposed adaptive relaying scheme can provide an extremely accurate discrimination between in-zone and out-of zone faults. Two novel and composite fault discrimination indices in terms of Clarke components of synchronized voltage and current Phasors at two ends of a line are derived. A line parameter estimation algorithm is developed and built in the newly designed relay to solve the uncertainty problem of line parameters. The proposed relaying scheme is independent of fault types, fault locations, fault path resistance, fault inception angles, and the variations of source impedance. The tripping decision time of the designed relay is very fast and almost held well within 6 ms for most fault events. Keywords— PMU, PDC, GPS, SCADA, DFT


This paper models the Multi-Robot Task Allocation (MRTA) problem with a balance constraint to improve the utilisation (completion time) of the robots. Our balancing constraint attempts to minimise the travel distance difference among the robots as well as allocates an equal set of tasks to these robots. The clustering-based approach is employed to solve the Balanced Multi-Robot Task Allocation (BMRTA) problem for two principal reasons. That is, this approach clusters given tasks into groups using various clustering techniques for each robot and sequences the route for each robot using the travelling salesman problem (TSP) conhull algorithm. This work analyses the suitability and performance of the clustering techniques with respect to the balancing criteria using a benchmark dataset. Our findings suggest that K-means clustering is the most suitable for the solving BMRTA problem with complex topologies and it is scalable to deal with any number of tasks and robots compared with Gaussian Mixtures Models (GMM) and hierarchical clustering methods.


Abstract Laboratory column tests have been carried out to assess the transport behaviour of Mecoprop in Mercia Mudstone clay and Oxford Clay. Artificially consolidated clay samples were compressed in a triaxial cell to stresses representative of those at the base of a landfill. Uniform steady flow was achieved, and there was no evidence of 'bypass' flow in one or more fast streamtubes. Analysis of Mecoprop and bromide breakthrough curves showed that the transport characteristics were linear (within noise), with no evidence of irreversible sorption. The possibility of dual-porosity or kinetic sorption processes was not conclusively eliminated. Truncated temporal moments allowed estimates of the linear retardation factor for Mecoprop, which were shown to be a lower bound. Based on modelling, the retardation factor of Mecoprop in Oxford Clay was estimated to be 17.1, compared with 65.4 in batch sorption tests. The mean retardation factor for Mecoprop in Mercia Mudstone was 3.6, whereas the value from batch sorption tests was 10.0. These data confirm that retardation factors calculated from sorption isotherms obtained from batch experiments on disaggregated samples substantially overestimate the retardation likely to be observed in compacted clay liners; therefore values from batch tests should be used with caution in groundwater risk assessments.


Goat farming in Lebanon is an ancestral heritage that may disappear by the overflowing of new technologies; its protection is necessary for the preservation of patrimonial tradi tions that support our regions. Although goat milk is very nutritious and is considered as an acceptable food in several parts of the country, its production and handling remain a major problem limiting its consumption. In the Mediterranean region, and particularly in Lebanon, goat's milk is becoming increasingly important especially because of the popularity of its products (Darfiyeh, Aricheh, Serdale, Shankleesh, Labneh and Kishk). There is a growing interest in the consumption of the aforementioned typical goat prod -ucts, which is partly due to the uniqueness of such foods. Their market is expanding; therefore, there is an increasing interest in maintaining the authenticity of these typical products. Considering the limited data available and the latest developments, the pur- pose of the present chapter is to (1) analyse the current situation of the goat dairy sector in Lebanon, (2) shed the light on the particular manufacturing practices and ripening tools used to yield a variety of artisanal products, and (3) review the attempts of valorisation of milk from goats.


Providing 100% reliable radio coverage within their service area is a very challenging task for mobile operators. This is especially true in areas that experience abnormal attenuation to radio frequency (RF), due to natural features or man-made structures. The signal quality in these areas needs to be improved by enhancing the weak RF signal. Building a new base station (BS) is the best solution. However, in certain areas the establishment of new BSs is impractical and/or uneconomical. Therefore the use of broadband repeaters to improve the RF quality is a good alternative as well as being cost effective. The paper investigates the quality of service (QoS) in the dead spot areas of UMTS networks based on the 3GPP standard.


For more than half a century experimental results accumulate that disprove prognostic value of perfect equilibrium, a concept derived from the principle of rationalistic egoism. The article is a short survey of popular experimental games in which actors make decisions of monetary consequences, thus shaping the income distribution in a group (dyad, in particular). A brief account is given of experimental research on ultimatum and dictator game, dictator's dilemma, trust game, centipede, gift exchange and public good game. Special focus is on dictator's dilemma which tests for readiness to benefit one's partner at one's own expense. This elementary personal dilemma turns out to constitute an essential part of more complicated and better known two- and multi-personal games.


Anatrophic nephrolithotomy (ANL) in the selected cases represents the method of choice in the treatment of staghorn calculi. We evaluated postoperative outcome of patients subjected to standard ANL that received 10 mg of Verapamil immediately before declamping renal artery, due to prevention of reperfusion injury. From 2002 to 2005, 18 nephrolithotomies were performed on 15 patients, in the Urology Clinic, University of Sarajevo Clinics Centre. Preoperative evaluation included intravenous urography and radionuclide renal scans which had been repeated 6 months after the operations. 10 males and 5 females were operated with mean age of 45 years. Urography and renal scans showed severe calyceal distortion and infundibular stenosis in 83% cases, complicated with ureteropelvic junction obstruction in 55% cases. Chronic kidney failure was present in 60% patients. Mean operative time was 150 minutes, with mean cold ischemia time of 61 minutes and mean blood loss of 300ml. There were five minor postoperative complications. Residual small calculi were found in 3 patients. Kidney function was stabilized in the patients suffering from chronic kidney failure, which was proved by radio nuclide imaging. ANL improved by using calcium channel blockers as a protective factor for reperfusion injury proved to be a good treatment choice with a low level of complications and noticeable stabilization and improvement of kidneys function.


Marine reserves are considered to be a central tool for marine ecosystem-based management in tropical inshore fisheries. The arguments supporting marine reserves are often based on both the nonmarket values of ecological amenities marine reserves provide and the pragmatic cost-saving advantages relating to reserve monitoring and enforcement. Marine reserves are, however, only one of a suite of possible policy options that might be used to achieve conservation and fisheries management objectives, and have rarely been the focus of rigorous policy analyses that consider a full range of economic costs and benefits, including the transaction costs of management. If credible analyses are not undertaken, there is a danger that current enthusiasm for marine reserves may wane as economic performance fails to meet presumed potential. Fully accounting for the value of ecological services flowing from marine reserves requires consideration of increased size and abundance of focal species within reserve boundaries, emigration of target species from reserves to adjacent fishing grounds, changes in ecological resilience, and behavioural responses of fishers to spatially explicit closures. Expanding policy assessments beyond standard cost-benefit analysis (CBA) also requires considering the impact of social capital on the costs of managing fisheries. In the short term, the amount of social capital that communities possess and the capacity of the state to support the rights of individuals and communities will affect the relative efficiency of marine reserves. Reserves may be the most efficient policy option when both community and state capacity is high, but may not be when one and/or the other is weak. In the longer term, the level of social capital that a society possesses and the level of uncertainty in ecological and social systems will also impact the appropriate level of devolution or decentralization of fisheries governance. Determining the proper balance of the state and the community in tropical fisheries governance will require broad comparative studies of marine reserves and alternative policy tools.


Although computed tomographic (CT) colonography has been proved to be cost-effective and have better patient acceptance, its overall utilization for colorectal cancer (CRC) screening is low (<1.4%) among US adults aged 45+ in 2018. More efforts are needed to implement strategies to increase CT colonography for effective CRC prevention. CT colonography for colorectal cancer screening has been proved to be effective and cost-saving. CT colonography uses minimally invasive evaluation of colorectum and has better patient acceptance, which appears to be a promising screening modality to improve low colorectal cancer screening rate. This study investigated the utilization patterns of CT colonography and factors associated with its use among U.S. adult population. This retrospective cross-sectional study analyzed the National Health Interview Survey 2015 and 2018. U.S. adults ages 45 or older without a history of colorectal cancer were included. Survey design-adjusted Wald F tests were used to compare the utilization of CT colonography during the study period. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify the predictors of CT colonography among individual socioeconomic and health-related characteristics. The study sample included 34,768 individuals representing 129,430,319 U.S. adult population ages 45 or older. The overall utilization of CT colonography increased from 0.79% in 2015 to 1.33% in 2018 (P < 0.001). 54.5% study participants reported being up-to-date on recommended colorectal cancer screening; of those, 1.8% used CT colonography. Compared with individuals ages 65+, those ages 45–49 years were 2.08 times (OR, 2.08, 95% confidence interval, 1.01–4.35) more likely to use CT colonography. Socioeconomically disadvantaged characteristics (e.g., racial/ethnic minority, low income, publicly funded insurance) were associated with a greater likelihood of CT colonography. This study demonstrated an increasing trend in utilization of CT colonography for colorectal cancer screening in U.S. adults. Younger individuals, racial/ethnic minorities, or those with lower income appear to have a higher CT colonography utilization. Prevention Relevance: Although computed tomographic (CT) colonography has been proved to be cost-effective and have better patient acceptance, its overall utilization for colorectal cancer (CRC) screening is low (<1.4%) among US adults aged 45+ in 2018. More efforts are needed to implement strategies to increase CT colonography for effective CRC prevention.


Traditional drug discovery methods are costly and time-consuming. Drug repositioning (DR) is a common strategy to overcome these issues. Recently, machine learning methods have been used extensively in DR problem. The performance of these methods depends on the features, representations and training dataset. In this problem, feature sets include many redundant features, which have a negative effect on the performance of methods. Moreover, selecting an appropriate training set is influential in the rise of machine learning method accuracy. However, in this problem, we face two obstacles to find the proper training set. First, most methods employ known and unknown drug-disease pairs as positive and negative sets, respectively. While the number of known pairs is much less than unknowns, it leads to machine learning performance error because of biasing to the majority group. Second, the absence of a drug-disease association means this association has not been approved experimentally and may be changed. In this paper, DRP-VEM framework is proposed to overcome the challenges. We assess DRP-VEM based on different parameters: disease and drug feature representations, classification methods, and voting ensemble training approaches. DRP-VEM is evaluated using heterogenous evaluation criteria. Moreover, we compare DRP-VEM using the best combination of parameters with DisDrugPred.


Landscape has become an important theme for David Hockney, especially since he returned to his homeland, the Yorkshire Wolds, in the 1990s. The landscapes in this catalgoue show a series of in-depth observations of the changing seasons and the way in which light, space and nature are constantly in motion. They are reminiscent of the landscapes of Vincent van Gogh, including his monumental Wheatfield with Crows and The Harvest. This book pays particular attention to these beautiful landscapes alongside Van Gogh's depiction of nature, with a special focus on technique, perspective and colour, and the way Van Gogh and Hockney use these 'formal' elements to create their particular view on the world surrounding them. The book includes an exclusive interview with David Hockney about the inspiration he has found in Van Gogh's work.


Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNNs) have exhibited impressive performance on image super-resolution tasks. However, these deep learning-based super-resolution methods perform poorly in real-world super-resolution tasks, where the paired high-resolution and low-resolution images are unavailable and the low-resolution images are degraded by complicated and unknown kernels. To break these limitations, we propose the Unsupervised Bi-directional Cycle Domain Transfer Learning-based Generative Adversarial Network (UBCDTL-GAN), which consists of an Unsupervised Bi-directional Cycle Domain Transfer Network (UBCDTN) and the Semantic Encoder guided Super Resolution Network (SESRN). First, the UBCDTN is able to produce an approximated real-like LR image through transferring the LR image from an artificially degraded domain to the real-world LR image domain. Second, the SESRN has the ability to super-resolve the approximated real-like LR image to a photo-realistic HR image. Extensive experiments on unpaired real-world image benchmark datasets demonstrate that the proposed method achieves superior performance compared to state-of-the-art methods.


This article assesses the success of Member State liability as a tool for the private enforcement of European Union law. The argument made is that Member State liability, first established 20 years ago in the Francovich case, is not a suitable and reliable mechanism to compensate for the weaknesses of public enforcement. The argument is based on statistical findings concerning the case law on Member State liability in two key Member State jurisdictions, England and Germany. The findings reveal that surprisingly little litigation has taken place so far and that only a handful of cases were litigated successfully. This leads the author to conclude that Member State liability has not been successful as a mechanism for the enforcement of EU law. The article continues by analysing why most of the proceedings initiated remain unsuccessful. It is shown that the criteria for the remedy are very difficult to satisfy and that there is reluctance on the part of national courts to award damages for the failure of Member States to comply with EU law. Against this background it is suggested that State liability under EU law should be chiefly regarded as a means of individual compensation rather than a tool for the private enforcement of EU law


Rabbit tibial nerve fascicle and endoneurial preparations were used to study the effects of alloxan diabetes on composite energy metabolism in peripheral nerve axons and Schwann cells. Glucose was preferentially used for energy provision in fascicle and endoneurial preparations from diabetic rabbits (despite very high endogenous fructose concentrations) and respiration provided the preponderant fraction of their energy requirements. Diabetic fascicles incubated with 20 mM glucose maintained a steady state of energy metabolism for 2 h, as assessed by O2 uptake , ATP levels, and P-creatine/creatine ratio. Their steadystate rate of energy utilization was estimated from the theoretical yield of ATP from the rates of glucose utilization required to sustain the steady state O2 uptake and lactate production. This was equivalent to the use of 117 mmol ATP/kg/h, a value 26% lower than in normal fascicles, but the ATP levels and P-creatine/creatine ratios in diabetic fascicles were unaltered. Diabetic endoneurium maintained a near steady state of energy metabolism when incubated with 5 mM glucose; its rate of energy utilization was 31% lower than in normal endoneurium, although their ATP levels and P-creatine/creatine ratios were similar. Experimental diabetes results in a striking decrease in the composite steady-state rate of energy utilization in axons and Schwann cells, suggesting that the rates of specific energy requiring processes operative in normal nerve are decreased. Diabetic fascicles and endoneurium had significantly decreased myo-inositol and creatine + P-creatine concentrations, suggesting that the maintenance of the normal intracellular/extracellular gradients of myo-inositol and creatine is impaired. The rate of energy utilization in normal endoneurium was not altered by incubation with 20 mM glucose for 2 h. Insulin (100 μU/ml) did not increase the rate of energy utilization in diabetic endoneurium incubated with glucose.


Nitric oxide plays significant roles in many physiological processes, and in most of these cases it works through activation of soluble guanylate cyclase and elevation of cyclic GMP concentration. Soluble guanylate cyclase is a heterodimeric protein made up of one a and one I² subunit. The beta subunit has one molecule of heme attached to it through a histidine moiety. NO activates the enzyme by binding to the heme Iron and weakening its bond to the histidine. The enzyme is deactivated upon dissociation of NO. Prolonged exposure to high concentrations of NO oxidizes heme or cysteines of the enzyme leading to inactivation and inability to respond upon Subsequent treatment with NO. In some cells, exposure to NO results in rapid desensitization of the enzyme, thus preventing undesirable consequences of continued, unabated cyclic GMP production.


Issues of uncertainty and variability are of significant importance to risk assessment. This paper describes briefly the past and current practices devised to deal with those issues when making predictions with PBPK models, the strengths and limitations of those practices; the currently considered best pratices - and under what conditions they should be used - and finally what is needed (e.g., research, data, software, reporting/documentation standards, etc.) to further improve and expand the use of such models in the future.


Pre-trained models (PTMs) have lead to great improvements in natural language generation (NLG). However, it is still unclear how much commonsense knowledge they possess. With the goal of evaluating commonsense knowledge of NLG models, recent work has proposed the problem of generative commonsense reasoning, e.g., to compose a logical sentence given a set of unordered concepts. Existing approaches to this problem hypothesize that PTMs lack sufficient parametric knowledge for this task, which can be overcome by introducing external knowledge or task-specific pre-training objectives. Different from this trend, we argue that PTM's inherent ability for generative commonsense reasoning is underestimated due to the order-agnostic property of its input. In particular, we hypothesize that the order of the input concepts can affect the PTM's ability to utilize its commonsense knowledge. To this end, we propose a pre-ordering approach to elaborately manipulate the order of the given concepts before generation. Experiments show that our approach can outperform the more sophisticated models that have access to a lot of external data and resources.


Self-consistent solutions to nonlinear spinor field equations in general relativity have been studied for the case of Bianchi type-I space–time filled with perfect fluid. The initial and the asymptotic behaviors of the field functions and the metric one have been thoroughly studied. The absence of initial singularity for some types of solutions and also the isotropic mode of space–time expansion in some special cases should be emphasized.


ABSTRACT Objective: Life satisfaction is an important component of overall well-being and declines in life satisfaction are related to adverse health outcomes and mortality. The current study investigated the association of various psychosocial and health-related factors to life satisfaction in older adults as well as the role of social support in moderating these relationships. Methods: 237 non-demented community-dwelling older adults (aged 70 and above) from the Einstein Aging Study completed self-report measures tapping the variables of interest. Results: Lower levels of depressive symptoms, less perceived stress, higher levels of social support, and better self-perceived general health were significantly associated with higher life satisfaction. Additionally, social support buffered the adverse impact of depressive symptoms on life satisfaction where more depressive symptoms were associated with much lower life satisfaction at low levels of social support than at high levels of social support. Conclusions: Findings highlight the beneficial moderating impact of social support for depressive symptoms as it relates to life satisfaction. We discuss study implications, future research directions, and possible interventions that involve boosting social support in at-risk older adults.


To examine the relationship between sex-role orientation and coping ability in men with a managerial orientation, a demographic questionnaire, the Zeitlin Coping Inventory and the Bem Sex-role Inventory were completed by 169 adult males undertaking the Master of Business Administration (MBA) course at the University of Stellenbosch Graduate School of Business. No significant difference was found between the global coping abilities of subjects with androgynous and masculine sex-role orientations, although both androgynous and masculine subjects showed significantly better coping abilities than subjects with feminine or undifferentiated sex-role orientations. Regarding coping styles, androgynous subjects displayed a significantly more flexible style in coping with the environment than subjects with other sex-role orientations. No significant difference was found between androgynous and masculine subjects regarding flexibility in coping with the self. The conclusion was drawn that both androgyny and masculinity could serve as effective coping resources in men with a managerial orientation.


Proceedings: AACR 103rd Annual Meeting 2012‐‐ Mar 31‐Apr 4, 2012; Chicago, IL

OBJECTIVE: Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) proteins have important roles in cancer cell survival and proliferation. Recent studies show constitutive activation of STAT3 is associated with tumor growth and oncogenic transformation in several human cancers; however, little is known about STAT3 expression in endometrial cancer. The objectives of this study were to examine the expression of the STAT family of proteins in endometrial cancer cell lines and to evaluate the efficacy of HO-3867, a novel STAT3 inhibitor. METHODS: Expression of STAT family proteins, cell cycle and apoptotic proteins were evaluated via western blot on Ishikawa, AN3-CA, RL95-2, HEC1B, HEC-1A, and SK-UT1B human endometrial cancer cell lines. Cell viability and proliferation of these cell lines were analyzed with MTT and nucleo counter assay after treatment with increasing concentrations of HO-3867. Cell cycle analysis and apoptosis were performed using flow cytometry and annexin V staining. An ubiquitination assay was used to examine the inhibition of CDK5 degradation. Finally, STAT3 over-expression or suppression experiments were performed using wild-type STAT3 cDNA and STAT3 siRNA. RESULTS: Expression of activated STAT1, 2, 5, and 6 was inconsistent among cell lines tested, while pSTAT3 Ser727 had consistently high expression. HO-3867 decreased cell viability through induced G2/M arrest and apoptosis within 24h of treatment. HO-3867 inhibited pSTAT3 Ser727 with no change in total STAT3. This was associated with an increase in expression of cell cycle related proteins p53 and p21, a decrease in anti-apoptotic proteins Bcl2 and Bcl-XL, as well as increased cleavage of caspases. After 24h of treatment with HO-3867, 55-88% of cells were apoptotic. The downregulation of Ser727 was, at least in part, due to an accelerated inhibition of ubiquitin-dependent CDK5 degradation, as a positive regulator of STAT3 Ser727. Suppression of STAT3 expression with siRNA significantly reduced cell survival. In addition, we confirmed that over-expression of STAT3 cDNA provides resistance to HO-3867. CONCLUSION: Endometrial cancer cells express high levels of pSTAT3 Ser727. HO-3867 induces cell cycle arrest and apoptosis by targeting pSTAT3 Ser727. Our findings suggest a specific role of serine-phosphorylated STAT3 that is independent of tyrosine phosphorylation. HO-3867 may be a potential adjunct to chemotherapy and radiation in the treatment of endometrial cancer.

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 2802. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-2802


The magnetic nanocomposites [magnetite@silica@titania@metallo tetra hydroxyl phenyl porphyrin, Fe3O4@SiO2@TiO2@MTHPP] (MSiTMP; M = CoIII, ZnII, NiII) and [Fe3O4@SiO2@TiO2] (MSiT) have been synthesized and characterized. These nanocomposites were used to degrade of methylene blue (MB) under the blue light-emitting diode (LED) lamp irradiation. The degradation of MB was monitored by UV-Vis spectrometry. Upon a 180 min irradiation period maximum degradation of MB in presence of MSiTNiIIP, MSiTZnIIP, MSiTCoIIIP and MSiT photocatalysts were 90, 80, 63, and 48 %g−1, respectively. After three 180 min runs, the photocatalysts still exhibited good activity. From Ultra-Violent-Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy spectra, the band gap energies of the photocatalysts were found to be 2.6, 2.5, 2.4 and 2.2 eV for MSiT, MSiTCoIIIP, MSiTZnIIP and MSiTNiIIP, respectively. The results consist with the observed relative photocatalytic activity of the photocatalysts which is as follows: MSiTNiIIP> MSiTZnIIP >MSiTCoIIIP >MSiT. The higher photocatalytic properties of MSiTNiIIP photocatalyst may be due to the fact that NiII complex is more susceptible to receive electron and reach to steady state than that of ZnII and CoIII. The degradation of MB using these nanocomposites were found to follow the pseudo first order kinetics.


The use of nanostructured semiconducting material to catalyze degradation of environmental pollutants still receives much attention to date. One of the desired characteristics for pollutant degradation under ultra-violet visible light is the materials with extended carrier charge separation that allows for electronic transfer between the catalyst and the pollutants. In this work, zinc oxide ntype semiconductor vertically aligned structures were fabricated on silicon (100) substrates using the chemical bath deposition method. The as-synthesized structures were treated with nickel and sulphur. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy were used to characterize the phase purity, structural dimensions and elemental composition of the obtained structures respectively. Photoluminescence emission measurements showed a decrease in both the near band edge emission as well as the defect band emission upon addition of nickel and sulphur with different concentrations. This was attributed to increased chargercarrier-separation due to the presence of Ni-S material on ZnO surface, which is linked to improved charge transfer during photocatalytic reactions. Keywords—Carrier-charge-separation, nickel, sulphur, zinc oxide, photoluminescence.


Duodenal acidification was studied in 53 peptic ulcer patients. Gastric and duodenal pH was studied using an electric probe with silver chloride and antimony electrodes. For a study of the mechanisms of changes of duodenal acidification gastrin was investigated using various exercise tests. Two types of disorders of duodenal acidification were established in the patients: related and unrelated to the vagus nerve. Characterization of the mechanism of disorders of duodenal acidification was provided. A study of duodenal acidification in peptic ulcer gave an opportunity for the development of effective pathogenetically substantiated therapeutic measures.


The design nuances and associated performance characteristics of two printed planar ultrawideband (UWB) antennas are reported. The designs achieve improved broadside-realized gains, particularly at the high-frequency side of the UWB band. An arc-shaped slot is etched into the radiating patch of a standard compact elliptically shaped UWB monopole antenna. The resulting parasitic element is engineered to produce its fundamental resonant mode in such a manner that a more compact overall design is realized and the broadside-realized gain in the upper UWB frequency range is improved while maintaining impedance matching without any significant changes to the original design parameters. In agreement with simulations, a 61.7% reduction in size from previous designs is demonstrated with more than a 6 dB increase in the realized gain near 10 GHz. To further improve its high-frequency characteristics, a multimode-resonator filter consisting of a single-wing element is combined with the slot-modified UWB antenna. The filter is first designed, fabricated, and measured to demonstrate that it produces the predicted appropriate transmission characteristics throughout the UWB band. The design integration of this compact filter is then presented and the resulting performance characteristics of the overall antenna system illustrate its advantages. The simulated and measured results are in good agreement. They indicate that the integrated design possesses sharp frequency cutoffs at both edges of the UWB passband, as well as strong upper stop-band attenuation. As a consequence, a 2.12 dB further increase of the broadside-realized gain values is demonstrated near 10 GHz.


The barite and the behavior of REE in its crystallo-chemical structure have been a major category of research done by scientists for a long time. There are various barite mineralization in Northwest Iran. These sediment-hosted resources as a type of tectonic-controlled-vein mineralization bear unconformity to their shale host rocks at Precambrian age (Riphean). The REE geochemical studies are carried out with the aims to investigate the behavior of REE in barite and galena crystal chemistries and to compare them with respect to their host rocks and some certain standards to reach the aims, Eu, Ce, La anomalies, chondorite normalized ratios, and other standards are used. REE evidences revealed discrepancy between barite-galena mineralization and host rocks. Barite crystallized at oxidized environment, but galena at reduction environment; moreover, barite originated from volcanic sources. Finally it seems that the mineralizations are formed under brine and hydrothermal fluid mixing condition.


Author(s): Beier, Paul | Abstract: I examined historical records of unprovoked attacks by cougars on humans in the U.S. and Canada during 101 years (1890-1990). There were 9 attacks resulting in 10 human deaths and at least 44 nonfatal attacks. In a recent paper, I listed these attacks and discussed them in considerable detail (Beier 1991). Although extremely rare, attacks on humans have increased markedly during the last 2 decades, during which cougar numbers and human use of cougar habitats have increased. There is no substantial evidence that habituation underlies this increase in attacks. The data provide weak support for the notion that an attacking cougar may be disposed to attack humans again. Warnings apparently do not deter people from visiting parks in cougar habitat.


nloaded sphoglucose isomerase (PGI) is a multifunctional enzyme that functions in glucose metabolism as a tic enzyme catalyzing an interconversion between glucose and fructose inside the cell, while it acts okine outside the cell, with properties that include autocrine motility factor (AMF)–regulating tumor otility. Overexpression of AMF/PGI induces epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition with enhanced ancy. Recent studies have revealed that silencing of AMF/PGI resulted in mesenchymal-to-epithelial ion (MET) of human lung fibrosarcoma cells and breast cancer cells with reduced malignancy. Here, nstructed a hammerhead ribozyme specific against GUC triplet at the position G390 in the human, , and rat AMF/PGI mRNA sequence. Mesenchymal human osteosarcoma MG-63, HS-Os-1, and e LM8 cells were stably transfected with the ribozyme specific for AMF/PGI. The stable transfectant howed effective downregulation of AMF/PGI expression and subsequent abrogation of AMF/PGI ion, which resulted in morphologic change with reduced growth, motility, and invasion. Silencing F/PGI induced MET, in which upregulation of E-cadherin and cytokeratins, as well as downregulation entin, were noted. The MET guided by AMF/PGI gene silencing induced osteosarcoma MG-63 to ally differentiate into mature osteoblasts. Furthermore, MET completely suppressed the tumor and pulmonary metastasis of LM8 cells in nude mice. Thus, acquisition of malignancy might be growth completed in part by upregulation of AMF/PGI, and waiver of malignancy might also be controlled by downregulation of AMF/PGI. Cancer Res; 70(22); 9483–93. ©2010 AACR.


SUMMARY: The experimental pathogenesis of Aeromonas salmonicida for the sea trout (Salmo trutta) and the brown trout (Salmo fario) in sea and brackish waters was examined by contact between infected and healthy fishes. Sea trout and brown trout both acquired infection by contact with infected S. fario at salinity values from 2.54% to 3.31% (w/w) when water temperatures ranged from 5.6° to 14.5°. The species differed in their resistance to infection. About 90% of the sea trout became infected and died within 7 days, developing superficial lesions typical of the disease. The brown trout appeared to be more resistant, about 75% developing and dying from an atypical form of the disease.


Author(s): Wall Parilo, Denise Michelle | Advisor(s): Kennedy, Christine | Abstract: The increasing pervasiveness of pediatric obesity is cause for concern, because of its known association with life-long obesity and associated health problems. Nonetheless, there is little information about the important predictors of preschool obesity, which is a critical period for the development of emotional and behavioral self-regulation. This descriptive, cross-sectional analysis of 1510 preschoolers aged three to five years, utilized data from the 2009 Child version of the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), in order to examine preschool obesity prevalence in this population and its associations with gender, ethnicity, and poverty level, as well as measures of negative emotion, developmental risk, physical activity, sedentary activity, diet, park factors, and maternal English ability. This research produced significant findings: well over a third of the preschoolers in the study were classified as obese; obesity was significantly associated with Hispanic ethnicity, poverty, and recent fast food intake; negative emotion was associated with normal, rather than overweight status; and inadequate physical activity was associated with Hispanic ethnicity and poor maternal English proficiency, a proxy for decreased maternal acculturation. The identification of maternal English ability as a significant, independent risk factor for physical activity is an important step in further understanding of demographic variables that may influence obesity rates in minority children. Study findings also present beginning evidence that negative mood may be associated with normal weight in young children, which is contrary to previous research that suggests correlations between depression and overweight. Further research is needed to investigate negative emotion in the context of pediatric weight status, and to inquire further into the interplay among preschool obesity, limited English proficiency, Hispanic ethnicity, poverty, and physical activity.


Background: Women are not universally or routinely screened ante-or postnatally for psychosocial risk factors, depression and anxiety in the private sector in Australia. There are limited studies that explore health professionals' views on screening or perceived barriers to the screening process.

Aim: The aim of this study was to discuss the health professionals' views of psychosocial screening and assessment who work in the private obstetric sector.

Methods: Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were completed with 11 midwives, 1 social worker and 2 obstetricians. Three hospital sites were chosen, of which only one currently screens women for psychosocial risk factors. Thematic analysis was applied to interview transcripts. Three researchers then discussed reoccurring themes and a consensus in themes and subthemes was reached.

Results: Only one hospital was screening women and had midwives trained in psychosocial assessment including depression screening. There were mixed views on the process and barriers to screening were identified, e.g. lack of support systems, cultural barriers, inaccurate answers, power barriers with obstetricians, husband interference, fear and powerlessness. Benefits were recognised: early identification of difficulties, standardisation and patient-focused care. Concerns were, however, also evident: suicide ideation, intrusiveness of questions, whether women responded honestly, not wanting to screen all women.

Conclusion: There was an identified concern by midwives that obstetricians did not take seriously any concerns highlighted by the midwife about women's psychosocial problems. There was a sense of a lack of 'ownership' of the women, therefore a feeling of helplessness in addressing their needs. Suggestions were made: appropriate education and training of midwives, flagging high risk women, more in-house resources and external resources/community links and employing a central midwife with interest and expertise in psychosocial screening.


We present a phenomenological model for meson-glueball mixing and apply it to the mixing of the pseudoscalar mesons r/ and ~/' with the t(1440)-particle as the prime candidate for a 0+-glueball. Using the MIT bag model framework, our model incorporates, among other elements, configuration mixing effects due to virtually excited states, as well as mixing of quark and gluon components. We evaluate the portions of quark antiquark and two-gluon admixtures in q,q' and t. The results are used to study various decay and production processes involving these particles. In particular, we calculate the radiative and the 27-decay widths of the light mesons and make predictions for the widths of the t in these channels. Furthermore, production mechanisms of the light mesons in electromagnetic and hadronic J/~k-decays are used to evaluate the branching ratios for the production of the t in various J/~,-transitions. Our results are generally in reasonable agreement with experimental data. Especially we predict a rather large width for the decay z~p7 and a sizable production rate for the t in the transition J/O ~ o~L


This paper describes the SIGNET dataset generated for the Causality Challenge. Cellular signaling pathways are most elusive types of networks to access experimentally due to the lack of methods for determining the state of a signaling network in an intact living cell. Boolean network models are currently being used for the modeling of signaling networks due to their compact formulation and ability to adequately represent network dynamics without the need for chemical kinetics. The problem posed in the SIGNET challenge is to determine the set of Boolean rules that describe the interactions of nodes within a plant signaling network, given a set of 300 Boolean pseudodynamic simulations of the true rules. The two solution methods that were presented revealed that the problem can be solved to greater than 99% accuracy.


The virtualized Radio Access Network (V-RAN) is a key technology for 5G networks. In this paper we present a live prototype of Virtual RAN implementing a Coordinated Scheduling algorithm enforced by a centralized coordinator. The 5G proof of concept, devised to improve the usage of radio resource and efficiency, is realized by exploiting open-source software to fully virtualize the LTE eNodeBs, and accommodates commercial terminals. We implemented two coordination algorithms: a simple static one for testing purposes, and a dynamic one appeared in [1]. Preliminary results show that coordination actually isolates the eNodeBs, reducing inter-cell interference. Keywords—5G, OpenAirInterface, CoMP, Coordinated Scheduling, Prototype


Carbon nanotube synthesis using flame has enormous potential for large scale carbon nanotubes production. Carbon-rich and autothermal conditions within the flame environment allow for a rapid and continuous single-step carbon nanotube synthesis process, which is highly energy efficient and cost-effective compared to the conventional carbon vapour deposition method. Despite its significant potential, controlling the synthesis of carbon nanotubes in flame remains a great challenge due to combustion physics that does not allow independent control of the flame temperature and gas phase composition. In the present review, systematic analysis of the optimization method of carbon nanotubes catalytic growth in flames using various combinations of flame configurations, catalytic materials, and fuel types is highlighted. Catalytic materials are added into the flame as aerosols or substrate-based, which has direct effects on the carbon nanotubes growth, yield and morphology. The effects of additional parameters such as residence time and inert gas dilution are also presented. The recent developments in the application of additives in flame synthesis to significantly enhance growth control and nanotube quality are highlighted. Furthermore, current progress on the advanced control mechanism over the flame synthesis process through application of electrical or magnetic force fields and novel nanotemplates is presented. These control mechanisms enable manipulation of the synthesized carbon nanotubes' physical characteristics, which is crucial for application in nano-mechanical and electrical instruments.


We address the ability of a computer vision system to perceive the motion of an object (possibly a robot manipulator) in its field of view. We derive a quantitative measure of motion perceptibility, which relates the magnitude of the rate of change in an object's position to the magnitude of the rate of change in the image of that object. We then show how motion perceptibility can be combined with the traditional notion of manipulability, into a composite perceptibility/manipulability measure. We demonstrate how this composite measure may be applied to a number of different problems involving relative hand/eye positioning and control.


Background and Purpose. Immersion within practice areas or clinical education (CE) experiences are required to be both integrated within the curriculum (ie, integrated clinical education [ICE] experiences) and at the end of the curriculum (ie, terminal clinical education [TCE] experiences) for an accredited physical therapist assistant (PTA) education program. In addition, programs must meet accreditation requirements for ICE and TCE within specified clock hour (520–720) and program length limitations (five semesters). The purpose of this article was to describe one program's model for providing integrated PTA CE in a self-contained learning space and to describe the outcomes achieved in the first 2 years of operation. Method/Model Description and Evaluation. Planning, administrative approval, community fund-raising, and institutional capital budget allocation commitments took 6 years before the Nate Waters Physical Therapy Clinic (NWPTC) at Tulsa Community College, Tulsa, OK, opened in August 2014. The clinic design is based on a learning spaces framework providing students an actual clinic setting to learn and practice skills. The learning space allows students to gain clinical confidence in a comfortable, supportive learning environment, in which time restraints, high productivity requirements, and reimbursement restrictions are eliminated or minimized for the novice student. A mixed-method program evaluation assessed the 2-year performance of the self-contained clinic with two quantitative and three qualitative assessments. Outcomes. Implementation of the self-contained clinic allowed for a curriculum reduction of clinical hours from 680 to 560. The clinic generated an average of 65 visits each month with a range of 41–124 visits. No significant difference was found on the PTA students' midterm scores from the final TCE's Clinical Performance Instrument (PTA CPI, Version 1998) for the 2015 and 2016 cohorts compared with two preclinic cohorts (2013 and 2014), despite 22% less clinical time for the studied cohorts. Qualitative interviews of faculty and students showed three parallel themes and two related themes. Parallel themes in both groups included teaching in context, confidence, and communication, whereas related themes included faculty absence of concerns or complaints and student fear of failure. Students also identified an enhanced PT/PTA role formation as a benefit of the clinic. Discussion and Conclusion. Student experiences in the NWPTC are aligned to support integration of learning in the classroom. Faculty supervision in the clinic reinforces the concepts taught in didactic courses. As a self-funded, self-contained teaching clinic, NWPTC allowed faculty control on curriculum alignment and scheduling, thus allowing for a reduction in required clinical contact hours with no indication of decreased student outcomes. While CE in PTA education programs continues to be predominantly outsourced, a self-contained ICE clinic can be of value to PTA programs.


PURPOSE
Fetal surgery is performed increasingly with minimal access approaches. The authors report their experience with fetal endoscopic procedures (fetendo) with emphasis on changing techniques and outcome trends.

METHODS
All fetal endoscopic cases performed at a single institution from January 1996 to August 2001 were reviewed (n = 66). Cases were examined with respect to year performed, type of operation, operative data, and outcome.

RESULTS
Twin-twin transfusion syndrome (26 cases) and congenital diaphragmatic hernia (35 cases) were the most common diseases treated. From 1996 to 2001, there was a decrease in average operating time (256 to 127 minutes [P =.0006]), number of ports utilized (3.8 to one [P =.00001]), pump volume (28.7 to 2.7 L [P =.00001]), and estimated blood loss (408 to 29 mL [P =.008]). In addition, port size changed from 10 mm to 5 mm. Chorioamniotic separation (31 of 66), premature rupture of membranes (32 of 66), chorioamnionitis (12 of 66), and fetal death (10 of 66) continued to be significant complications.

CONCLUSIONS
Fetal endoscopic surgery over the last 6 years has evolved toward shorter operating time, the use of smaller and fewer ports, decreased pump fluid exchange, and decreased blood loss, with the types of cases centered on twin-twin transfusion syndrome and congenital diaphragmatic hernia.


In this study, we show that at least one lethal mutation at the 3F-4A region of the X chromosome can generate an array of chromosome rearrangements, all with one chromosome break in the 3F-4A region. The mutation at 3F-4A (secondary mutation) was detected in an X chromosome carrying a reverse mutation of an unstable lethal mutation, which was mapped in the 6F1-2 doublet (primary mutation). The primary lethal mutation at 6F1-2 had occurred in an unstable chromosome (Uc) described previously (LIM 1979). Prior to reversion, the fF1-2 doublet was normal and stable, as was the 3F-4A region in the X chromosome carrying the primary lethal mutation. The disappearance of the instability having a set of genetic properties at one region (6F1-2) accompanied by its appearance elsewhere in the chromosome (3F-4A) implies that a transposition of the destabilizing element took place. The mutant at 3F-4A and other secondary mutants exhibited all but one (reinversion of an inversion to the normal sequence) of the eight properties of the primary lethal mutations. These observations support the view that a transposable destabilizing element is responsible for the hypermutability observed in the unstable chromosome and its derivatives.


Bit error rate (BER) performance of an asynchronous multicarrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) system for the uplink of the mobile communication system with equal gain combining and maximum ratio combining are obtained. Given a fixed bandwidth frequency selective channel, performance of MC-CDMA is compared with that of conventional CDMA and MC-DS-CDMA in numerical results.


Studying the bursty nature of cascades in social media is practically important in many applications such as product sales prediction, disaster relief, and stock market prediction. Although the cascade volume prediction has been extensively studied, how to predict when a burst will come remains an open problem. It is challenging to predict the time of the burst due to the ``quick rise and fall'' pattern and the diverse time spans of the cascades. To this end, this paper proposes a classification based approach for burst time prediction by utilizing and modeling rich knowledge in information diffusion. Particularly, we first propose a time window based approach to predict in which time window the burst will appear. This paves the way to transform the time prediction task to a classification problem. To address the challenge that the original time series data of the cascade popularity only are not sufficient for predicting cascades with diverse magnitudes and time spans, we explore rich information diffusion related knowledge and model them in a scale-independent manner. Extensive experiments on a Sina Weibo reposting dataset demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed approach in accurately predicting the burst time of posts.