A detailed three-dimensional (3-D) statistical "atomistic" simulation study of fluctuation-resistant sub-0.1m MOSFET architectures with epitaxial channels and delta doping is presented. The need for enhancing the fluctuation resistance of the sub-0.1m generation transistors is highlighted by presenting summarized results from atomistic simulations of a wide range of conventional devices with uniformly doped channel. According to our atomistic results, the doping concentration dependence of the random dopant-induced threshold voltage fluctuations in conventional devices is stronger than the analytically predicted fourth-root dependence. As a result of this, the scaling of such devices will be restricted by the "intrinsic" random dopant-induced fluctuations earlier than anticipated. Our atomistic simulations confirm that the introduction of a thin epitaxial layer in the MOSFET's channel can efficiently suppress the random dopantinduced threshold voltage fluctuations in sub-0.1m devices. For the first time, we observe an "anomalous" reduction in the threshold voltage fluctuations with an increase in the doping concentration behind the epitaxial channel, which we attribute to screening effects. Also, for the first time we study the effect of a delta-doping, positioned behind the epitaxial layer, on the intrinsic threshold voltage fluctuations. Above a certain thickness of epitaxial layer, we observe a pronounced anomalous decrease in the threshold voltage fluctuation with the increase of the delta doping. This phenomenon, which is also associated with screening, enhances the importance of the delta doping in the design of properly scaled fluctuation-resistant sub-0.1m MOSFET's.


Objectives: Invasive micropapillary carcinoma of the breast (IMPC) constitutes a unique and aggressive subtype of breast cancer. We aimed to evaluate the prognostic significance of the Jagged1 (a ligand of the Notch pathway) expression, and infiltration density of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) in patients with IMPC. Methods: Jagged1 expression and CD163+, CD68+ macrophage infiltration were evaluated by immunohistochemistry in 222 tumor samples, and the clinical significance was analyzed. mRNA level of Jagged1 was analyzed by real time PCR in tumor tissues. Results: The IMPC patients showed larger tumor size, more lymphatic invasion, higher expression levels of estrogen receptor (ER), increased Ki67 index, higher Jagged1 protein level, and denser infiltration of CD163+ macrophages compared to patients with invasive breast ductal carcinoma. In the IMPC cohort, positive Jagged1 expression was related to aggressive features including large tumor size, lymphatic invasion, and Ki67 overexpression. Statistical significance was found between CD163+ macrophage infiltration and Jagged1 expression levels. Cox regression analysis revealed that ER negativity, positive Jagged1 expression, and a high degree of CD163+ macrophage infiltration were independent prognostic factors for disease-free survival, and positive Jagged1 expression was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival. The level of Jagged1 mRNA was higher in tumor tissues of patients with IMPC. Conclusion: Jagged1, by modulating TAMs infiltration, is associated with a less favorable prognosis for patients with IMPC. Our results have important implications for therapies targeting Jagged1-Notch signaling and re-educating TAMs polarization for patients with IMPC.


Increasing evidence suggests that corporate sustainability is paradoxical in nature, as corporates and managers have to achieve economic, social, and environmental goals, simultaneously. While a paradox perspective has been broadly incorporated into sustainability research for more than a decade, it has resulted in limited improvement in our understanding of corporate sustainability paradox management. In this study, the authors conduct a systematic review of the literature of corporate sustainability paradox management by adopting the Smith–Lewis three-stage model of dynamic equilibrium. The results reveal the following: (1) Both environmental and cognitive factors manifest tensions arising from the sustainability paradox. (2) While both proactive and defensive strategies are adopted to manage the tensions embedded in the corporate sustainability, the proactive strategy is more extensively studied in the current literature. (3) Management strategies of corporate sustainability paradox are characterized as multi-level, multi-stage, and dealing with multiple paradoxes. (4) Proactive strategies enable organizations to enjoy short-term and long-term sustainability benefits. The authors call for further research explicitly addressing the following areas: (1) the paradoxical nature of corporate sustainability management; (2) corporate sustainability paradox management of for-profit organizations; (3) the micro-foundations of corporate sustainability paradox management; (4) defensive strategies and new proactive strategies; and (5) a unified standard of sustainability outcomes. The practical implications of this review are then elaborated. In practice, the results imply that organizations would best manage the corporate sustainability paradox by understanding the paradox and its equilibrium stages. This review and proposed research agenda are expected to deepen interdisciplinary knowledge and set the stage for interested scholars to undertake in their future inquiries.


In the region of Daloa, Ivory Coast, several Iroko trees ( Chlorophora excelsa , family of the Moraceae), a frequent species of the equatorial rain forest known for its calcareous excretions always related to wounds kept unhealed by insect activity, show an unusual lithogenetic aspect of this process. Between severely damaged roots, large-scale bleeding of the sap, after unsuccessful attempts to build crusts of fibrous carbonate over the wounds, has penetrated into the interstitial spaces of the adjacent granitic residual sand and cemented it by precipitation of calcium carbonate into large blocks of hard and massive calcite-cemented pure-quartz sandstone. The quartz and rare feldspar grains displayed a high amount of marginal corrosion by the cryptocrystalline calcite cement. The agents responsible for the severe damage to the trees cannot be determined with certainty but are assumed to be elephants, wild boars or jungle buffaloes. This recent sandstone demonstrates processes of intense corrosion of detrital quartz and feldspar grains and of general cementation both by calcite which have taken place at or near the surface before any decay, burial, overburden or compaction could occur and which, therefore, should be considered as geologically instantaneous.


Problem- and project-based learning (PPBL) courses in sustainability address real-world sustainability problems. They are considered powerful educational settings for building students' sustainability expertise. In practice, however, these courses often fail to fully incorporate sustainability competencies, participatory research education, and experiential learning. Only few studies exist that compare and appraise PPBL courses internationally against a synthesized body of the literature to create an evidence base for designing PPBL courses. This article introduces a framework for PPBL courses in sustainability and reviews PPBL practice in six programs around the world (Europe, North America, Australia). Data was collected through semi-structured qualitative interviews with course instructors and program officers, as well as document analysis. Findings indicate that the reviewed PPBL courses are of high quality and carefully designed. Each PPBL course features innovative approaches to partnerships between the university and private organizations, extended peer-review, and the role of knowledge brokers. Yet, the findings also indicate weaknesses including paucity of critical learning objectives, solution-oriented research methodology, and follow-up research on implementation. Through the comparative design, the study reveals improvement strategies for the identified challenges and provides guidance for design and redesign of PPBL courses.


Summary Mitochondrial myopathies make up a group of rare disorders whose onset is in childhood or adolescence. Muscle and central nervous system involvement is variable. Mitochondrial respiratory chain complex III deficiency (coenzyme Q - cytochrome C reductase) can manifest as exercise intolerance, myopathy, encephalopathy, and myocardial disease. Approximately 38 patients with complex III deficiency have been described since 1966, yet only a single anesthetic experience (epidural analgesia for cesarean delivery) has been reported. We describe the case of an 11-year-old boy with mitochondrial respira- tory chain complex III deficiency, severe myopathy, and moderate encephalopathy who underwent surgery to improve right ischiotibial muscle spasticity. Monitoring included electrocardiography, noninvasive blood pressu- re, oxygen saturation by pulse oximetry, end-tidal carbon dioxide pressure, esophageal temperature, spirometry, and neuromuscular block (Relaxograph Datex). Midazo- lam, fentanyl, and propofol were used for anesthetic induction; mivacurium was used during intubation. Anesthetic maintenance was with propofol in continuous infusion and fractionated doses of fentanyl and mivacu- rium on demand in a mixture of oxygen and air. The boy's response to mivacurium was abnormal but he could nevertheless be extubated in the operating room at a train-of-four ratio of 75% and with no need to reverse the neuromuscular blockade. There were no problems during the anesthetic procedure, so it could be a good technique for these patients, despite of considering individually every case and extension of syntomatology, due to the little experience in anesthesia with deficiency of Complex III.


Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative cortical dementia. It starts with memory loss, spatial disorientation in people above the age of 65 yr with a preference to females. Its incidence is expected to increase threefold by 2050. It affects almost one out of ten persons above the age of 65 years. Majority of patients are sporadic, but a very small percentage is autosomal dominant. The pathomechanisms postulated include amyloid cascade hypothesis according to which mutation in amyloid precursor protein causes Aβ aggregation. The next hypothesis is signal transducer and activation of transcription 3 (STAT3) causing aberration in intracellular signalling pathways. Senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles are other important pathological changes reported. It is observed that dementia research has not yielded the expected result world over, and therefore, the pitfalls with reference to known facts about diagnosis, clinical features, pathogenic mechanisms, assessment of progression, biomarkers, treatment and prevention, as well as brief information on our experiments with relatively inexpensive methods of differentiating the most common types of dementia AD and frontotemporal dementia are discussed.


In Reply.— We are grateful to Dr Schmidt for his comments on our article. 1 We fully agree that essential fatty acid deficiency can lead to red, scaly eruptions of the skin. 2,3 However, these eruptions do not include ichthyosis. When the diet is supplemented completely, the skin will become normal. When the diet is not well-balanced, several nutritional deficiencies, including essential fatty acid deficiency, can occur in cystic fibrosis. Most common skin findings in patients with cystic fibrosis are an elevated, papular rash, including acrodermatitis enteropathica-like dermatitis; erythema nodosum; rheumatoid nodules; urticaria; purpura; and vasculitis. 4 The rash in acrodermatitis enteropathica is characterized by acral and periorificial eczematous or psoriasiform skin eruptions. Ichthyosis has never been reported in cystic fibrosis. The patient we described is extremely small for his age but his weight is normal for his length. Exocrine pancreatic function is completely under control through substitution with pancreatic enzymes and


ABSTRACT The Lower Cretaceous Basal Quartz (BQ) of Southern Alberta (Townships 1-40, Ranges 1 W5-5W5) can be informally divided into seven mappable units (A Sandstone, composed of the Regional A, Carmangay, Mesa IV, Valley and Terrace; Horsefly, BAT, Ellerslie). The study area is considered to be in an accommodation-limited setting due to the presence of multiple, closely spaced unconformities, and the general absence of marine deposits. Multiple levels of cyclicity exist in the BQ. There are two cycles of increasing-upward mineralogical and textural maturity, the first associated with the A Sandstone and the second associated with the Horsefly-BAT-Ellerslie succession. There are multiple southward marine transgressive events, both on the unit scale and on the cycle scale, indicative of a backstepping stacking geometry. The high resolution subdivision of the BQ allows for the recognition of changing BQ paleodrainage through time. There is both a progressive spatial and stratigraphic change in incised valley organization, from thin and wide valley forms in the south and at the base of the cycles, to thicker, narrower and more deeply cut systems toward the northwest and top of the cycles. In addition, there is spatial variation in tributary systems for the upper cycle, from no tributaries associated with the thin, wide valley forms associated with the Horsefly, to narrow and thin tributaries in the BAT south of the Vulcan Low, deeply cut complex tributary systems across the Vulcan Low, and linear deep tributaries north of the Vulcan Low for both the BAT and Ellerslie. The style of depositional fill also changes stratigraphically and spatially, from braided to coarse meandering "sheet" deposits south of the Vulcan Low associated with the Carmangay and Horsefly, and low accommodation Mesa IV, and higher accommodation Valley and Terrace, Horsefly and BAT; and fluvial-estuarine deposits associated with the Valley and Terrace, BAT and Ellerslie north of the Vulcan Low in higher accommodation setting. The dominant control on the BQ depositional patterns is the interplay between eustasy and heterogeneous basement subsidence. The tectonic influences on sedimentation are most obvious in the sediments immediately overlying long-duration unconformities. Fluvial erosion on the unconformity surface amplifies the tectonic signal by accentuating the tectonically produced relief in a low accommodation setting. The accommodation-limited conditions occurring during BQ deposition resulted in sequence boundaries amalgamating on the interfluve, and it is only by detailed correlation and petrographic analysis that BQ units can be differentiated. End_Page 31-------------------------


In this report we link candidate genes to complex behavioral phenotypes by using a behavior genetics approach. Gene expression signatures were generated for the prefrontal cortex, ventral striatum, temporal lobe, periaqueductal gray, and cerebellum in eight inbred strains from priority group A of the Mouse Phenome Project. Bioinformatic analysis of regionally enriched genes that were conserved across all strains revealed both functional and structural specialization of particular brain regions. For example, genes encoding proteins with demonstrated anti-apoptotic function were over-represented in the cerebellum, whereas genes coding for proteins associated with learning and memory were enriched in the ventral striatum, as defined by the Expression Analysis Systematic Explorer (EASE) application. Association of regional gene expression with behavioral phenotypes was exploited to identify candidate behavioral genes. Phenotypes that were investigated included anxiety, drug-naive and ethanol-induced distance traveled across a grid floor, and seizure susceptibility. Several genes within the glutamatergic signaling pathway (i.e., NMDA/glutamate receptor subunit 2C, calmodulin, solute carrier family 1 member 2, and glutamine synthetase) were identified in a phenotype-dependent and region-specific manner. In addition to supporting evidence in the literature, many of the genes that were identified could be mapped in silico to surrogate behavior-related quantitative trait loci. The approaches and data set described herein serve as a valuable resource to investigate the genetic underpinning of complex behaviors.


The World Transplant Games (WTG) is a biennial worldwide sporting event. Most published research relating to WTG has focused on medical issues. However, few studies have examined factors such as psychological wellbeing in sport for this group. The purpose of this study is to provide a description of the English-speaking participants at the WTG and analyze five research questions linked to how (1) health, (2), satisfaction with sports participation (3), perceived com- petence, (4) health as a benefit of sport participation (5), and impaired health as a cost of sports participation, are related to psychological factors in sports. There were a total of 253 participants with a mean age of 43.6 years, originating from seven English-speaking nations. Four validated psychological questionnaires were used, as well as a screening of back- ground data of the group. The main characteristics of the English-speaking population were university educated middle age men with kidney transplants, who had participated in athletics at a rather high competitive level before the transplant. The main statistical findings particularly showed that satisfaction with sport participation, perceived health and health as a benefit were the dependent variables that explained most of the variance in the analysis. In conclusion, perceived compe- tence, enjoyment and health seem to be critical psychological factors that essentially act as prime motivating factors be- hind participation in games such as WTG, and ultimately lead to a sense of psychological well-being among the partici- pants. Finally, there is a discussion of future research, as well as the practical value of the results.


Previous investigations using pictures to elicit an emotional response have shown that the startle reflex habituates over time due to decreased excitation in the obligatory startle processing pathway, an effect that is independent of emotion modulation aspects of the startle response. However, in some instances, startle magnitude has been selectively potentiated during sustained exposure to passively viewed unpleasant pictures. This study assessed startle modulation during brief, alternating and sustained exposure to emotional pictures. Self-reported ratings of emotion were collected online with picture viewing to determine if any change in startle magnitude was observable in explicit emotional responses. Self-reported ratings of pleasantness and arousal were no different across the brief and sustained picture presentations. However, a significant main effect (independent from emotion category) of presentation condition was found for startle magnitudes, showing that, contrary to previous research involving passive picture viewing, mean startle magnitudes during sustained exposure were reduced relative to brief exposure. These findings are likely the result of a general habituation of the startle reflex in the obligatory pathway. The findings are also discussed in terms of the effect of the concurrent emotion rating task, which may have differently affected the cumulative effects of emotion exposure compared to passive picture viewing.


This paper investigates the impact of air quality pollution on respiratory health risk in Korea. In particular, we consider transboundary effects of particulate matter (PM10) on the health risk of pneumonia by using the spatial panel model. PM10, generated by natural phenomena and anthropogenic activities, migrates to neighboring areas contributing to not only local but also ambient regional health risks. We employ the spatial panel model to explain the spillover effects of air pollution on the respiratory health risk. The panel data covers environmental, demographic and economic variables that are associated with pneumonia of 120 local districts in Korea during the period from 2010 to 2015. Empirical evidence based on non-spatial and spatial models commonly indicates that the impact of air pollution on pneumonia-related risk is significant. The spatial panel model assessment reveals improvement in explanation and evidences more significant effect of ambient air pollution on pneumonia related hospital visits. As such, evidences of spatial dependence and borderless impacts of air pollution on the health risk of pneumonia are found to be strong. We also investigate the spatial dynamics of the potential association between air pollution and respiratory diseases with respect to variations in wind direction by extending the conventional weight matrix specification. Empirical results imply that transboundary effects of PM10 on health risk are stronger for districts located downwind from Northwest districts than from other directions.


Despite the increased research attention on crowdsourcing, we know little about why and how seeker organizations use this open innovation mechanism. Furthermore, previous studies have focused on profit-seeking firms, despite the use of open innovation practices by public sector organizations to achieve societal benefits. In this study, we investigate the organizational and project level choices of government (seekers) that crowdsource from citizens (solvers) to drive open social innovation, and thus develop new ways to address societal problems, a process referred to as ?citizensourcing?. Using a dataset of 18 local government seekers that use the same intermediary to conduct more than 2,000 crowdsourcing projects, we develop a model of seeker crowdsourcing implementation that links a previously-unstudied variance in seeker intent and engagement strategies, at the organizational level, to differences in project team motivation and capabilities, in turn leading to varying online engagement behaviors and ultimately project outcomes. Comparing and contrasting governmental with the more familiar corporate context, we further find that the non-pecuniary orientation of both seekers and solvers means that the motives of government crowdsourcing differ fundamentally from corporate crowdsourcing, but that the process more closely resembles a corporate-sponsored community rather than government-sponsored contests. More broadly, we offer insights on how seeker organizational factors and choices shape project-level implementation and success of crowdsourcing efforts, as well as suggest implications for open innovation activities of other smaller, geographically-bound organizations.


Since the kidney is the main target organ for many metals including cadmium, the generation of the products of lipid peroxidation due to accumulation of these toxic metals in the kidney may have importance in the mechanism of their nephrotoxicity. In order to test this hypothesis, we carried out an experimental study in rats. The functions and the levels of tiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) of the kidney were investigated in animals receiving 15 micrograms/ml aqueous Cd solution for 30 days. Due to cadmium accumulation in kidney cortex, the ratio of Cd/Zn increased significantly and this increase was associated with elevated TBARS in both renal cortex and medulla. The content of TBARS in renal cortex rose from 211.6 +/- 64.2 to 303.4 +/- 46.4 nmol/g protein (p<0.01) and GFR decreased to 390.5 +/- 109.4 from 1008.7 +/- 4.8 microliters/min (p<0.01) in cadmium exposed animals. Daily coadministration of selenium, vitamins A, C, E did not reverse the adverse effect of cadmium on kidney function, despite the significant decrease in cortex TBARS levels (p<0.01). In conclusion, these data suggest to us that lipid peroxidation assessed by TBA test may not be the only mechanism in cadmium induced nephrotoxicity.


Advances in neonatal care have resulted in increased survival of children born extremely pre-term (EP). Nevertheless the incidence of bronchopulmonary dysplasia and long-term respiratory morbidity remains high. We investigated the nature of pathophysiological changes at 11 yrs of age to ascertain whether respiratory morbidity in EP children primarily reflects alterations in the lung periphery or more centralised airway function in this population. Spirometry, plethysmography, diffusing capacity, exhaled nitric oxide, multiple-breath washout, skin tests and methacholine challenge were used during laboratory-based assessments in a subgroup of the 1995 EPICure cohort and in controls. Results were obtained in 49 EP and 52 control children. Lung function abnormalities were found in 78% of EP children, with evidence of airway obstruction, ventilation inhomogeneity, gas trapping and airway hyperresponsiveness. Levels of atopy and exhaled nitric oxide were similar between the groups. Prior wheeze was associated with significant reductions in forced flows and volumes. By contrast, abnormalities of the lung periphery appear to be mediated primarily through EP birth per se. The prevalence of lung function abnormalities, which is largely obstructive in nature and likely to have long-term implications, remains high among 11-yr-old children born EP. Spirometry proved an effective means of detecting these persistent abnormalities.


Searching for health advice on the web is becoming increasingly common. Because of the great importance of this activity for patients and clinicians and the effect that incorrect information may have on health outcomes, it is critical to present relevant and valuable information to a searcher. Previous evaluation campaigns on health information retrieval (IR) have provided benchmarks that have been widely used to improve health IR and record these improvements. However, in general these benchmarks have targeted the specialised information needs of physicians and other healthcare workers. In this paper, we describe the development of a new collection for evaluation of effectiveness in IR seeking to satisfy the health information needs of patients. Our methodology features a novel way to create statements of patients' information needs using realistic short queries associated with patient discharge summaries, which provide details of patient disorders. We adopt a scenario where the patient then creates a query to seek information relating to these disorders. Thus, discharge summaries provide us with a means to create contextually driven search statements, since they may include details on the stage of the disease, family history etc. The collection will be used for the first time as part of the ShARe/-CLEF 2013 eHealth Evaluation Lab, which focuses on natural language processing and IR for clinical care.


Introduction Alcohol use and misuse are associated with substantial health and social issues in Australia and internationally. Pricing policy is considered as one of the most effective means to reduce risky drinking and related harms. This protocol paper describes a study that will model and estimate the effects, effectiveness and cost–benefit of alcohol pricing policy initiatives in reducing risky drinking, health and social harms, and health inequalities among subpopulations in Australia. Methods and analysis The study is a modelling and epidemiological study using data from various resources, such as survey, previous literatures and response agencies. A number of statistical procedures will be undertaken to evaluate the impact of different alcohol pricing policy initiatives on various outcomes, including alcohol consumption in population subgroups, and health and social problems, and to measure health inequalities and cost-effectiveness of those proposed pricing policies, such as a 10% tax increase on all alcohol beverages or introduction of a minimum unit price. Ethics and dissemination The ethics approval of this study was obtained from the College Human Ethics Sub-Committee of the La Trobe University on 9 November 2017 (Ref: S17-206). While examining the heterogeneous effects of price policy across population subgroups, this study will provide the first comprehensive estimates of the likely impacts of alcohol price changes on health inequalities. The study will also provide sophisticated economic analyses of the impact of price policy changes, which is critical information for policy makers and will assist policy makers in directing resources to a more efficient alcohol strategy. Results will be made available to communities and societies, health departments and other researchers.


Aspergillus fumigatus (AF) and Aspergillus niger (AN) were isolated from consortia of other microorganisms from an over 8 months decomposing rice husk dump using potato dextrose agar (PDA). Pure strains of individual Aspergillus species were obtained and identified. Measured quantities of freshly processed rice husk in Mandle's medium were heat pre-treated in an autoclave at 121C for 20 minutes, cooled and inoculated with the fungi. Seven days fungal treated rice husks were assayed for the following biomass content: Carbohydrate (total sugar), simple sugar, non-reducing sugar, cellulose, lignin and protein. Saccharomyces cerevisae from baker's yeast and from palm wine were introduced into some of the fungal treated rice husks and fermented for 7 days for their bio-ethanol content. All samples data were in triplicate before analysis. The data were statistically analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVASPSS 16 ) data package). Differences were considered significant at p < 0.05. Data were presented in percentages. European Scientific Journal June 2014 edition vol.10, No.18 ISSN: 1857 – 7881 (Print) e ISSN 18577431 97 The result obtained in the work showed that rice husks treated with Aspergillus fumigatus had the highest cellulose (45 ± 3.31 %), hemicelluloses (31 ± 3.00 %), carbohydrate (19.52 ± 10.05 %), reducing sugar(2.60 ± 0.30 %) and non reducing sugar (16.92 ± 9.75 %) yields; ethanol from palm wine yeast yield was 6.60 ± 0.48 % while bakers yeast yielded 5.60 ± 0.42 % ethanol. Diculture combination of Aspergillus fumigatus and Aspergillus niger (AF+AN) gave the greatest total lignin value of 33.34 ± 3.14 %. The values obtained in the various bio-fuel and biomass components of fungal monocultures of Aspergillus fumigatus (AF) and Aspergillus niger (AN) treated rice husk had no significant difference in increase of product yield at P > 0.05. However, there were significant differences in product yield between the fungal treated rice husks and those of the controls at P < 0.05. The optimized condition involved in bio-product estimation showed that 30C and pH 5 gave the maximum carboxymethylcellulase activity in crude enzyme of products respectively. It was discovered that heat pre-treated rice husks with additional hydrolysis using the fungi (Aspergillus fumigatus and Aspergillus niger) showed increase in biomass and biofuel yields.


Objectives: To determine whether weight problems in children (overweight, obesity and overweight or obesity) were related to deprivation indices when attributed only according to electoral ward of the school attended. To determine whether children
with weight problems were more likely to be found in some wards rather than others, and to compare the distribution for boys and girls.
Design: Retrospective, cross-sectional, observational study.
Setting: One hundred and six primary schools from all parts of Liverpool city.
Subjects: Five cohorts of 9–10-year-old children between 1998 and 2003.
Main outcome measures: Body mass index (BMI) for each child to estimate proportions overweight, obese and overweight or obese according to international criteria.
Results: Between January 1998 and March 2003, the heights and weights of 7902 boys and 7514 girls were measured and BMI calculated. The prevalence of boys and girls categorised as overweight or obese was very high (1620, 20.6% and 1909, 25.7%,
respectively). Prevalence was not related to deprivation and varied between wards only for the girls; some wards had very different prevalence rates for boys and girls (Picton: 59 boys, 23.4%; 106 girls, 36.6%). The most deprived ward did not have a
remarkable prevalence of overweight or obesity (Speke: 32 boys, 15.3%; 40 girls, 19.8%).
Conclusions: Obesity is a major problem and requires urgent action but targeting intervention on the basis of administrative areas may be very wasteful. Different factors seem to lead to obesity in boys and girls, and attention should be paid to the
role of the physical environment.


In this paper, we study the problem of how to defend classifiers against adversarial attacks that fool the classifiers using subtly modified input data. In contrast to previous works, here we focus on the white-box adversarial defense where the attackers are granted full access to not only the classifiers but also defenders to produce as strong attacks as possible. In such a context we propose viewing a defender as a functional, a higher-order function that takes functions as its argument to represent a function space, rather than fixed functions conventionally. From this perspective, a defender should be realized and optimized individually for each adversarial input. To this end, we propose RIDE, an efficient and provably convergent self-supervised learning algorithm for individual data estimation to protect the predictions from adversarial attacks. We demonstrate the significant improvement of adversarial defense performance on image recognition, eg, 98%, 76%, 43% test accuracy on MNIST, CIFAR-10, and ImageNet datasets respectively under the state-of-the-art BPDA attacker.


In practical centrifugal compressor fault diagnosis, it is very difficult to improve the fault recognition rate, especially when the sample sizes are small. To solve this problem, a new fault recognition method based on fuzzy gray relational grade was proposed. Firstly, according to fuzzy set theory, the fuzzy relation coefficient (FRC), fuzzy relation degree (FRD) and fuzzy relative weights (FRW) of all fault features were calculated. Secondly, the gray system theory was used to obtain the gray relational coefficients (GRC). Thirdly, by combining FRW and GRC, two fuzzy gray relation grades (FGRG) were presented, which is the Hamming distance-based fuzzy gray relation grade (HD-FGRG) and the Euclidean distance-based fuzzy gray relation grade (ED-FGRG), respectively. Finally, the fault recognition results were obtained by using the max membership degree principle. The centrifugal compressor fault diagnosis results show that the ED-FGRG method is more effective and accurate than traditional gray relational analysis (T-GRA) method, the weighted gray relational analysis (W-GRA) method, and the entropy weight-based gray relational analysis (EW-GRA) method and the HD-FGRG method.


Climate adaptation presents a range of specific challenges to natural resource management (NRM) planning. These challenges are not necessarily new, but climate change and climate adaptation strengthen the need to consider them in NRM planning, potentially via innovative solutions. In this guide, we outline approaches for responding to four key challenges that, while not necessarily new for NRM bodies, can be intensified by climate change and climate adaptation. We then use a generalised planning framework to organise specific ideas about why and how planning approaches may need to shift to be effective under a changing climate. These ideas are posed as self-reflective questions, so NRM groups can consider whether their existing approaches are sufficient, need slight modification, or may need to be replaced with different approaches. We then provide specific suggestions, potential tools and examples of how to meet the challenges of climate adaptation, particularly with limited planning resources. This guide identifies questions that planners need to address to meet the challenges of climate change.

Our aim is not to provide all the detailed frameworks and tools to address each question, but rather to recognise that what works best for each NRM group may be quite different. Thus, we provide some tools, links to further examples, and some suggested reading to encourage you to find tools or develop new approaches that best resonate with your approach to planning. After answering these questions and reading the case studies, you will have a clear understanding of how your planning process could be improved or extended. Our ultimate aim is to support planners, even in small ways, to make climate adaptation part of ongoing planning and action for improved NRM outcomes.


The transition from school to work marks the beginning of the labour market experience of youth. If smooth and efficient, it can be a springboard to a successful career. However, it often is not a smooth transition and youth can be trapped in unemployment for relatively long periods. This paper makes use of a youth panel data set, the Cape Area Panel Survey (CAPS), which is rich in information about job search and timing of employment to illuminate the issue of youth transition to the labour market. Utilising month-by-month calendar entries, we are able to chart detailed labour market activity of youth in Cape Town. Following this, the nature and degree of duration dependence in the Cape Town labour market is examined using survival analysis. Furthermore, we examine whether the hazard of exiting the unemployment state is positive, negative or constant. Economic theory suggests that where the unemployment rate is very high, duration dependence should be negative, meaning that the likelihood of exiting a state of unemployment decreases with the length of the unemployment spell. The reasoning behind this postulation is that in an environment of high unemployment, the discouraged worker effect is prevalent, and it is likely that workers will decrease their search intensity or resort to a more passive means of job search. These factors could serve to decrease the exit probability of the unemployed.


We prove that any given function can be smoothly approximated by functions lying in the kernel of a linear operator involving at least one fractional component. The setting in which we work is very general, since it takes into account anomalous diffusion, with possible fractional components in both space and time. The operators studied comprise the case of the sum of classical and fractional Laplacians, possibly of different orders, in the space variables, and classical or fractional derivatives in the time variables.
This type of approximation results shows that space-fractional and time-fractional equations exhibit a variety of solutions which is much richer and more abundant than in the case of classical diffusion.


Symbiodinium spp. are well-known symbionts of corals. A number of key species of bioeroding sponges also contain intracellular dinoflagellate symbionts, but little is known about this relationship. The origin and identity of sponge symbiotic dinoflagellates is unresolved since their discovery in 1964. Symbiotic bioeroding sponges can invade and kill live corals. If the sponges acquire symbionts during this process, they may act as refuges for vulnerable coral symbionts, as bioeroding sponges appear to be more resistant to thermal bleaching than most corals. To test this hypothesis, pairwise tissue samples from the common brown bioeroding sponge Cliona orientalis Thiele, 1900 and from abutting corals were taken. Samples were obtained from 3 disparate regions of northeastern Australia, extending over more than 1300 km. The genetic identities and population diversities of Symbiodinium from sponges and respective host corals were surveyed using 28S RNA gene sequences. Results suggest that C. orientalis consistently harbours the same clade of symbionts, even in very different environmental conditions. However, populations of sponge Symbiodinium did not appear to be genetically connected between the sampled regions, implying maternal transmission of the symbionts. Furthermore, the sponge zooxanthellae were different to those found in corals. We thus rejected the hypotheses that (1) the sponge acquires its symbionts from invaded corals under normal conditions and (2) that it may offer a refuge to coral symbionts. Symbionts from C. orientalis were closely related to, but distinct from symbionts of soritid foraminiferans, and are likely to belong to a new subclade of G-type dinoflagellates.


There is significant increase in the number of cyberspace profiles, making social media platforms important research repository for studying about almost social users' deeds, likes, and way of thinking. Accordingly, this paper focused on how to intrinsically track, mine and analyse data from the selected of  specific  social media platforms that can be presented to court as evidence against the subject or target under investigation in Kenya. Social network analysis experimental research design was employed in this study. The respondents were guided to create pseudo-online parody accounts in various social media platforms, which was used to track and harvest forensic evidence from the selected respondents. The outcome of this study gives a new insight and techniques that can help law enforcement agencies and related stakeholders to identify and  track suspicious characters online. The discoveries presented in this paper demonstrates how law enforcement agencies can employ this technique in identifying and  tracking suspicious individuals and ultimately help in maintaining law and order.


This paper presents a wearable module and neural-network-based activity classification algorithm for energy expenditure estimation. The purpose of our design is first to categorize physical activities with similar intensity levels, and then to construct energy expenditure regression (EER) models using neural networks in order to optimize the estimation performance. The classification of physical activities for EER model construction is based on the acceleration and ECG signal data collected by wearable sensor modules developed by our research lab. The proposed algorithm consists of procedures for data collection, data preprocessing, activity classification, feature selection, and construction of EER models using neural networks. In order to reduce the computational load and achieve satisfactory estimation performance, we employed sequential forward and backward search strategies for feature selection. Two representative neural networks, a radial basis function network (RBFN) and a generalized regression neural network (GRNN), were employed as EER models for performance comparisons. Our experimental results have successfully validated the effectiveness of our wearable sensor module and its neural-network-based activity classification algorithm for energy expenditure estimation. In addition, our results demonstrate the superior performance of GRNN as compared to RBFN.


Previous studies have shown that during pulsed infrared laser ablation of tissue, rapidly expanding and collapsing water vapor bubbles are formed. These bubbles are held responsible for inducing collateral mechanical tissue damage. In this study, a theoretical analysis predicting the volume of vaporized water is correlated with measured bubble volumes in water. Laser induced bubble formation was documented using a time‐resolved flash photography setup. Evidence for a novel ablation model (partial vaporization) is presented in the form of a picture of small bubblets that form at the very beginning of the vaporization process. The dimensions of the rapidly expanding and collapsing bubble (diameter up to 2.5 mm) induced by Q‐switched (500 ns) holmium (2.12 μm) laser pulses, delivered in water via 200, 320, or 400 μm fibers have been measured. The volume of the bubble increases with increasing pulse energy. The partial vaporization theory agreed well with the experimental data. It is concluded that the partia...


A design procedure is proposed for digital repetitive controllers satisfying (i) asymptotic rejection of a class of periodic disturbances and (ii) a sampled-data H∞ norm specification. The synthesis problem is formulated by extending the step disturbance rejection problem. A necessary condition for the periodic disturbance so that the synthesis problem has a solution is derived. The synthesis problem is finally reduced to a sampled-data H∞ control problem with a design parameter which can be used for adjusting the performance of the periodic disturbance rejection. The effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed by a numerical example.


Activation of brain nociceptin/orphanin FQ (NOP) receptors leads to attenuation of μ-opioid receptor (MOP receptor)-mediated antinociception. Buprenorphine, a high-affinity partial MOP receptor agonist also binds to NOP receptors with 80 nM affinity. The buprenorphine-induced inverted U-shaped dose-response curve for antinociception may be due to NOP receptor activation, given that, in the presence of the NOP receptor antagonist, 1-[(3R,4R)-1-cyclooctylmethyl-3-hydroxymethyl-4-piperidyl]-3-ethyl-1,3-dihydro-2H-benzimidazol-2-one (J113397), or in NOP receptor knockout mice, buprenorphine has a steeper dose-response curve and acts as a full agonist. To further explore the involvement of the direct activation of NOP receptors by buprenorphine and other compounds that activate both NOP and MOP receptors, the antinociceptive effects of 1-(1-(2,3,3α,4,5,6-hexahydro-1H-phenalen-1-yl)piperidin-4-yl)-indolin-2-one. (SR16435), 3-ethyl-1-(1-(4-isopropylcyclohexyl)piperidin-4-yl)-indolin-2-one (SR16507), buprenorphine, pentazocine, and morphine, compounds with varying levels of MOP and NOP receptor affinity and efficacy, were assessed in mice using the tail-flick assay. The ability of the selective NOP receptor antagonist (−)-cis-1-methyl-7-[[4-(2,6-dichlorophenyl)piperidin-1-yl]methyl]-6,7,8,9-tetrahydro-5H-benzocyclohepten-5-ol (SB-612111) to potentiate antinociception induced by the above compounds was examined to investigate whether activation of NOP receptors leads to attenuation of MOP receptor-mediated antinociception. SB-612111 potentiated antinociception induced by buprenorphine and the other mixed NOP/MOP receptor agonists SR16435 and SR16507. However, SB-612111 had no effect on pentazocine or morphine antinociception, two compounds with no NOP receptor-binding affinity. These results further support the hypothesis that activation of NOP receptors can lead to attenuation of MOP receptor-mediated antinociception elicited by mixed NOP/MOP receptor compounds such as buprenorphine, SR16435, and SR16507 and that, although buprenorphine has low efficacy in vitro, it has significant NOP receptor agonist activity in vivo.


Expressions for the reflectance of finite, perfect diffuse, and perfect specular samples measured in an integrating sphere wlth finite ports and a uniform, perfectly diffuse reflecting wall, are derived by solving a set of linear equations. The derivation is easy compared with the long computations necessary when using an integral equation approach.Expressions are given both for the comparison and the substitution method of measurement, with curved or flat sample and standard. For finite, flat, diffuse, and specular samples, computed examples indicate the range of sample sizes within which previous approximate expressions may be used, without introducing significant errors.


With the increase of web users and applications with real time requests, the ability to identify, track and trace elements of a product as it moves in the supply chain is deemed necessary, and for many industries is even mandated by national or international regulations. Traceability presupposes the integrity and transparency of data that is saved and shared. This is a problem for current technologies, as there are many examples with tampered data and database vulnerabilities that resulted in serious implications and data loss. A solution to this problem can be the decentralization of the system, which will remove the central point of failure. To that effect, blockchain or DLT technologies, an emergent technology that enables the decentralization of a network can be used, by implementing a trustless model to achieve it. Blockchains are tamperproof and transparent, which means that by exploiting blockchain characteristics, traceability can be improved. A model that describes the decentralization process of the supply chain traceability part has been developed for this paper and is later evaluated and compared with the traditional system.


We propose a new active learning (AL) method for text classification with convolutional neural networks (CNNs). In AL, one selects the instances to be manually labeled with the aim of maximizing model performance with minimal effort. Neural models capitalize on word embeddings as representations (features), tuning these to the task at hand. We argue that AL strategies for multi-layered neural models should focus on selecting instances that most affect the embedding space (i.e., induce discriminative word representations). This is in contrast to traditional AL approaches (e.g., entropy-based uncertainty sampling), which specify higher level objectives. We propose a simple approach for sentence classification that selects instances containing words whose embeddings are likely to be updated with the greatest magnitude, thereby rapidly learning discriminative, task-specific embeddings. We extend this approach to document classification by jointly considering: (1) the expected changes to the constituent word representations; and (2) the model's current overall uncertainty regarding the instance. The relative emphasis placed on these criteria is governed by a stochastic process that favors selecting instances likely to improve representations at the outset of learning, and then shifts toward general uncertainty sampling as AL progresses. Empirical results show that our method outperforms baseline AL approaches on both sentence and document classification tasks. We also show that, as expected, the method quickly learns discriminative word embeddings. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work on AL addressing neural models for text classification.


PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to investigate the postoperative outcomes and evaluate the success predictors of phacoemulsification with Kahook Dual Blade goniotomy for cataract and glaucoma management in eyes with primary open-angle glaucoma.

METHODS
This was a retrospective, non-comparative; inter ventional case series in which all patients with primary open-angle glaucoma who underwent phacoemulsification with Kahook Dual Blade goniotomy between June 2018 and April 2019 were enrolled. All the participants had a minimum follow-up period of 6 months. Preoperative and postoperative intraocular pressure values (at 1, 3, and 6 months), number of antiglaucoma medications, best-corrected visual acuity, surgical complications, and any subsequent related events or procedures were recorded. A logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate the association between the different variables and surgical outcomes.

RESULTS
A total of 47 patients (57 eyes) were included (mean age, 70.5 ± 7 years). The mean intraocular pressure was reduced from 15.5 ± 4.2 mmHg to 12.2 ± 2.4 mmHg at the last follow-up visit (p<0.001). The mean number of antiglaucoma medications decreased significantly from 1.9 ± 1.0 to 0.6 ± 1.0 during the same period (p<0.001). On the basis of the predefined criterion (intraocular pressure reduction ≥20% and/or reduction ≥1 medication), the 6-month success rate was 86%. A higher preoperative intraocular pressure value (odds ratio [OR]= 2.01; p=0.016) and greater percentage of initial (30 days) intraocular pressure reduction (OR= 1.02; p=0.033) were sig nificantly associated with surgical success.

CONCLUSION
Our findings suggest that phacoemulsification with Kahook Dual Blade goniotomy is an effective and safe alternative for cataract management in eyes with primary open-angle glaucoma that positively impacts intraocular pressure control and medication burden. Eyes with higher baseline intraocular pressure and a more pronounced initial response to the procedure appeared to present better outcomes at 6 months. Further studies are needed to evaluate the long-term efficacy and safety profile of the procedure.


ABSTRACT This paper examines whether participation in social activities is associated with higher levels of wellbeing among post-retirement age people in England, and, if so, whether these relationships are explained by the reciprocal nature of these activities. Cross-sectional analysis of relationships between social activities (including paid work, caring and volunteering) and wellbeing (quality of life, life satisfaction and depression) was conducted among participants of one wave of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) who were of state pension age or older. Participants in paid or voluntary work generally had more favourable wellbeing than those who did not participate in these activities. Caring was not associated with wellbeing, although female carers were less likely to be depressed than non-carers. Carers, volunteers and those in paid work who felt adequately rewarded for their activities had better wellbeing than those who were not participating in those activities, while those who did not feel rewarded did not differ from non-participants. These results point to the need to increase the rewards that older people receive from their productive activities, particularly in relation to caring work.


Introduction: Falls of elderly people are common, representing a serious public health problem. The use of appropriate instruments in the assessment of elderly patients supports the early detection of individuals under risk of falls and its prevention. Objective: To verify the incidence of falls in a group of elderly patients and detect which balance test is the most appropriate for the studied sample. Methods: Quantitative, crosssectional study with an observational approach. A total of 30 elderly patients aged over 60 years old participating in a health promotion group were included in the sample. The participants were initially interviewed and subsequently assessed by means of the following instruments: Berg Balance Scale (BBS), Timed Up and Go test (TUG), and the Dynamic Gait Index (DGI). Results: The mean age of the participants was 69.30 ± 7.47 years; 90% were women and 46.7% of the individuals reported falls. The participants obtained a mean value of 10.2 ± 2.5 seconds in the TUG, 51.4 ± 2.6 in the BBS, and 18.6 ± 4.2 in the DGI. The sensitivity of the scales was 0.71 in the TUG, 0.50 in the DGI, and 0.42 in the BBS; specificity was 0.44 in the TUG, 0.32 in the DGI and 0.63 in the BBS. Conclusion: A high prevalence of falls was observed in the sample. In addition, the TUG was the most sensitive test to assess balance in the assessed sample. However, its use alone requires caution in this sample.


This article examines the rhetorical figuration of "our children" in climate change discourse. Based on an analysis of James Hansen's book, Storms of my Grandchildren (2009), Barack Obama's speech at the COP21 meeting in Paris in 2015, and a newspaper article about the Norwegian environmental organization, The Grandparents' Climate Campaign, it argues that the uses of "our children" reflect a notion of a family-timed future. The trope implies a "we" working as the active subject in the texts, while "our children" simply represents a future to be saved. This structure also authorizes "the parent" as a position of enunciation in climate change discourse. The article argues that the authority of this position is based on a heteronormative reproductive futurism.


Participation in senior secondary schooling increased substantially between 1980 and the early 1990s, but has been static since that time. Since the mid 1990s curriculum offerings in the senior school years have been broadened in order to cater for a wider range of student interests and aptitudes. The offering of vocational courses in schools has been a prominent component of this curriculum broadening. At the same time, changes have occurred in the post-school VET landscape with rapid growth in traineeships. The labour market context has also changed with a decline in full-time youth employment accompanied by growth in part-time youth employment for both males and females. Policies on youth participation in education and training have emphasised persistence at school or participation in a vocational alternative. Trends in school completion, VET-in-schools participation, post-school VET enrolments and labour force statistics are examined in order to explore possible causal relationships. The immediate post-school destinations of young people who do not complete secondary schooling are examined. For these young people, VET participation is an important component of their transitions between compulsory education and work. For some young people, especially males, post-school VET qualifications ameliorate their lower school completion rates. For others, post-school VET does not provide this compensation. Policy implications are considered.


Forest microclimates have unique characteristics, which depend on various factors, such as slope, direction, altitude, and vegetation type. We analyzed the characteristics of the microclimate in a forest using temperature, relative humidity (RH), and light intensity at sites 10, 25, and 50 m from the forest edge in four directions (north, 0°; southeast, 135°; south, 180°; and west, 270°) from July 2018 to June 2019. The results indicated statistically significant differences in the daily mean light intensity among the four directions. The sites 10 m from the forest edge displayed significantly different daily mean maximum temperatures, light intensities, and RH in different directions. The 25 and 50 m plots showed significantly different daily mean light intensities and RH in different directions. The primary factor affecting daily mean maximum temperature was direction, whereas RH was driven by altitude, crown density, and direction, and light intensity was controlled by altitude, slope, and direction. The meteorological factors that showed a significant correlation with at least one environmental factor (altitude, slope, direction, tree crown density, and distance from forest edge) were daily mean maximum temperature, RH, and light intensity.


The rate of change of any function versus its independent variables was defined as a derivative. The fundamentals of the derivative concept were constructed by Newton and l'Hopital. The followers of Newton and l'Hopital defined fractional order derivative concepts. We express the derivative defined by Newton and l'Hopital as an ordinary derivative, and there are also fractional order derivatives. So, the derivative concept was handled in this paper, and a new definition for derivative based on indefinite limit and l'Hopital's rule was expressed. This new approach illustrated that a derivative operator may be non-linear. Based on this idea, the asymptotic behaviors of functions were analyzed and it was observed that the rates of changes of any function attain maximum value at inflection points in the positive direction and minimum value (negative) at inflection points in the negative direction. This case brought out the fact that the derivative operator does not have to be linear; it may be non-linear. Another important result of this paper is the relationships between complex numbers and derivative concepts, since both concepts have directions and magnitudes.


An extensive body of literature has demonstrated how residential summer camps, when appropriately structured, can expose young participants to experiences that are conducive to their global development (Bialeschki, Henderson, & James, 2007; Garst, Browne, & Bialeschki, 2011; Thurber, Scanlin, Scheuler, & Henderson, 2007). However, much less is known about how the development of camp staff members, those who oversee camp activities, is influenced by their camp participation (Duerden et al., 2014). This is an especially important area of inquiry given that in most cases, camp staff members are adolescents and emerging adults still in an ongoing process of development. Some studies have shown how there are positive developmental outcomes associated with working as a staff member at camp, with a primary outcome being the development of leadership (Brandt & Arnold, 2006; Garst & Johnson, 2005). However, to date, no studies have specifically examined staff members' perspectives on their camp participation and leadership development. The purpose of this study was to examine the facilitators and barriers perceived to influence leadership development at a Canadian residential summer camp. The current study took place at a nonprofit residential summer camp in the province of Ontario, Canada. Interviews were conducted with 12 individuals (seven females, five males) who were in different leadership positions at camp, and the interviews were analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The findings revealed how the majority of participants believed being placed in positions of authority at camp exposed them to learning situations that facilitated the acquisition of the knowledge and skills needed to become effective leaders. More specifically, some participants described how learning communication skills, developing confidence, and shadowing more experienced counselors facilitated leadership development. However, many participants also faced situations that hindered their ability to develop leadership skills as they experienced internal conflicts and discussed the lack of constructive feedback they received. Taken together, the findings of this study demonstrate how residential summer camps can offer staff members a wide range of experiences that can both facilitate and hinder their leadership development. The current findings have important practical implications, highlighting how administrators can deliberately structure their camps to promote the development of staff members' leadership skills.


Abstract The leafhopper Sophonia orientalis (Matsumura) (Homoptera: Cicadellidae) is native to Asia, but it has been recently introduced to the Hawaii Archipelago, CA and French Polynesia. Although this extremely polyphagous species is considered to be a threat to all native plants of Hawaii and to many economically important cropping cultures, its taxonomy remains obscure. Most literature referred to this species as Sophonia rufofascia (Kuoh & Kuoh), but recently it has been shown that previous records of this species correspond to S. orientalis. In this study, S. orientalis is recorded from northeastern Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira and Canaries, with the first collection made in 2000 representing the first record of this species for Macaronesia. Diagnosis of the species together with information on the karyotype and structure of testes and ovaries is given. The number of chromosomes is 2n = 16+X0 (males) and 2n = 16+XX (females), and each testis and ovary is composed of six follicles and six ovarioles, respectively. In Madeira, S. orientalis was found on 28 plant species, including native and endemic plants, but it also was associated with important crops such as vineyards. The presence of adults and nymphs during most of the year suggests that this species has several annual generations. Owing to the suitable climate and the presence of a great number of host plants, its potential for detrimental effects to Madeira ecosystems is considered to be great, and the proximity of Madeira and Canary Islands to the European land mass suggests that this pest may spread.


Putting performance asymmetric cores inside the same processor can be a good alternative to obtain high performance per area, throughput and single-threaded performance. However, the impact of running parallel applications on this type of machine is not clear, since most of previous work focused on multi-programmed and server workloads where there is low or no dependence between threads. In this work, we analyze the impact of running parallel shared-memory programs on heterogeneous multi-core setups using six parallel applications with diverse parallelization schemes. Moreover, we show that, in some cases, with a high number of cores, it is better to put one complex core than several simple ones. The impact of sharing the address space between asymmetric cores with private caches was also investigated and the number of invalidations per write access was not greater than a comparable homogeneous configuration.


BACKGROUND
Cholelithiasis refers to the presence of gallstones, which are concretions that form in the biliary tract, usually in the gallbladder. Cholelithiasis is one of the most common surgical problems worldwide and is particularly prevalent in most Western countries.Biliary colic is the term used for gallbladder pain experienced by a person with gallstones and without overt infection around the gallbladder. It is the most common manifestation of cholelithiasis, observed in over one-third of people with gallstones over the course of 10 or more years. Non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have been widely used to relieve biliary colic pain, but their role needs further elucidation. They may decrease the frequency of short-term complications, such as mild form of acute cholecystitis, jaundice, cholangitis, and acute pancreatitis, but they may also increase the occurrence of more severe and possibly life-threatening adverse events such as gastrointestinal bleeding, renal function impairment, cardiovascular events, or milder events such as abdominal pain, drowsiness, headache, dizziness, or cutaneous manifestations.

OBJECTIVES
To assess the benefits and harms of NSAIDs in people with biliary colic.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched the Cochrane Hepato-Biliary Controlled Trials Register, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) in the Cochrane Library, MEDLINE (Ovid SP), Embase (Ovid SP), Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science), and ClinicalTrials.gov until July 2016. We applied no language limitation.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomised clinical trials recruiting participants presenting with biliary colic and comparing NSAIDs versus no intervention, placebo, or other drugs.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two review authors (MF and AC) independently identified trials for inclusion. We used risk ratios (RR) to express intervention effect estimates, and we analysed the data with both fixed-effect and random-effects model meta-analyses, depending on the amount of heterogeneity. We controlled random errors with Trial Sequential Analysis. We assessed the methodological quality of the evidence using GRADE criteria.

MAIN RESULTS
Twelve randomised clinical trials (RCTs) met our predefined review protocol criteria for analysis. We found only one trial to be at low risk of bias, considering the remaining trials to be at high risk of bias. The risk of selection bias in nine studies was unclear due to poor reporting, leading to uncertainty in the pooled effect estimates. Five trials compared NSAIDs versus placebo, four trials compared NSAID versus opioids, and four trials compared NSAID versus spasmolytic drugs (one of the 12 trials was a three-arm study comparing NSAIDs versus both opioids and spasmolytic drugs). There were 828 randomised participants (minimum 30 and maximum 324 per trial), of whom 416 received NSAIDs and 412 received placebo, spasmolytic drugs, or opioids. Twenty-four per cent of the participants were males. The age of the participants in the trials ranged from 18 to 86 years. All people were admitted to emergency departments for acute biliary pain. There was no mortality. When compared with placebo, NSAIDs obtained a significantly lower proportion of participants without complete pain relief (RR 0.27, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.19 to 0.40; I2 = 0%; 5 trials; moderate-quality evidence), which was confirmed by Trial Sequential Analysis, but not regarding participants with complications (RR 0.66, 95% CI 0.38 to 1.15; I2 = 26%; 3 trials; very low-quality evidence). NSAIDs showed more pain control than spasmolytic drugs (RR 0.51, 95% CI 0.37 to 0.71; I2 = 0%; 4 trials; low-quality evidence), which was not confirmed by Trial Sequential Analysis, and a significantly lower proportion of participants with complications (RR 0.27, 95% CI 0.12 to 0.57; I2 = 0%; 2 trials; low-quality evidence), which was also not confirmed by Trial Sequential Analysis. We found no difference in the proportions of participants without complete pain relief when comparing NSAIDs versus opioids (RR 0.98, 95% CI 0.47 to 2.07; I2 = 52%), suggesting moderate heterogeneity among trials (4 trials; very low-quality evidence). Only one trial comparing NSAIDs versus opioids reported results on complications, finding no significant difference between treatments. None of the included trials reported severe adverse events. Seven out of the 12 trials assessed non-severe adverse events: in two out of the seven trials, adverse events were not observed, and minor events were reported in the remaining five trials.In addition, we found one ongoing RCT assessing the analgesic efficacy of intravenous ibuprofen in biliary colic.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
NSAIDs have been assessed in relatively few trials including a limited number of participants for biliary colic, considering its common occurrence. We found only one trial to be at low risk of bias. There was no mortality. None of the included trials reported quality of life. The generalisability of the review is low as most of the RCTs included neither elderly people nor participants with comorbidities, who are more prone to complications as compared to others with biliary colic.The beneficial effect of NSAIDs compared with placebo on pain relief was confirmed when we applied Trial Sequential Analysis.The quality of evidence according to GRADE criteria was moderate for the comparison of NSAIDs versus placebo regarding the outcome lack of pain relief and low or very low for the other outcomes and comparisons.We found only one trial at low risk of bias, following the predefined 'Risk of bias' domains. We found the risk of selection bias to be unclear in nine studies due to poor reporting, leading to uncertainty in the pooled effect estimates.


This paper demonstrates the preparation of transparent biocomposites from chitin nanofiber using a series of simple mechanical treatments after the removal of proteins and minerals. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) images show that the prepared chitin nanofibers are highly uniform with a width of less than 50 nm and a high aspect ratio. Due to the nano-size, the fibers are small enough to retain the transparency of the neat polymethylmethacrylate resin. Light transmission of the obtained chitin/PMMA biocomposite was 90.2%, in comparison to the neat resin, which was 92.6%. Mechanical property tests showed that chitin nanofibers significantly improved the tensile strengths and Young's modulus of the neat PMMA, which increased from 43.8 MPa to 102 MPa and 1.6 GPa to 3.43 GPa, respectively. PMMA resin was found to be well dispersed in the biocomposite and had little effect on the tensile properties of the material. The properties mentioned above qualify the chitin nanofiber as a green and high-performance candidate having potential to be applied in next-generation optical electronic and building systems as a commercially available material.


Three-dimensional, transient computational fluid-dynamic (CFD) models require finite-volume grids in the spatial as well as temporal domain. The grid can become extremely large, even for component-level problems. This initially results in long computation times during grid optimization, even with high-speed and parallel processing computers. It also results in extremely long computation times once the grid has been optimized. Solution times are further increased when the transient load is cyclic in nature. To reduce computation time, lumped resistance-capacitance (R/sub th/C/sub th/) methods developed by Larson and Li [2000] were benchmarked at the component level, then the system level. Next, the use of root-mean-squared current (I.) as a steady-state approximation was benchmarked at both the component and system level. Finally, both methods were applied to streamline the analysis of automotive electronic controls. Limitations of both the R/sub th/C/sub th/ and steady-state methods are discussed. Cycle time reduction values for both component and system level are presented.


Spinal cord injury is a devastating disorder of the central nervous system (CNS), resulting in loss of function below the site of injury. While spinal cord axons can regenerate in a permissive environment, such as the peripheral nerve, they show only limited, if any, regeneration in the CNS. The authors are investigating a synthetic conduit that mimics some of the attributes of the peripheral nerve while allowing the axons to penetrate beyond the conduit into the CNS. In particular, they are studying both contact-mediated and diffusible cues to promote regeneration. To mimic contact mediated cues, the authors are modifying surfaces with one or both of the cell adhesive peptides of laminin-YIGSR and IKVAV-and studying cellular response in vitro. To mimic the diffusible cues, the authors are studying the release and bioactivity of neurotrophic factors and the effects of a nerve growth factor (NGF) concentration gradient on axonal migration in vitro.


The concept of a plant health system (PHS) is mainly anchored on experiences from human health where varied sources of knowledge, expertise, and technology are combined to provide healthcare. While diverse human health systems have been proven, little is known about PHS and what is needed to base effective plant healthcare services. A stakeholder analysis was carried out in Burundi. The aim is to understand the system as it is presently and to identify constraints and opportunities. This paper reports on the process and results of this assessment. The initial step in this process was to define PHS and its functions and to evaluate stakeholders' interests and influence. The first step was followed by examining stakeholders' perceptions concerning the sustainability of interventions geared at strengthening PHS functions. The process included a document review and stakeholder workshops. After the stakeholders defined the PHS functions, they proceeded to identify valuable actors. The assessment process highlighted several key challenges, including inadequate skills to serve farmers and insufficient capacity to diagnose pests, as significant impediments to effective PHS performance. Based on the information marshalled here, seven broad interventions are proposed for practitioners to strengthen Burundi's PHS rapidly.


The United States Chamber of Commerce Employee Benefits Study presents annual fringe benefit information that U.S. employers provide to their workers. Forensic economists use this study to estimate fringe benefit losses. This paper demonstrates that the selectivity bias from the sample of firms responding to the Chamber's survey questionnaire raises serious issues about the reliability of the Employee Benefits Study for litigation purposes.


Background: Sustaining the availability and rational use of safe and effective drugs is a major problem in developing countries. Irrational drug use affects quality of health care more than accessibility of drugs. Objective: To assess drug utilization in selected health facilities of South West Shoa Zone, Oromia Region, Ethiopia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in selected health facilities of South West Shoa Zone from January 21–28, 2012 by using structured questionnaires. Results: Of 50 prescribers and 30 dispensers, 58% and 83.3% were males, respectively. The result showed that majority of prescribers agreed on availability of essential drugs (72%) and had access to up-to-date drug information (76%). However, 43.3% of dispensers didn't get access to up-to-date drug information. 86% and 88% of prescribers note cost of drugs and stick to standard treatment guidelines of Ethiopia during prescription, respectively. All drug dispensers check the name of the drug (100%), age of the patient (90%), the dosage form of drug (96.7%), the route of administration (90%), the duration of therapy (86.7%), and frequency of administration (86.7%) for prescription papers. Conclusion: In general, drug utilization at the study sites was found to be good, although there are major deviations from the concept of rational drug use. Drug, Healthcare and Patient Safety is an international, peer-reviewed open-access journal exploring patient safety issues in the healthcare continuum from diagnostic and screening interventions through to treat- ment, drug therapy and surgery. The journal is characterized by the rapid reporting of reviews, original research, clinical, epidemiological and post-marketing surveillance studies, risk management, health literacy and educational programs across all areas of healthcare delivery. The manuscript management system is completely online and includes a very quick and fair peer-review system. testimonials.php to read real quotes from published authors.


Hyperpolarisation encompasses a multitude of methods to increase the species' spin polarisation for nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) applications. Hyperpolarised 129Xe is produced via spin-exchange optical-pumping (SEOP). Firstly, electronic spins of alkali metal vapour are polarised via absorption of circularly polarised light. Alkali metal polarisation is subsequently transferred to noble gas nuclei via collisions.
Within this thesis, the SEOP process is examined by probing the kinetics of the 129Xe polarisation build up. A combination of diagnostic techniques are used including low field NMR to measure 129Xe polarisation (PXe) at different spatial positions, near-IR optical absorption to give a global estimate of the alkali metal polarisation, and in situ Raman spectroscopy to spatially monitor the energy transport processes by detecting the internal gas temperatures (TN2). TN2 values were found to be dramatically elevated above oven thermocouple readings, with observations of up to 1000 K for an oven heated to only 400 K. Internal gas temperatures are presented for the first time along the length of the optical cell, showing spatial temperature and PXe variations during steady state and rubidium runaway conditions.
Two contrasting methods of Raman spectroscopy are examined: a conventional orthogonal arrangement of detection and excitation optics, where intrinsic spatial filtering of the probe laser is utilised; and a newly designed inline module with all components in the same optical plane. Optical filtering is used to reduce the Rayleigh scattering and the probe laser line. This new inline device is presented herein and has a 23 fold improvement in signal to noise enabling increased accuracy and precision of `real-time' temperature monitoring.
Rubidium, caesium and a rubidium/caesium hybrid are compared as the alkali metal of choice in the SEOP process. Caesium has a higher spin-exchange cross-section with 129Xe, thus a system is envisaged where current Rb D1 lasers in many polarisers can be utilised with a Rb/Cs hybrid to gain improvements in polarisation rates or levels. Xenon polarisations are shown up to 50% for a hybrid cell.
Finally, preparatory experiments crucial to the imminent lung imaging study are presented, including measurements of PXe at low and high magnetic fields. In addition, polariser technology is examined including the current Nottingham device and an open-source consortium polariser.


Fatigue is commonly reported in many neurologic illnesses, including multiple sclerosis, Parkinson disease, myasthenia gravis, traumatic brain injury, and stroke. Fatigue contributes substantially to decrements in quality of life and disability in these illnesses. Despite the clear impact of fatigue as a disabling symptom, our understanding of fatigue pathophysiology is limited and current treatment options rarely lead to meaningful improvements in fatigue. Progress continues to be hampered by issues related to terminology and assessment. In this article, we propose a unified taxonomy and a novel assessment approach to addressing distinct aspects of fatigue and fatigability in clinical and research settings. This taxonomy is based on our current knowledge of the pathophysiology and phenomenology of fatigue and fatigability. Application of our approach indicates that the assessment and reporting of fatigue can be clarified and improved by utilizing this taxonomy and creating measures to address distinct aspects of fatigue and fatigability. We review the strengths and weaknesses of several common measures of fatigue and suggest, based on our model, that many research questions may be better addressed by using multiple measures. We also provide examples of how to apply and validate the taxonomy and suggest directions for future research.


Abstract. We report on the occurrence of dense plasma access to geosynchronous orbit. We performed a superposed epoch analysis of 1464 events of dense (>2 cm–3 at onset) plasma observed by the MPA instruments on board the Los Alamos satellites, for the period 1990–2002. The results allow us to study the temporal evolution of various plasma parameters as a function of local time. We show that dense plasma access to geosynchronous orbit mostly occurs near local midnight. This dense plasma population is shown to be freshly injected from the mid-tail region, colder than the typical plasma sheet and composed of a relatively small O+ component. This population is thus probably the result of a cold, dense plasma sheet (CDPS) injection from the mid-tail region. Cold and dense ion populations are also observed on the dawnside of geosynchronous orbit at a similar epoch time. However, we demonstrate that this latter population is not the result of the dawnward transport of the population detected near midnight. The properties of this ion population may arise from the contribution of both ionospheric upflows and precipitating plasma sheet material. The correlation of an enhanced Kp index with the arrival of the CDPS at geosynchronous orbit shows that the inward transport of this population is allowed by an enhanced magnetospheric convection. Surprisingly, this dense plasma does not, in general, lead to a stronger Dst (ring current strength) within the 12 h following the CDPS injection. It is noted, however, that the superposed Kp index returns to relatively low values soon after the arrival of the CDPS. This may suggest that the dense plasma is, given the average of the 1464 events of this study, only transiting through geosynchronous orbit without accessing the inner regions and, therefore, does not contribute to the ring current. Keywords. Magnetospheric physics (Plasma convection; Plasma sheet) – Space plasma physics (Transport processes)


The authors describe their experiences of teaching through a series of major earthquakes and the lessons learned regarding sustaining teaching and learning through an ongoing natural disaster. Student feedback data from across the university is analyzed to generate a model of constructive practice for instructors responding to a crisis. The article challenges instructors to reflect on student and instructor needs before, during, and after a crisis in terms of preparedness for immediate disruption, programmatic and pedagogical changes, communication, and response to psychological needs. The authors' experiences with teaching through the earthquakes reinforce the message that even the most well-intentioned and self-aware instructor will, at some stage, falter during an ongoing crisis. Psychological preparedness and classroom emergency management planning are vital to the continuity of teaching and learning in a crisis situation.


Parallel programming on multi-core processors has become the industry's biggest software challenge. This paper proposes a novel parallel architecture for executing sequential programs using multi-core pipelining based on program slicing by a new memory/cache dynamic management technology. The new architecture is very suitable for processing large geospatial data in parallel without parallel programming. This paper presents a new architecture for parallel computation that addresses the problem of requiring to relocate data from one memory hierarchy to another in a multi-core environment. A new memory management technology inserts a layer of abstraction between the processor and the memory hierarchy, allowing the data to stay in one place while the processor effectively migrates as tasks change. The new architecture can make full use of the pipeline and automatically partition data then schedule them onto multi-cores through the pipeline. The most important advantage of this architecture is that most existing sequential programs can be directly used with nearly no change, unlike conventional parallel programming which has to take into account scheduling, load balancing, and data distribution. The new parallel architecture can also be successfully applied to other multi-core/many-core architectures or heterogeneous systems. In this paper, the design of the new multi-core architecture is described in detail. The time complexity and performance analysis are discussed in depth. The experimental results and performance comparison with existing multi-core architectures demonstrate the effectiveness, flexibility, and diversity of the new architecture, in particular, for Big Data parallel processing.


Environmental factors and genetic susceptibility are implicated in the increased risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Mycotoxins are agricultural contaminants of fungal origin that represent real risk factors for human health and especially for children. Thus, the main hypothesis of this work is that the deterioration of the clinical manifestation of autism in children may result from the exposure to mycotoxins through the consumption of contaminated food. Within a cross-sectional study, a group of autistic children (n = 172) and a group of controls (n = 61) (siblings and non-parental) were recruited in North and South Italy. All children had blood and urine samples taken, for testing some mycotoxins by a LC–MS/MS validated method. Blood samples were also tested for assessing specific IgG against food and fungal antigens and cytokines. The analyses outputs highlighted statistically significant differences comparing mycotoxins levels between (i) children groups both in urine (deoxynivalenol and de-epoxydeoxynivalenol, p = 0.0141 and p = 0.0259, respectively) and serum (aflatoxin M1, ochratoxin A and fumonisin B1, p = 0.0072, p = 0.0141 and p = 0.0061, respectively); (ii) a group of selected fungal IgGs, and IgGs against wheat and gluten and (iii) cytokines. These results suggest the need for a deeper examination of the role that mycotoxins may have on the etiology of ASD.


MENEVIS CILIZOGLU: Do Intergovernmental Organizations Pacify or Facilitate Sanctioning Behavior? (Under the direction of Mark Crescenzi.) Does shared membership in intergovernmental organizations pacify sanctioning behavior or facilitate it? Do states shy away from sanctioning a state that they are highly connected to through institutions? I argue that at the threat level, IGOs serve as a channel through which threats are credibly communicated. At the imposition stage IGOs solve bargaining problems embedded in sanctions by mitigating information asymmetries and help states solve contentious issues through enforcement and dispute settlement mechanisms. I find that states with high number of joint membership in IGOs threaten each other more often than less connected states, especially for trade-related issues. The pacifying effect of IGOs exists at the imposition stage; however, the scope of it is limited to the IGOs with a security mandate. The empirical analysis for all sanctions imposed in the years 1950-2000 suggests that IGOs with economic mandates fail to deter states from imposing trade-related sanctions. Security IGOs, on the other hand, perform well in decreasing the probability of security-related sanctions. This paper also reveals that there is a lot to learn from the variation among IGOs as well as the variation among sanctions.


After a single intragastric administration of 25% ethanol in a dose of 1 g/kg of body mass content of total lipids, lysophosphatidyl choline, phosphatidyl ethanolamine and cardiolipin was increased while phosphatidyl choline was decreased in the rat liver tissue. At the same time, there was a decrease in the rate of 2- 14C-acetate incorporation into esters of cholesterol, total phospholipids, lysophosphatidyl choline, sphingomyelin, phosphatidyl ethanolamine and cardiolipin. Administration of ethanolamine simultaneously with ethanol contributed to normalization of the lipid spectrum, impaired by the single ethanol inoculation.


OBJECTIVES To investigate the potential relation between cumulative exposure to cigarette smoking in patients with or without rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and a positive family history of the disease. METHODS 239 outpatient based patients with RA were compared with 239 controls matched for age, sex, and social class. A detailed smoking history was recorded and expressed as pack years smoked. Conditional logistic regression was used to calculate the association between RA and pack years smoked. The patients with RA were also interviewed about a family history of disease and recorded as positive if a first or second degree relative had RA. The smoking history at the time of the study of the patients with RA with or without a family history of the disease was compared directly with that of their respective controls. Patients with RA with or without a family history of the disease were also compared retrospectively for current smoking at the time of disease onset. RESULTS An increasing association between increased pack years smoked and RA was found. There was a striking association between heavy cigarette smoking and RA. A history for 41–50 pack years smoked was associated with RA (odds ratio (OR) 13.54, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 2.89 to 63.38; p<0.001). The association between ever having smoked and RA was modest (OR 1.81, CI 1.22 to 2.19; p=0.002). Furthermore, cigarette smoking in the patients with RA without a positive family history of RA was more prevalent than in the patients with a positive family history of RA for ever having smoked (72% v 54%; p=0.006), the number of pack years smoked (median 25.0v 4.0; p<0.001), and for smoking at the time of disease onset (58% v 39%; p=0.003). CONCLUSIONS Heavy cigarette smoking, but not smoking itself, is strongly associated with RA requiring hospital follow up and is markedly more prevalent in patients with RA without a family history of RA.


A B S T R A C T This work describes different microhistological techniques, to study wild and domestic herbivore diets. The methods to obtain epidermal tissue were applied to the main vegetal species of the Mediterranean and high plain pastures, to evaluate the degree of resolution in their identification and characterization. In most grasses and grass-like species, the epidermal tissue was obtained easily by scraping without complications, identifying species based on specific characteristics of the cellular wall, cell size and shape, presence and shape of cork and silica cells, and presence and shape of trichomes. In some poaceas with very hard epidermis, prior treatment with ether and nitric acid was necessary before scraping. In wood and wide leaf herbaceous species, the diafanization method was the most efficient way to obtain the epidermis, and species identification was based on cell and trichome shape, and in some cases, on stomas shape, but, in some genera, species differentiation was not possible. The microhistological technique proved to be a useful tool to obtain epidermis of plant species, being an accurate method to identify and characterize this structure. Some wide leaf herbaceous species showed a strong sensitivity to diafanization, so this technique should be improved.


Purα is a multifunctional protein that plays an important roles in DNA repair and cell cycle regulation. Purα knockout mice have been successfully established but unfortunately the knockout mice die at the 4th week after birth and that impeded the functional research of Purα in nervous system. The cells originated from nervous system is difficult for the transfection with the routine approaches and the lower transfection efficiency also hindered the research of gene manipulation in the nervous system. The lentivirus provided a new thoroughfare for the research of gene function in nervous system. On the current paper we reported here that lentivirus vector with overexpression of EGFP-Purα fusion fluorescent protein and its control-lentivirus vector with EGFP have been successfully constructed. The constructs were packaged and the human glioblastoma cell, U87MG were infected with these two lentivirus and selected with puromycin to establish the stable cell lines with overexpression of EGFP-Purα fusion protein. The expression level in the established cell lines were examined with qPCR and western blotting assay, the results demonstrated that Purα can be stably expressed in the established cell lines. The further experiments were employed to detect the effects of Purα on cell growth and proliferation with cell counting assay (CCK-8), the results proved that when the cells were treated with different concentrations of HU, the rate of cell survival in Purα overexpression group is higher than that in the control group, it suggested that Purα could protect the cells from the toxicity of HU. The protective effects of Purα on DNA damage were also evaluated with examination of the changes of the amount of DNA damage associated protein, γH2AX, as well as the pulse field gel assay, all the results illustrated that when cells were treated with 2mM HU for 18 hours, the amount of γH2AX is much less in Purα overexpression cell line than that in the control group, pulse field gel assay also exhibited the less DNA damage in Purα overexpression group than that in the control groups. Above all, these results confirmed that Purα plays a protective role in the DNA damage induced by HU.


ABSTRACT The current paper describes a study that sought to determine the beliefs, practices, and needs of parents living in Montreal, Quebec, who were raising their children bi/multilingually. The parents (N = 27) participated in a total of nine focus group and individual interviews in which they discussed their family language policies (language ideologies, practices, and actions taken to maintain a language). Through rounds of deductive and inductive coding and analysis, family language policies regarding English and/or French were compared with policies regarding heritage languages. The participants' family language policies were further examined in light of Quebec's official language policy of interculturalism. Findings indicate a complex co-existence of family and official language policy in which parents both support Quebec's official language policy by converging towards French as a common public language and questioning the policy's stance on official institutional support for heritage languages.


PURPOSE
To investigate the effect of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) on the mouse retinal vasculature, function, and expression of vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A) in the retina and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and to evaluate the protective effect of statin therapy (fluvastatin) on retinal vascular and functional changes.

METHODS
A single intravenous injection of murine TNF-α (8 μg/kg body weight) was administered to one group of mice (TNF group). In the second group of mice (TNF+Statin group), a single dose of TNF-α was followed by 28 days oral medication of fluvastatin (10 mg/kg/d), and an equivalent volume of saline was administered to the third group (Control group). After 28 days, electroretinography (ERG) and fundus photography were performed. Eyes were collected for cell and molecular studies. Transcript levels of VEGF-A in retina and RPE were quantified using real-time polymerase chain reaction, and protein expression was analyzed by Western blot and immunostaining.

RESULTS
TNF-α-injected mice showed retinal vessel tortuosity, structural change, and altered retinal function. Fluvastatin-treated mice exhibited retinal vascular, structural, and functional changes almost similar to those of the control group. VEGF-A expression was significantly upregulated in the retina and RPE of TNF-α-injected mice, and this was significantly downregulated in fluvastatin-treated mice.

CONCLUSIONS
This study shows that the TNF-α-induced inflammatory process results in the alteration of retinal microvasculature and function, and fluvastatin could be a potential therapy for treating/preventing retinal microvascular or inflammatory complications.