Multi-scale modeling of paracrine PDGF-driven glioma growth and invasion Susan Christine Massey Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Affiliate Professor Kristin R. Swanson Applied Mathematics The most common primary brain tumor in adults, glioma claims thousands of lives each year. Despite efforts to improve survival rates, the standard of care has remain unchanged for more than a decade. Recent research has started to uncover the role of stromal involvement in the growth of gliomas. Consisting of the supportive cells in the tissue, these stromal cells had long been overlooked in finding strategies for treating cancers. One particular component of this stromal support of gliomas is plateletderived growth factor (PDGF). PDGF is secreted by a number of cells in the brain, and has a number of cellular targets, including oligodendroglial progenitor cells. In animal models, upregulated PDGF signaling leads to the formation of tumors similar to human gliomas through the recruitment of oligodendroglial progenitor cells by PDGF. Central to my work is the mathematical examination of the effects of paracrine PDGF signaling on normal brain tissue and in brain tumor formation using PDE models. Model simulations show that PDGF can drive a number of outcomes in response to brain injury, and that increased PDGF signaling can speed up tumor growth and can alter the steepness of the tumor density gradient extending into adjacent normal brain tissue. Greater understanding of the contributions of PDGF in the development and growth of tumors may lead to much needed new strategies for combating glioma.


Research on organic consumers' preferences has been given a lot of attention in the
past, analysing in detail the motives of organic food consumption across the World.
Less attention has been paid to the expectations of consumers change in the context
of growing complexities of sustainable agriculture. The main goal of this study is to
explore how the ongoing changes of the organic sector are reflected in consumers'
perspectives of organic agriculture and their preferences for organic food quality. The
study was conducted in Italy with the use of the Q-methodology with a Q-set of 44
statements and a P-set of 20 participants. Three main groups of consumers were
identified: "Mainstreaming for the better good", "Critical supporters looking for more",
"Organic intensification supporters". Despite each ideal-typical group showing different
perceptions of the future of the organic movement, they all shared similar policy
implications. Three main topics of discussion emerged from the results of this study
which are: the expectations of the consumers towards the future of the organic
movement, the role of trust in purchasing behaviors and the importance of supporting
rural development.


Background: India has one of the largest tribal concentrations in the world. Nilgiris is a unique biosphere in the Western Ghats and part of Tamil Nadu, India, has number of tribal groups as its inhabitants. These inhabitants of Nilgiris are segregated from modern civilization. The accessibility of these tribes to medical and dental care is minimal. Aim : To determine the prevalence of periodontal disease, and the relationship of periodontal disease with the oral hygiene, oral hygiene methods practiced and habits. Methods: The study was conducted among the adult (35- 44 yrs) tribals of Nilgiris. Information regarding the population was collected from Association for Health Welfare in the Nilgiris (ASHWINI). Community Periodontal Index and loss of attachment were used to record the periodontal status of 303 tribals. Plaque Index was used to record the oral hygiene status. Results: In the age group of 35-44years, 73.6% of the total population had periodontal disease. 23.8% of the population had loss of attachment of 9-11mm, which is considered as severe periodontal disease. When the habits like smoking, paan chewing and alcohol were compared with the periodontal disease, the people who have these habits showed greater Plaque Index score, higher Community Periodontal Index score and severe loss of attachment. Male population suffered severe periodontitis than females. Conclusions: Overall prevalence of periodontal disease in the tribal population of Nilgiris was 73.6%. Majority of the male population was affected by periodontal disease. Education and motivation of the population is required to improve the oral hygiene, oral hygiene measures and to refrain from habits like smoking, paan chewing and smokeless tobacco use and alcohol abuse. Keywords: Periodontal disease; Loss of attachment; Community Periodontal Index; Plaque index; Prevalence; Tribals.


In
this paper, a novel search algorithm that based on the Contraction-Expansion
algorithm and integrated three operators Exchange, Move, and Flip (EMF-CE) is
proposed for the traveling salesman problem (TSP). EMF-CE uses a negative
exponent function to generate critical value as the feedback regulation of
algorithm implementation. Also,
combined Exchange Step, Move step with Flip step and constitute of more than
twenty combinatorial optimizations of program elements. It has been shown that
the integration of local search operators can significantly improve the
performance of EMF-CE for TSPs. We test small and medium scale (51-1000 cities)
TSPs were taken from the TSPLIB online library. The experimental results show
the efficiency of the proposed EMF-CE for addressing TSPs compared to other
state-of-the-art algorithms.


The resurgence of tuberculosis constitutes a global emergency. In the United States, the number of reported cases is highest in foreign-born persons, and among that group is highest among Asians. Effective treatment requires an understanding of Asian health beliefs. Vietnamese clients were studied to identify associations between an Asian culture and the tendency to operate from an "internal" or "external" (chance or powerful others) locus of control in health beliefs. Internal-locus clients scored highest overall. Males scored significantly higher on external powerful other. Nurses are uniquely positioned to educate these internally motivated clients toward responsible health behavior and to initiate a decline in the rising rate of Asian TB in the United States.


Sight in Islamic culture is subject to legal restrictions that aim at preserving moral consciousness in Muslim societies. These restrictions have a direct impact on architecture in traditional Muslim cities. Details such as placement of doors and windows, the use of balconies and rooftops, and building heights were shaped by legal reasoning based on sight restrictions. The present study aims at highlighting this legal reasoning system by analyzing legal opinions that were continuously advocated by jurists in response to daily practices, and the legal principles on which these opinions were based. This is expected to contribute in developing a new intellectual discourse on Muslim architecture that could go beyond the present design theories.


Summary Psychiatric disorders are common among people living with HIV in Nigeria. Adherence is necessary to optimise the outcome of antiretroviral therapy. In this study, we aimed to identify associations between antiretroviral adherence, measured by one-week and one-month self-reported missed doses, and psychiatric illness in a cohort previously assessed for psychiatric disorders using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. The study participants comprised 151 adults with major depression, anxiety or suicidal symptoms, and 302 matched-control participants. Two controls were randomly selected for each case within the same gender and education level. We compared participants with psychiatric disorders (WPDs) and no psychiatric disorders (NPDs) on selected demographic and clinical variables, in addition to adherence. Participants with one or more missed doses in the preceding month had twice the odds of having a major depressive episode as those with no missed doses during this period (OR 2.22, 95% CI 1.03, 4.79). This association remained significant after adjusting for selected risk factors. There was no statistically significant difference between WPD and NPD groups on either one-week or one-month adherence, or on age, marital status, occupational class, HIV viral load at enrolment or current CD4 cell count. Among Nigerian adults with HIV, suboptimal antiretroviral adherence is associated with, and could be a sign of, depression. Routine self-report adherence assessments may potentially be utilised in identifying individuals at risk among this population.


Abstract. The Mátra Mts has been one of the most frequented tourist destinations since the second half of the 19th century. This area – the highest mountain range in Hungary – offers a wide variety of free-time activities, geographical and cultural values. Because of these attractions, the tourism importance of the Mátra Mts has been recognised relatively early. The first tourist association was established in 1877 by Kolos Hanák and István Széky. They published the 'Mátra Guide' in the same year and reissued it in 1897 with minor revisions. This publication presents the natural-cultural values and the tourism infrastructure of the surrounding area. They also describe interesting hiking routes all around the Mátra. Although the most important sights were illustrated, no cartographic representation was published. In this study we processed the content of the book: every localizable site and tourism facility were visualised applying GIS techniques. A base map of relief, watercourses, road network and settlements were edited using the 2nd military survey topographic maps of Habsburg Empire (to present former conditions), the 1933 'Mátra' hiking map and hillshading (generated from SRTM). The digitized tourism elements from the book were visualised on this 'historical hiking map' using Leaflet. As the final online map is available to everybody, the early condition and infrastructure of tourism can be easily examined. This work contributes to the visual heritage preservation of the Mátra Mts: it may strengthen the knowledge on tourism history and digital cartographic solutions.


Germany is one of the few OECD countries with a two-tier system of statutory and primary private health insurance. Both types of insurance provide fee-for-service insurance, but chargeable fees for identical services are more than twice as large for privately insured patients than for statutorily insured patients. This price variation creates incentives to induce demand primarily among the privately insured. Using German SOEP 2002 data, I analyze the effects of insurance status and district (Kreis-) level physician density on the individual number of doctor visits. The paper has four main findings. First, I find no evidence that physician density is endogenous. Second, conditional on health, privately insured patients are less likely to contact a physician but more frequently visit a doctor following a first contact. Third, physician density has a significant positive effect on the decision to contact a physician and on the frequency of doctor visits of patients insured in the statutory health care system, whereas, fourth, physician density has no effect on privately insured patients' decisions to contact a physician but an even stronger positive effect on the frequency of doctor visits than the statutorily insured. These findings give indirect evidence for the hypothesis that physicians induce demand among privately insured patients but not among statutorily insured.


European sport policies and programmes have increasingly focused on promoting social cohesion. Often presented as a multi-dimensional concept, social cohesion is considered the 'glue' that holds societies together and is seen as essential to addressing common challenges. However, the term remains contested, and it is not always clear how programmes conceptualize or support social cohesion. Thus, this paper explores how three European sport programmes conceptualize and foster social cohesion. Findings are generated from a thematic analysis of interviews, group discussions, observations and documents. The themes developed show how organizations adopt an individual-centerd view of social cohesion, focusing mainly on social relations, tolerance and mutual help. In turn, this translates to an individual-focused practice of social cohesion, emphasizing personal skills, behaviors, and social relations, with the transfer of social cohesion to the broader community left mostly in participants' hands. Due to a number of systemic barriers, programmes struggle to implement more holistic and structural approaches. As such, if we want to facilitate a move towards more structural or interventionist approaches, we as researchers must play an active role in questioning, challenging, and reshaping the systems that underpin sport-based social interventions.


Early identification of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children is important to offer them appropriate and timely treatment. The Children's Revised Impact of Event Scale (CRIES) is a brief self-report measure designed to screen children for PTSD. Research regarding the diagnostic validity of the CRIES is still insufficient, has been restricted to specific populations, and sample sizes have often been small. This study evaluated the reliability and validity of the 8-item (CRIES-8) and 13-item (CRIES-13) versions of the CRIES in a large clinically referred sample. The measure was completed by 395 Dutch children (7-18 years) who had experienced a wide variety of traumatic events. PTSD was assessed using the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-IV: Child and Parent version. A cutoff score of 17 on the CRIES-8 and 30 on the CRIES-13 emerged as the best balance between sensitivity and specificity, and correctly classified 78%-81% of all children. The CRIES-13 outperformed the CRIES-8, in that the overall efficiency of the CRIES-13 was slightly superior (.81 and .78, respectively). The CRIES appears to be a reliable and valid measure, which gives clinicians a brief and user-friendly instrument to identify children who may have PTSD and offer them appropriate and timely treatment.


Diffusion controlled pattern formation is one of the important phenomena in nature. The dendritic crystal growth, viscous fingering, electrodeposition, and diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA) have received the most of the attention. One of the fundamental ways in which the dendritic pattern that is fractal is grown is electrodeposition. DLA and patterns developed as a result of DLA are often found in various processes in physical sciences, chemical sciences, and engineering. The dendritic pattern in the Electrodeposition of nickel from nickel chloride solution is presented at different cell operating temperatures. Dendritic patterns obtained under different cell operating conditions and their characterization are presented and analyzed. DLA-like conditions govern dendritic metal deposition using electrodeposition from electrolyte solutions. It was observed that nickel dendrites are not developed under electrodeposition using circular cell geometry, because the DLA-like conditions required for the growth of branching patterns cannot be realized at room temperature for nickel chloride solution. Therefore, the study of the electrodeposition of nickel from nickel chloride solution at different temperatures is presented in this paper. The fractal dimension of the pattern obtained in different growth is also given. The dendritic patterns developed show self-similarity and scale invariance, details are presented and findings discussed. To study the nature of material deposited in DLA-like conditions scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of images were analyzed. To study the particle size, X-ray diffraction (XRD) of material deposited is also analyzed and presented in the same work.


This guide highlights the course- and discipline-specific guides for the offerings in the School of Career Technical Educations. In each guide you will find the methods for finding books and other resources curated by the LBCC Librarians.


ABSTRACT Reovirus infections are initiated by the binding of viral attachment protein σ1 to receptors on the surface of host cells. The σ1 protein is an elongated fiber comprised of an N-terminal tail that inserts into the virion and a C-terminal head that extends from the virion surface. The prototype reovirus strains type 1 Lang/53 (T1L/53) and type 3 Dearing/55 (T3D/55) use junctional adhesion molecule A (JAM-A) as a receptor. The C-terminal half of the T3D/55 σ1 protein interacts directly with JAM-A, but the determinants of receptor-binding specificity have not been identified. In this study, we investigated whether JAM-A also mediates the attachment of the prototype reovirus strain type 2 Jones/55 (T2J/55) and a panel of field-isolate strains representing each of the three serotypes. Antibodies specific for JAM-A were capable of inhibiting infections of HeLa cells by T1L/53, T2J/55, and T3D/55, demonstrating that strains of all three serotypes use JAM-A as a receptor. To corroborate these findings, we introduced JAM-A or the structurally related JAM family members JAM-B and JAM-C into Chinese hamster ovary cells, which are poorly permissive for reovirus infection. Both prototype and field-isolate reovirus strains were capable of infecting cells transfected with JAM-A but not those transfected with JAM-B or JAM-C. A sequence analysis of the σ1-encoding S1 gene segment of the strains chosen for study revealed little conservation in the deduced σ1 amino acid sequences among the three serotypes. This contrasts markedly with the observed sequence variability within each serotype, which is confined to a small number of amino acids. Mapping of these residues onto the crystal structure of σ1 identified regions of conservation and variability, suggesting a likely mode of JAM-A binding via a conserved surface at the base of the σ1 head domain.


Targeting the angiopoietins with trebananib (a peptibody that inhibits the interaction between the endothelial cell-selective Tie2 receptor and its ligands Ang1 and Ang2) in combination with paclitaxel was associated with clinical benefit in a phase 3 ovarian cancer clinical trial (TRINOVA 1). Herein, we describe the generation of AMG 780, a fully human IgG2 antibody targeting Ang1 and Ang2. We compared AMG 780 to trebananib in affinity/neutralization ELISA assays and in vivo studies assessing inhibition of tumor growth and endothelial cell proliferation. AMG 780 is a derivative of an Ang2-binding antibody (Ab X). Ab X was generated by panning a human phage display Fab library (Dyax Corporation) against recombinant Ang2. The Ab X Fab was affinity matured by individually substituting every possible amino acid at every position in the light and heavy chain complementarity determining regions (CDRs). Resulting phage clones were interrogated for improved Ang1- and Ang2-binding activity. Clones with improved potency were converted to full antibodies. The most improved heavy chain clones were paired with the most improved light chain clones. The resulting IgGs were tested for neutralization of the interaction between the angiopoietins and their receptor, Tie2, as measured by homogenous time-resolved fluorescence (HTRF). Three resulting fully human IgG2 antibodies (AMG 780, Ab Y, and Ab Z) and the parental clone (Ab X) with potent Ang2 inhibitory activities (IC50 [nM], 0.05-0.10) and a range of Ang1 inhibitory activities (IC50 [nM], 0.31-547.00) were selected for xenograft studies. Mice were implanted with 5x106 Colo205 (human colon carcinoma) cells. When tumors were approximately 200 mm3, 300 µg of each of the four antibodies intraperitoneally or 14 µg of trebananib subcutaneously were administered twice weekly. For viable tumor fraction analyses, treated tumors at the end of the xenograft study were harvested and processed for paraffin histology. To examine endothelial cell proliferation, treated tumors were enzyme digested and stained with anti-CD31, anti-CD45, and anti-BrdU antibodies. The percentage of BrdU-positive tumor-associated endothelial cells (CD31high/CD45neg) was determined by flow cytometry. Relative to an isotope control antibody, all four IgG2 antibodies and trebananib inhibited tumor growth (P Citation Format: James V. Bready, Kyung Lee, Rick Jacobsen, Kevin Graham, Juan Estrada, Stephen A. Kaufman, Dongyin Yu, Angela Coxon, Jon Oliner. Development and preclinical testing of AMG 780, a fully human antibody targeting angiopoietin 1 (Ang1) and angiopoietin 2 (Ang2). [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 1022. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-1022


The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has grown into a central feature of the global carbon market. Besides a range of normative and evaluative research into the CDM, scholars have applied international relations perspectives in which the CDM has been analysed as an example of global governance, engaging multiple actors across administrative levels. This paper focuses on a national government and how its activities affect the CDM market. We draw on an empirical case study of China to demonstrate how governmental action can be understood in light of national institutional factors, defined as normative, cognitive or regulative elements. The paper describes and explains the extensiveness of Chinese government action regarding the CDM and discusses its consequences for the market.


Within the framework of EUROfusion R&D activities an intense research campaign has been carried out at the University of Palermo, in close cooperation with ENEA Brasimone, in order to investigate the thermo-mechanical performances of the DEMO water-cooled lithium lead breeding blanket (WCLL). In particular, attention has been paid to the most recent geometric configuration of the DEMO WCLL outboard equatorial module, as designed by WCLL project team during 2015, endowed with an attachment system based on the use of radial pins, purposely outlined to connect the module back-plate to its back-supporting structure, that have been properly considered to simulate more realistically the module thermo-mechanical behaviour. The research campaign has been mainly focused on the investigation of the module thermo-mechanical performances under the Normal Operation (Level A) and Over Pressurization (Level D) steady state loading scenarios envisaged for the DEMO WCLL. A theoretical-numerical approach, based on the Finite Element Method (FEM), has been followed and the qualified ABAQUS v. 6.14 commercial FEM code has been adopted. Thermo-mechanical results obtained have been assessed in order to verify their compliance with the design criteria foreseen for the structural material. To this purpose, a stress linearization procedure has been performed along the most critical paths located within the module structure, in order to check the fulfilment of both Level A and Level D rules prescribed by the SDC-IC structural design code. Results obtained are herewith presented and critically discussed, highlighting the open issues and suggesting the pertinent modifications to DEMO WCLL outboard equatorial module design aimed to obtain the complete fulfilment of the prescribed design criteria. © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC


Each "Communication Corner" essay is self-contained; however, they build on each other. For best results, before reading this essay and doing the exercise, go to the first essay "How an Ugly Duckling Became a Swan," then read each succeeding essay. As a form of writing, advertising copy has a poor reputation because in many minds its objective is to "sell people things they don't want and don't need." This is debatable. What is not debatable is that advertising copy represents some of the best writing you will ever see. It has to because its objective is to say a world of things in just a thimbleful of words. Writers of more meritorious texts (articles, essays, book reports, business reports, research papers, etc.) can learn a lot from understanding how these consummate wordsmiths go about their work.


Conjugation of poly(ethylene glycol) derivatives with therapeutic proteins is a promising approach for enhancing protein stability and, therefore, effectiveness. An N-hydroxysuccinimidyl ester of fluorescein-PEG 2000 was used for chemical modification of mouse nerve growth factor (mNGF), a dimeric protein with therapeutic potential for Alzheimer's disease. The mNGF-PEG2000-fluorescein conjugate was characterized by RP-HPLC, spectrofluorometry, and SDS-PAGE and was biologically active, as determined by two independent NGF-specific assays (enhancement of ChAT activity in fetal neurons and neurite outgrowth in PC12 cells). The conjugate was not detectable by a standard NGF ELISA, suggesting a fortuitous reduction in protein recognition by antibodies.


Additive Manufacturing (AM) for metals, is based on melting or sintering and then solidification of metal powder particles to fabricate 3D objects directly out of Computer Aided Design (CAD) data. Due to its strong capabilities to fabricate components with complex geometries, AM largely relaxes the manufacturing constraints opening the design space to optimize components for performance maximization and extensive weight minimization. These features have made AM a strong manufacturing candidate for several applications in the aerospace and defense industries. However, it is found that during the AM process several powder particles are left un-melted leading to high porosity and poor component surface finish. These surface pores act as potential crack initiation sites during cyclic loading and thus significantly compromise the component's tensile and fatigue performances, leading to poor mechanical properties compared to traditional cast or wrought metals. In this paper, we study the effect of Ultrasonic Impact Treatment (UIT) on the stress-controlled fatigue performance of additively manufactured Ti–6Al–4V alloy. Here, severe plastic deformations are developed on the surface of the metal by multiple sliding impacts generated by the UIT system. Specimens of Ti–6Al–4V alloy were manufactured by Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) and were subject to the UIT. The treatment was applied to statically preloaded specimens at 30 N and a controlled scanning speed of 1000 mm/min. Structure investigations were performed by testing as-built specimens as well as treated specimens by UIT in low-cycle fatigue under tensile cyclic loading of 400 MPa using 810 Materials Testing System (MTS). Fatigue life, surface defects and roughness were examined to observe the effects of the UIT on the metal's surface. It is found that the UIT treatment has improved the fatigue life of the treated specimens by 192% compared to the as-built specimens at the same dynamic stress level. Also, microscopic observations indicate a better surface finish of the treated specimens.


Postparturient metabolic and production responses were studied for 85 multiparous cows consisting of controls and animals that had been previously exposed to long-term treatment with bST. Older cows previously exposed to bST at high doses (51.6 mg/d) had lower milk yields than controls. However, there were no significant differences compared with controls in milk yield for lower dose (17.2 mg/d) older cows or parity 2 cow groups. The bST-treated groups had higher postpartum DMI, lower serum FFA, lower serum beta-hydroxybutyrate levels, and higher serum glucose than controls. Some bST-exposed groups had lower milk fat but higher milk protein levels. All bST-treated groups had significantly lower ratios of C18 to C4 to 10 milk fatty acids. Control cows of both parity groups were in higher body condition and weighed more than bST-treated cows prior to calving. The differences in postpartum metabolism may be attributed to differences in body composition resulting from bST treatment in the prior lactation, because use of body condition score prior to calving as a covariate did not substantially alter responses. The control cows probably had greater reserves of mobilizable lipid. These contentions are supported by changes in milk composition for bST-treated cows, which were consistent with animals of greater appetite, mobilizing less lipid. The bST-treated cows were probably more energetically efficient milk producers because they produced milk from feed rather than from mobilization of tissue stores. These data suggest that bST use in a prior lactation may have potential benefit in reducing risk of metabolic disorders associated with lipid mobilization in the postparturient period.


Background: Biochemical DNA modification resembles a crucial regulatory layer among genetic information, environmental factors, and the transcriptome. To identify epigenetic susceptibility regions and novel biomarkers linked to myocardial dysfunction and heart failure, we performed the first multi-omics study in myocardial tissue and blood of patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and controls. Methods: Infinium human methylation 450 was used for high-density epigenome-wide mapping of DNA methylation in left-ventricular biopsies and whole peripheral blood of living probands. RNA deep sequencing was performed on the same samples in parallel. Whole-genome sequencing of all patients allowed exclusion of promiscuous genotype-induced methylation calls. Results: In the screening stage, we detected 59 epigenetic loci that are significantly associated with dilated cardiomyopathy (false discovery corrected P⩽0.05), with 3 of them reaching epigenome-wide significance at P⩽5×10−8. Twenty-seven (46%) of these loci could be replicated in independent cohorts, underlining the role of epigenetic regulation of key cardiac transcription regulators. Using a staged multi-omics study design, we link a subset of 517 epigenetic loci with dilated cardiomyopathy and cardiac gene expression. Furthermore, we identified distinct epigenetic methylation patterns that are conserved across tissues, rendering these CpGs novel epigenetic biomarkers for heart failure. Conclusions: The present study provides to our knowledge the first epigenome-wide association study in living patients with heart failure using a multi-omics approach.


Linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.) is one of the most important oilseed crop in the central highlands of Ethiopia. However, poor soil fertility management and lack of improved varieties affect its seed yield and oil quality. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of nitrogen fertilizer rates on yield, and oil quality of linseed varieties in Welmera district. The experiment was laid out in a randomized completed block design with three replications. The treatments were factorial combinations of three linseed varieties (Bekoji-14, Jeldu, and Kulumsa-1) and five rates of Nitrogen (0, 11.5, 23.0, 34.5, and 46.0 kg N ha-1). The analysis of variance showed that the main effect nitrogen and varieties significantly (P<0.05) affected seed and oil yields, oil content, and fatty acid compositions of linseed. The maximum seed yield (1508 kg ha-1) and oil yield (604.4 Lt ha-1) were recorded from 46 kg N ha-1 with Jeldu variety; while the minimum seed yield (782 kg ha-1) and oil yield (445.8 lt ha-1) were obtained from the control treatment with Bokoji-14 variety. The highest polyunsaturated fatty acids content (linolenic 56.24, oleic 19.43, and linoleic 14.37%) and the optimal range of saturated fatty acids (palmitic 5.82 and stearic 4.89%) were recorded from 46 kg N ha-1 treatment. Moreover, the partial budget analysis also indicated that the maximum net benefit 36,865birr ha-1 with MRR 1738% was obtained from 46 kg N ha-1. Therefore, farmers in the study area can be advised to use Juldu variety with 46 kg N ha-1 for better seed and oil yields with optimal fatty acid composition.


A higher-level perspective for production engineers and enables detailed assessment of dynamic manufacturing systems environmental impact at a system level. By using simulation, the simulation engineer enables to understand how minor adjustments affect the system. This thesis shows how to use simulation of manufacturing systems with an environmental sustainability focus. Thus, analyse the system from both an economical and environmental perspective at simultaneous. Static assessments have been the main approach analysing systems environmental impact. Dynamic manufacturing systems cannot be modelled statically properly. Static assessment lacks the ability to predict how the system operates and react after adjustments of the system. However, dynamic simulations of systems are data intensive and require more resources and knowledge. This thesis elaborates on when to use simulation of manufacturing systems to assess environmental impact. In short, simulation of manufacturing system can be efficient when there is a need for both productivity assessment and environmental assessment. This thesis used action research in two industrial cases to advance a methodology using simulation for environmental assessment of manufacturing systems. The initial methodology is developed from a literature review of previous studies and interviews with practitioners. Current commercial software lacks out of the box support for the functionalities supporting the assessment proposed in this thesis. However, most existing software tools are possible to use due to the high adaptation potentials. This thesis proposes a set of new functionalities needed to support the proposed methodology in this thesis. A developed demonstration software presented in the thesis implements the functionalities. The result is a very simple demonstration tool to be used by production engineers with low experience of simulation.


The structural setting of the Northwestern Mediterranean stems from tectonothermal processes which reflect on the nature of the crust. The Oligocene to Present evolution is here analysed with a thermal model which takes into account the significant extension of the continentallithosphere before the onset of sea-floor spread- ing in the bathyal zone. Subsidence data were used to set the boundaries of the oceanic realm which was com- pared with previous reconstructions inferred from other geophysical evidence. The thermal features of the transitional crust that lies between the oceanic crust and the stretched continental margins were also outlined. The Ligurian-Proven~al basin is a marginaI basin, whereas only the continental crust is expected in the Valen- cia trough. An evolutionary sketch of the study area that accounts for the observed subsidence and heat flux is proposed.


Abstract. Field measurements of the hydroxyl radical, OH, are crucial for our understanding of tropospheric chemistry. However, observations of this key atmospheric species in the tropical marine boundary layer, where the warm, humid conditions and high solar irradiance lend themselves favourably to production, are sparse. The Seasonal Oxidant Study at the Cape Verde Atmospheric Observatory in 2009 allowed, for the first time, seasonal measurements of both OH and HO2 in a clean (i.e. low NOx), tropical marine environment. It was found that concentrations of OH and HO2 were typically higher in the summer months (June, September), with maximum daytime concentrations of ~9 × 106 and 4 × 108 molecule cm−3, respectively – almost double the values in winter (late February, early March). HO2 was observed to persist at ~107 molecule cm−3 through the night, but there was no strong evidence of nighttime OH, consistent with previous measurements at the site in 2007. HO2 was shown to have excellent correlations (R2 ~ 0.90) with both the photolysis rate of ozone, J(O1D), and the primary production rate of OH, P(OH), from the reaction of O(1D) with water vapour. The analogous relations of OH were not so strong (R2 ~ 0.6), but the coefficients of the linear correlation with J(O1D) in this study were close to those yielded from previous works in this region, suggesting that the chemical regimes have similar impacts on the concentration of OH. Analysis of the variance of OH and HO2 across the Seasonal Oxidant Study suggested that ~70% of the total variance could be explained by diurnal behaviour, with ~30% of the total variance being due to changes in air mass.


As a result of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, afforestation of agricultural lands can be expected to take on an important role in the CO2-emissions reduction policy arsenal of some countries. To date, identification of suitable (marginal) agricultural lands has been left mainly to foresters, but their criteria fail to take into account economic nuances. In this study, an optimal control model is used to determine the optimal level of afforestation in the western Canada. The results indicate that, while planting fast–growing trees for carbon uptake on marginal agricultural land may be important, the path dynamics matter in determining whether Canada can rely on afforestation to meet its obligations under Kyoto.


The structure of Latvian economy and distribution of employees within it during last years has changed. Dealing with study of population, one can find young people share continuous decline and labour mean age increase, but in situation of economic slowdown Latvia also face challenge to develop knowledge-based economy. One of the means of helping to achieve the goal of becoming competitive and knowledge-based economy is through an investment in human capital. To ensure sustainable development there is a need to balance between social and economical growth using available resources. The theoretical concepts have shown that further growth has to be built on innovation, diffusion and adoption of new technologies and new products which increases competitiveness of the economy. Attained educational level not only enhances the ability of a country to develop its own technological innovations, but also its ability to adapt and implement technologies developed elsewhere. Educated society can contribute from the transfer of latest technologies from abroad because any investment demonstrates stronger positive impact on economic growth in country with higher level of educational attainment. Attained education is relatively high in Latvia - 30.7% of employed persons (15-74) and 15.4% of job seekers (15-74) had attained higher education in 2010. If the labour market could not accommodate skilled workers it raises question of country's ability to use educational investments efficiently. According to the latest statistics (European Innovation Scoreboard 2010) Latvia has relative strength in human resources (new doctorate graduates, population completed tertiary education and youth with upper secondary level education), but Latvia is among 'modest innovators' taking last place in EU-27 range and its performance is estimated as well below that of the other countries of European Union (EU). The statistical data have showed that labour is more used in final good sector, not in research sector that produces technology in Latvia. Only 0.5% of labour in 2009 was employed in research and employment in knowledge-intensive service sectors was 26.8% of total employment in 2008. According to calculation the lowest added value to GDP per 1% of the labour was in agriculture and fishing caused by high proportion of labour allocated in this sector, but the highest added value to GDP was in financial mediation and business activities in 2009. After accession in EU there are available structural funds for member states, also for implementation of practical research projects during EU structural funds 2007-2013 programming period in Latvia. These projects would promote integration of the science and manufacturing and were approved in 2010 and in the beginning of 2011. Implementing practical research projects scientific institutions are provided with opportunity to employ highly educated scientific personnel and develop innovative products and technologies influencing the changes in economic structure. The research is based on statistical data analysis. Comparative and analytical methods have been mainly used in the paper taking into consideration the scientific literature. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eis.0.5.1072


Pertussis, or whooping cough, is a highly contagious infection of the upper respiratory tract and may cause severe clinical disease, particularly in young unvaccinated infants. Despite a consistent high pertussis vaccination coverage, pertussis re-emerged in the late 1990s, with cyclic outbreaks reported every 2–3 years in the Netherlands, the USA, Australia and other countries. Epidemiological studies indicate a more limited protection against clinical pertussis in young individuals primed with acellular pertussis (aP) vaccines in infancy compared with whole-cell pertussis (wP) primed youngsters. The emerging pertussis outbreaks, the steadily increased notifications in all age groups and increasing number of pertussis related deaths in unvaccinated infants stress the importance of improved pertussis vaccines. Since the development of new vaccines will take many years, adaptation of the current pertussis vaccination schedules may contribute to reduce the current pertussis burden. Several countries recommend aP booster vaccinations for adolescents, adults and pregnant women, in addition to the pre-school aP booster. The long-term immunological responses to booster vaccinations in these age groups are however currently unknown. The main objective of this thesis was to determine and compare the long-term humoral and cellular immune responses after one or two aP booster vaccinations in pre-adolescents, primed in infancy with wP or aP vaccines, and in wP-primed adults. We observed that an additional aP booster vaccination at age 9 years increased pertussis-specific IgG antibody levels and numbers of memory B-cells, which were higher in children primed with wP vaccines compared with aP-primed children. Moreover, the production of cytokines by pertussis-specific T-cells did not increase upon the extra booster. Surprisingly, Th1 cytokine levels, considered to play an important role in long-term protection against pertussis, were higher in wP-primed children while the Th2 cytokine levels were similar between the two groups and resulted in a Th2-skewed immune response in aP-primed children. These results were consistent with our findings of higher proportions of pertussis-specific IgG4 antibodies found after aP-priming compared with wP-priming. The type of pertussis vaccines administered at infant age affects the immunological imprinting and subsequently the protection against pertussis until at least adolescence, explaining the better protection against clinical pertussis found in wP-primed adolescents. We also evaluated the immune response to a first aP booster vaccination in adults primed with wP vaccines in the first year of life. The immunogenicity of this first booster proved robust resulting in pertussis-specific IgG levels, numbers of memory B-cells and Th1, Th2, and Th17 cytokine levels that remained higher for up to 2 years compared with pre-booster levels, and will most likely confer protection against pertussis. The estimated duration of pertussis toxin-IgG antibody levels above the presumed protective cut-off for approximately 9 years indicates the induction of long-lived plasma cells that maintain these systemic antibody levels. We assessed the Bordetella pertussis acquisition rate in Dutch adolescents during the large pertussis outbreak of 2012 in the Netherlands. We demonstrated that 10% of the study participants became sub-clinically infected with B. pertussis during the 2012 outbreak, indicating a large reservoir of B. pertussis in this age group. Importantly, we highlighted that using the current pertussis toxin-IgG cut-off as a marker of a pertussis infection in serosurveillance studies, may lead to an overestimation of infected individuals due to a longer persistence of antibody levels after infection than expected.


Using the Activity Theory to Identify the Challenges of Designing eLearning Tools based on Machine Learning for Security Operations Centers

Mihail CAZACU
Economic Informatics Doctoral School, University of Economic Studies, Romania, Romana Square 6, Bucharest, Romania
email@example.com

Maria-Iuliana DASC?LU
Department of Engineering in Foreign Languages, Faculty of Engineering in Foreign Languages, University Politehnica of Bucharest, Splaiul Independentei, No 313, Bucharest, Romania
email@example.com

Constanta-Nicoleta BODEA
Department of Economic Informatics and Cybernetics, Faculty of Economic Cybernetics, Statistics and Informatics, University of Economic Studies, Romana Square 6, Bucharest, Romania
firstname.lastname@example.com

Abstract
There is a fast-growing requirement for setting up Security Operation Centers (SOCs), with qualified personnel, mainly due to the increase of demands to protect ITC systems from security breaches, data disruption or unauthorized usage. The 2018 Report of Privacy Rights Clearinghouse mentions that over 8,000 data breaches were reported since 2005, with more than 10 billion records affected. And according to the 2017 study of IBM Security and Ponemon Institute, the average cost of a data breach exceed 3.6 million US dollars.

SOCs have the mission to run in this "arms race" against cyber attackers (criminals, spies, terrorists, activists) and to be economically viable, as a profit or a cost center. Development of e-learning tools for continuous enhancing of the professional competences of the SOC's personnel is critical for the successful operation of SOCs.

Recent studies have applied the framework of the Activity Theory in order to identify the conflicting priorities which need to be handled by different members of SOCs and have suggested ways to mitigate the risks. While automating mundane tasks is one solution, the issue of automating the automation process itself through Machine Learning, especially in the e-learning activities performed inside SOCs was not often addressed.

The paper aims to present the challenges of applying the framework of the Activity Theory in designing e-learning tools based on machine learning methods for SOCs. Some well-established Open Source security tools and machine learning packages will be evaluated for their suitability for developing e-learning tools.


PRIORITY FOR GUT FEELINGS Pain and disturbed function of the oesophagus, stomach and intestine are common symptoms but in many patients, conventional tests are all normal. Recent evidence suggests that the symptoms may arise from a hypersensitivity to stimuli from the gut. This visceral hypersensitivity may be due to either increased signalling from the gut or to altered central processing of such signals. Aziz and colleagues have used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine central processing. They instructed their subjects to selectively attend to either visual or oesophageal stimuli which were produced by distending a balloon in the mid-oesophagus. They showed that while the visual stimuli activate the visual cortex only, the rather novel oesophageal stimulus activated substantially more areas of the brain, including areas such as the anterior cingulated and prefrontal cortex which are associated with affect and cognition. Furthermore, when both stimuli were presented simultaneously the areas of the brain processing the oesophageal stimulus showed more activation. They hypothesise that ''gut feelings'' receive priority because they are more likely to signify potential harm to the organism. Whether this selective attention to gut stimuli is enhanced in patients with functional diseases remains to be shown but seems highly likely. See page 1671


Two endemic sardines in Lake Tanganyika, Limnothrissa miodon and Stolothrissa tanganicae, are important components of the lake9s total annual fishery harvest. These two species along with four endemic Lates species represent the dominant species in Lake Tanganyika9s pelagic fish community, in contrast to the complex pelagic communities in nearby Lake Malawi and Victoria. We use reduced representation genomic sequencing methods to gain a better understanding of possible genetic structure among and within populations of Lake Tanganyika9s sardines. Samples were collected along the Tanzanian, Congolese, and Zambian shores, as well as from nearby Lake Kivu, where Limnothrissa was introduced in 1959. Our results reveal unexpected cryptic differentiation within both Stolothrissa and Limnothrissa. We resolve this genetic structure to be due to the presence of large sex-specific regions in the genomes of both species, but involving different polymorphic sites in each species. Additionally, we find a large segregating inversion in Limnothrissa. We find all inversion karyotypes throughout the lake, but the frequencies vary along a north-south gradient within Lake Tanganyika, and differ substantially in the introduced Lake Kivu population. Little to no spatial genetic structure exists outside the inversion, even over the hundreds of kilometres covered by our sampling. These genetic analyses show that Lake Tanganyika9s sardines have dynamically evolving genomes, and the analyses here represent a key first step in understanding the genetic structure of the Lake Tanganyika pelagic sardines.


Male germ cell genome integrity is critical for spermatogenesis, fertility and normal development of the offspring. Several DNA repair pathways exist in male germ cells. One such important pathway is the Fanconi anemia (FANC) pathway. Unlike in somatic cells, expression profiles and the role of the FANC pathway in germ cells remain largely unknown. In this study, we undertook an extensive expression analyses at both mRNA and protein levels of key components of the FANC pathway during spermatogenesis in the mouse. Herein we show that Fanc mRNAs and proteins displayed developmental enrichment within particular male germ cell types. Spermatogonia and pre-leptotene spermatocytes contained the majority of the FANC components examined i.e. complex I members FANCB, FANCG and FANCM, complex II members FANCD2 and FANCI, and complex III member FANCJ. Leptotene, zygotene and early pachytene spermatocytes contained FANCB, FANCG, FANCM and FANCD2. With the exception of FANCL, all FANC proteins examined were not detected in round spermatids. Elongating and elongated spermatids contained FANCB, FANCG, FANCL and FANCJ. qPCR analysis on isolated spermatocytes and round spermatids showed that Fancg, Fancl, Fancm, Fancd2, Fanci and Fancj mRNAs were expressed in both of these germ cell types, indicating that some degree of translational repression of these FANC proteins occurs during the transition from meiosis to spermiogenesis. Taken together, our findings raise the possibility that the assembly of FANC protein complexes in each of the male germ cell type is unique and may be distinct from the proposed model in mitotic cells.


PURPOSE
The potential to define liver tumors at magnetic resonance (MR) imaging was compared with a positive and a negative contrast agent (gadoxetic acid disodium, or gadolinium EOB-DTPA [a hepatocyte-directed agent], and ferumoxides, or superpara-magnetic iron oxide particles [a Kupffer cell-directed agent], respectively) in normal rats and in rats with induced acute hepatitis, fatty liver, or cirrhosis.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Rats with implanted liver adenocarcinomas were divided into four groups: no diffuse liver disease ("normal" [n = 6]) and diffuse liver diseases (induced acute hepatitis [n = 6], fatty liver [n = 6], or cirrhosis [n = 6]). Rats first received gadoxetic acid disodium (50 mumol/kg) and then, 45 minutes later, ferumoxides (10 mumol/kg). Liver signal intensity enhancement and tumor-to-liver contrast-to-noise ratio (C/N) were measured in each group.

RESULTS
Mean liver signal intensity enhancement values with gadoxetic acid disodium and ferumoxides were excellent in the normal liver model (176% and -62%, respectively; P < .01) but were significantly reduced in the acute hepatitis model (82% and -36%, respectively). In the fatty livers compared with the normal livers, enhancement with gadoxetic acid disodium was reduced (57%) but with ferumoxides was excellent (-55%). In the cirrhotic livers compared with the normal livers, enhancement with gadoxetic acid disodium (174%) was virtually the same but was impaired with ferumoxides (-43%).

CONCLUSION
Hepatic enhancement and tumor-to-liver C/N with either positive or negative liver-enhancing agents can be impaired by the presence of underlying liver disease. Prior knowledge of the type of diffuse liver disease may influence the choice of contrast agent for tumor detection.


Unbalance is the principal source of increase of time varying forces transmitted between the rotor and its stationary part. Their magnitudes can be considerably reduced if the rotor is flexibly suspended and if the damping devices are added to the support elements. Their damping effect must be high for low rotor velocities and small for velocities approximately higher than the critical one to minimize the transmitted forces and the vibrations amplitude. This implies to achieve maximum efficiency of the damping elements, their damping effect has to be adaptable to the current operating conditions. Such technological solution is offered by application of a squeeze film magnetorheological damper. Its hybrid variant consisting of two damping units (one controllable) in a serial arrangement is investigated in this paper. The damping takes place in two concentric lubricating films formed by normal and magnetorheological oils. The damper is equipped with an electric coil generating magnetic flux passing through the layer of the magnetorheological fluid. As resistance against its flow depends on magnetic induction, changing magnitude of the applied current enables to control the damping force. In the computational model, the rotor is considered to be absolutely rigid, unbalanced and the damping elements are represented by force couplings. The goal of the analysis is to study influence of the investigated magnetorheological damper on behaviour of a rigid rotor during different transient regimes. A special attention is focused on passing the rotor through the critical speed and on planning the dependence of the applied current on speed of the rotor rotation to achieve the optimum compromise between minimizing the transmitted forces and maximum attenuation of the rotor vibrations.


Ignorance, isolation, illness, violence, and social upheaval have produced a "lost generation"; failure to provide long term support for Afghanistan risks losing another

To many observers of the Afghan conflict, it seems as if the world suddenly discovered Afghanistan after 11 September 2001. Passing interest following the Soviet invasion in 1979 and the subsequent struggle of the Mujahideen against its occupation was soon replaced by war weariness and disinterest. The rise of the Taliban and their draconian policies made Afghanistan a pariah state. Events have moved quickly in recent months, with the US attack on Afghanistan, the defeat of the Taliban and the installation of an interim multiethnic government. However, few are fully aware of the plight of the main victims of this tragedy, the women and children of Afghanistan. Fewer still understand the genesis and significance of the Taliban movement and its relation to events in neighbouring Pakistan. This article explores the origin of the current Afghan crisis and describes the impact of a quarter of a century of incessant conflict on Afghan children.

#### Summary points

The rise of the Taliban and the genesis of the current Afghan conflict was in no small measure due to global apathy to the plight of Afghanistan

The women and children of Afghanistan, both among refugees and resident populations, have paid a disproportionate price for this conflict

The rates of malnutrition, disease, and death among Afghan children rank among the highest in the world

In addition to the many injuries due to landmines and artillery, over 80% of Afghan children interviewed reveal some psychological scars of war

Women and children must be the prime focus of attention in rebuilding Afghanistan, through sustained efforts at improving health, nutrition, and education

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the subsequent brutal military campaign resulted in one …


I investigated geographic and non-geographic variation among populations of the southern bog lemming, Synaptomys cooperi, in Arkansas, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Wisconsin using cranial morphometric data. I also reviewed the taxonomic history of S. cooperi, commenting on the fossil record and historical biogeography of the species with special reference to populations in the Great Plains Physiographic Region. Finally, I summarized the current status of S. c. paludis and S. c. relictus on the western Great Plains. The distribution of Synaptomys on the Great Plains is probably a result of post- glacial climatic changes and vegetational fragmentation that occurred after the Pleistocene. Based on cranial morphology, I detected no consistent sexual dimorphism in populations of S. cooperi. Variation among populations varied clinally in the reverse of Bergman's Rule, with individuals increasing in size from east to west and north to south. The largest individuals overall were from southwestern Kansas (=S. c. paludis) and southwestern Nebraska (=S. c. relictus), and the smallest individuals were from populations in eastern Illinois (=S. c. gossii). Because of the paucity of specimens from the western Great Plains, taxonomic conclusions as to the intraspecific relationships of populations of synaptomys on the Great Plains are speculative. I therefore recommend that the current classification of S. cooperi on the Great Plains be followed until additional results, such as DNA sequencing information obtained from hair and skin of existing museum specimens, are available. No individuals of C. s. paludis and C. s. relictus have been collected since 1946 and 1968, respectively, and these taxa may be extinct. However, I recommend that additional trapping be conducted before these populations are recognized as extirpated.


Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is released into circulation (blood) specifically from tumor cells undergoing metabolic secretion, apoptosis, or necrosis, carries tumor-specific genetic or epigenetic alterations. Technologies enabling clinical evaluation of ctDNA continue to advance rapidly and allow for the assessment of patient-specific tumoral genetic and epigenetic alterations. This holds great potential for earlier detection of disease, serial monitoring of tumor heterogeneity, identification of therapeutic targets, and evaluation of treatment response and mechanisms of resistance. Hepatobiliary malignancies are often diagnosed late, recur commonly, yield limited available tumor on biopsy, and harbor several genomic alterations with potential therapeutic impacts. Patients suffering from or at risk for these diseases thus stand to benefit immensely from this technology. Herein, we review the limited literature pertaining to the potential for ctDNA technologies in such patients. Patients with these cancers stand to benefit greatly from the application of ctDNA technologies, and concerted efforts at further investigation of such are ongoing and greatly needed.


I worked as an anaesthetist in the UK for 13 years, when pre-oxygenation was far from routine, and in the USA for 25 years, when it was. I am left in no doubt: it should be routine. One case, which fits Dr Aveling's [1] description of a 'fit day case gynae patient', illustrates this. A slender, athletic 19-year-old woman was admitted for a D & C under general anaesthesia. She was assessed preoperatively and had no history, symptoms or signs of respiratory problems. After pre-oxygenation and induction with thiopental and succinylcholine, she could neither be ventilated nor intubated. This was due to a large bulbous swelling on the epiglottis which acted as a ball valve and obstructed visualisation. Three senior, experienced and expert anaesthetists all failed. However, she remained in good condition, gradually recovered from her neuromuscular blockade, and resumed spontaneous ventilation. Dr Aveling assumes that pre-oxygenation necessitates 'giving oxygen by a tight fitting face mask for four time constants'. This is absurd. Let the patient hold the mask themselves; five deep breaths with the oxygen flush valve 'on' provides excellent pre-oxygenation and a 'tight fitting mask' is unnecessary. Please preoxygenate me if I fall into your hands!


A year ago, the prospects for Emerging Economies (EE) looked very promising. There were concerns about the effect of a shallow recession in the US, but the general perception was that Asia and, to a large extent, Latin America and other regions were doing well. Most thought they had 'decoupled' from the advanced economies, and the emerging markets would grow with few restrictions. Since then, the financial crisis has become the worst in the last fifty years. The complex and wide-ranging interaction between the financial world and the real economy already has begun to have serious consequences for the emerging economies. Whereas the conditions in the financial markets have tended to stabilise from the unsustainable position of September–October of 2008, the real economy is weakening and the prospects for an early recovery are remote. Commodity prices have declined by about one half from their peak; demand for manufactured goods is declining sharply all over the world; stock market valuations have declined by about one half or more; and currencies in many emerging countries have depreciated, as capital flows reversed seeking to find a safe heaven. The loss of financial wealth is enormous. The authorities and economic agents were initially taken by surprise by the collapse. Now they are responding to the challenges caused by the rapidly deteriorating external environment. However, there are serious economic and political stumbling blocks that may well cause the recovery to be costly and slow to consolidate. This article reviews the origins of the current crisis in emerging market economies, mainly in Asia and Latin America in the context of the global crisis. It reviews the recent developments on a worldwide basis and how they affected them, even after the process of consolidation observed over the last 10 years or so, including the integration with the rest of the world. The article also discusses what can be realistically expected as financial volatility and recessionary forces may continue to prevail for a while.


Variations in laying date and clutch size of pied flycatchers Ficedula hypoleuca across populations throughout western Europe are examined in relation to climatic fluctuations, measured by the winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index. Across breeding sites, the winter-NAO index affected laying date such that females lay earlier after warmer and moister winters (positive values of winter NAO-index). Female pied flycatchers breed progressively earlier because presumably the whole breeding season is being shifted, as a direct result of the positive values of winter NAO-index. Moreover, clutch size of pied flycatchers across populations was negatively related to winter NAO-index during the last 50 yr. These analyses controlled for potentially confounding variables such as latitude, longitude, elevation and habitat of each study site. The present study conclude that pied flycatchers across western Europe are breeding earlier and laying smaller clutch sizes and that the most likely cause is a long-term increase in spring temperature. On the other hand, this study shows that climate change may not act uniformly between breeding populations in Western Europe. From those results, this study concludes that northern pied flycatcher populations are more sensitive to climate change than southern populations breeding in montane habitats.


The language policy of Bangladesh advocates the use of the national language 'Bengali' in all spheres of life. While English serves as a foreign language and taught as a compulsory subject in the academic domain, the dominance of Bengali prevails. As a result, the leading indigenous group known as the 'Chakma' has no other choice but to speak these languages regardless of having a distinct vernacular. The situation evoked the possibility of language shift by the Chakmas to Bengali which brought about this investigation. For serving the purpose, a mixed-method approach was applied through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to know the language usage in seven major domains by the Chakmas who live in the Chattogram city and Rangamati of Bangladesh. The research outcomes portray the domination of the national language Bengali in the formal domains along with a noticeable interference of it in the intimate spheres. The Use of English turned out minimal in all domains. The findings confirmed that the Chakmas have not completely shifted their language to the Bengali. However, the presence of Bengali in the intimate domain may indicate that the coming generations who will live in the city areas will completely shift their language to Bengali. The study will draw the attention of the policymakers of Bangladesh to acknowledge the indigenous languages in the existing language policy. Besides, both the Bengali and Chakma society will be aware of the necessity of maintaining the Chakma language, which is a part of the national cultural heritage. The study will further inspire the Chakma speakers to increase their Chakma use in the social domains, especially the migrated families in the city areas.


Global weather and climate models often exclude the effects of precipitating hydrometeors and convective core mass on radiative fluxes. In particular, many models split the ice phase into separate "cloud ice" and "snow" categories representing the smaller and larger ice particles, respectively; a separation that is generally not well defined in observations. A version of the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) global numerical weather prediction model which includes the radiative effects of cloud liquid, cloud ice, and precipitating snow is used to investigate the impact of including and excluding the radiative effects of the precipitating snow category. The results show that exclusion of precipitating snow in the radiation calculations leads to differences in the shortwave and longwave radiative fluxes of 5–15 W m−2 in strongly precipitating and convective areas. These differences are of the same order of magnitude as the systematic errors in the model compared to satellite observations. Corresponding biases in the radiative heating profiles are on the order of 0.15 K d−1. The results imply that precipitating snow should be included in the radiative calculations in all weather and climate models in the context of improving model fidelity and reducing compensating errors.


Subcarrier wavelength-division multiaccess (SCR-WDM) networks have many features, such as high system capacity, flexible packet switching access and very fast tuning speed of RF local-oscillator, etc. Though, generally speaking, existing protocols for WDMA networks can be applied to SCM-WDM networks, the transmission efficiency in terms of packet delay and network throughput is low, since an optimal wavelength channel assignment for a WDMA network may not be optimal in a SCM-WDM network with many subcarrier channels involved. In this paper, we propose two new communication protocols for SCM-WDM networks. Simulation results show that the proposed protocols have performance very close to an optimal solution while their complexity is much lower.<<ETX>>


This article addresses a fundamental question: how is the behavior of states affected by the manner in which they receive financial support? Most policymakers who debate the best ways to improve the lives of people living in the developing world agree that infusions of wealth in one form or another will improve the lives of people in poor countries. Some argue that this wealth should come in the form of aid from wealthy governments, while others argue that market mechanisms are the best approach. Both sides in this debate have devoted too little attention to a critical factor: How are the human rights practices of governments affected by the conditions associated with wealth? China's recent interest in Africa provides a sort of natural experiment in which to consider again the relationship between wealth, the conditions associated with wealth, and state behavior. Economists have long noted an association between economies dominated by sales of natural resources, such as oil or diamonds, and a range of ills, including weak economic development, corruption, and violations of human rights. Similarly, most infusions of foreign aid have had little positive effect on recipient states. This Article draws on scholarship from economics, political science, and human rights to show that China's investments in Africa run the risk of reducing the welfare of local people instead of improving their lives. This Article makes two principal contributions to the literature. First, I show that the conditions associated with wealth determine whether it has a positive or negative effect on the recipient. Some conditions are explicit and aimed at advancing the donor's strategic interests. Much of the aid that flowed from the U.S. during the Cold War was of this type. Other conditions are what I call market conditions, and in this category I include the kind of business climate a government enforces and the kind of social and human rights environment it fosters. Without the right mix of conditions, infusions of wealth can encourage governments to consolidate access to the wealth; centralize decision making regarding the distribution of rents; consume resources too quickly; and ignore the concerns of citizens. The second contribution this Article makes is to show that China's recent investments in Africa amount to unconditioned wealth, and raise a real risk that their effect on local populations will, in the end, be negative. I show that Beijing's investments can have the effect of relieving recipient states of the market pressures that can discipline host governments and reduce the temptation to engage in ill-advised investments, abuse of the local population, or a variety of other socially negative behaviors.


This chapter presents an important application of the electrical conductivity measure- ment in cryopreservation. Long-term cryopreservation of cells and tissues is essential in both clinical treatments and fundamental researches. In order to reduce the cryo-injury to the cells during cryopreservation, cryoprotective agents (CPAs) should be added before freezing, but also removed after thawing duo to the cytotoxicity. In these steps, severe osmotic stresses may result in injuries to the cells too. Therefore, monitoring the addition and removal of CPAs to the cell samples is critical in order to prevent the osmotic injury. In this chapter, the electrical conductivity measurement was applied to assess the CPA concentration in cryopreservation. Firstly, the standard correlations between the CPA concentration and the electrical conductivity of the solutions (includ-ing CPA-NaCl-water ternary solutions and CPA-albumin-NaCl-water quaternary solu- tions) were experimentally obtained for a few mostly used CPAs. Then a novel " dilution-filtration " system with hollow fiber dialyzer was designed and applied to remove the CPA from the solutions effectively. Measurement of electrical conductivity was validated as a safer and easier way to on-line and real-time monitoring of CPA concentration in cell suspensions. This work demonstrated a very important application of electrical conductivity in the biomedical engineering field.


The Covid-19 crisis has had an unprecedented impact on both the Chinese and global economies. Writing from the perspective of industrial economics, the author examines how Chinese studies expertise on industrial economics can contribute to knowledge of Covid-19 and provide practical solutions for post-pandemic recovery in China and around the world.


All exchange-traded funds in the U.S. are passive, index-based instruments. There has recently been some interest on the part of sponsors in creating ETFs whose portfolios would be managed actively. There are some regulatory and other hurdles to overcome before these instruments become available. Alternative investments, specifically hedge funds, have been in existence for over twenty years. As of now, for various regulatory and other reasons, hedge funds are available only to institutional investors and qualified individual investors meeting certain income and net worth requirements. This article compares these two product classes under the headings of liquidity, transparency, tax treatment, fees and expenses, regulatory supervision, portfolio, structure, type of management, and customer base. The article then examines whether, and under what combination of features, these two product classes might converge into a third product class.


A radar system emits probing signals and records the reflections. Estimating the relative angles, delays, and Doppler shifts from the received signals allows to determine the locations and velocities of objects. However, due to practical constraints, the probing signals have finite bandwidth B, the received signals are observed over a finite time interval of length T only, and a radar typically has only one or a few transmit and receive antennas. These constraints fundamentally limit the resolution up to which objects can be distinguished. Specifically, a radar can not distinguish objects with delay and Doppler shifts much closer than 1/B and 1/T, respectively, and a radar system with N_T transmit and N_R receive antennas cannot distinguish objects with angels closer than 1/(N_T N_R). As a consequence, the delay, Doppler, and angular resolution of standard radars is proportional to 1/B and 1/T, and 1/(N_T N_R). In this chapter, we show that the continuous angle-delay-Doppler triplets and the corresponding attenuation factors can be resolved at much finer resolution, using ideas from compressive sensing. Specifically, provided the angle-delay-Doppler triplets are separated either by factors proportional to 1/(N_T N_R-1) in angle, 1/B in delay, or 1/T in Doppler direction, they can be recovered a significantly smaller scale or higher resolution.


Interconnection between France and Italy under the Alps could impact the European power system stability. Indeed, the HVDC lines are active elements of electrical grid that influence its dynamic behaviour in case of disturbances. Extensive studies must be run to precisely determine the specifications of this cross-border link and its conversion stations.These studies require models as precise as possible of the European network. The best available model at present for the synchronous network of continental Europe is the Dynamic Reference Model (DRM), which was compiled in the framework of the IPS/UPS study [6]. It modelled a winter situation (high peak load) and the first task of the Master Thesis consisted in the development of a summer situation (low load period) of this model. In this way, it would be possible to perform stability studies in both situations to obtain more precise and reliable results.The DRM models for winter summer situation were firstly designed to study small-signal stability and especially inter-area mode, i.e.electromechanical oscillations between two groups of machines. In the perspective of transient stability studies in the area of the future HVDC line between France and Italy, this model had to be updated. Detailed versions of regulators and transformers were therefore implemented in order to model more precisely the transient dynamic behaviour of French machines. An update of the dynamic data of the Italian power system had also to be performed with new detailed versions of regulators created.Furthermore, the European synchronous electric power system is becoming larger with interconnections of new countries, such as Turkey in 2011 and other ones in the future. Because of this on-going enlargement, new phenomena concerning inter-area modes might occur. In this new context, benchmarks had been created to develop and test a new methodology for tuning the regulators' parameters of synchronous generators.


We present a case of chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy occurring subsequent to influenza vaccination in a 74-year-old gentleman with no previous neurological history.


The aim of this doctoral dissertation is to show the results of a combined approach related to the characterization of food products by chemical, physical and sensory properties. The two main objectives are the discrimination of food products, according to analytical characteristics (chemical, physical and sensory) and related to compositional and/or technological variables, and the relationship study between the sensory profile and some chemical-physical characteristics used for valorization and quality testing of a food product. The research method leads to investigate the main drivers of the consumer's overall liking.
The strategy implemented highlights the effectiveness of sensory and instrumental methodologies in food quality investigation due to the complementary information that they can provide. Some trials are related to the study on sunflower and hazelnut cold-pressed oils, the investigation on the effectiveness of the Flash Gas Chromatography Electronic Nose (FGC E-nose) as a tool to rapidly discriminate among commercial virgin olive oils, the characterization of Taralli, the characterization of different commercial categories of Italian cooked hams, the quality evaluation and consumers' acceptance of a set of different extra virgin olive oils purchased on the Italian market, and the possible influence of aromatization process on the quality of "flavored olive oils".
The obtained results feature specific sensory attributes and chemical-physical properties that contribute to better defining product characteristics, the perception of food quality and its typicality.
These investigations highlight the importance of familiarity with the products and eating habits in the definition of consumer behavior.
The findings reveal an important insight for which additional efforts should be addressed towards dissemination of accurate information about the relationship between product composition and sensory characteristics.


: The activity of optic density of preparations of cat kidneys by studying lactic, succinic-, glycoso-6-phosphoric-beta-oxybutyrate, NAD.H2-, NADP.H2-tetrazolium-reductases, alkaline and acid phosphatases, was investigated in intact animals, those under hexenal anesthesia, under conditions of a 5-hour hypotension caused by administration of a ganglioblocker (arphonade), 24 hours after the termination of artificial hypotension and in profuse blood letting. Analysis of the optic density distribution curves showed that under conditions of acute vascular insufficiency all the nephron parts reacted by different changes of the enzymatic activity. These changes clearly demonstrated a sharp fall of the energy importance of the main oxidation way (Krebs cycle) and of the prevalence of glycolytic way and pentose shunt under conditions of circulatory hypoxia.


Speed of sound inhomogeneities cause significant degradation of ultrasonic images. In some parts of the body inhomogeneities can be modeled as a thin time delay screen at the surface of the skin. Such aberrators may be compensated for by adjusting time delays used for transmit and receive focusing. This compensation is subject to error because of imperfect estimation of the required compensating time delays (time delay estimation error or TDEE) and because of integration of the aberrator across relatively large array elements (aberrator integration error or AIE). The authors present analytical expressions which predict the magnitude of AIE and TDEE. They also present expressions which describe the accumulation of errors for a number of array geometries. The derived expressions are utilized in examples which illustrate the tradeoffs inherent to the design of phase aberration correction algorithms and transducers. These examples indicate that two-dimensional arrays with as many as one thousand elements may be needed for accurate phase aberration correction.


To improve surgical outcome and reduce surgical morbidity, minimally invasive approaches, including thoracoscopic and laparoscopic approaches, have been explored in the surgical treatment of esophageal cancer. The value of minimally invasive esophagectomy (MIE) is well established and oncologic results obtained with MIE are comparable to those of open esophagectomy.


An improved cooperative coevolutionary algorithm, which aims at solving job shop scheduling problem, is proposed in this paper. According to the number of machines, population is naturally divided into some subpopulations whose individuals encode the preference list of jobs. The proposed algorithm introduces steady-state reproduction to crossover and mutation operators, and inserts some new individuals to the subpopulation at some other generations, and uses the improved preference-list-based G&T algorithm to decode the whole solutions to calculate fitness by three types of cooperative partners, and adopts an innovative updating technique to speed up the convergence. The optimization results of numerical experiments have shown that, the proposed algorithm has outperformed traditional genetic algorithms and showed strong competition with other heuristics


The effects of ketamine anesthesia on the binding of [(11)C]-labeled cocaine analogs, [(11)C]beta-CFT (2beta-carbomethoxy-3beta-(4-fluorophenyl)tropane) and [(11)C]beta-CIT-FE (N-(2-fluoroethyl)-2beta-carbomethoxy-3beta-(4-iodophenyl)tropane), to the striatal dopamine transporter (DAT) were evaluated in the monkey brain using positron emission tomography (PET). We sequentially measured the kinetics of these labeled compounds in the brains of five young-adult male rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) in the conscious state, followed by those under ketamine anesthesia with continuous infusion (3 and 10 mg/kg/h). After intravenous injection, [(11)C]beta-CFT and [(11)C]beta-CIT-FE were predominantly accumulated in the striatum in both conscious and ketamine-anesthetized states. In the conscious state, the striatal uptake of [(11)C]beta-CFT and [(11)C]beta-CIT-FE continuously increased with time up to 91 min after injection. Continuous infusion of ketamine-induced higher levels of uptake of [(11)C]beta-CFT and [(11)C]beta-CIT-FE into the brain in a dose-dependent manner as compared with conscious state, and kinetic analysis with metabolite-corrected arterial input function indicated that the binding potentials (BP = k(3)/k(4)) of both compounds were elevated by ketamine. Not only [(11)C]beta-CIT-FE but also [(11)C]beta-CFT reached the equilibrium state of specific binding in the striatum within 40-50 min after injection. The present results demonstrated that ketamine significantly alters the DAT availability as measured with [(11)C]beta-CFT and [(11)C]beta-CIT-FE in the brain.


UAVs operating in a leader-follower formation demand the knowledge of the relative pose between the collaborating members. This necessitates the RF-communication of this information which increases the communication latency and can easily result in lost data packets. In this work, rather than relying on this autopilot data exchange, a visual scheme using passive markers is presented. Each formation-member carries passive markers in a RhOct configuration. These markers are visually detected and the relative pose of the members is on-board determined, thus eliminating the need for RF-communication. A reference path is then evaluated for each follower that tracks the leader and maintains a constant distance between the formation-members. Experimental studies show a mean position detection error (5 × 5 × 10cm) or less than 0.0031% of the available workspace [0.5 up to 5m, 50.43° × 38.75° Field of View (FoV)]. The efficiency of the suggested scheme against varying delays are examined in these studies, where it is shown that a delay up to 1.25s can be tolerated for the follower to track the leader as long as the latter one remains within its FoV.


Prior to 2010, all oil from the K field was produced from the Lower Sihapas Formation, where oil could easily be identified from electrical logs in these thick, high-quality sands. Then, in 2010, something unusual happened. When drilling an infill well, we noticed good oil indications from mud logs in sands above the Lower Sihapas Formation, despite the low resistivity less than 4 ohm-m. We completed the sand and it flowed 146 BOPD with zero water. This unexpected result prompted us to conduct a short two-week study to identify other candidate wells. The study consisted of: collection of mud and wireline log data in all K wells; re-running petrophysical analysis using new a, m and n values for low resistivity sands; and ranking candidate wells based on sand quality, gas readings, oil shows, initial oil rate prediction, well cost and the chance of making money. The study identified 17 candidate wells to re-complete in the Upper Sihapas. To date, we have worked over seven wells with an oil gain of 700 BOPD and estimated incremental oil recovery of 175 million stock tank barrels. One of the worked-over wells, the one with the lowest EMV, flowed water. This paper describes the study, the resultant workover campaign and lessons learned.


FROG DECLINESTOWNSVILLE, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA-- Since the 1970s, populations and species of frogs have been vanishing worldwide. Many researchers have blamed environmental conditions ranging from increased ultraviolet light to global warming and wind-borne pollutants. Now new data from Australia suggest that the real killer may be a virulent amphibian pathogen called the chytrid fungus. However, several leading U.S. herpetologists resist the notion of a single cause, and some suspect that an environmental cofactor is magnifying the chytrid's effects.


Objective: Third trimester pregnant women often have sleep disturbances because of the anxiety and depression before labor. The purpose of this study is to identify the correlation between anxiety and sleep quality, as well as between depression and sleep quality of third trimester pregnant women. Methods: This study is descriptive correlation design with cross sectional approach. The sampling technique is consecutive sampling which involved 110 third trimester pregnant women in UPT Puskesmas Kecamatan Cimanggis and Sukmajaya. To obtain the data, Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale, The Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale, and The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index instrument were used. Results: Almost of all third trimester pregnant women had mild to moderate anxiety (97,3%) and poor sleep quality (93,6%). Only one pregnant women had mild depression (0,9%). Anxiety was associated with sleep quality (p value 0,05). In addition, pregnant women who had mild to moderate anxiety were 40,8 times more likely to report poor sleep quality (OR=40,8). Conclusion: The result shows that there was a significant correlation between anxiety and sleep quality but no significant correlation between depression and sleep quality of third trimester pregnant women. It recommends that nurses and other health providers should give an education about anxiety management and quality of sleep to pregnant women in third trimester of pregnancy. Keywords: pregnant women, third trimester, sleep quality, anxiety, depression


The interaction between the canon law and secular law governing the rules of one of the key social institutions, i.e. the family and marriage, is a relevant and significant subject. The impact of Christian canon law on the marriage institution in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania has not been sufficiently studied. The present article contains an analysis of the legal rules of marriage effective in the GDL and established in secular law, as well as their dynamics under the influence of the Christian canon law. The object of this research refers to the material conditions for entering into marriage in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania before the 16th century, and the impact of Christian canon law on their development. Before introduction of Christianity, the marriage in the GDL was likely to be formed based on the customary law. Once Lithuania accepted christening in 1387, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania became a Christian country where the Orthodox and Catholic canon law applied across its entire territory. There was a period when marriage could be formed both under the customary and canon law, since the Christianity and new law gained ground in the society only gradually. For instance, the Orthodox Church demanded that marriage with the first wife should be legalised, i.e. repeatedly formed at church with the aim of banning bigamy. The Christian canon law is recognised as one of the sources for the Statutes of Lithuania which were the main legal code of the GDL in the 16th century. The fundamental preconditions for entering into marriage in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were a free will of future spouses, adequate marriageable age, the principle of monogamy, absence of consanguinity and affinity, the same religion of future spouses, and a mental state. The canon law altered understanding of the principle of a free will of marrying couples, and most likely as a result of the influence of canon law, the marriageable age of women was reduced to 13 years of age. The requirement regarding one's mental state appeared under the influence of the canon law. The Christian moral principles did not tolerate intermarriage between close relatives or even their intimate relationships which used to be permitted in the period of customary law. Some conditions for marriage were differently treated by the Orthodox and Catholic canon law, e.g. unlike the Catholic canon law, the Orthodox canon law effective in the GDL required a parental consent as a mandatory precondition to form a valid marriage, and did not recognise secret marriages. A sexual intercourse mandatory under the Catholic canon law was not considered necessary to enter into valid marriage under the Orthodox canon law. Determining of the upper and lower marriageable age limits also varied.


A development of an island stabilizing element (ISE) for use in the IEEE 1547 unintentional islanding test is introduced. The new test setup for nonislanding inverters interconnected with the grid is proposed. The current testing standard uses discrete RLC elements to simulate the test-island. Even though the RLC simulated test-island is useful for its reproducibility, relative scalability and short setup time, as inverter power ratings increase so does the size and cost of the RLC simulated island. The proposed island stabilizing element can represent the function of the resonant part of the test island as well as provide compensation for dynamic changes in power during the test for producing near worst case conditions for an islanding test. This work introduces improvements to the unintentional islanding test. The island stabilizing element is designed and developed. Test cases proved the efficient application of the ISE as means to replace the LC elements in the unintentional islanding test.


We present a novel formulation, called the WaMPDE, for solving systems with forced autonomous components. An important feature of the WaMPDE is its ability to capture frequency modulation (FM) in a natural and compact manner. This is made possible by a key new concept: that of warped time, related to normal time through separate time scales. Using warped time, we obtain a completely general formulation that captures complex dynamics in autonomous nonlinear systems of arbitrary size or complexity. We present computationally efficient numerical methods for solving large practical problems using the WaMPDE. Our approach explicitly calculates a time-varying local frequency that matches intuitive expectations. Applications to voltage-controlled oscillators demonstrate speedups of two orders of magnitude.


Abstract Thermal resistance of the fabrics is one of the decisive parameters in terms of comfort; however it can change due to wetting. Therefore, thermal resistance of wetted fabric is important for comfort performance of garments. In recent years, artificial neural networks (ANN) have been used in the textile field for classification, identification, prediction of properties and optimization problems. ANNs can predict the fabric thermal properties by considering the influence of all fabric parameters at the same time. In this study, ANNs were used to predict thermal resistance of wetted fabrics. For this aim, two different architectures were experienced and high regression coefficient (R2) between the predicted (training and testing) and observed thermal resistance values were obtained from both models. The obtained regression coefficient values were over 90% for both models. Then it can be said that ANNs could be used for predicting thermal resistance of wetted fabrics successfully.


The main objective of this work was to investigate the potential of utilizing geographic information systems (GISs) in identifying hazardous pedestrian accident-prone locations. The study was performed for roads in Irbid city-Jordan for the years 2002 and 2003. Pedestrian accident data was analyzed by pedestrian characteristics, driver characteristics, accident time and location, environmental conditions, vehicle speed and characteristics, and accident severity. Pedestrian accidents were correlated to operational factors, including traffic volume, vehicle speed, pedestrian volume, street length, and access points. Hazardous locations of vehicle-pedestrian accidents were identified using a GIS query builder. Results showed that there was a high potential for GISs in studying pedestrian accidents.


Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) is a life-threatening disorder of immnoregulation caused by various inherited and acquired factors. Uncontrolled activation of T lymphocytes and macrophages, together with an impaired cytotoxic function of NK cells, results in the massive cytokine release and hyperinflammatory phenotype. HLH is characterized by fever, splenomegaly and peripheral blood cytopenia. Cytohistological examination shows accumulation of lymphocytes and macrophages, sometimes with hemophagocytic activity, in different tissues (e.g., bone marrow). Laboratory findings include hyperferritinemia (often 'sky-high' > 10.000 microg/l), hypertriglyceridemia, hypofibrinogenemia, and high levels of the alpha chain of the soluble interleukin-2 receptor (sIL-2R also called sCD25). In 2004 The Histiocyte Society updated current diagnostic guidelines for HLH. Therapy of HLH is based on suppression of the hyperinflammatory status by destruction of activated CD8+ T lymphocytes and macrophages, and treatment of any existing HLH triggers. However, treatment of HLH is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Therefore consideration should be given to referring HLH patients to centers with experience in the treatment and care of those with HLH. Due to aggressive course, awareness of HLH signs and symptoms is crucial among physicians for the early diagnosis and immediate introduction of adequate HLH treatment.


OBJECTIVE
To compare the rate of delayed 30-day lower genitourinary tract injury in women who underwent cystoscopy at the time of hysterectomy for benign indications to those who did not.

METHODS
This was a retrospective cohort study of patients who underwent hysterectomy without a concomitant procedure for prolapse or incontinence for benign pathology with a general obstetrician-gynecologist (ob-gyn) recorded in the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program targeted hysterectomy file between 2015 and 2017. The primary outcome was a delayed lower genitourinary tract injury in the 30 days after hysterectomy. Secondary outcomes included urinary tract infection and operative time. The exposure of interest was cystoscopy at the time of hysterectomy. Stratified analysis was performed by route of surgery. Bivariable tests were used to examine associations.

RESULTS
We identified 39,529 women who underwent hysterectomy for benign indications with a general ob-gyn. Surgical approach was open (26%), laparoscopic or robotic assisted laparoscopic (46%), and vaginal or vaginally assisted (28%). Overall, 25% of women underwent cystoscopy at the time of hysterectomy; cystoscopy was more commonly performed in laparoscopic or robotic (32%) and vaginal hysterectomy (25%) as compared with open hysterectomy (11%) (P<.001). There was no difference in delayed lower genitourinary tract injury between patients who underwent cystoscopy at time of hysterectomy compared with those who did not undergo cystoscopy (0.27% vs 0.24%, P=.64). Patients who underwent cystoscopy were more likely to be diagnosed with a urinary tract infection (2.6% vs 2.0%, RR 1.27 95% CI 1.09-1.47). Median operative time was increased by 17 minutes in cases where cystoscopy was performed (132 vs 115 minutes, P<.001).

CONCLUSION
Cystoscopy at the time of hysterectomy for benign indications does not result in a lower rate of 30-day delayed lower genitourinary tract injury compared with no cystoscopy.


Axially symmetric m = 0 magnetic islands are studied in a cylindrical plasma with longitudinal magnetic field reversal. Applying 2D deformation on the equilibrium plasma boundary results in the breaking of magnetic surfaces topology into chain of islands. Axially symmetric equilibrium with islands are described by the Grad-Shafranov equation for the longitudinal flux function with a periodicity condition in z.