We propose a method for a spectral correction of the predicted PV yield and we show the importance of the spectral mismatch on the solar cell. Indeed, currently predicted PV yield are made considering solar irradiation, ambient temperature, incidence angle and partially (or not) the solar spectrum. However, the solar spectrum is not always the same. It varies depending on the site location, atmospheric conditions, time of the day...This may impact the photovoltaic solar cells differently according to their technology (crystalline Silicon, thin film, multi-junctions...) This paper presents a method for calculating the correction of the short-circuit current of a photovoltaic cell due to the mismatch of the solar spectrum with the reference ASTM AM1.5G spectrum, for a specific site, throughout the year, using monthly data of AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork established by NASA and CNRS) and the model SMARTS (simple model for atmospheric transmission of sunshine) developed by the NREL. We applied this correction method on the site of Palaiseau (France, 48.7°N, 2.2°E, 156 m), close to our laboratory, just for comparison and the example of Blida (Algeria, 36°N, 2°E, 230 m) is given for one year. This example illustrates the importance of this spectral correction to better estimate the photovoltaic yield. To be more precise, instead of modeling the solar spectral distribution, one can measure it with a spectro-radiometer, and then, derive the spectral mismatch correction. Some of our typical measurements are presented in this paper.


Engineering educators are constantly modifying course offerings and course structure to meet the necessities of our society. One of the ongoing challenges is how to modify the initial contact with students that will encourage them to continue seeking a career in engineering. This involves student recruitment and retention. Our Fundamentals of Engineering and Computer Science (FECS) course at Wright State University has been in place for the past six years and has seen an increase in student retention from 45% to 70%. Improving this retention rate by raising the admission standards is not possible as we have an open enrollment policy set by the state. Therefore, to better understand our students and how they perceive themselves as they enter college, we have been collecting data for the past three years as they take their FECS course using a perception survey at the beginning of the course. Data collected from the perception survey is the focus of this paper. The database consists of responses from 539 students enrolled in FECS from 2003 to 2005. The course is offered each quarter and results are compared between quarters, between years, and between quarters of each year. Data collected and presented includes the student perceptions on math and science preparation, self appraisal, outside help and teaming. Conclusions are also presented from analysis of the survey data on how our initial interactions with the students could be improved.


Primary dysmenorrhea is one of the most prevalent debilitating problems in reproductive ages. This study aimed to compare the effects of reflexology and massage therapy on pain intensity, pain duration, and anxiety level resulting from primary dysmenorrhea. This controlled clinical trial was conducted on 102 students with primary dysmenorrhea. The samples were randomly divided into reflexology, massage, and control groups. In the first group, reflexology was done 20 min per day for 10 days. Besides, the second group received massage with lavender essence. The interventions were done in both groups for 2 consecutive menstrual cycles. The participants' pain intensity was measured using Visual Analog Scale (VAS) and their anxiety level was evaluated by Spielberger's questionnaire. Pain duration was assessed, as well. The measurements were performed before and at the end of the second and third menstrual cycles. The results showed a significant difference among the three groups regarding pain intensity in the second and third months (P>0.001) and pain reduction was more considerable in the massage group. Also, a significant difference was observed among the three groups concerning the mean of pain duration in the second and third months (P=0.01). However, the three groups were not significantly different with respect to the mean anxiety levels. Yet, within-group comparisons revealed a significant reduction in anxiety level in the massage group (P=0.017). Based on the study findings, it seems that both reflexology and massage therapy were effective in the reduction of some symptoms of dysmenorrhea.


Empirical evidence on the impacts of household poverty and other socio-demographic factors regarding child undernutrition is essential in targeting resources appropriately to raise the health of the poor and most vulnerable groups. There is a paucity of such evidence in Ethiopia. The present study identified urban-rural differences in the magnitude and determinants of under-five child undernutrition in Ethiopia. Complete anthropometric data for 9,472 under-five children were obtained from the 2011 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey dataset. Undernutrition is measured by using underweight as the key outcome variable. The 2006 World Health Organization growth standards are used to calculate underweight. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were done to see the strength of association. The magnitude of underweight was observed to be 32.7% [95%CI = (31.7, 33.6)] among rural children and 15.8% [95%CI = (15.1, 16.5)] among urban. Multivariate analyses showed that living in urban of Tigray and Somali regions, poor household wealth status and lack of toilet facility were the urban determinants of child underweight in Ethiopia, whereas living in rural of Gambela and Harari regions, child age of 2 and over, mother's age at first birth being 18 and under, poor and medium household wealth status and child did not take drugs for intestinal parasites in the last six months were factors independently associated with child underweight in the rural of Ethiopia. In conclusion, the study highlighted that special attention needs to be given to policies aimed at reducing underweight based on the magnitude and nature of factors, such as poverty, early marriage, child age, anti-helmentic drugs, toilet facilities and regional characteristics.

 Key words: Children, Ethiopia, undernutrition.


Background An ACL tear is one of the most serious injuries in sports, especially for females. A clinically based ACL injury prediction algorithm is thought to identify female athletes with high Knee Abduction Moment and has gained popularity. The hip abductors are considered as one of most important muscle groups to control knee position. Objective To investigate the effectiveness of eccentric hip abduction exercise on Knee Abduction Moment. Design Intervention, one-year follow-up. Setting University Division 1 (cheerleading), Clinical setting Participants 18 knees of 9 female freshman (18 yrs old). Intervention We used an eccentric hip abduction exercise. To start the athletes lay on contralateral side, lifting the upper leg to the end of hip abduction range of motion. Then, the partner pushed the leg downwards until the foot hit the other foot laying ob the ground while the athlete resisted. The athletes implemented one set of 10 repetitions each training session as part of the warm-up routine. Main Outcome Measurements The probability of High Knee Load was calculated by scoring points of tibia length, knee valgus motion, knee flexion ROM, body mass, and quadriceps:hamstrings torque ratio. Knee Abduction Moment was measured at baseline and one year after starting training. We defined a 75% or higher probability of high knee load as being at a high risk. Results At baseline, when the 9 athletes entered university as freshmen, there 3 out of 18 knees were scored as being at high risk, compared to 1 knee one year after implementing the eccentric knee abduction exercise. Conclusions Implementing an eccentric hip abduction exercise as part of routine warm-up has the potential to decrease the number of knees with high knee load among collegiate cheerleaders.


PURPOSE
Sentinel node (SN) biopsy is accurate in operable oral and oropharyngeal cT1-T2N0 cancer (OC), but, to our knowledge, the oncologic equivalence of SN biopsy and neck lymph node dissection (ND; standard treatment) has never been evaluated.

METHODS
In this phase III multicenter trial, 307 patients with OC were randomly assigned to (1) the ND arm or (2) the SN arm (experimental arm: biopsy alone if negative, or followed by ND if positive, during primary tumor surgery). The primary outcome was neck node recurrence-free survival (RFS) at 2 years. Secondary outcomes were 5-year neck node RFS, 2- and 5-year disease-specific survival (DSS), and overall survival (OS). Other outcomes were hospital stay length, neck and shoulder morbidity, and number of physiotherapy prescriptions during the 2 years after surgery.

RESULTS
Data on 279 patients (139 ND and 140 SN) could be analyzed. Neck node RFS was 89.6% (95% CI, 0.83% to 0.94%) at 2 years in the ND arm and 90.7% (95% CI, 0.84% to 0.95%) in the SN arm, confirming the equivalence with P < .01. The 5-year RFS and the 2- and 5-year DSS and OS were not significantly different between arms. The median hospital stay length was 8 days in the ND arm and 7 days in the SN arm (P < .01). The functional outcomes were significantly worse in the ND arm until 6 months after surgery.

CONCLUSION
This study demonstrated the oncologic equivalence of the SN and ND approaches, with lower morbidity in the SN arm during the first 6 months after surgery, thus establishing SN as the standard of care in OC.


ABSTRACT The genetic structure of populations of Phytophthora cinnamomi, a pathogen of an enormous variety of woody plants, was investigated using microsatellites. Three intensively sampled disease sites in southwest Australia were analyzed along with a large culture collection of Austra-lian isolates and some isolates from elsewhere in the world. The mutation in the four microsatellite loci analyzed revealed spatial patterns at the disease sites that correlated with the age of the infestation. Only three clonal lineages were identified in Australian populations and these same clonal lineages were present in worldwide populations, where it is suggested that a limited number of clonal lineages have spread in most regions. No evidence for sexual reproduction between these clonal lineages in Australia has been found even though the pathogen has the opportunity. Instead, mitotic recombination is frequent within the clonal lineages. The implications of this are discussed.


Objective
To evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of modified chitosan eye drops on rabbit Candida albicans keratitis model.

Methods
Ten healthy female New Zealand rabbits were used to establish the superficial Candida albicans keratitis model by the corneal surface lens method in the right eye.Slit lamp microscopy and corneal scraping and microscopic examination were performed to preliminarily determine whether the keratitis model has been successfully established, the rabbits were then randomly divided into a model group and a modified chitosan group by the random number table method.The successfully established rabbit models which were determined by fungal culture results were retained.Five normal rabbits receiving no intervention served as a normal control group.The experimental eyes in the normal control and modified chitosan groups were treated with modified chitosan eye drops, Six times a day for one week, and subsequently four times a day for one week.No treatment was administered to the model group.The changes of corneal lesions and ocular surfaces were examined by slit lamp microscopy every day.At 1, 7, 14, 21 and 28 days after modeling, the eye condition and corneal clinical scores was assessed by slit lamp microscopy.The corneal conditions in each group was observed for two weeks after drug withdrawal.

Results
The corneal scraping and microscopic examination results of eight rabbits models showed that the fungal hyphae and spores were positive.The fungal culture results showed that the separated pathogen was Candida albicans.The success rate of modeling was 80%(8/10). The clinical scores in the model group at 7, 14 and 21 days after modeling were 14.50±0.58, 6.25±0.50 and 2.50±0.58, respectively, and were significantly higher than 7.25±1.26, 2.75±0.50 and 1.25±0.50 in the modified chitosan group (all at P<0.05). In the model group, corneal edema was significantly aggravated, and the central white ulcer area was enlarged within seven days after modeling.Between 7 and 28 days after modeling, the corneal ulcer was gradually healed, while the central corneal scar and neovascularization were remained.The average healing time was (24.5±2.6)days.In the modified chitosan group, the corneal infiltration was significantly alleviated within seven days after modeling, and the fungal hyphae and spores of corneal scraping were negative on the 14th day after modeling.The average healing time in the modified chitosan group was (13.5±1.3)days, which was significantly shorter than that in the the model group (P<0.01). No recurrence of keratitis was observed in the modified chitosan group after two weeks of drug withdrawal.The cure rate was 100%.In the normal control group, the conjunctival hyperemia, corneal edema, and lesions were not observed during topical administration.

Conclusion
The treatment with modified chitosan eye drop is effective in a rabbit superficial Candida albicans keratitis model, and have no obvious toxic effects on ocular tissues.

Key words:
Keratitis; Candida albicans; Modified chitosan; Therapeutic effect


UNLABELLED
The aim of this study was to estimate the reproducibility related to the presence and to the measurements of elongated styloid process (ESP), based on panoramic radiographs and the prevalence of ESP.

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
one hundred sixty six panoramic radiographs were used, from edentulous patients from the Radiology Clinic files, at Araraquara Dental School, Unesp, during a four-year period. One hundred and twenty one were female and 45 were male. Two calibrated observers evaluated the radiographs. A caliper was used to measure, in mm, the ESP from the base of the temporal bone to the tip of the structure. The ESP was considered present when the measurements were 30mm or more. Kappa statistics (k ) and intra-class correlation coefficient (r ), were applied to estimate the reproducibility. The results showed that related to the presence of ESP, the interobserver agreement was k =0.85. Related to the measurements of ESP, the interobserver agreement was r =0.52. The prevalence of ESP was estimated in 12.6%. ESP distribution in females was similar to that for males. In conclusion, we found a greater level of agreement when observers evaluated the presence of ESP than when they did the measurement of ESP. The prevalence of ESP was 12.6%.


As NAND flash memory becomes popular in diverse areas ranging from embedded systems to high performance computing, exposing and understanding flash memory's performance, energy consumption, and reliability becomes increasingly important. Moreover, with an increasing trend towards multiple-die, multiple-plane architectures and high speed interfaces, high performance NAND flash memory systems are expected to continue to scale. This scaling should further reduce costs and thereby widen proliferation of devices based on the technology. However, when designing NAND flash-based devices, making decisions about the optimal system configuration is non-trivial because NAND flash is sensitive to a large number of parameters, and some parameters exhibit significant latency variations. Such parameters include varying architectures such as multi-die and multi-plane, and a host of factors that affect performance, energy consumption, diverse node technology, and reliability. Unfortunately, there are no public domain tools for high-fidelity, microarchitecture level NAND flash memory simulation in existence to assist with making such decisions. Therefore, we introduce NANDFlashSim; a latency variation-aware, detailed, and highly configurable NAND flash simulation model. NANDFlashSim implements a detailed timing model for operations in sixteen state-of-the-art NAND flash operation mode combinations. In addition, NANDFlashSim models energies and reliability of NAND flash memory based on statistics. From our comprehensive experiments using NANDFlashSim, we found that 1) most read cases were unable to leverage the highly-parallel internal architecture of NAND flash regardless of the NAND flash operation mode, 2) the main source of this performance bottleneck is I/O bus activity, not NAND flash activity itself, 3) multi-level-cell NAND flash provides lower I/O bus resource contention than single-level-cell NAND flash, but the resource contention becomes a serious problem as the number of die increases, and 4) preference to employ many dies rather than to employ many planes promises better performance in disk-friendly real workloads. The simulator can be downloaded from http://www.cse.psu.edu/~mqj5086/nfs.


Intensive tillage requires high energy input and may be detrimental to the environment There is a need to develop decision support tools to assist farmers in determining optimum tillage intensity for high yields. Previous studies developed quantitative indices that related tilth conditions to yield. The indices, however, proved to be inadequate and sometimes inconsistent Thus, a three-part research project was carried out from 1998 to 2000 to quantify seedbed condition following tillage and to explain subsequent variation in com (Zea mays L) yield. Conventional and spatial statistics were used to study the effects of bulk density, penetration resistance and soil moisture content on and biomass at the V2 growth stage (the com growth stage when the collar of the second leaf has fully developed), and grain yield. A soil condition index was developed and it combined soil physical properties into a single value that was related to yield using regression methods. The soil condition index gave promising results for prediction of early season plant biomass, but was not helpful in predicting grain yield. Confounding of weather conditions made it difficult to determine the true functional relationship between soil tilth and crop yield. Yield and soil map overlays revealed spatial patterns that would have otherwise been aggregated' if only conventional statistical methods were used. With careful experimental design, the impact of weather and other sources of experimental error in tillage trials could be minimized. The research project provided a framework for future experiments focused on quantifying soil tilth.


To satisfy the increasing need in today's industry for high performance, more complex chips are being designed. These chips, when integrated in 3D packages, have a high energy density and require new and innovative cooling strategies as many of them are designed as flip-chip assemblies, usually requiring back-side cooling. Classical underfills currently used offer poor thermal conductivity. But cooling through the underfill would enable cost-efficient and low complexity cooling solutions. For this purpose, thermal underfills with percolating fillers and necks are currently under development. They are to provide a significant improvement in thermal conductivity to classical capillary underfills and will find applications in, for example, 3D integrated packages to improve heat dissipation. The idea behind the percolating thermal underfill (PTU) comprises a sequential joint forming process ensuring a high fill fraction. Although flip chip technology has been well described, the addition of the neck based percolating underfill could entail several new thermo-mechanical reliability concerns that need to be studied using a physics of failure approach, since the PTU exhibits vastly different thermo-mechanical behavior, giving rise to possible new failure mechanisms and locations. This paper in particular deals with FE simulations carried out to understand different key aspects of the thermal underfill and to study the effects of the increased underfill stiffness at these locations. The simulations are implemented using detailed elastic, plastic, visco-elastic and visco-plastic material data. In case of larger models a complexity reduction is required and implemented by using effective material data to improve computational time.


This paper proposes, for the first time, the concept of programmable logic circuit realized with single-electron transistors (SETs). An SET having nonvolatile memory function is a key element for the programmable SET logic. The writing and erasing operations of the nonvolatile memory function make it possible to tune the phase of Coulomb oscillations. The half-period phase shift induced by the memory function makes the function of SETs complementary to that of the conventional SETs. As a result, SETs having nonvolatile memory function have the functionality of both the conventional (nMOS-like) SETs and the complementary (pMOS-like) SETs. By utilizing this fact, the function of SET circuits can be programmed with great flexibility, on the basis of the information stored by the memory functions. We have successfully fabricated SETs that operate at room temperature and observed the highest room-temperature peak-to-valley current ratio of Coulomb oscillations. The operation of the programmable SET logic is demonstrated using the room-temperature operating SETs. This is the first demonstration of room-temperature SET logic operation. The proposed programmable SET logic provides the potential for low-power, intelligent LSI chips suitable for mobile applications.


Genome analysis of patients with disorders of sex development, and gain- and loss-of-function studies in mice indicate that gonadal development is regulated by opposing signals. In females, the Wnt/β-catenin canonical pathway blocks testicular differentiation by repressing the expression of the Sertoli cell-specific gene Sox9 by an unknown mechanism. Using cell and embryonic gonad culture models, we show that activation of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway inhibits the expression of Sox9 and Amh, whereas mRNA and protein levels of Sry and steroidogenic factor 1 (Sf1), two key transcriptional regulators of Sox9, are not altered. Ectopic activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling in male gonads led to a loss of Sf1 binding to the Tesco enhancer and absent Sox9 expression that we also observed in wild-type ovaries. Moreover, ectopic Wnt/β-catenin signaling induced the expression of the female somatic cell markers, Bmp2 and Rspo1, as a likely consequence of Sox9 loss. Wnt/β-catenin signaling in XY gonads did not, however, affect gene expression of the steroidogenic Leydig cell Sf1 target gene, Cyp11a1, or Sf1 binding to the Cyp11a1 promoter. Our data support a model in ovary development whereby activation of β-catenin prevents Sf1 binding to the Sox9 enhancer, thereby inhibiting Sox9 expression and Sertoli cell differentiation.


The structure of the dodecamer d(CGCGAATXCGCG)(2), in which X = Z3dU, 5-(3-aminopropyl)-2'-deoxyuridine, was determined. At neutral pH, Z3dU introduced a positive charge into the major groove. NMR spectroscopy revealed that the Z3dU omega-aminopropyl moiety oriented in the 3'-direction from the site of modification. Watson-Crick base pairing remained intact throughout the dodecamer. The presence of the charged amino group in the major groove resulted in a 0.24 ppm upfield shift of one (31)P NMR resonance in the 3'-direction at the phosphodiester linkage between nucleotides C(9) and G(10). Molecular dynamics calculations restrained by distances obtained from (1)H NOE data and torsion angles obtained from (1)H NMR (3)J coupling data, and in which the omega-amino group was constrained to be proximate to G(10)O(6), predicted from the (31)P NMR data and molecular modeling (Dande, P.; Liang, G.; Chen, F.-X.; Roberts, C.; Nelson, M. G.; Hashimoto, H.; Switzer, C.; Gold, B. Biochemistry 1997, 36, 6024-6032), were consistent with experimental NOEs. These refined structures exhibited bending. The distance from the amino group to the 5'-phosphate oxygen of Z3dU was >5 A, which indicated that in this dodecamer the Z3dU amino group did not participate in a salt bridge to its 5'-phosphate.


The HSP90 chaperone is a highly conserved protein from bacteria to higher eukaryotes. In eukaryotes, this chaperone participates in different large complexes, such as the HSP90 heterocomplex, which has important biological roles in cell homeostasis and differentiation. The HSP90-heterocomplex is also named the HSP90/HSP70 cycle because different co-chaperones (HIP, HSP40, HOP, p23, AHA1, immunophilins, PP5) participate in this complex by assembling sequentially, from the early to the mature complex. In this review, we analyze the conservation and relevance of HSP90 and the HSP90-heterocomplex in several protozoan parasites, with emphasis in Plasmodium spp., Toxoplasma spp., Leishmania spp. and Trypanosoma spp. In the last years, there has been an outburst of studies based on yeast two-hybrid methodology, co-immunoprecipitation-mass spectrometry and bioinformatics, which have generated a most comprehensive protein-protein interaction (PPI) network of HSP90 and its co-chaperones. This review analyzes the existing PPI networks of HSP90 and its co-chaperones of some protozoan parasites and discusses the usefulness of these powerful tools to analyze the biological role of the HSP90-heterocomplex in these parasites. The generation of a T. gondii HSP90 heterocomplex PPI network based on experimental data and a recent Plasmodium HSP90 heterocomplex PPI network are also included and discussed. As an example, the putative implication of nuclear transport and chromatin (histones and Sir2) as HSP90-heterocomplex interactors is here discussed.


Visual question answering (VQA) has traditionally been treated as a single-step task where each question receives the same amount of effort, unlike natural human question-answering strategies. We explore a question decomposition strategy for VQA to overcome this limitation. We probe the ability of recently developed large vision-language models to use human-written decompositions and produce their own decompositions of visual questions, finding they are capable of learning both tasks from demonstrations alone. However, we show that naive application of model-written decompositions can hurt performance. We introduce a model-driven selective decomposition approach for second-guessing predictions and correcting errors, and validate its effectiveness on eight VQA tasks across three domains, showing consistent improvements in accuracy, including improvements of>20% on medical VQA datasets and boosting the zero-shot performance of BLIP-2 above chance on a VQA reformulation of the challenging Winoground task. Project Site: https://zaidkhan.me/decomposition-0shot-vqa/


A human common need is the security of an adequate diet, which will provide energy and the various nutrients necessary for metabolic functioning. This paper presents the case of a company that considers food quality, safety, health and nutrition as a priority: Docapesca – Portos e Lotas, SA. This state-owned company (operating in the Portuguese fish sector) has taken under its wing the task – and also the responsibility – of educating consumers' preferences regarding fish. Portugal ranks number 3 in the world consuming fish which is fantastic since fish is a fabulous source of easily digested, high quality animal protein. Fish is high in lysine and sulphur amino acids, provides vitamin A and vitamin D, and (above all) contains a very powerful, almost panacea-like nutrient-called "Omega-3 fat". According to Sørensen (1996), fish provides security and it is considered a very healthy product. The company analysed in this paper, Docapesca – Portos e Lotas SA, provides the public service of organizing the first sale of fish (on mainland Portugal), and also supports the fishing harbour sector. But besides that, one of the company's main objectives include consumers' education, nutritional education and knowledge transfer on healthy food and diet. Social responsibility, quality guarantee, cooperation with society and environmental and civic responsibility are also part of its mission. To write this paper we have had access to privilege State information and we have made an exhaustive detailed analysis of the different strategies implemented by Docapesca – Portos e Lotas, SA (in-depth interviews to key decision makers in the company were the way to reach all this exclusive data). This study gathered information from entire Portuguese population but gave special attention to the young generation (16 to 34 years old). Findings showed that, as a result of all the work that has been made towards educating consumers on fish, Portuguese consumers perceive fish as more than just fish.


This paper described the preparation method for composing high-grade synthetic diamond by water atomizing using FeNi30 powder catalyst.The FeNi30 powder was corroded by the 100Mpa super high-pressure water atomizing technique and selecting organic RY corrosion inhibitor. Contrast test of the original FeNi30 powder and the treated FeNi30 powder on synthetic diamonds were conducted under super high-temperature and high-pressure using cubic press. The result shows that after the FeNi30 powder was corroded,the FeO phase and Fe3O4 phase could not longer be found by X-Ray analysis.Furthermore,the oxygen content of the powder increased up to 100PPM under the natural condition for one year. After the powder was mixed with graphite powder, diamond could be made by isostatic pressing method. Its color became darker and its TTI value increased slightly. However, its penetrability was still different from the high-grade synthetic diamond made by gas atomizing FeNi30 powder catalyst.


SCOPE
Isoflavone (ISO) exposure during adolescence modulates 17β-estradiol (E2) sensitivity of the adult mammary gland. The present study investigated the dose dependency of these effects focusing on proliferation, estrogen receptor dependent and independent gene expression, as well as DNA methylation and ISO metabolism.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Female Wistar rats were lifelong exposed to an ISO-depleted diet or to diets enriched with a soy ISO extract (ISO-rich diet (IRD)) causing plasma concentrations as observed minimally (IRDlow) and maximally (IRDhigh) in Asian women. The extract was characterized by both phytochemical analysis and E-Screen. Rats were ovariectomized at postnatal day (PND) 80 and treated with E2 from PND94 to 97. In contrast to uterine response, body weight and visceral fat mass were affected by ISO. In the mammary gland, both E2-induced proliferation (proliferating cell nuclear antigen staining) and estrogen receptor activation (progesterone receptor staining) were significantly reduced by IRDhigh but not by IRDlow, which however attenuated Gdf15 mRNA expression. DNA methylation analysis revealed significant differences in the promoter regions of Aldhl1, Extl1, and WAP between IRDhigh and ISO-depleted diet.

CONCLUSION
Lifelong exposure to ISO results in dose-dependent differential effects on proliferation, gene expression, and DNA methylation in rat mammary glands. Yet, a decrease in estrogen responsiveness was only achieved by IRDhigh.


Despite the impressive level of economic growth the developing world has achieved over the past quarter century, some 800 million individuals there remain caught up in absolute poverty: a condition of life so limited by malnutrition, disease, illiteracy, low life expectancy, and high infant mortality as to be beneath any rational definition of human decency. The self-perpetuating plight of the absolute poor has tended to cut them off from the economic progress that has taken place elsewhere in their own societies. They have remained largely outside the entire development effort, able neither to contribute much to it, nor to benefit fairly from it. A critical component of that approach is for governments of developing countries to provide better access for the absolute poor in their societies to essential public services, particularly basic education, primary health care, and clean water. These fundamental services--combined with the better shelter and nutrition that improved incomes can afford--are the key to the poor's being able to meet their own basic needs. In this situation the right kind of public services are those which not only reach the poor, but help them alter their personal circumstances so that their own inherent potential can be more fully realized. What the Bank's experience clearly demonstrates is that investment in the absolute poor's human development is not merely more equitable social policy, but very sound economics as well.


Abstract The present study attempts to qualify the impact of tectonic parameters on hydrocarbon production in reservoir models representing four clastic depositional environments. Eleven sectors from existing 3D reservoir models, representing fluvial, tidal, shallow marine and deep marine depositional settings, were re-sampled into a fixed-volume, unfaulted model grid. Each sample was permutated into 73 different faulted model configurations by using predefined combinations of fault patterns, maximum fault-throw, shale gouge ratio and shale smear factor. The resulting 803 models were run in a fluid flow simulator and results statistically analysed to identify changes in fluid flow response caused by changing model input parameters. Finally, outcomes for each of the four depositional environments were compared. Although an inadequate database and technical limitations with the input models restrict our ability to draw quantitative conclusions, a number of qualitative interpretations can be made. The four investigated stratigraphies respond differently to identical fault parameter settings. Thus, there is a clear link between the depositional model input and the impact that faults have on production parameters. This suggests that sedimentological factors have a significant influence on which and to what extent fault parameters affect petroleum production. Varying degrees of impact can be identified for each fault parameter in each of the four depositional model types. Within the limitation of this study, a qualitative assessment of these is formulated.


Accumulation rates of heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Pb, and Zn) retained in wetland sediments in northwest Indiana—downwind of the Chicago-Gary-Hammond industrial area—are quantified to assess anthropogenic influences on atmospheric fluxes. Metal concentrations for 22 sediment cores are determined by ICP-AES after ashing and strong acid extraction. Relations between organic content and metal concentrations at depth are used to separate natural and anthropogenic sources. Accumulation rates over the lifetime of the wetlands (~4500 years) have averaged 0.2 (Cd), 1.4 (Cu), 1.7 (Cr), 13.4 (Mn), 4.8 (Pb), and 18.7 (Zn) mg m-2 y-1. Rates for the last 100 years have increased on average by factors of 6 (Cd), 8 (Cu), 10 (Mn), 15 (Pb), and 30 (Zn), remaining effectively constant for Cr. Where the wetlands have been drained, metals have been lost from the sediments, owing to changes in organic content and local hydrochemistry (exposure to acidic rainfall). Sediment-based accumulation rates at the undrained sites are higher, though generally consistent, with measured and modeled atmospheric fluxes documented by short-term studies conducted over the last three decades. The fraction of the total metals in the wetlands estimated to be of anthropogenic origin ranges from approximately 3% for Cr, up to approximately 35% for Pb, and 70% for Zn. This historic legacy of contamination must be considered in land management decisions, particularly when wetlands are drained.


Vertical p-type Si nanowires (NWs) "in-situ" doped during growth or "ex-situ" by B ion implantation are investigated regarding their acceptor activation. Due to the much higher surface to volume ratio of the NW in comparison to bulk material the surface effect plays an important role in determining the doping behaviour. Dopant segregation and fixed positive charges at the Si/SiO2 interface result in an acceptor deactivation. The B concentration introduced into the NW has to balance the deactivation effects in order to reach the intended electrical parameters. Scanning spreading resistance microscopy is used for the electrical characterization of the NWs. This analysis method provides images of the local resistivity of NW cross sections. Resistivity data are converted into acceptor concentration values by calibration. The study demonstrates that scanning spreading resistance microscopy is a suitable analysis method capable to spatially and electrically resolve Si NWs in the nanometer-scale. The NW resistivity is found to be size dependent and shows a significant increase as the NW is below 25 nm in diameter. The obtained data can be explained by a core-shell model with a highly conductive NW core and low conductive shell.


Introduction: Cardiovascular disease (CVD), hypertension (HTN) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) are chronic conditions of recent decades, and dietary intakes play an important role in their prevention. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between dietary fat pattern and incidence of these conditions. Materials and Methods: Participants of the third phase (20062008) of the Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study (TLGS), who met the inclusion criteria for each of the risk factors were selected. Finally, 2369 participants for CVD, 1878 persons for HTN and 1780 persons for CKD were enrolled and followed up to the fifth phase of TLGS. Dietary fat patterns in the third phase determined by principal component analysis (PCA) and the association between each of three patterns and CVD and HTN were assessed by Cox proportional hazard regression models, and the association between fat patterns and CKD incidence were assessed by linear regression models. Results: During 6 years of follow-up, the incidence of CVD, HTN and CKD in population studied was 3.3, 15.5 and 17.9%, respectively. Based on PCA, three separate dietary fat patterns were obtained for each of cardio-metabolic risk factors. The first pattern had high loads of cholesterol, SFA, Oleic acid, Linolenic acid and Linoleic acid; the second had high loads of EPA and DHA and third pattern had a high load of trans fatty acids. After adjustment for potential confounders, there was no significant association between odds ratio (95% confidence intervals) of CVD, HTN or CKD incidence and dietary fat patterns. Conclusion: In this study, no significant association was found between dietary fat patterns and the incidence of cardio-metabolic risk factors incidence. Further prospective studies are needed to investigate and confirm the effects of dietary fat on the development of chronic diseases.


Background: Traffic accidents in Indonesia (dominated by motorbikes) are a serious problem because they cause many injuries and deaths at productive age. The sample Registration System (SRS) produces an overview of the causes of death nationally including a description of the causes of death due to accidents. The purpose of this study is to analyze the causes of death due to accidents based on the characteristics of age, sex, place of death, and type of accident. Subjects and Method: A cross-sectional was selected to be this study design. The SRS sample selection method is Probability Proportional to Size (PPS) using the 2008 Potential Village (PODES) survey data. SRS was conducted in 128 sub-districts spread over 119 districts / cities and in 30 provinces in Indonesia. SRS data are collected annually (January 1 to December 31), and the analyzed SRS data are 2014-2016. The cause of death was determined based on a questionnaire from the results of a verbal autopsy interview by the health center health worker to the family of the deceased. Determination of the cause of death by trained health center doctors according to the standards in ICD-10. The data were descriptively described. Results: Transportation accidents were included in the top 10 causes of death. Most deaths occurred among adolescents aged 15-19 years. Mortality in men was higher than in women. Most of the deaths occurred in the hospital, followed by other places and on the way to the hospital / health facility. The most types of accidents were traffic accidents on motorbikes, pedestrians, and car accidents. Conclusion: This study provides information to stakeholders to prioritize policies in an effort to reduce the incidence of traffic accidents, injuries, and deaths due to accidents in Indonesia. Relevant agencies need immediate and comprehensive handling.


Sequenced bacterial genomes provide a wealth of information but little understanding of transcriptional regulatory circuits largely because accurate prediction of promoters is difficult. We examined two important issues for accurate promoter prediction: (1) the ability to predict promoter strength and (2) the sequence properties that distinguish between active and weak/inactive promoters. We addressed promoter prediction using natural core promoters recognized by the well-studied alternative sigma factor, Escherichia coli σE, as a representative of group 4 σs, the largest σ group. To evaluate the contribution of sequence to promoter strength and function, we used modular position weight matrix models comprised of each promoter motif and a penalty score for suboptimal motif location. We find that a combination of select modules is moderately predictive of promoter strength and that imposing minimal motif scores distinguished active from weak/inactive promoters. The combined -35/-10 score is the most important predictor of activity. Our models also identified key sequence features associated with active promoters. A conserved "AAC" motif in the -35 region is likely to be a general predictor of function for promoters recognized by group 4 σs. These results provide valuable insights into sequences that govern promoter strength, distinguish active and inactive promoters for the first time, and are applicable to both in vivo and in vitro measures of promoter strength.


This study investigated the effects on goat milk yield and composition of a diet supplemented with Echium plantagineum oil (EPO). Twenty-four mid-lactation multiparous Camosciata goats were divided into two balanced groups and fed for 44 d a diet based on hay and concentrate, supplemented (EPO group, Echium) or not (CON group, control) with 40 ml of ruminally unprotected EPO. Individual milk yield was recorded and individual milk samples were collected at 11, 22, 33, and 44 d after supplementation. Milk samples were analysed for milk components and fatty acids (FA). Data were statistically analysed by repeated-measures analysis of variance. Milk yield, protein and lactose contents were significantly higher in EPO than CON group. The inclusion of EPO significantly decreased total saturated FA and total branched-chain FA, and contemporarily sharply increased trans biohydrogenation intermediates (P ⩽ 0·001). Milk concentration of α-linolenic, stearidonic and γ-linolenic acids increased by 23, 1000 and 67%, respectively (P ⩽ 0·001). Due to extensive ruminal biohydrogenation, their apparent transfer rate was less than 3%. As a consequence, the milk concentrations of very long-chain (VLC) polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), such as eicosapentaenoic (20:5 n-3) and dihomo-γ-linolenic (20:3 n-6) acids, significantly increased with EPO treatment, but values remained very low. Docosahexaenoic acid (22:6 n-3) was undetectable in all analysed milk samples. Results show that ruminally unprotected EPO can enhance milk yield and protein and improve the overall goat milk FA profile. However, this kind of supplementation cannot be considered a valuable strategy to develop goat functional dairy products enriched with VLC n-3 PUFA for human consumption.


Summary Stable population theory has recently been used to analyse the effects of changes in fertility and mortality on economic variables such as income per head. In this paper more general results are derived to describe the effects of changing vital rates on the variance and higher moments of the distribution of some age-dependent variable. Simple analytical expressions are derived which decompose the effects of changes in age structure into the effects on inter-cohort and intra-cohort variance. The results are easily applied to standard measures of the distribution of income. By combining the analytical results with actual age profiles of income and income variance from the United States and Brazil it is observed that both the magnitude and direction of the effects of population growth on measured inequality are sensitive to the specific age profiles used. The most surprising result is that the Brazilian age profiles suggest that higher growth rates may actually reduce measured inequality, although the effect is relatively small.


A sun awareness campaign with the theme "Be Sun Smart" was initiated by the Alberta Pharmaceutical Association in collaboration with the Alberta Cancer Board, Alberta Health and the Canadian Cancer Society. The campaign aimed to increase awareness and knowledge on the part of pharmacists and their staff and customers of adequate protection from the sun. The evaluation consisted of a precampaign questionnaire focusing on pharmacists' attitudes and knowledge, followed by a post-campaign questionnaire evaluating the campaign and assessing changes in pharmacists' knowledge. Questionnaires were sent to all 697 retail pharmacies in Alberta. The data indicated that responding pharmacists' knowledge was high before the campaign. However, knowledge of skin protection and magnitude of the problem did improve from the pre- to postcampaign survey. Pharmacists' precampaign attitudes varied, 49% agreeing that a tanned person looks healthier, and 96% agreeing that skin cancer is a dangerous disease. There was a high degree of acceptance for educational campaigns within retail pharmacies.


Abstract Attrition is a frequently observed phenomenon in panel studies. The loss of panel members over time can hamper the analysis of panel survey data. Based on data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), this study investigates changes in the composition of the initially recruited first-wave sample in a multi-national face-to-face panel survey of an older population over waves. By inspecting retention rates and R-indicators, we found that, despite declining retention rates, the composition of the initially recruited panel sample in Wave 1 remained stable after the second wave. Thus, after the second wave there is no further large decline in representativeness with regard to the first wave sample. Changes in the composition of the sample after the second wave over time were due mainly to mortality-related attrition. Non-mortality-related attrition had a slight effect on the changes in sample composition with regard to birth in survey country, area of residence, education, and social activities. Our study encourages researchers to investigate further the impact of mortality- and non-mortality-related attrition in multi-national surveys of older populations.


The main purpose of fresh tuna longline fishing vessels operations is fresh tuna for export. The main market of these products are Japan, American and European Union. The markets require a high quality product that goes to the country. This paper is review of the research were conducted in 2007 and 2010, aims to compare the proportion of feasibility of tuna for export from fresh tunalongliner. The study is based on the research results that conducted in the PPS Muara Baru in April-Mei 2007 and September-Oktober 2010. Method of the research have used mapping control analysis. The results showed that the proportion of products that meet the standards of export in 2007 outside the control of the Central Line (GT): 50,40; Upper Line (BA): 51,45-54,14 and Bottom Line (BB): 47,46-49,35. Meanwhile, the research results of 2010 also showed out of control, with the GT: 21,50; BA: 24,55 and BB: 18,45. Thus although there is a decrease proportion for products that do not meet the export quality standards from 50,40% in 2007 to 21,50% in 2010. Based on these result, we can conclude that there is an increase the proportion of viable tuna export product, indicate that there were an improvement in quality control on fresh tuna longline fishing vessels.


This research was carried out to assess the socio-economic impacts of DFPs on beneficiaries in Babati Cluster for WVT projects that operate in Babati and Monduli Districts in Northern Tanzania. Specifically the research assessed changes in income, assets possession, food adequacy and productivity before and after WVT project interventions. To achieve these objectives, the sample size of 180 people (160 beneficiaries and 20 WVT staff) was interviewed through questionnaire by applying the quota sampling and the sampling frame. Information was collected by use of three approaches namely descriptive, historical and case study design. Analysis of data used SPSS v20.0 and presented them by using percentages and frequencies. Research findings showed both positive and negative impacts as being able to send children to school, increased income, increased knowledge, MVCs support on various issues, improved social services like water, education, health, and nutrition. Building new houses, improved livestock, productivity increment and stopping FGM. Furthermore, negative impacts mentioned were increase of dependency syndrome among people, lack of creativity for the beneficiaries to apply knowledge gained and low participatory of people in development initiatives. From findings the research concluded that Donor Funded Projects results into both positive and negative socio-economic impacts to the beneficiaries. . The study finally recommended to the Government of Tanzania to grant subsidies fund to increase DFPs' resources in reaching the poor, while to WVT it was recommended to widen the reach in Tanzania by shortening the project life span in one place.
Key words: Donors Funded Projects, WVT, Impacts, Babati Cluster


Sediment is the main factor that limits the reservoir lifetime. Therefore, sediment classification is an essential tool for planning and operating reservoir management measures. There has been important development in the hydroacoustic classification of lakebed, especially with linear systems. The main restrictions while using linear hydroacoustic systems for lakebed classification are the shallow penetration in high-frequency applications or the low vertical and horizontal resolution when using low frequencies. With the new developments in the area of echo sounders, parametric systems can achieve high penetration while preserving the high vertical and lateral resolution. To investigate the performance of parametric systems, a new lakebed classification approach was implemented by using a SES2000 Compact. The area studied was the Passauna reservoir in Parana State, Brazil. We used the first echo division method for processing the acoustic data combined with sediment core and grab sampling. The two physical parameters investigated, were the share of the finest fraction (<63 µm) and wet bulk density (WBD). The results showed a high correlation between the primary frequency of 100 kHz (166 µs pulse length) and the physical parameters. Additionally, a significant correlation was observed with the acoustic parameters at 10 kHz frequency. The best correlating acoustic parameter was Attack/Decay (E1´/E1). The gas presence was found to be an important factor determining the penetration depth of the parametric system and the performance of the classification. The advantages of parametric systems, such small directivity and layering effect, represent the major restrictions in sediment classification applications.


Human polymorphonuclear neutrophils exhibit a low level of the microtubule-associated protein kinase (MAPK) activity. This enzymic activity is enhanced up to 3-fold upon cell stimulation with the human haematopoietic hormone granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF). This is demonstrated both in whole-cell lysates and in DEAE-anion-exchange semi-purified fractions prepared from GM-CSF-stimulated neutrophils, by assaying the kinase activity against either myelin basic protein or a phosphoacceptor peptide that bears the specific phosphorylation site of the MAPK natural substrate. Similarly, phosphorylation of MAPK in tyrosine residues, as found in immunoblots using anti-phosphotyrosine antibodies, follows similar time- and dose-response curves as the kinase activation. Pretreatment of the cells with the tyrosine kinase inhibitor genistein abrogates the above-mentioned effect, whereas the phosphatase inhibitor okadaic acid enhances both the basal and the GM-CSF-stimulated kinase activities. Likewise, MAPK tyrosine phosphorylation is diminished in genistein-treated neutrophils, and enhanced in okadaic acid-treated cells. We conclude that MAPK activity is present in human neutrophils, and that it is stimulated by GM-CSF. This stimulation of the activity is most likely due to the phosphorylation of MAPK in tyrosine residues triggered upon binding of GM-CSF to its receptors.


ABSTRACT The term 'adaptation' is commonplace in conservation research and practice, but often without a reflection on the assumptions, expectations, or frames of reference used to define goals and actions. Communities of practice (e.g. conservation researchers, protected areas managers) have different interpretations of climate change impacts on biodiversity and different ways of defining, operationalizing and implementing adaptation. Their cognitive and motivational expectations for the future are associated with different paths to reach such desired futures. To understand how adaptation is framed in conservation, we undertook a systematic review with a thematic synthesis of the definitions of the term as used in the academic conservation literature. From a sample of 150 articles, only 36 provided a definition of adaptation. We critically appraised the explicit definitions to identify emergent themes that represent particular adaptation approaches. Themes were then grouped, and each group was assigned to a scholarly tradition, onto-epistemological approach and theoretical perspective. Based on theoretical perspectives on social change, we propose a framework (including individual cognitive basis, social interactions, and openness to alternatives) to analyse how change is framed in the definitions and how the framings influence adaptation options. The grouped themes represent passive, active, or indirect adaptation approaches. We used these themes to generate a conceptual model to guide conservation researchers and practitioners engaged in climate adaptation research, policy and management to aid reflection and understanding of the options available to design adaptation agendas and allow negotiation of diverse interests, views and expectations about the future.


Purpose
With the growing deployment of variable renewable energy sources, such as wind and PV and the increasing interconnection of the power grid, multi-regional energy system models (ESMs) are increasingly challenged by the growth of model complexity. Therefore, the need for developing ESMs, which are realistic but also solvable with acceptable computational resources without losing output accuracy, arises. The purpose of this study is to propose a statistical approach to investigate asynchronous extreme events for different regions and then assess their ability to keep the output accuracy at the level of the full-resolution case.

Design/methodology/approach
To extract the extreme events from the residual demands, the paper focuses on analyzing the tail of the residual demand distributions by using statistical approaches. The extreme events then are implemented in an ESM to assess the effect of them in protecting the accuracy of the output compared with the full-resolution output.

Findings
The results show that extreme-high and fluctuation events are the most important events to be included in data input to maintain the flexibility output of the model when reducing the resolution. By including these events into the reduced data input, the output's accuracy reaches the level of 99.1% compared to full resolution case, while reducing the execution time by 20 times.

Originality/value
Moreover, including extreme-fluctuation along with extreme-high in the reduced data input helps the ESM to avoid misleading investment in conventional and low-efficient generators.


This chapter provides an overview of versatile and efficient chemical syntheses of vitamin D derivatives by application of either linear or convergent synthesis ap‐ proaches. Synthesis of the most relevant naturally occurring vitamin D metabolites and their deuterated counterparts to use as calibration and reference standards in LC‐ MS/MS assays is also shown. The chapter then summarizes the most important mass spectrometric approaches to quantify important vitamin D metabolites in human biofluids. In addition, new developments are described that are aimed at the pathobio‐ logical interpretation of the measured vitamin D metabolite distributions in various human diseases.


Microsurgical free tissue transfer and replantations have long been the bailiwick of academic training centers and tertiary referral centers. However, the authors' experience with more than 350 consecutive free tissue transfers during a span of 15 years in a purely private setting illustrates the changing economics of the medical environment in that time frame. These data provide insight into the feasibility and practicality of maintaining a microsurgical practice outside an academic medical center.


Monzonitic rocks are found in two plutons in the Deep Springs Valley area of the White-Inyo Range, California. These intrusive rocks, among the oldest in the Sierra Nevada region (170 m.y.), are characterized mineralogically by their abundance of potassium feldspar and paucity of quartz, and chemically by exceptionally high concentrations of alkalis (K 2 O + Na 2 O generally greater than 8% by weight) and strontium (greater than 1,000 ppm) and low silica (generally less than 60%). Both quartz-bearing and feldspathoidal varieties are present. Modal and chemical data clearly show that these alkalic intrusive rocks are not petrogenetically compatible with the far more abundant quartz-rich, calc-alkalic rocks that characterize the Sierra Nevada batholith. Instead, the monzonitic rocks constitute part of a discrete petrogenetic unit that is in part contemporaneous but certainly not comagmatic with the Sierra Nevada batholith. The available data are compatible with an origin for the Inyo monzonites during an early Mesozoic magmatic episode related to an arc-trench–subduction system that tapped an upper-mantle source beneath the western edge of the North American plate.


Background In South Africa the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act (Act 92 of 1996) replaced the Abortion and Sterilization Act (Act No 2 of 1975). The Abortion and Sterilization Act allowed for termination of pregnancy for specific reasons and conditions. The current Act of 1996 allows for termination of pregnancy at the mother's request up until the 12th week of pregnancy and under specific conditions up to and including the 20th week of pregnancy. The existence of legal abortion does not mean that the abortion is safe. An unsafe abortion, also referred to as an illegal abortion, is a procedure to terminate an unwanted pregnancy performed either by individuals lacking the necessary skills or in an environment that does not have basic medical standards, or both. Objectives The objective of this systematic review was to critically appraise, synthesize and present the best available evidence in relation to why women choose to undergo an "illegal" or "unsafe" abortion when abortion is legal and readily available in South Africa. Inclusion criteria Types of participants This systematic review considered any qualitative study where the focus was on pregnant women of childbearing age who have had an illegal abortion and who lived in Southern Africa. Types of intervention(s)/phenomena of interest The phenomena of interest of this review were the reasons why women choose illegal abortions in situations where abortion is freely available. Social and demographic data of participants were extracted from studies where possible. For the purpose of this systematic review, studies that use terms such as "unsafe" abortion, or abortions conducted in "non‐medical settings" were considered to be illegal abortions and were considered for inclusion in the review. Types of studies This review considered studies that focused on qualitative data including, but not limited to, designs such as phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, action research and feminist research. This review also considered non‐research papers such as text and opinion‐based papers and reports. Types of outcomes Studies that were conducted in public or private health care settings were considered for inclusion in the review. Health care settings may include hospitals, clinics and non‐governmental organizations that offer supportive services to women who have had an abortion. Search strategy The following initial key words were used: Childbearing women, illegal abortions, unsafe abortions, backstreet abortions, qualitative research, Southern Africa The following search strategy was undertaken: 1. A limited search of PubMed and CINAHL to identify relevant keywords contained in the title, abstract and subject descriptors 2. Terms identified in this way and the synonyms used by respective databases were used in an extensive search of the literature. Databases searched in this stage included PubMed, CINAHL, SABINET, Scopus, Africa Journal Online, PsychINFO, SocINDEX, SAePublications and Global Health. 3. Reference lists and bibliographies of the articles chosen from those identified in stage 2 were searched. 4. Gray literature identified through reference lists were searched and where African journals of health care were not identified in databases, appropriate hand searching was done. Methodological quality Assessment of methodological data Qualitative papers selected for retrieval were assessed by two independent reviewers for methodological validity prior to inclusion in the review using standardized critical appraisal instruments from the Joanna Briggs Institute Qualitative Assessment and Review Instrument (JBI‐QARI)). Any disagreements that arose between the reviewers were resolved through discussion, or with a third reviewer. Data collection Qualitative data were extracted from papers included in the review using the standardized data extraction tool from JBI‐QARI. The data extracted included specific details about the phenomena of interest, populations, study methods and outcomes of significance to the review question and specific objectives. Data synthesis Qualitative research findings, where possible, were pooled using JBI‐QARI. This involved the aggregation or synthesis of findings to generate a set of statements that represented that aggregation, through assembling the findings (Level 1 findings) rated according to their quality, and categorizing these findings on the basis of similarity in meaning (Level 2 findings). These categories were then subjected to a meta‐synthesis in order to produce a single comprehensive set of synthesized findings (Level 3 findings) that can be used as a basis for evidence‐based practice. Results JBI‐QARI was used to extract findings relevant to the review question from the two included studies. No text and opinion papers were found. Based on similarity of findings, categories were identified and then used to construct a synthesis. Each finding was graded based on its credibility. Only those findings that provided a direct quote from the participant were classed as unequivocal and were given more weight in the synthesis. There were no findings that were classed as credible or unsupported. The nine findings were grouped into three categories and the latter into one synthesized statement. Conclusions The evidence as to why women choose unsafe or illegal abortions when legal abortions are available is scarce. Current evidence suggests that reasons are multifactorial and complex. Women seek abortions for personal reasons such as wishing to pursue an education, not being financially secure, being afraid of parental and partner response to the news of a pregnancy, and denial of the pregnancy either by the partner or the woman herself.


Temporal action detection aims to locate the boundaries of action in the video. The current method based on boundary matching enumerates and calculates all possible boundary matchings to generate proposals. However, these methods neglect the long-range context aggregation in boundary prediction. At the same time, due to the similar semantics of adjacent matchings, local semantic aggregation of densely-generated matchings cannot improve semantic richness and discrimination. In this paper, we propose the end-to-end proposal generation method named Dual Context Aggregation Network (DCAN) to aggregate context on two levels, namely, boundary level and proposal level, for generating high-quality action proposals, thereby improving the performance of temporal action detection. Specifically, we design the Multi-Path Temporal Context Aggregation (MTCA) to achieve smooth context aggregation on boundary level and precise evaluation of boundaries. For matching evaluation, Coarse-to-fine Matching (CFM) is designed to aggregate context on the proposal level and refine the matching map from coarse to fine. We conduct extensive experiments on ActivityNet v1.3 and THUMOS-14. DCAN obtains an average mAP of 35.39% on ActivityNet v1.3 and reaches mAP 54.14% at firstname.lastname@example.com on THUMOS-14, which demonstrates DCAN can generate high-quality proposals and achieve state-of-the-art performance. We release the code at https://github.com/cg1177/DCAN.


SUMMARYBehavioural observations and experiments on pollinator efficiency of stingless bees, Trigona carbonaria, and honey bees, Apis mellifera, visiting flowers of macadamia, Macadamia integrifolia, growing in orchards in Australia were performed. Stingless bees mainly collected pollen and this activity resulted in intimate contact with the stigma. Honey bees mainly collected nectar and came into contact with the stigma less often. Racemes which were enclosed in cages which excluded honey bees but allowed visitation by the smaller stingless bees yielded a nut set equal to that on open-pollinated racemes, showing that these bees are efficient pollinators. Honey bees worked flowers more quickly than stingless bees, visiting more flowers in a given time. Both bee species responded to racemes rich in pollen and nectar by remaining longer at those racemes and visiting more flowers on them.


Considering the demand of precision in mould structural surface polishing method, a new method based on soft abrasive flow machining(SAFM) was proposed, which was supposed to achieve polydirectional and multi-angle cutting acting on the surface of the workpiece by utilizing the irregular motion of both wear particles and the media in turbulence flow. Thus as the monodirectional marks on the machined surfaces was eliminated, the disadvantage in machining precision in conventional abrasive flow machining(AFM) method would be overcome. According to the particle distribution characteristics of SAFM, a two-phase dynamic model of abrasive flow oriented to SAFM combined with Discrete Phase Model(DPM) was built to analog simulation with the software Fluent. Sequently the mechanism of ultraprecision machining towards mould structural surface was analyzed briefly. Simulation results show that the abrasive efficiency along the flow passage can be influenced by the development of turbulence and the distribution of dispersed phase. Thus there a specific region can be obtained in the passage in which the abrasive efficiency is relatively stable.


In this paper a dynamic programming (DP) solution approach to a nonconvex resource allocation problem (RAP) is presented. The problem in this paper generalizes the smart home appliances scheduling problem introduced in the companion paper (i.e., Part I). The computation difficulty with solving the RAP depends on the decision variable coupling, which can be described by an interaction graph. This paper proposes a DP algorithm to solve the RAP in the special setting where the interaction graph is a tree. This extends the applicability result of DP to RAP beyond the standard serial case where the interaction graph is a line. The extension of the result is achieved by establishing that even in the tree case DP computation effort is polynomial in the number of decision variables. For RAP in its general form, this paper proposes a modification to the nonserial DP procedure originally introduced by Bertele and Brioschi. Contrary to that of the previous method, the computation effort of the proposed method can be characterized by a well-known minimum feedback vertex set problem. Case studies on known examples indicate that both nonserial DP methods are similarly efficient.


In this paper, a predistortion neural network (PDNN) architecture has been imposed to the Sniffer Mobile Robot (SNFRbot) that is based on spatial multiplexed wireless Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) transmission technology. This proposal is used to improve the system performance by combating one of the main drawbacks that is encountered by OFDM technology; Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR). Simulation results show that using PDNN resulted in better PAPR performance than the previously published work that is based on linear coding, such as Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes and turbo encoding whether using flat fading channel or a Doppler spread channel.


Objective: To assess whether secretory otitis media may be caused by immune imbalance of Treg/Th17 mediated by PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling, so as to find new therapeutic target.Methods: IL-17, TGF- and IL-6, IL-10 and Th17 cytokines were detected in peripheral blood of OME patients (PC group) and healthy people (NC group) by ELISA. The expression of ROR t mRNA and Foxp3mRNA in PBMC was detected by RT-PCR. OME rat model was established and the changes of lymphocytes in middle ear mucosa and spleen and PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling in middle ear mucosa were detected by HE staining, IHC, WB and flow cytometry.Results: The immune imbalance of Treg/Th17 in secretory otitis media (OME) was confirmed by the expression of cytokines in OME serum and analysis of ROR T and Foxp3 mRNA which was Th17 and Treg specific transcription respectively. OME rat model further confirmed that Treg/Th17 imbalance could lead to OME as demonstrated by staining of MIDDLE ear mucosa and expression of ROR T and Foxp3. PI3K, Akt, and mTOR proteins were expressed in the MIDDLE ear mucosa of OME group and CON group, respectively. Compared with CON group, the expression of P-MTOR and P-PI3K proteins in the middle ear mucosa of OME group was significantly increased.Conclusions: Treg/Th17 imbalances are found in OME patients and OME animal model and the pathogenic mechanism may be due to systemic abnormal immune response, activated PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling, abnormal T cell differentiation, leading to middle ear mucosal hyperemia, edema and subsequent occurrence of OME.


When wing root attachments are subject to cyclic loading during a flight, slipbands are produced by fatique. The density of these slipbands increases with the advancing of the fatigue process and initial cracks appear within the persistent slipbands. This project investigates the fatigue response of a titanium alloy wing root joint under different loading spectra during limit-cycle oscillations by the strain-life approach. Although wing root attachments are designed such that the nominal loads remain elastic, stress concentrations often cause plastic strains to develop in the vincinity of notches. Subsequently, wing loads caused by limit-cycle oscillations lead to fatique damage accumulation. This project's results lead to the conclusion that cyclic loading during limit-cycle oscillations can cause fatigue damage in wing root joints. Tensile mean stress is detrimental to the fatique life of wing root joints, while compressive mean stress is beneficial.


Manufacturing companies are under pressure to build faster and more efficient decision-making capabilities due to the rapidly changing customer demand and expectations. The conventional analytical models are no longer sufficient to capture the complexities of the supply chain. Companies are looking to embark in a digital transformation to address these challenges. One of the digital technologies that offer manufacturers a way to navigate this journey is digital twins, a virtual replica of an object, process or system. Our project focused on studying how digital twins can react to a complex and dynamic environment to create an adaptive mechanism and how can digital twins add value to increase operational efficiency. To answer these questions, we created a conceptual framework of digital twin, AI model and developed a learning feedback loop between simulation and artificial intelligence algorithm. We modeled the supply chain network by using data from a beverage industry and created what-if scenarios that involved varying customer demand and lead time through discrete-event simulation. The output of the simulation was fed into the AI algorithm. The AI prediction was simulated again and results were analyzed. Our research provides insights and discover value associated with adopting these technologies for better decision making. Our recommendation from this study will help supply chain managers understand that a digital twin and AI model framework can be developed, and can be utilized to foresee patterns in supply chain, and proactively take actions to resolve any bottlenecks and constraints. Capstone Advisor: Özden Tozanli Yilmaz Title: Postdoctoral Associate


Author(s): Fan, Z; Pereira, LFC; Wang, HQ; Zheng, JC; Donadio, D; Harju, A | Abstract: © 2015 American Physical Society. We derive expressions of interatomic force and heat current for many-body potentials such as the Tersoff, the Brenner, and the Stillinger-Weber potential used extensively in molecular dynamics simulations of covalently bonded materials. Although these potentials have a many-body nature, a pairwise force expression that follows Newton's third law can be found without referring to any partition of the potential. Based on this force formula, a stress applicable for periodic systems can be unambiguously defined. The force formula can then be used to derive the heat current formulas using a natural potential partitioning. Our heat current formulation is found to be equivalent to most of the seemingly different heat current formulas used in the literature, but to deviate from the stress-based formula derived from two-body potential. We validate our formulation numerically on various systems described by the Tersoff potential, namely three-dimensional silicon and diamond, two-dimensional graphene, and quasi-one-dimensional carbon nanotube. The effects of cell size and production time used in the simulation are examined.


Transaction processing in a heterogeneous application environment can be a very insecure activity. This is because such transactions are vulnerable to numerous threats, such as cybercrime, fraud, espionage, identity theft, and other technological and organizational problems. This study focuses on how a set of applications and security solutions can be integrated in a secure, reliable, and sustainable way using message-based middleware. It is not difficult to create a secure transaction processing system if it does not require horizontal scalability, does not require dealing with a great diversity of applications and hardware, and involves only a very low volume of transactions. However, making a secure transaction processing system that does need to deal with these factors has been quite challenging. This last issue of making a system that can deal with a high volume of transactions in brief interval of time for sustained periods has been particularly challenging. Centered upon a proof-ofconcept implementation, this paper proposes the use of message-based middleware as the most appropriate solution for this security problem. It also describes the creation of one such software system, describes some tests of this solution under simulated conditions, and critically evaluates the results.


It is well recognized that air pollution is not only a local environmental problem related to human health but also a regional-global problem closely related to global warming – climate change. PM2.5 including black carbon particles and tropospheric ozone are assumed to be important constituents known as SLCP (short-lived climate pollutants). Emission of those pollutants as well as their source compounds such as NOx, VOCs, and SO2 affects the environment of the source country, surrounding countries, and moreover, whole northern hemisphere by long-range trans-boundary transport. Such long-range transport often takes place through free troposphere. Transport of Asian yellow sand dust (Kosa) is a well-known example. It travels over the Pacific Ocean and arrives in North America. In order to monitor atmospheric pollutants transported through free troposphere mountainous observation sites serve an important function. And, thus, atmospheric chemistry and physics studied at high mountains provides unique and important information. From such a point of view Symposium on Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics at Mountain Sites 2017 (ACPM2017) was held in Gotemba, Japan at the foot of Mt. Fuji in November, 2017.


Electrochemical characteristics of covellite (CuS) are of importance from flotation and metallurgical point of view, as well as due to its potential application in solid state solar cells and in photocatalytic reactions. Also, the compound CuS appears as an intermediary product or a final product in electrochemical oxidation reactions of chalcocite (Cu2S) which exhibits supercapacitor characteristics. Natural copper mineral covellite has been investigated in inorganic sulfate acid electrolytes, as well as in strong alkaline electrolyte. Physical properties of covellite were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and the active surface was examined by optical and electron microscopy (EM) before and after oxidation in galvanostatic regime. Different electrochemical methods (galvanostatic, potentiostatic, cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy - EIS) have been used. The capacitance of around 21 Fcm-2 (geometric area), serial resistance of about 90 Ωcm2 and leakage resistance of about 1200 Ωcm2 have been measured in 1 M H2SO4. The addition of cupric ions in sulfate electrolyte leads to the significant increasing of the capacitance, but having the increase of self-discharge as a negative side phenomenon. The capacitance of around 6.7 Fcm-2 (geometric area), serial resistance of about 80 Ωcm2 and leakage resistance of about 380 Ωcm2 have been measured in 6 M KOH.


The cocoa industry represents a major source of income for most economies including Ghana. Despite huge investments made by Ghana government, the sector still faces various forms of risks. This study examines the various categories of risks within the cocoa supply chain in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Quantitative method was adopted using Primary data. The study revealed that cocoa related diseases were the major production related risks. Again, high inflation rate and instability of the local currency were found as the key causal factors of commercial related risks whilst ineffective information sharing among the parties and partners accounted for the environmental related risks, negatively affecting productivity. It is recommended that farmers be given training on cocoa related disease to be able to deal with these risks whilst information sharing and trust building among the supply chain players should also be improved to enhance coordination and integration of the supply chain.


The development of the Hungarian Public Administration's personnel management has been deeply impacted by the on-going global reinterpretation of the general role and significance of HR in government departments, and by the simultaneous paradigm shift in civil service.
Meaning, that on the one hand Human Resources Management has become a strategic partner to leadership in human-oriented organisational development. It is able to aid the interpretation of challenges and the aim of policy reforms, planning, execution and evaluation of changes, impact assessment and reporting.
On the other hand, organisational decision-making has been gaining significance, while at the same time, the centralized legal regulation has become less relevant in HRM does questions due to the deregulation of human resources management in civil service.. This tendency puts a higher emphasis on HR Knowledge Exchange Systems and knowledge-sharing methods.
The HR Knowledge Exchange System and Expert Network plans with the aim of providing online and offline support to HR professionals in public administration in order to improve their HR knowledge and competencies of both offline (project-based events) and online (via Online Forum) professional communities.
Combined, the HR Knowledge Exchange System and Expert Network provides support to HR professionals primarily through granting access to an online academic research database with upto- date content, forum discussions as well as face-to-face counselling in a way that fits the requirements of the current tendencies of the reorganisation process of HR functions. It also contributes to the implementation of the 'Healthy Organisation Model' in practice.


Acoustic interference can impede effective communication that is important for survival and reproduction of animals. In response to acoustic interference, some animals can improve signalling efficacy by altering the structure of their signals. In this study, we played artificial noise to 46 male spring peepers Pseudacris crucifer, on their breeding grounds, and tested whether the noise affected the duration, call rate, and peak frequency of their advertisement calls. We used two experimental noise treatments that masked either the high- or low-frequency components of an average advertisement call; this allowed us to evaluate whether frogs adaptively shift the peak frequency of their calls away from both types of interference. Our playback treatments caused spring peepers to produce shorter calls, and the high-frequency noise treatment caused them to lower the frequency of their calls immediately after the noise ceased. Call rate did not change in response to playback. Consistent with previous studies, ambient temperature was inversely related to call duration and positively related to call rate. We conclude that noise affects the structure of spring peeper advertisement calls, and that spring peepers therefore have a mechanism for altering signal structure in response to noise. Future studies should test if other types of noise, such as biotic or anthropogenic noise, have similar effects on call structure, and if the observed changes to call structure enhance or impair communication in noisy environments (Current Zoology 60 (4): 438-448, 2014).


Cells with different cohesive properties self-assemble in a spatiotemporal and context-dependent manner. Previous studies on cell self-organization mainly focused on the spontaneous structural development within a short period of time during which the cell numbers remained constant. However the effect of cell proliferation over time on the self-organization of cells is largely unexplored. Here, we studied the spatiotemporal dynamics of self-organization of a co-culture of MDA-MB-231 and MCF10A cells seeded in a well defined space (i.e. non-adherent microfabricated wells). When cell-growth was chemically inhibited, high cohesive MCF10A cells formed a core surrounded by low cohesive MDA-MB-231 cells on the periphery, consistent with the differential adhesion hypothesis (DAH). Interestingly, this aggregate morphology was completely inverted when the cells were free to grow. At an initial seeding ratio of 1 : 1 (MDA-MB-231 : MCF10A), the fast growing MCF10A cells segregated in the periphery while the slow growing MDA-MB-231 cells stayed in the core. Another morphology developed at an inequal seeding ratio (4 : 1), that is, the cell mixtures developed a side-by-side aggregate morphology. We conclude that the cell self-organization depends not only on the cell cohesive properties but also on the cell seeding ratio and proliferation. Furthermore, by taking advantage of the cell self-organization, we purified human embryonic stem cells-derived pancreatic progenitors (hESCs-PPs) from co-cultured feeder cells without using any additional tools or labels.


Due to a poor understanding of the interactions among transmitters, wireless networks using carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) have been commonly stigmatized as unpredictable in nature. Even elementary questions regarding the throughput limitations of these networks cannot be answered in general. In this paper, we investigate the behavior of wireless CSMA/CA networks to understand how the transmissions of a particular node affect the medium access, and ultimately the throughput, of other nodes in the network. We introduce a theory which accurately models the behavior of these networks and show that, contrary to popular belief, their performance is predictable and can be described by a system of equations. Using the proposed theory, we provide the analytical expressions necessary to fully characterize the capacity region of any wireless CSMA/CA network. We show that this region is nonconvex in general and agnostic to the probability distributions of all network parameters, depending only on their expected values. Our theory is also shown to extend naturally to time division multiple access (TDMA) networks and to predict how the network responds to infeasible input rates.


Many studies are conducted in which replication of units is prohibitive. Traditional methods of hypothesis testing do not allow for analysis of unreplicated experiments. An abundance of subsampling allows for accurate estimation of within-treatment variance, but does not constitute experimental error. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) is a ratio involving both the within-treatment variance and the between-treatment variance. We propose a method for analyzing unreplicated experiments that exploits the relationship among the ICC, within-treatment variance, and between-treatment variance by placing a reasonable upper bound on the ICC (from prior research) and using subsampling to carry out classical tests of significance that have conservative levels of significance. The methodology has wide applicability for analyzing unreplicated experiments and may be implemented in SAS (Cary, NC) using the MIXED procedure. As a demonstration of the methodology, the authors used data from an unpublished study in which a researcher tested the effectiveness of four different treatments [(i) control; (ii) sample-dependent release of the predacious phytoseiid mite (Phytoseiulus persimilis Athias-Henriot, PP); (iii) scheduled release of PP; (iv) Floramite {2-(4-methoxy-[1,1-biphenyl]-3-yl)-1-methyl-ethyl ester; UniRoyal Chemical Company, Inc., Middlesbury, CT) pesticide application] controlling two-spotted spider mites (hereafter refered to as just mites) in commercial greenhouses. Four greenhouses were used for the study. Within each greenhouse, eight potted ivy geranium [Pelargonium peltatum (L.) L'Her. ex Ait., 'Summer-Rose Red'] plants were inoculated with mites. One of the four treatments was applied in each of the four greenhouses. At the end of 1 wk, the number of mites was counted on each potted plant in each greenhouse. Using the proposed methodology, one-factor ANOVA was performed with follow-up tests identifying significant differences among the treatment means.


We explored whether changes in the expression profile of peripheral blood plasma proteins may provide a clinical, readily accessible "window" into the brain, reflecting molecular alterations following traumatic brain injury (TBI) that might contribute to TBI complications. We recruited fourteen TBI and ten control civilian participants for the study, and also analyzed banked plasma specimens from 20 veterans with TBI and 20 control cases. Using antibody arrays and ELISA assays, we explored differentially-regulated protein species in the plasma of TBI compared to healthy controls from the two independent cohorts. We found three protein biomarker species, monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1), insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-3, and epidermal growth factor receptor, that are differentially regulated in plasma specimens of the TBI cases. A three-biomarker panel using all three proteins provides the best potential criterion for separating TBI and control cases. Plasma MCP-1 contents are correlated with the severity of TBI and the index of compromised axonal fiber integrity in the frontal cortex. Based on these findings, we evaluated postmortem brain specimens from 7 mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 7 neurologically normal cases. We found elevated MCP-1 expression in the frontal cortex of MCI cases that are at high risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. Our findings suggest that additional application of the three-biomarker panel to current diagnostic criteria may lead to improved TBI detection and more sensitive outcome measures for clinical trials. Induction of MCP-1 in response to TBI might be a potential predisposing factor that may increase the risk for development of Alzheimer's disease.


has been directed towards the characterisation of the electrical behaviour of the material under various stress conditions. There is now an extensive published literature on the response of the material to impulse current stresses of different shape and amplitude. An aim of some of these investigations is to achieve an equivalent circuit representation which adequately simulate the observed test results. An adequate equivalent circuit representation will aid the reliable and efficient design of the overvoltage protection and help to improve the optimisation of the protective devices. A significant impediment to the accurate characterisation of zinc oxide has been the lack of reliable test data especially for fast-rate-of-rise impulses in the microsecond and sub-microsecond range. The measurement of residual voltages using impulses in this range is highly influenced by the circuit arrangement and measurement transducer characteristics. The measurement of voltage using parallel connected transducers is inherently affected by circuit inductances and the transfer characteristic of the divider itself. An improved voltage transducer based upon the D-dot probe principle was adopted. Previous published results obtained using this transducer showed that there is no evidence to link the voltage overshoot seen on the residual voltage trace of zinc oxide with the characteristics of the material itself. This observation has positive implications for the protective performance of zinc oxide and will allow a more accurate characterisation of the material.


Using the modified Irwin model and the modified Dugdale model, the plastic zone size near the interface crack tip in a ductile layer bonding two dissimilar elastic substrates is predicted. Validity of the models is examined by finite element method. The effects of several factors such as the mode mixity, T-stress and material properties are explored. The plastic zone size dramatically increases with the Poisson's ratio of the ductile layer.


The purpose of this study was to determine cardiopulmonary and selected metabolic responses in spinal cord injured (SCI) paraplegics during prolonged arm crank exercise (ACE). Six male and one female elite SCI paraplegic (T4-12 lesions) road racers performed 40 continuous minutes of ACE at 60% of peak ACE oxygen uptake (VO2). Blood samples (30 ml) were collected via antecubital venipuncture at rest and minutes 20 and 40 of ACE for determinations of hemoglobin, hematocrit, serum free fatty acid (FFA), and blood lactate (LA) concentrations. No significant differences were observed over time for VO2 or pulmonary ventilation. Heart rate recorded at minutes 30 and 40 was significantly elevated above HR at minutes 10 and 20 of ACE indicating the presence of an upward drift in HR in paraplegics performing prolonged ACE. Compared to rest, LA concentration was significantly higher at minute 20 and remained relatively stable thereafter. A significant increase in FFA concentration at minute 40 combined with a significant decline in the respiratory exchange ratio suggested a preference for lipid substrate utilization by exercising muscle as ACE continued. The data indicate that the autonomic sympathetic nervous system impairment associated with paraplegia had no apparent adverse effects on cardiopulmonary or metabolic adjustments to prolonged ACE in these well-trained subjects.


In this paper, we propose a novel method, referred to as incomplete multi-view tensor spectral clustering with missing-view inferring (IMVTSC-MVI) to address the challenging multi-view clustering problem with missing views. Different from the existing methods which commonly focus on exploring the certain information of the available views while ignoring both of the hidden information of the missing views and the intra-view information of data, IMVTSC-MVI seeks to recover the missing views and explore the full information of such recovered views and available views for data clustering. In particular, IMVTSC-MVI incorporates the feature space based missing-view inferring and manifold space based similarity graph learning into a unified framework. In such a way, IMVTSC-MVI allows these two learning tasks to facilitate each other and can well explore the hidden information of the missing views. Moreover, IMVTSC-MVI introduces the low-rank tensor constraint to capture the high-order correlations of multiple views. Experimental results on several datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of IMVTSC-MVI for incomplete multi-view clustering.


Reactive oxygen metabolites such as hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)) and oxidized fatty acids are proinflammatory and are involved in the pathophysiology of various diseases including atherosclerosis. The effects of these oxidants could be inhibited by the external addition of an antioxidant, suggesting the promotion or propagation of further oxidation. In this study, we describe the stable overexpression of human catalase in smooth muscle cells and the resistance of these cells to cytotoxicity induced not only by the addition of H(2)O(2) but also by the addition of 13-hydroperoxyoctadecadienoic acid (13-HPODE). The results pose an intriguing possibility of the generation of H(2)O(2) from a peroxidized fatty acid. Accordingly, incubation of cells with both 13-HPODE and 13-hydroxyoctadecadienoic acid resulted in the generation of intracellular H(2)O(2). To explain the observed results by which catalase could overcome the effects of 13-HPODE, we propose that oxidized fatty acids are degraded in the cellular peroxisomes, resulting in the generation of H(2)O(2). In other words, the cellular effects of peroxidized fatty acids could be attributed to the generation of H(2)O(2).


Rationale: Currently available approaches to osteoporosis treatment include application of antiresorptive and anabolic agents influencing bone tissue metabolism. The aim of the study was to present bone mineral density (BMD) changes of lumbar spine in osteoporotic patient treated with bisphosphonates such as ibandronic acid and pamidronic acid, and beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate (HMB). Patient concerns: BMD and volumetric BMD (vBMD) of lumbar spine were measured during the 6 year observation period with the use of dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) and quantitative computed tomography (QCT). Diagnoses: The described case report of osteoporotic patient with family history of severe osteoporosis has shown site-dependent response of bone tissue to antiosteoporotic treatment with bisphosphonates. Interventions and outcomes: Twenty-five-month treatment with ibandronic acid improved proximal femur BMD with relatively poor effects on lumbar spine BMD. Over 15-month therapy with pamidronic acid was effective to improve lumbar spine BMD, while in the proximal femur the treatment was not effective. A total of 61-week long oral administration with calcium salt of HMB improved vBMD of lumbar spine in the trabecular and cortical bone compartments when monitored by QCT. Positive effects of nearly 2.5 year HMB treatment on BMD of lumbar spine and femur in the patient were also confirmed using DEXA method. Lessons: The results obtained indicate that HMB may be applied for the effective treatment of osteoporosis in humans. Further studies on wider human population are recommended to evaluate mechanisms influencing bone tissue metabolism by HMB.


The efficacy of cytoflavin in the treatment of 60 patients (39 women, 21 men, age 32-64 year) with spondylogenic cervical and lumbosacral radiculomyeloischemia due to degenerative dystrophic spinal lesions was studied in a randomized double-blind placebo controlled study according to GCP rules. During 10 days 40 patients received intravenous cytoflavin dropper injections once daily; 20 patients (control group) received 5% glucose solution as a placebo. Considerable improvement was observed in 70% patients with radiculomyeloischemia of cervical localization and in 65%--with radiculomyeloischemia of lumbosacral segments. In the control group, positive dynamics of neurologic symptoms was 25-30% lower. Cytoflavin significantly reduced cognitive disturbances, improved reparative processes both in the central and peripheral neurons, and may be recommended in ischemic neuronal spinal lesions.