The implementation of the EU Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) started on January 1st 2005 according to national plans for allocating emissions rights. The steel industry is one of the industrial sectors included in this scheme. The objective of this paper is to investigate and evaluate the optimum solution(s) for European steel plants to meet their emission allowance with low reduction cost. An optimization model based on a Swedish steel plant is developed and used. Three scenarios were created in the model, i.e., internal changes within the steel plant, EU ETS, and the Kyoto Protocol's clean development mechanism (CDM). For the last scenario, China was selected as a country of the non-Annex I Party for the emission trading by CDM. The modeling results show that the studied plant will face an emission gap between allowed and calculated emissions in the near future. Compared to EU ETS, the implementation of CDM projects will make the plant reduce CO2 emissions at a lower cost. The internal changes within the plant will also play an important role for the solution of low abatement cost. The model developed could serve as a benchmark for the future emission trading simulation's purpose within the European steel industry.


This paper introduces the offline meta-reinforcement learning (offline meta-RL) problem setting and proposes an algorithm that performs well in this setting. Offline meta-RL is analogous to the widely successful supervised learning strategy of pre-training a model on a large batch of fixed, pre-collected data (possibly from various tasks) and fine-tuning the model to a new task with relatively little data. That is, in offline meta-RL, we meta-train on fixed, pre-collected data from several tasks and adapt to a new task with a very small amount (less than 5 trajectories) of data from the new task. By nature of being offline, algorithms for offline meta-RL can utilize the largest possible pool of training data available and eliminate potentially unsafe or costly data collection during meta-training. This setting inherits the challenges of offline RL, but it differs significantly because offline RL does not generally consider a) transfer to new tasks or b) limited data from the test task, both of which we face in offline meta-RL. Targeting the offline meta-RL setting, we propose Meta-Actor Critic with Advantage Weighting (MACAW). MACAW is an optimization-based meta-learning algorithm that uses simple, supervised regression objectives for both the inner and outer loop of meta-training. On offline variants of common meta-RL benchmarks, we empirically find that this approach enables fully offline meta-reinforcement learning and achieves notable gains over prior methods.


While home care has received much attention lately, little research to date has drawn on the experiences of rural multidisciplinary teams providing in-home care. Home care is typically studied in urban areas, with the tendency to expand urban practices to rural settings, often with problematic results. This paper presents findings regarding unique rural multidisciplinary home care issues, challenges, and strategies for solutions. Five focus group interviews were held with each of three rural multidisciplinary home care provider groups (n=19) in southwest Ontario, Canada. Findings revealed practice issues related to time, distance, communication, recruitment and retention, as well as system issues regarding poor understanding and scheduling of rural practice by administrators and urban employers. Study findings indicate that rural home care requires enhanced understanding and changes to policies and practices to provide efficient and effective care to rural residents. Best practice guidelines for home care in rural areas are urgently needed.


The papers gathered in this issue of LeL were originally presented as talks at a workshop on Sardinian Morphology during the 8th Mediterranean Morphology Meeting, held in Cagliari in September 2011. The versions presented here are the extension of the research and the elaboration of the cues and observations which were provided on this occasion. Sardinian morphology is a field of inquiry on which there are several studies in the tradition of Romance (historical) linguistics and dialectology, capitalizing on first-hand field-work. However, the rich array of cross-dialectal variation, in morphology and elsewhere, revealed by research in this descriptive tradition has gone largely unperceived by general linguists, partly due to the paucity of studies in this area whose problematic horizon intersects with hot topics in current theoretical morphology. The present collection of papers is an attempt to take a step towards increasing the visibility of Sardinian morphology for fellow-linguists working in morphological theory, on the Romance languages and beyond. All the papers collected here, albeit coming from partially different theoretical backgrounds, share the effort to place their respective research objects in a theoretical perspective. Thus, if they all give high relevance to a careful description of phenomena, in none of them does the relevance accorded to the empirical data and their description in any way subtend the assumption that observation can be free of theory-ladenness (in the sense of Hanson's1958 Patterns of Discovery).


Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE AR-SA Abstract This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of dietary zinc supplementation on performance, blood biochemistry and blood indices of Nubian goat kids. Twenty Nubian goat kids at approximate age of 3.5- 4 months and average weight 11.5kg were used in this experiment, fed two experimental diets, group (A) as control ( with no added zinc ), and group (B) the basal ration supplement with zinc as zinc sulfate 33mg/kg . The kids were randomly assigned to two treatments (10 animals each), then the animals in each treatment was subdivided into two groups of five animals (replicates). The study showed that there was no significant difference (P>0.05) between treatments for average final body weight gain, average daily weight gain, average feed intake and feed conversion ratio, estimates of these traits were 15.72 ± 0.96 -15.72 ± 0.96, 77.55 ± 7.66 -75.51 ± 10.34, 478.68 ± 12.39- 478.68 ± 12.39 and 6.17 ± 0.47, 6.17 ± 0.47 respectively. Dietary treatment had significant (p=0.05) effect on blood serum glucose, the control group recorded 60.00 b ± 6.40 Vs 77.48 a ± 5.89 (mg/100ml). However, the other chemical blood parameter showed no significant differences between the animal groups throughout the experimental period. According to the results obtained dietary zinc supplementation (33mg zinc/kg) had no effect on performance, blood indices and blood biochemistry except glucose of Nubian goat kids.


BACKGROUND Adjuvant radiotherapy (ART) has been recommended for squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) with a high risk of recurrence, particularly perineurally invasive disease. The utility of ART is unknown. This study compares reported outcomes of high‐risk SCC treated with surgical monotherapy (SM) with those of surgery plus ART (S+ART). METHODS The Medline database was searched for reports of high‐risk SCC treated with SM or S+ART that reported outcomes of interest: local recurrence, regional or distant metastasis, or disease‐specific death. RESULTS There were no controlled trials. Of the 2,449 cases of high‐risk SCC included, 91 were treated with S+ART. Tumor stage and surgical margin status before ART were generally unreported. In 74 cases of perineural invasion (PNI), outcomes were statistically similar between SM and S+ART. In 943 high‐risk SCC cases in which clear surgical margins were explicitly documented, risks of local recurrence, regional metastasis, distant metastasis, and disease‐specific death were 5%, 5%, 1%, and 1%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS High cure rates are achieved in high‐risk cutaneous SCC when clear surgical margins are obtained. Current data are insufficient to identify high‐risk features in which ART may be beneficial. In cases of PNI, the extent of nerve involvement appears to affect outcomes, with involvement of larger nerves imparting a worse prognosis. The authors have indicated no significant interest with commercial supporters.


We study the stability properties of strong hydrodynamic shocks and their associated radiative cooling layers. We explore a range of conditions which covers both molecular and atomic gas impacting against a rigid wall. Through a linear analysis employing a cooling function of the form ? ? ? ?T ? and a specific heat ratio of ?, we determine the overstability regime in the parameter space consisting of ?, ? and ?. In general, if ? is sufficiently low, the fundamental mode leads to long-wavelength growing oscillations. For the fundamental mode, we find that values of ? corresponding to molecular hydrodynamics lead to a significantly restricted instability range for ? in comparison with the shocks in a monatomic medium. The conditions for the growth of higher-order modes, however, are relatively unchanged. This predicts that certain molecular shocks are prone to displaying signatures of small-scale rapid variability. Dissociative shocks, however, can be subject to a large-scale overstability if subsequent molecule formation in the cooling layer abruptly increases the cooling rate. In contrast to the dynamical rippling overstability, the cooling overstability is suppressed for a sufficiently low specific heat ratio.


Dissimilar aluminum alloys such as 2024-T3 and 7075-T6 plates 3 mm thickness were friction stir butt welded. The welding was carried out at a constant welding speed of 100 mm/min and rotation speeds of 400, 800, 1200, 1600 and 2000 min -1 . Effects of rotation speeds and fixed location of two alloys on microstructures especially the homogeneity of elemental distribution in the stir zone (SZ), hardness distributions, and tensile properties of the joints were investigated. The homogeneity of constituents of the two alloys in the SZ was analyzed by a scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with an energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). At the lowest rotation speed of 400 min -1 there was no mixing of two alloys in the SZ and a border between them was observed regardless of the fixed location. Increase of rotation speed more than 400 min -1 brought about a mixed structure likewise onion ring with periodic change of equiaxed grain size and heterogeneous distribution of alloying elements in the SZ. At 2000 min -1 of rotation speed the SZ mainly composed of the material fixed on the advancing side. The hardness increased in the zones occupied by 2024-T3 Al alloy and fluctuations took place in the SZ due to the onion ring at the higher rotation speeds till 1600 min -1 . At 2000 min -1 of rotation speed the hardness of SZ mainly depend on the material fixed on the advancing side. Hardness minima was in the heat affected zone (HAZ) on the side of AA2024-T3 Al alloy and the values slightly increased as the rotation speed increased. In the case of transverse tensile test, defect-free joints were fractured at the HAZ on 2024-T3 side and a maximum tensile strength of the joints was achieved at 1200 min -1 of rotation speed when 2024-T3 Al alloy was located on the advancing side. On the other hand, the tensile properties of SZ in the longitudinal direction showed higher values when 7075 Al alloy was located on the advancing side.


Most clinically approved large biotherapeutics are monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), primarily belonging to immunoglobulin G subclass-1 (IgG1) and, to a lesser extent, IgG2 and IgG4. Glycosylation is the main source of post-translational heterogeneity of mAbs, impacting their drug therapeutic mechanism of action (MOA). Glycosylation is also one of the critical factors in drug product solubility, kinetics, stability and efficacy. Thus, monitoring glycan critical quality attributes (CQAs) is an essential part of any biopharmaceutical development. The binding affinity of an IgG to its cellular Fc receptor (FcR) depends on both its IgG subclass and Fc domain glycosylation pattern. Since composition of the N-glycans also correlates to the Antibody-Dependent Cellular Cytotoxicity (ADCC), the glycosylation pattern needs to be monitored for consistency in potency and efficacy. This applies for the original mAb biologics as well as biosimilars. In this chapter, we present a truly novel way to assess the variances in mAb glycoforms using FcγRIIIa-based affinity chromatography. First, a brief overview of the Fc receptor function is presented. Then, the principle of FcR-based affinity chromatography is explained including how this column's potential to analyze a variety of mAbs according to their N-glycan content is highly selective and robust. Finally, we provide examples of the FcR column's potential to improve analytical characterization of mAbs with practical applications such as effective cell line screening, monitoring of glycoengineering, process development and process control in manufacturing.


We present experimental data on the limiting behavior of an interreality system comprising a virtual horizontally driven pendulum coupled to its real-world counterpart, where the interaction time scale is much shorter than the time scale of the dynamical system. We present experimental evidence that if the physical parameters of the virtual system match those of the real system within a certain tolerance, there is a transition from an uncorrelated dual reality state to a mixed reality state of the system in which the motion of the two pendula is highly correlated. The region in parameter space for stable solutions has an Arnold tongue structure for both the experimental data and for a numerical simulation. As virtual systems better approximate real ones, even weak coupling in other interreality systems may produce sudden changes to mixed reality states.


While these may not all have been statistically watertight studies, they did show a reduced rather than an increased incidence of thromboebolic disease. Hougie2 in an excellent review article quotes the Puerto Rican study3 designed especially to determine the effects of oral contraceptive agents on the incidence of thromboembolic disease in which 9,898 patients were randomly allocated to the contraceptive pill or to other contraceptive methods and followed up. This very large prospective study also failed to show an increased risk of thrombophlebitis among pill users. It may be argued that these surveys are dealing with different population groups, but it is by no means proved that "clotting [is] provoked by oral contraceptives."I am, etc., MICHAEL KLABER St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London E.C.1


Mothers' stress was shown to considerably diminish the orienting-studying activity of male rats in the dioestrus stage, as well as enhancement of anxiety. In prenatally stressed male rats, on the contraty, the anxiety diminished while their behaviour in the open field tests remained practically unaltered. The prenatal stress affected the stressor response of the hypophysis-adrenal systems in both sexes. The data obtained suggest that the mothers' stress affects both behaviour and stressor response in male as well as female rats.


Colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals can be used for a variety of optoelectronic applications including light emitting devices (LEDs) and photovoltaics. Their narrow emission spectra make them excellent fluorophors for use in red, green and blue emitting organic LEDs and have been shown to achieve external quantum efficiencies as high as 2.7%, 1.8% and 0.4% respectively. Better synthetic methods have produced nanocrystal emitters with higher quantum yield, boosting efficiency, while a better understanding of QD-OLED function has led to improved organic transport materials. These QD-OLED devices can also be redesigned using inorganic hole and electron transport materials to produce inorganic QD-LEDs (QD-ILEDs) with EQE as high as 0.1%. Inorganic transport layers are more robust to solvents and oxygen, and are expected to greatly increase the device lifetime of QD-LEDs over devices employing organic materials. New QD deposition techniques using an inorganic hole transport layer include inkjet printing and Langmuir-Shaeffer dip-coating. Greater synthetic control of the II-VI nanocrystals has also yielded type-II CdSe/CdTe nanobarbells capable of internal exciton separation for photovoltaic applications. Although efficient solar cells using this material could not be produced, the material has given us several insights into the physics and future designs of bulk heterojunction photovoltaic devices. Finally, nanocrystal heterostructures formed using J-aggregate dyes electrostatically bound to QDs, have shown potential for use in LCD or lasing device applications. Thesis Supervisor: Moungi G. Bawendi, Ph.D. Title: Professor of Chemistry For Kira and my family Table of


Aim To construct patient-specific solid models of human cornea from ocular topographer data, to increase the accuracy of the biomechanical and optical estimate of the changes in refractive power and stress caused by photorefractive keratectomy (PRK). Method Corneal elevation maps of five human eyes were taken with a rotating Scheimpflug camera combined with a Placido disk before and after refractive surgery. Patient-specific solid models were created and discretized in finite elements to estimate the corneal strain and stress fields in preoperative and postoperative configurations and derive the refractive parameters of the cornea. Results Patient-specific geometrical models of the cornea allow for the creation of personalized refractive maps at different levels of IOP. Thinned postoperative corneas show a higher stress gradient across the thickness and higher sensitivity of all geometrical and refractive parameters to the fluctuation of the IOP. Conclusion Patient-specific numerical models of the cornea can provide accurate quantitative information on the refractive properties of the cornea under different levels of IOP and describe the change of the stress state of the cornea due to refractive surgery (PRK). Patient-specific models can be used as indicators of feasibility before performing the surgery.


OBJECTIVE
To assess psychiatric symptoms, substance use, quality of life and eating behavior of patients undergoing bariatric surgery before and after the procedure.

METHODS
We conducted a prospective longitudinal study of 32 women undergoing bariatric surgery. To obtain data, the patients answered specific, self-administered questionnaires.

RESULTS
We observed a reduction in depressive and anxious symptoms and also in bulimic behavior, as well as an improved quality of life in the physical, psychological and environmental domains. There was also a decrease in use of antidepressants and appetite suppressants, but the surgery was not a cessation factor in smoking and / or alcoholism.

CONCLUSION
a decrease in psychiatric symptoms was observed after bariatric surgery, as well as the reduction in the use of psychoactive substances. In addition, there was an improvement in quality of life after surgical treatment of obesity.


Caenorhabditis elegans xpa-1 and him-1 are orthologs of human XPA (xeroderma pigmentosum group A) and human SMC1A (Structural maintenance of chromosomes 1A), respectively. Mutations in the XPA are correlated with Xeroderma pigmentosum, a condition that induces hypersensitivity to ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Alternatively, SMC1A mutations may lead to Cornelia de Lange Syndrome, a multi-organ disorder that makes patients more sensitive to UVinduced DNA damage. Both C. elegans genes have been found to be involved in protection against UV radiation, but their combined effects have not been tested when they are both knocked down. We hypothesized that because these genes are involved in separate pathways, the simultaneous knockdown of both of these genes using RNA interference (RNAi) in C. elegans will cause them to become more sensitive to UV radiation than either of them knocked down individually. UV protection was measured via the percent survival of C. elegans post 365 nm and 5.4x10-19 joules of UV radiation. The double xpa-1/him-1 RNAi knockdown showed a significantly reduced percent survival after 15 and 30 minutes of UV radiation relative to wild-type and xpa-1 and him-1 single knockdowns. These measurements were consistent with our hypothesis and demonstrated that xpa-1 and him-1 genes play distinct roles in resistance against UV stress in C. elegans. This result raises the possibility that the xpa-1/him-1 double knockdown could be useful as an animal model for studying the human disease Xeroderma pigmentosum and Cornelia de Lange Syndrome.


Abstract We live in a rapidly changing and increasingly complex world, where universities try to keep up with all kinds of developments and developing and implementing new and diversified curricula. Moreover, the way department heads exhibit their leadership practices is becoming more and more complicated because universities keep struggling for their own survival as a result of these changes. At universities, department heads often perform a middle-management role depending on the organizational structure of each university and this role is usually taken for granted and is unquestioned. The goal of this study was to evaluate the leadership practices and behaviors exhibited by the middle level administrators including department heads, supervisors and coordinators at universities in North Cyprus.The research approach was both quantitive and qualitative including a variety of data sources including open-ended surveys, interviews used together with the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI).


Introduction: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has been considered to be the hepatic manifestation of metabolic syndrome, and may progress to Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis NASH and / or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), thus being associated with a high cardiovascular and carcinogenic risk. Thus, it becomes necessary to understand the underlying mechanisms involved in the genesis of NAFLD and its progression to NASH and HCC, so that a better therapeutic approach can be defined in an attempt to cease and reverse this progression. Objective: To review main mechanisms involved in NASH, from inflammatory pathways, microbiota, cytokines and some more current theories such as the role of the extracellular trap of degranulation and neutrophil production (NETs). Methods: An integrative review was conducted with active search of articles in English using Medline, Embase, Lilacs and Pubmed data, using descriptors related to "non-alcoholic fatty liver disease", "non-alcoholic steatohepatitis", "pathophysiology", "cytokines" and "molecular mechanisms" without restriction of period. Results: 182 articles were found, of which 40 were selected for this review, including original articles, clinical and experimental research, and systematic reviews. Discussion: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease may occur through increased absorption, fatty acid synthesis, lipogenesis, reduction of triglyceride hydrolysis and mitochondrial beta-oxidation of fatty acids, contributing to increased production of free radicals and reactive oxygen species, involving many inflammatory mediators. Cytokines may play an active role in the development and progression of NAFLD by stimulation hepatic inflammation, cell necrosis, apoptosis and induction of fibrosis. However, they are also essential for liver regeneration. Conclusions: Metabolic dysfunction leads to lipotoxicity, innate immune responses and the resulting pattern of cellular inflammation in the liver are probably also relevant for liver fibrogenesis and hepatocarcinogenesis. The most studied and described cytokines were adiponectin, leptin, TNF-α, IL-6, visfatin, A-activator and chemerin.. This knowledge becomes fundamental for new diagnostic procedures and therapeutic strategies to avoid NASH progression.


The present study is concerned with the numerical simulation of the pressure-driven flow around a confined cylinder subjected to a DC electric field. The flow situation differs from the conventional von Karman vortex street flow in terms of confinement. Additionally, the DC electric field induces a very small but finite electrokinetic velocity at the cylinder surface in contrast to the no-slip velocity in the conventional case. Various numerical simulations are performed in the Laminar Vortex Shedding Regime to investigate the influence of the confinement and the direction and strength of the electric field. For flows without electrokinetic manipulation, the blockage ratio shifts the critical Reynolds number to higher values. Likewise, the dimensionless shedding frequency (Strouhal number) at a given Reynolds number increases with increasing blockage ratio. For flows with electrokinetic manipulation, the time that is required to obtain a steady Laminar Vortex Shedding Regime is reduced compared to the corresponding pure pressure-driven flow. Steady electrokinetic manipulation does not influence the dimensionless shedding frequency. The reduction of the transient is related to differences in the flow topologies around the cylinder. The electrokinetic velocity breaks the axial flow symmetry of the Laminar Steady Regime and therefore accelerates the onset of the Laminar Vortex Shedding Regime.The present study is concerned with the numerical simulation of the pressure-driven flow around a confined cylinder subjected to a DC electric field. The flow situation differs from the conventional von Karman vortex street flow in terms of confinement. Additionally, the DC electric field induces a very small but finite electrokinetic velocity at the cylinder surface in contrast to the no-slip velocity in the conventional case. Various numerical simulations are performed in the Laminar Vortex Shedding Regime to investigate the influence of the confinement and the direction and strength of the electric field. For flows without electrokinetic manipulation, the blockage ratio shifts the critical Reynolds number to higher values. Likewise, the dimensionless shedding frequency (Strouhal number) at a given Reynolds number increases with increasing blockage ratio. For flows with electrokinetic manipulation, the time that is required to obtain a steady Laminar Vortex Shedding Regime is reduced compared to the cor...


This thesis explores how firms and organisational actors implement the resource orchestration process. Resources are deemed drivers of value creation and interest is growing in the actions that executives take to manage resources. However, empirical research in this area is limited to the analysis of organisational performance while the process of orchestrating resources over time is under-investigated. This thesis includes four theory-building articles and embraces a process thinking approach to provide a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the dynamics underlying resource orchestration. The 18-month empirical investigation took place in a textile district in Northern Italy using ethnographic techniques and multiple-case studies to identify the patterns and processes that resource orchestration entails. Through specific qualitative techniques, the empirical inquiry generated data on the mechanisms that organisational actors employ in activating their social capital, reactivating latent ties and orchestrating resources. To analyse the resource orchestration phenomenon, 67 open-ended interviews were triangulated with 25 non-participatory observations and 500 archival documents. The findings from this research make three significant contributions to the field of resource orchestration and social capital. First, the study demonstrates the potential of the process thinking approach to investigate a broad range of organisational phenomena involving change. Second, by developing social capital and resource orchestration process models, the thesis contributes to literature by providing more nuanced frameworks of the resource orchestration practices and processes. Finally, the study sheds light on the role of time in shaping relationships and the dynamics of latent ties. The results of this study may assist policy makers, practitioners and consultants in considering the critical impact of resource orchestration processes, social capital and the underlying temporal dynamics.


The coexistence of atrial fibrillation (AF) with heart failure (HF) is prevalent, leading to severe complications. This review aimed to investigate the success rate and efficacy of cryoballoon ablation (CBA) by measuring the improvement in the New York Heart Association (NYHA) classification and the effect on the left ventricular systolic function in patients with AF accompanied by heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). Electronic databases search included PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus in January 2023. Outcomes addressed the following: left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) improvement, AF recurrence, NYHA classification improvement, and mortality. STATA 17.0 software was used for data analysis. The effect size for the studies was a standard mean difference (SMD) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) for outcomes. Proportion analysis with 95% CI was used for freedom from early AF and AF after 2 years and all-cause death. We included six studies, including 1699 HF patients with 365 HFrEF patients. The SMD of postoperative LVEF compared to preoperative LVEF in HFrEF was 0.99 ([95% CI: 0.60, 1.39], p = .00), and for NYHA was -1.12 ([95% CI: -1.36, -0.87], p = .00). The analysis results in HFrEF patients for freedom from AF after 1 year was 65% ([95% CI: 0.55, 0.75], and after 2 years was 39% ([95% CI: 0.10, 0.67]). Proportional analysis was conducted for all-cause death, resulting in 3% mortality ([95% CI: -0.01, 0.07]). Cryoablation of AF accompanied by HFrEF appeared safe as it reduced AF recurrence and enhanced clinical outcomes.


Cadmium is a major environmental pollutant and is known for its wide toxic manifestations. In the present investigation cadmium (5 mg/kg) was administered orally for 4 weeks to induce hepatotoxicity in rats. Tissue damage induced by cadmium was clearly shown by increased activities of serum hepatic markers-AST, ALT, ALP, total protein along with the increased level of lipid peroxidation indices-TBARS, significantly decreased levels of enzymatic antioxidants like SOD, CAT and non-enzymatic antioxidants like GSH. Statistically significant decrease in hemoglobin, RBC and WBC was observed in cadmium treated animals when compared to normal control group. Administration of Black grapes (Vitis vinifera) extract 400 mg/kg given by oral route significantly reversed activities of serum hepatic markers to their near-normal levels, significantly reduced lipid peroxidation, restored the levels of antioxidant defense in liver, produced improvement in hematological parameters when compared to Cd-treated rats. The present study suggested that Black grapes may be beneficial in ameliorating the cadmium induced oxidative damage in the liver of rats.


The mathematical models of the double function flywheel system were built based on experimental tests and theoretical analysis in the course of energy storage and attitude control. Due to significant changes of the system model parameters in the experiment, the difference between the up and down flywheel-electrical machinery unit are compensated through the cascade compensation, and then the PID compound control algorithm with integral separation and formula partition is put forward. Experiments show that overshoot is restrained effectively and stable control is realized in high speed and wide range synchronously. The angel of the platform can be stabilized within 1°, namely the attitude affection should be controlled less than 1.2′ according to the flywheels in satellite.


Four monoclonal antibodies were generated against Yersinia pestis lipopolysaccharide by immunising mice with a cell surface preparation from Y. pestis strain 1255. In an ELISA the monoclonal antibodies reacted with live whole cells of Y. pestis strain GB cultured at 28 degrees C or 37 degrees C. The lowest detection threshold for Y. pestis strain GB cultured at 28 degrees C was 4 x 10(5) cfu ml(-1) and for bacteria cultured at 37 degrees C was 1 x 10(4) cfu ml(-1). The monoclonal antibodies did not cross react with other pathogenic Yersinia in an ELISA, but showed some cross reactivity in an immuno-blot. The monoclonal antibodies could be used for the detection of Y. pestis cultured at different temperatures and with varying plasmid profiles as the lipopolysaccharide molecule is not temperature regulated and the genes encoding its biosynthesis are located on the bacterial chromosome.


This thesis investigates the influence of diegetic audio in relation to creating immersive
gameplay experiences in third-person perspective games. Previous research suggests
that immersion is key to an excellent gaming experience (Brown & Cairns, 2004). In
particular, certain works show the influence of audio in relation to immersive experiences
(Stockburger, 2003; Jorgensen, 2008, 2011; Grimshaw, 2007, 2012; Huiberts, 2010;
Usher, 2012). Drawing on this evidence, I created a video-game wherein diegetic audio
could be manipulated adaptively in an experimental environment as the game is played.
A convergent parallel mixed-method case study (Creswell, 2014) was developed to
determine if removing, modifying, or de-synchronising elements of the diegetic
soundscape in a third-person role-playing game (RPG) at runtime would negatively affect
immersion in the game. First, I examined quantitative aspects of gamer preference, genre
expectations, and previous experiences of immersion, to determine the likelihood of
becoming immersed in the test game. Next, ten participants played the game whilst,
unknown to them, auditory aspects of the game were modified. Finally, players took part
in a semi-structured interview to reveal how they felt the audio changes influenced their
immersion in the game, or if they noticed the changes.
Findings showed that participants were engaged sufficiently that none noticed the
adaptation of key avatar sounds, such as footsteps, and none noticed a discontinuity in
ambient background sounds. Players revealed that much of their attention was taken up
with completing game objectives and learning the game controls. This suggests that
when a player's attention is diverted by an objective, less attention is free to give to
sounds that are not crucial for that task: challenge-based immersion is increased, whilst
immersion in the sensory aspects of the game is decreased. Developing an experimental
game environment offers further insight into the role of diegetic audio in third-person
perspective games, and how it influences immersive gameplay experiences.


The German government has promised many millions over the next 5 years for a "virtual" cardiology institution linking up researchers in seven major centres. Emma Wilkinson speaks to two of those involved in the project about what it hopes to achieve


The purpose of the present study was to investigate the depressive symptomatology of civil servants in contemporary Greek society undergoing severe turmoil because of the profound economic crisis. More specifically, the study aimed at evaluating the severity of depression in this population in relation to attachment style, job insecurity and the three dimensions of burnout. The sample of the present study consisted of 207 employees working in Municipalities or Civil Services. Self-report questionnaires on depressive symptomatology, attachment style, job insecurity and burnout were distributed. According to the results, 38.20% of the sample indicated mild or severe depressive symptomatology. The hypothesis of significant correlations among depressive symptomatology, job insecurity and the dimensions of burnout were confirmed. Results also indicated significant correlations between depressive symptomatology and attachment styles involving a negative self model. Implications for counseling are discussed.


The impact of climate change dynamics has a multiplicative effect when the interlinkages between water and energy are considered. This also applies to climate change co-benefits that derive from adaptation and mitigation initiatives implemented at the urban level and that address the water-energy nexus. A better understanding of the water-energy nexus is a precondition for integrated resource planning that optimizes the use of scarce resources. Against this background, the paper assesses the potential impact of water-energy saving technologies (WEST) on the water-energy nexus of Cuenca, Ecuador, focusing on how vulnerability to climate change may affect the water metabolic cycle of the urban area. Water-energy saving technologies such as rainwater harvesting, solar water heaters, and micro water turbines, reduce water-related energy consumption and mitigate greenhouse gases emissions; thereby illustrating the potential to generate climate change mitigation and adaptation co-benefits. The paper relies on primary data collected through interviews and a survey as well as secondary data in order to assess the extent to which water-energy saving technologies influence the water-energy nexus in Cuenca's urban water metabolic cycle. Within the context of climate change, the paper develops a business-as-usual scenario and assesses how this is modified by the implementation of water-energy saving technologies.


Search engines make it easy to check facts online, but finding some specific kinds of information sometimes proves to be difficult. We studied the behavioral signals that suggest that a user is having trouble in a search task. First, we ran a lab study with 23 users to gain a preliminary understanding on how users' behavior changes when they struggle finding the information they're looking for. The observations were then tested with 179 participants who all completed an average of 22.3 tasks from a pool of 100 tasks. The large-scale study provided quantitative support for our qualitative observations from the lab study. When having difficulty in finding information, users start to formulate more diverse queries, they use advanced operators more, and they spend a longer time on the search result page as compared to the successful tasks. The results complement the existing body of research focusing on successful search strategies.


Cross-speaker style transfer is crucial to the applications of multi-style and expressive speech synthesis at scale. It does not require the target speakers to be experts in expressing all styles and to collect corresponding recordings for model training. However, the performances of existing style transfer methods are still far behind real application needs. The root causes are mainly twofold. Firstly, the style embedding extracted from single reference speech can hardly provide fine-grained and appropriate prosody information for arbitrary text to synthesize. Secondly, in these models the content/text, prosody, and speaker timbre are usually highly entangled, it's therefore not realistic to expect a satisfied result when freely combining these components, such as to transfer speaking style between speakers. In this paper, we propose a crossspeaker style transfer text-to-speech (TTS) model with explicit prosody bottleneck. The prosody bottleneck builds up the kernels accounting for speaking style robustly, and disentangles the prosody from content and speaker timbre, therefore guarantees high quality cross-speaker style transfer. Evaluation result shows the proposed method even achieves on-par performance with source speaker's speaker-dependent (SD) model in objective measurement of prosody, and significantly outperforms the cycle consistency and GMVAEbased baselines in objective and subjective evaluations.


In studying the thyroid hormone binding with the water-salt extracts of the adenohypophysis and the hypothalamus of male rats after Schreiber it was shown that with ageing there occurred in the adenohypophysis a redistribution of T4 and T3 binding in the direction fo an increase of the T4/T3 coefficient, and a reduction of the relative T3 binding, the latter bordering with the significant one. Some reduction of the T4/T3 coefficient, both in comparison with the rest of the tissues under study and in age aspect, was peculiar to the posterior hypothalamus. In the rats-tumour-carriers some changes in the thyroid hormone binding (reduction of the T4/T3 index in the posterior hypothalamus and its sufficiently high values in the adenohypophysis and the anterior hypothalamus) were similar to those observed in normal and ageing rats.


Background: Few studies have addressed the results of educational efforts concerning proper use of McDonald criteria (MC) revisions outside multiple sclerosis (MS) subspecialty centers. Neurology residents and MS subspecialist neurologists demonstrated knowledge gaps for core elements of the MC in a recent prior study. Objective: To assess comprehension and application of MC core elements by non-MS specialist neurologists in the United States who routinely diagnose MS. Methods: Through a cross-sectional study design, a previously developed survey instrument was distributed online. Results: A total of 222 neurologists completed the study survey. Syndromes atypical for MS were frequently incorrectly considered "typical" MS presentations. Fourteen percent correctly identified definitions of both "periventricular" and "juxtacortical" lesions and 2% correctly applied these terms to 9/9 images. Twenty-four percent correctly identified all four central nervous system (CNS) regions for satisfaction of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) dissemination in space. In two presented cases, 61% and 71% correctly identified dissemination in time (DIT) was not fulfilled, and 85% and 86% subsequently accepted nonspecific historical symptoms without objective evidence for DIT fulfillment. Conclusion: The high rate of knowledge deficiencies and application errors of core elements of the MC demonstrated by participants in this study raise pressing questions concerning adequacy of dissemination and educational efforts upon publication of revisions to MC.


Marlborough Day Hospital, 38 Marlborough Place, N. W.8. in view of some of the statements made in Slater's paper, I consider it relevant to quote from some of Freud's later writings. He wrote ( I933) : †̃¿ As a psycho therapeutic method, analysis does not stand in opposition to other methods employed in this branch of medicine; it does not invalidate them nor does it exclude them. There would be no theoretical objec tion to a physician who described himselfas a psycho therapist using analysis upon his patients alongside of other therapeutic methods, according to the peculiar character of the case and the favourable or un favourable nature of the circumstances. . . . The expectation that we shall be able to cure all neurotic


To significantly increase the sampling rate of an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a time-interleaved ADC system is a good option. The drawback of a time-interleaved ADC system is that the ADCs are not exactly identical due to errors in the manufacturing process. This means that time, gain, and offset mismatch errors are introduced in the ADC system. These errors cause distortion in the sampled signal. In this paper, we present a method for estimation and compensation of the time mismatch errors. The estimation method requires no knowledge about the input signal, except that it should be band limited to the foldover frequency /spl pi//T/sub s/ for the complete ADC system. This means that the errors can be estimated while the ADC is running. The method is also adaptive to slow changes in the time errors. The Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) for the time error estimates is also calculated and compared to Monte Carlo simulations. The estimation method has also been validated on measurements from a real time-interleaved ADC system with 16 ADCs.


Uncertainty has long been recognised as an important aspect of renewable resource assessment and management. Stochastic optimal control provides a framework in which to incorporate uncertainty, whether arising from fluctuations in the biological or economic environment or from lack of a precise understanding of inter-relationships within a system. However, overlaying complex and interdependent biological, physical and economic relationships with uncertainty often results in an optimal control problem which is analytically complex. In this paper, a parametric approximation to the control equation is combined with genetic search algorithms to solve the stochastic control problem. The parametric approximation to the solution of optimal control problems is compared with a collocation approach. The use of these two numerical solution techniques is explored in the context of a harvest model for a multi-species fishery. While the two techniques yielded similar solutions, they offered different advantages and disadvantages. The use of collocation methods facilitates the understanding of the problem and the nature of the solution. However, for multi-dimensional state space problems, collocation techniques require exponentially increasing computational time. Parametric approximation techniques require prior specification of an explicit relationship between the state and control variables. As a result, the approximation may impose or miss features of the solution. However, when combined with a genetic search algorithm, the technique is very robust and computation time is significantly less than for the collocation technique. The use of collocation techniques to characterise the solution to the problem followed by the application of an appropriate approximation technique may to prove to be an expedient method for dealing with larger scale problems.


: The article traces the historical development of the prophylactic drug treatment of affective disorders. Prior to the introduction of lithium, standard anti-depressant drugs were used for maintenance treatment. Historically, lithium did not introduce prophylactic treatment. It did, however, dramatically advance the concept and administration of the prophylactic treatment of affective disorders. Specific criteria must now be developed to determine the duration of prophylactic treatment in terms of individual illness profiles. Therapeutic goals and clinical problems in the administration of treatment represent a main part of the paper.


Plants are exposed to various biotic and abiotic stresses. Some of the abiotic stresses are drought, salinity, extreme temperatures and pollutants. These stresses negatively affect plant growth and development. The present study was designed to investigate the effects of drought stress on biomass production and chlorophyll, proteins and proline contents of two different hybrids of maize plants (Zea mays L.). The experiment was conducted in randomized block design with four replicates in pots. Three weeks old plants were challenged with drought stress by skipping irrigation. After drought stress of two weeks the plants were harvested and were subjected to various morphometric, physiological and biochemical assays. Both hybrids exhibited significant reduction in biomass production under drought stress. However, this loss was relatively lower in hybrid M-32. Drought stress caused reduction in root and shoot length, chlorophyll contents and photosynthesis activity. The chlorophyll a/b ratio increased in hybrid M-435 under water deficit conditions. Contrastingly it was decreased in M-32 due to drought stress. The total soluble proteins (TSPs) and Proline concentration were greater in M-435 under drought conditions as compared to control. While M-32 exhibited relatively lower quantity of TSPs and Proline when grown under drought stress. The Proline concentration, TSPs and Chlorophyll a/b ratio was relatively higher in M-435 grown under drought stress that indicated its potential for drought tolerance. The current study revealed that maize plants may exhibit drought tolerance by adapting variations in their morphology, anatomical structures and metabolic and physiological profile.


In times when intricate concerns for social and ecological justice are becoming ever more prominent in global environmental discourses, conflicts between minorities' rights and environmental policies present delicate trade-offs that demand ingenious balancing by regional human rights courts. Such conflicts tend to boil down to oppositions between 'indigenous' or 'traditional' practices set against 'modern' ideals, thereby displaying and performing important normative, epistemic and political implications. To legitimise and strengthen their cases, parties resort to expert interventions. While the involvement of experts speaking on behalf of minorities can bolster the communities' legal protection, the shared assumptions, rhetorical style and professional sensibility of intervening experts can trigger unintended consequences for the identity and (self-)perception of the peoples they represent. The case-law analysis presented here instantiates how networks of experts with shared institutional ties intervene before courts, use specific discursive strategies to further their representatives' claims and reinforce the normative salience of their interventions through cross-jurisdictional and cross-cultural referencing. Drawing on insights from discourse analysis, (legal) anthropology and cultural geography, the article develops a critique of the politics of expert-based approaches to conflict management in regional human rights settings.


An investigation into the suitability of alginate beads of microspheres for oral delivery of Ibuprofen is presented. Alginate beads microspheres were formulated under different conditions of polymer concentration at constant speed. The microspheres were evaluated according to particle size, drug content, percentage yield, moisture content by Karl Fischer titration, bulk density, tapped density, Carr's index. In vitro release of Ibuprofen from the microspheres was studied in simulated intestinal fluid (SIF, pH 7.4). The release data was fitted into two release models to investigate the mechanism of Ibuprofen release from the microspheres. All the microspheres showed good swelling characteristics in distilled water. The investigation revealed that the microspheres produced with 2.5% (W/V) sodium alginate had the optimum prolonged release pattern. The microspheres produced using 2% (W/V) Sodium alginate had the highest delayed release of the incorporated drug, whereas other ratios of drug polymer had the fastest release. The Invitro dissolution studies appeared to have adequately described the release process as about 8 to 10 hours. The Scanning Electron Microscopic study revealed the spherical shape and the presence of pores which is effective for loading of the dose. The X-Ray diffraction study showed a normal graph which represents no drug polymer interaction. Differential Scanning Calorimeter, Thermo gravimetric analysis and FTIR spectroscopy also reveals no possibility of interaction between drug and polymers used in the study. This implies that formulations of Ibuprofen-sodium alginate microspheres are likely to offer a reliable means of delivering Ibuprofen by the oral route.


The transition of western health care systems can be facilitated by Integrated Care (IC) approaches helping to diminish demographic challenges. The concept of clinical pathways is an approach for a more structured, overarching and broader care as it allows higher system efficiency, i.e. a better coordination of treatment especially for patients with complex diseases (co-morbidities). They can be sustained by Information and Communication Technology (ICT) that enables a better coordination and integration of patients within their care and social network. However, there is no broad use of such pathways as it lacks of a concept for the utilisation of a holistic pathway usage for the care of people with co-morbidities. The paper contributes by developing a framework for the design, handling and work of or with personalised dynamic pathways (PDPs). By suggesting the PDP-Framework, we aim at providing a concept that has the potential to improve the care. It also fosters the application of ICT-based care in terms of a concept for shaping ICT services. Our contribution builds the fundament for a multi-actor involvement along the care processes and facilitates the monitoring of the patients' statuses, their activities and compliance with care measures.


Haiti maintains an outsized presence in the American literary imagination, where it represents a compelling confluence of ideas and themes. Like its neighbor in the Western hemisphere, it rejected a colonial ruler through a revolution. Yet it is a predominantly black nation, one with a troubled history and questionable leadership, including decades of imperialism at the service of the United States itself. While this fascination with Haiti waxes and wanes, it has lasted into the twenty-first century, continually renewed with natural and political disasters. This complicated relationship is especially evident in what was once an ostensibly innocuous literary genre: the travelogue. Haitian travelogues, which were especially popular in the years before World War II, offer a captivating depiction of the American cultural attitudes towards Haiti. These guides often approach their subject with an unselfconsciously imperial gaze. They suggest racial and cultural superiority, reinforce imperial relationships, and cast the occupants of the visited nation as "the other." They are also ripe for parody. In her 1978 novel, Kathy Goes to Haiti, Kathy Acker explores this territory by offering a mocking satire of the travelogue. Acker's partially autobiographical heroine aspires to lose herself in Haiti, specifically in the company of its men. However, she cannot escape her own Americanness. Instead of a politically-neutral immersion in Haitian culture, Acker shows us that American tourism is subject to the imperial instinct and provides her readers with a trenchant cultural critique of the travelogue genre.


Guidance in media is not a new phenomenon. Looking for the answers to more or less complex questions about human existence seems to be as old as human society. A great deal of books are guidance books. Guidance has always been present in the press. Guidance programmes are also found on television. The Internet is dominated by the communication guidance based on one to one or/and one to few principles. However, the popularity of some websites, portals and blogs makes this way of communication similar to the traditional, periodical mass media (one-to-many). Contemporary media, and to be more precise, media offer has become a commodity. In order to be sold, it undergoes the processes of tabloidisation. Due to this, the owners can count on higher profits as the product reaches a larger audience. Guidance in press and on television has become one of the ways to make money. The article is based on the offer addressed to the female mass audience and is an attempt to answer the questions: what are the characteristics of mass guidance, what subject matter dominates in the popular media offer addressed to the mass audience, and what benefits does the sender get from the message?


Ultrashort, high-brightness X-ray pulses are an important tool in many areas of research. In principle, a laser-pumped free-electron laser (FEL) can generate coherent, polarized X-ray for this purpose. In a laser-pumped X-ray FEL an intense laser field replaces the magnetic wiggler field of a conventional FEL. Depending on the intensity and quality of both the electron beam and pump laser, the spontaneous incoherent X-ray, generated by Thomson backscattering, can be coherently amplified. In a conventional FEL configuration the generation of X-ray typically requires electron beam energies in the multi-GeV range. On the other hand, in a laser-pumped X-ray FEL, electron beam energies in the multi-MeV range would be sufficient. A laser-pumped X-ray FEL could in principle be a relatively compact source of coherent X-ray. However, to realize this concept a number of physics and technology issues must be resolved. Foremost among these are the stringent requirements placed on the electron beam quality and brightness as well as the pump laser intensity and energy. The seed radiation to the laser-pumped FEL is the laser induced spontaneous radiation. The gain length associated with the coherent X-ray as a function of energy spread on the thermal electron beam is analyzed. These issues, as well as others, necessary to achieve coherent amplified spontaneous X-ray generation in a laser-pumped FEL will be addressed.


When trying to fit data to functions of the eigensystem of a pde-eigenvalue problem, such as Maxwell's equation, numerical differentiation is ineffective and analytic gradients must be supplied. In our motivating example of trying to determine the chemical composition of the layers of specialty optical fibers, the function involved fitting the higher order derivatives with respect to frequency of the positive eigenvalues. The computation of the gradient was the most time consuming part of the minimization problem. It was realized that if one interchanged the order of differentiation, and differentiated first with respect to the design parameters, fewer derivatives of the eigenvectors would be required and one could take full advantage that each grid point was affected by only a few variables. As the model was expanded to cover a fiber wrapped around a spool, the bandwidth of the linearized symmetric eigenvalue problem increased. At the heart of each of the iterative methods used to find the few positive eigenvalues was a symmetric, banded, indefinite matrix. Here we present an algorithm for this problem which reduces a symmetric banded matrix to a block diagonal matrix of 1 x 1 and 2 x 2 blocks. Fillin outside the band because of pivoting for stability is prevented by a sequence of planar transformations. Computationally the algorithm is compared to the block unsymmetric banded solver and the block positive definite symmetric band solver in LAPACK.


Since the first moment
librarians were granted tenured faculty status in the academic arena, questions
have been raised by university and library administration, faculty members in
other departments, and non-academics as to why they were given the opportunity
to achieve such a prestigious rank. Not only did the majority of tenured/tenure track faculty librarians not
have the standard doctorate degree possessed by most other tenured/tenure track
faculty, but there were
also questions surrounding the librarians' purported lack of teaching and their ability to
perform original research as required for those tenure and promotion standards set by the academic
institution. Sadly, this perception is due not only to incorrect external opinions about what
academic librarians do and how they serve their profession but also to various
internal library misunderstandings of what it means to be a tenured/tenure
track faculty member. As a result of this misunderstanding, some librarians are unable to
communicate what it means to be a librarian with tenured faculty status and
thus the importance of academic freedom for their profession as a whole. This
paper describes some key challenges tenured/tenure track faculty librarians face within their academic
institutions as they attempt to grapple with what it means to be a librarian with
tenured/tenure track status.


We investigate the influence of complex network topological structure on the traffic delivery by the traffic awareness routing strategy. In order to characterize the efficiency of the packet delivery process, we introduce an order parameter to measure the network capacity by the critical value of phase transition from free flow to congestion. Here, we present two kinds of models, based on its degree or its betweenness that the delivery capacity of each node is proportional to. Simulation results show that, in the case of identical average degree, WS small-world network is significantly more susceptible to traffic congestion than ER random networks and BA scale-free networks in the first model, while the capacities of all kinds of networks are enhanced greatly in the second model, especially for WS small-world network. Finally, it is worth noting that which of the two models will be best suitable for handling traffic delivery depends on the structural characteristics of networks.


Abstract
This article asks whether legal rights provided through national legislation on services provision in Scandinavia have become, over time, more accommodating to the role of family caregiving to elderly relatives. The study is based on a comparison and analysis of changes in legislation between 1993 and 2014 in the three Scandinavian countries. It is limited to legislation on the right to eldercare services and on work-family facilitating policies in relation to the provision of care to an elderly relative. Work-family facilitating policies are those policies that enable the combining of employment in the formal economy with caring for family members without large prohibitive costs for the caregiver. The main findings in this article are that the Scandinavian countries strengthened the legal right to public care services between 1993 and 2014, but that there are few, if any, truly work-family facilitating policies. The existing schemes do not facilitate a combination of employment and care, but rather force the family caregiver to choose between them. The dilemma is whether to continue passively with a high, but declining, level of public service provision of eldercare, leaving unmet care needs to unpaid family carers, or to introduce work-family facilitating policies enabling remunerated family care in addition to extensive public services provision.


Visualization techniques are of increasing importance in exploring and analyzing large amounts of multidimensional information. One important class of visualization techniques which is particularly interesting for visualizing very large multidimensional data sets is the class of pixel-oriented techniques. The basic idea of pixel-oriented visualization techniques is to represent as many data objects as possible on the screen at the same time by mapping each data value to a pixel of the screen and arranging the pixels adequately. A number of different pixel-oriented visualization techniques have been proposed in recent years and it has been shown that the techniques are useful for visual data exploration in a number of different application contexts. In this paper, we discuss a number of issues which are important in developing pixel-oriented visualization techniques. The major goal of this article is to provide a formal basis of pixel-oriented visualization techniques and show that the design decisions in developing them can be seen as solutions of well-defined optimization problems. This is true for the mapping of the data values to colors, the arrangement of pixels inside the subwindows, the shape of the subwindows, and the ordering of the dimension subwindows. The paper also discusses the design issues of special variants of pixel-oriented techniques for visualizing large spatial data sets.


Purpose Hepatoid adenocarcinoma of the stomach (HAS) is a highly malignant and aggressive tumor. The purpose of this study was to describe the clinical, computed tomography (CT), and prognostic features of HAS to increase the awareness of this entity and determine its distinguishing features from non-HAS tumors. Methods The CT features and clinical data of 47 patients in our hospital with pathologically documented HAS were retrospectively analyzed, and the relevant differences between pure HAS (pHAS) and mixed HAS (mHAS) were determined. In addition, 141 patients with non-HAS tumors in the same T stage in the same period were selected as the control group. The data were compared between the two groups, and factors affecting the prognosis of HAS were analyzed. In addition, we included 9 patients with HAS and 27 patients with non-HAS tumors from another center for external validation. Results The patients in the HAS group were predominantly men (n = 33), and the tumor location was mostly the cardia or fundus (n = 27). Between the HAS and non-HAS groups, there were observed differences in terms of: sex, serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), carbohydrate antigen (CA)-125, and CA-724 levels; longest tumor diameter; degree of differentiation; vascular invasion; N stage, M stage, and tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage; thickest tumor diameter; plain CT attenuation; arterial-phase CT attenuation; CT attenuation between the venous and arterial phases; enhancement modes; and degrees of enhancement (all P < 0.05). In the data from another center for external validation, there were observed differences in terms of: age, degree of differentiation, vascular invasion, thickest tumor diameter, the ratio of arterial CT attenuation to CT attenuation of the abdominal aorta at the same level (RA), CT attenuation difference between the venous phase and arterial phase (HUv-a) (all P < 0.05). The results of the multivariate analysis revealed that the independent factors for differentiation were serum AFP level (P = 0.001), M stage (P = 0.038), and tumor enhancement on CT (P = 0.014). Among patients in the HAS group, 72.34% had pHAS and 27.66% had mHAS. The thickest tumor diameter and the longest short diameter of the metastatic lymph nodes of the mHAS group were on average 6.39 cm and 1.45 cm, respectively, which were larger than those in the pHAS group. The median progression-free survival time was 18.25 months in the HAS group, which was shorter than that in the non-HAS group (72.96 months; P = 0.001). The median overall survival time in the HAS group was 24.80 months, which was shorter than that in the non-HAS group (67.96 months; P = 0.001). The factors affecting the prognosis of HAS were M stage (P = 0.001), overall TNM stage (P = 0.048), presence of vascular cancer emboli (P = 0.040), and pHAS type (P = 0.046). Multifactorial analysis revealed that M stage (P = 0.027) and pHAS type (P = 0.009) were independent risk factors affecting the prognosis of HAS. Conclusion Although HAS is a rare clinical entity, it should be considered in the differential diagnosis of gastric tumors. Patients with HAS often have advanced-stage disease at presentation and a worse prognosis than patients with non-HAS tumors. CT findings, combined with laboratory results, can support the diagnosis of HAS. However, the final diagnosis needs to be confirmed with a histopathologic examination. If the postoperative pathologic findings reveal the mHAS type, a rapid clinical intervention and a detailed follow-up with CT are essential.


Inflation, as one of the economic phenomena, causes many negative social and cultural consequences such as poverty, disproportionate distribution of income and the spread of financial distress, which in turn imposes significant costs on the economy. For this reason, price stability is considered as the main goal of economic planning and policy in all countries. Therefore, it is important to study and predict this macroeconomic variable. In this regard, various predictive models have been developed in competition with each other. One of these methods is evolutionary algorithms, which is a new method for modeling and predicting various phenomena. In the present study, using the Firefly and Cuckoo algorithm, and employing variables that affect inflation, including liquidity, exchange rate, real interest rate, expected inflation and industrial output during the period of 1975-2015, we attempt to model inflation linearly and non-linearly. The results show that the nonlinear model is more suitable for inflation modeling, and the Firefly algorithm is better than Cuckoo algorithm. According to the precision of the non-linear model developed by Firefly algorithm, it can be used to forecast inflation in the future.


Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the atmosphere and their potential impact on global climate have become important concerns world-wide. Livestock production systems, such as dairy farms, provide both sinks and sources for GHGs. Typical emissions have been quantified in Europe and synthesized to estimate farm-level GHG emissions. However, fewer data are available in the United States, and little has been done to estimate emissions for our farms. Through an extensive literature review, average GHG flows were quantified for each major farm source and sink including the soil, growing crops, animals, and manure storage. These typical gas exchanges were then combined to estimate farm-level net emissions for a representative, 100-cow dairy farm in Pennsylvania. Emissions from animal facilities primarily consisted of animal respiration (532 Mg CO2 yr-1) and enteric fermentation (16.9 Mg CH4 yr-1) with a total annual emission of 971 Mg CO2 equivalent (CO2e) where each unit of CH4 is equivalent to 25 units of CO2 in global warming potential. Manure storage emissions included CO2, CH4, and N2O for a total annual emission of 216 Mg CO2e with each unit of N2O equivalent to 298 units of CO2. Cropland provided a net flux or sink of -784 to -168 Mg CO2e yr-1 depending upon the amount of manure carbon sequestered in the soil. The estimated whole-farm net annual GHG emission ranged from 2.5 to 5.8 Mg CO2e per 500 kg livestock unit or 0.50 to 1.2 kg CO2e kg-1 of milk produced. This review and farm analysis has helped direct modeling efforts by determining the important processes that drive emissions of CO2, CH4, and N2O in dairy production along with expected ranges for these emissions. Such data expand the knowledge base of researchers, farm planners, and policymakers as they work to develop and maintain sustainable farming systems in the United States.


In the early pages of his Tractatus, Wittgenstein says that
the substance of the world consists of unalterable, simple
objects (Gegenstande) (2.021, 2.027). Substance is connected
to the Sinn of a proposition in the following cryptic
way:
"If the world had no substance, then whether a proposition
had sense [Sinn] would depend on whether another
proposition was true.� (2.0211)�
"In that case we could not sketch any picture of the
world (true or false).� (2.0212)
How can the sense of a proposition depend on the existence
of simple, unalterable objects? No connection between
Sinn and substance is evident on the basis of these
short remarks. Furthermore, the remarks sound strange
because elsewhere in the Tractatus Wittgenstein makes it
clear that we can understand the sense of a proposition
without knowing anything about how things actually stand
in the world (see e.g. 4.024).


Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is a common complication of premature birth, characterised by arrested secondary septation. Molecular mechanisms of arrested secondary septation are not known. Members of the transforming growth factor (TGF)-β growth factor superfamily are accredited with key roles in lung development and BPD. We profiled lung expression of the TGF-β signaling machinery in mice in a hyperoxia-based BPD model, and detected a down-regulation Tgfbr3 expression. Using laser-capture microdissection, Tgfbr3 mRNA expression was reduced in both the lung vascular and parenchymal compartments in response to hyperoxia. Abrogation of Tgfbr3 expression using siRNA caused a two-fold increase in proliferation and the migration of pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells. Furthermore, knockdown of Tgfbr3 in pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells caused a decrease in endothelial tube formation. We then created a floxed Tgfbr3 (Tgfbr3fl/fl) mouse line, and used this mouse line, in combination with smooth muscle (SMMHC-CreERT2) and endothelial (Tie2-CreERT2) mouse driver lines where Cre-recombinase can be selectively induced in cells with smooth muscle properties and in endothelial cells, respectively, after tamoxifen injection. Induction of Cre-recombinase in post-natal mouse pups at post-natal day (P)1 and P2 caused a 50% decrease in alveolar number at P7 in SMMHC-CreERT2/Tgfbr3fl/fl mice, without any change in septal thickness (assessed by stereological analysis). In contrast, there was no effect noted in lung structure in Tie2-CreERT2/Tgfbr3fl/fl mice. These data implicate Tgfbr3 in cells with smooth muscle properties, as a key mediator of post-natal lung alveolarisation.


Organ morphology is a key indicator for prostate disease diagnosis and prognosis. For instance, In longitudinal study of prostate cancer patients under active surveillance, the volume, boundary smoothness and their changes are closely monitored on time-series MR image data. In this paper, we describe a new framework for forecasting prostate morphological changes, as the ability to detect such changes earlier than what is currently possible may enable timely treatment or avoiding unnecessary confirmatory biopsies. In this work, an efficient feature-based MR image registration is first developed to align delineated prostate gland capsules to quantify the morphological changes using the inferred dense displacement fields (DDFs). We then propose to use kernel density estimation (KDE) of the probability density of the DDF-represented future morphology changes, between current and future time points, before the future data become available. The KDE utilises a novel distance function that takes into account morphology, stage-of-progression and duration-of-change, which are considered factors in such subject-specific forecasting. We validate the proposed approach on image masks unseen to registration network training, without using any data acquired at the future target time points. The experiment results are presented on a longitudinal data set with 331 images from 73 patients, yielding an average Dice score of 0.865 on a holdout set, between the ground-truth and the image masks warped by the KDE-predicted-DDFs.


We demonstrate an affordable low-noise surface plasmon resonance (SPR) instrument based on extraordinary optical transmission (EOT) in metallic nanohole arrays and quantify a broad range of antibody-ligand binding kinetics with equilibrium dissociation constants ranging from 200 pM to 40 nM. This nanohole-based SPR instrument is straightforward to construct, align, and operate, since it is built around a standard microscope and a portable fiber-optic spectrometer. The measured refractive index resolution of this platform is 3.1 × 10(-6) without on-chip cooling, which is among the lowest reported for SPR sensors based on EOT. This is accomplished via rapid full-spectrum acquisition in 10 ms followed by frame averaging of the EOT spectra, which is made possible by the production of template-stripped gold nanohole arrays with homogeneous optical properties over centimeter-sized areas. Sequential SPR measurements are performed using a 12-channel microfluidic flow cell after optimizing surface modification protocols and antibody injection conditions to minimize mass-transport artifacts. The immobilization of a model ligand, the protective antigen of anthrax on the gold surface, is monitored in real-time with a signal-to-noise ratio of ~860. Subsequently, real-time binding kinetic curves were measured quantitatively between the antigen and a panel of small, 25 kDa single-chain antibodies at concentrations down to 1 nM. These results indicate that nanohole-based SPR instruments have potential for quantitative antibody screening and as a general-purpose platform for integrating SPR sensors with other bioanalytical tools.


Image registration is used widely in applications for mapping one image to another. Existing image registration methods are either feature-based or intensity-based. Feature-based methods first extract relevant image features and then find the geometrical transformation that best matches the two corresponding sets of features extracted from the two images. Because identification and extraction of image features is often a challenging and time-consuming process, intensity-based image registration, by which the mapping transformation is estimated directly from the observed image intensities of the two images, has received much attention recently. In the literature, most existing intensity-based image registration methods estimate the mapping transformation globally by solving a minimization/maximization problem defined by the two entire images to register. To this end, it needs to be assumed that the mapping transformation has a certain type of parametric form or it is a continuous bivariate function satisfying certain regularity conditions. In this paper, we propose a novel intensity-based image registration method using nonparametric local smoothing. By this method, the mapping transformation at a given pixel is estimated locally in a neighborhood after certain image features are accommodated in the estimation. Due to the flexibility of local smoothing, this method does not require any parametric form for the mapping transformation. It even allows the transformation to be a discontinuous function. Numerical examples show that it is effective in various applications.


The western part of the Netherlands has a typical Dutch landscape with fen-meadows that consist of wet pasture lands with drained peat soils alternated by natural and artificial lakes, ditches, reed swamps and quaking fens (see fig. 1). This area has been and is still being continuously drained, so as to keep the land dry and suitable for agriculture, pasture and residence. Water levels are artificially controlled in the region by local water management authorities. This drainage has resulted in subsidence of a couple of meters over the last centuries. As a result, the polders with fen-meadows now lie 1–2 m below sea level. In addition to that, we also find deep polders which used to be large lakes and were reclaimed in the 17th century for agricultural use. Presently, these polders are 2-6 m below sea level. The continuing subsidence of the surface in the polders and the rise in sea level caused that about 25% of the Netherlands is now being situated below mean sea level (up to 6.7 m). Without dikes and dunes 65% of the land would be flooded daily. This situation makes the Netherlands vulnerable to storm surges and river floods. The 'Green Heart' (Groene Hart) is the rural center of the Dutch Randstad, surrounded by the biggest cities in the Netherlands: Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht. The soil of the Green Heart contains mainly sand, peat and clay. The ground water level is controlled in order to avoid fast subsidence due to peat oxidation and at the same time to maintain a dry surface. Peat is composed of organic material which oxides when it is in contact with air, reducing in volume and consequently resulting in subsidence, and therefore, bringing the surface gets closer to the ground water. Thus, in order to have a dry ground suitable for agriculture, construction and recreation the land is periodically drained. Observing precise subsidence rates of peat and marsh lands using geodetic techniques is notoriously difficult, due to the difficulty of installing fixed benchmarks in this type of soil. Moreover, because of the soft soils, modern buildings have pile foundations, with pilings up to 25 m long, reaching to stable pleistocene sand layers. Consequently, while subsidence due to shallow surface compaction continues, most new buildings remain relatively stable. Figure 2 shows the subsidence rates estimated by 2 for a ground water level of -40 cm below surface. The results were obtained using boreholes. The area with the maximum deformation rates corresponds to the Krimpenerwaard, where a deformation of -5 to -11 mm/yr is expected. In this contribution we investigate the use persistent scatterer interferometry, (PSI) 1 to study shallow deformation in wetlands in The Netherlands. PSI utilizes a time series of space borne radar scenes to select scattering objects whose reflecting properties remain fairly constant over time and are therefore minimally affected by noise. The information about deformation is extracted from the interferograms, which contain the phase differences between two radar images. The PSI technique as developed at the TU Delft 3 is based on creating a first-order network of measurements, using the most coherent objects to estimate and remove atmospheric artifacts. Then a denser second order network is built from which the full deformation velocity field is derived. One of the major limitations of PSI techniques is that we cannot be certain about the object we observed. In any case, the position of the object is known with an error of about 10 m. However, PSI overcomes the limitations of traditional geodetic methods. It provides a very dense distribution of measurements (~ 100/km2 in urban areas, sensor dependent) and high observation frequency (once a month or higher, depending on satellite requirements).


1. In the case of the staphylococcus and antistaphylococcus phage studied, with the total volume of the mixture being kept constant, there exists a definite quantitative relationship between C Phage and the time required to reduce a particular concentration of growing phage-susceptible bacteria to an arbitrary turbidity end-point. 2. This relationship furnishes a basis for the quantitative estimation of bacteriophage. A method is described having an accuracy within ±5 per cent.


The starting-point and, at the same time, the foundation of recent scholarship on the Arabic translations of Aristotle's Metaphysics are Maurice Bouyges' excellent critical edition of the work in which the extant translations of the Metaphysics are preserved – i.e. Averroes' Tafsīr (the so-called "Long Commentary") of the Metaphysics – and his comprehensive account of the Arabic translations and translators of the Metaphysics in the introductory volume. Relying on the texts made available by Bouyges and the impressive amount of philological information conveyed in his edition, subsequent scholars have been able to select and focus on more specific topics, providing, for example, a closer inspection of the Arabic translations of the single books of the Metaphysics (books A, α, and Λ in particular), or a detailed comparison of some of these translations with the original text of the Metaphysics. A new trend of research in recent times has been the study of these versions as part of the wider context of the Graeco-Arabic translation movement.


In a clonally propagated crop, such as potato (Solanum tuberosum L.), an estimate of genetic variance as a proportion of the total phenotypic variance (broad-sense heritability) is desirable. Because of its importance to the processing industry, tuber specific gravity has been widely studied. Earlier estimates of narrow-sense heritability for specific gravity in a diploid hybrid population of Solanum phureja x Solanum stenotomum (PHU-STN) were moderate. The purpose of this study was to identity stable, high specific gravity clones for future population improvement efforts and to estimate broad-sense heritability based on clonal means in this PHU-STN population. From 1990 to 1992, 72 diploid hybrid PHU-STN clones were grown in replicated field plots in Presque Isle, ME, and evaluated for specific gravity. There were significant differences among clones. There was also a significant replication (year) effect and clone x year interaction. From the analysis of variance on specific gravity, broad-sense heritability based on clonal means was estimated as 0.66, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.50 to 0.78. Stability-variance statistics calculated for each clone were used to identify stable high specific gravity clones. There was no correlation between average specific gravity during 3 yr and the stability-variance statistic, indicating that selecting for high specific gravity should not result in clones that are less stable for specific gravity.


The main subject matter of the paper is the application of adaptive control systems. This type of control is particularly useful for processes and machines with variable parameters. Classic controllers in this case are not satisfactory. Therefore a research work was initiated on advanced algorithms of control. The paper analyzes algorithms based on fuzzy logic. It should be noted that parameters of fuzzy controllers require adjustment to changeable process (machine) parameters for which an adaptive mechanism is required. The proposed algorithm has been tested on a laboratory stand with a hydrostatic transmission, which is a non-linear and a non-stationary object.


This paper estimates employment equations based on the traditional labour demand model and modern efficient bargain theory using data drawn from wage contracts signed in the Canadian private unionized sector between 1978 and 1984. Contrary to the labour demand model predictions, the alternative wage rate is consistently significant and has the negative coefficient predicted by efficient bargain theory. Though a credible labour demand model can sometimes be estimated, the results are sensitive to the assumed market structure and to the introduction of alternative wage and unemployment insurance variables. Non-nested tests favour efficient bargain specifications.


Light absorption coefficients in Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene have been determined in the range between 200 nm and 1200 nm wavelength by means of optical spectroscopy. The absorption investigations have been carried out by evaluating the absorption of characteristic peaks emitted from a Hg-Ar lamp and detected by at high sensitivity optical spectrometer. Measurements have been performed in pure and doped polyethylene. As doping agent at different concentrations, have been employed nanostructures of carbonnanotubes, iron oxide and methylene-blue. The aim of these analyses is to modify the absorption coefficients of polyethylene-based polymers in a large range of wavelength in order to obtain special polymers for optical applications in different scientific fields, such as physics, medicine, chemistry and engineering.


Chinese words consist of a variable number of characters that are normally written in continuous lines, without the blank spaces that are used to separate words in most alphabetic writing systems. These conventions raise questions about the relative roles of character versus whole-word processing in word identification, and how words are segmented from strings of characters for the purpose of their identification and saccade targeting. The present article attempts to address these questions by reporting an eye-movement experiment in which 60 participants read a corpus of sentences containing two-character target words that varied in terms of their overall frequency and the frequency of their initial characters. We examine participants' eye movements using both corpus-based statistical models and more standard analyses of our target words. In addition to documenting how key lexical variables influence eye movements and highlighting a few discrepancies between the results obtained using our two statistical approaches, our experiment shows that high-frequency initial characters can actually slow word identification. We discuss the theoretical significance of this finding and others for current models of Chinese reading, and then describe a new computational model of eye-movement control during the reading of Chinese. Finally, we report simulations showing that this model can account for our findings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).


Globalization and centralization have resulted in prolonged transportation time between producer and consumer, and thus put more demand on the perseveration of a product for longer duration and protect it from oxidation. The presence of oxygen in packages severely foreshortens the storage life as it yield losses of nutrients and allow microbial growth, which can cause changes in smell, taste as well as discoloration. Earlier food and beverage containers were made in inorganic materials e.g. metal and glass, however lately more and more focus have been on synthetic organic materials as these show several advantages, e.g. weight. However, still today most of the commercial packaging materials, organic or inorganic, are not considered to be environmental friendly. Thus, efforts have to be made today in order to invent alternative materials that can make the society of tomorrow more sustainable. Cellulose is the most abundant biopolymer in the world, hence making it desirable to use in "green" packaging applications. Furthermore, cellulose has proven being able to form films with great gas barrier potential under specific conditions. However, cellulose based materials are sensitive to moisture with severely increased oxygen transmission with increased relative humidity as a result; hence it is desired to make cellulose less hygroscopic by chemical modification. First, nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) with 720 mmol carboxylic groups/g fiber was produced by oxidation of dissolving pulp before homogenization. Thereafter a polymer was synthesized utilizing Initiator A as an initiator at T1 and T2. The polymer synthesized at T1 yielded a polymer with a viscosity average molecular weight of 5770 g/mol. The polymer was then grafted on the oxidized NFC through a coupling reaction performed in Buffer C using Coupling agent A. The grafting procedure was performed in Buffer C at ambient conditions giving rise to a material composed of 33 wt% synthetic polymer and 67 wt% NFC. The coupling was conducted several times in order to investigate how the final product can be affected by varying reactant feed and dispersion method. Finally, films of NFC and NFC-g-Polymer were manufactured by vacuum filtration from a 0.05 wt% Solvent A dispersion and were evaluated with field emission scanning electron microscopy.


I. Despite recent polemics, the use of international law in constitutional interpretation, as one factor among others, is highly traditional and eminently proper. Some international law is too important to the place of the United States in the world for our constitutional jurisprudence to ignore; some international law provides useful functional or normative insights on which constitutional adjudication can draw. As a matter of division of labor, (1) I will concentrate here on the use of international--as opposed to foreign--law in constitutional interpretation. Some criticisms of recent Supreme Court decisions have coupled attacks on these two categories of law, and some criticisms suggest a lack of awareness that there is any difference between them. In fact, there are important differences between the two categories, and the arguments for their relevance do not entirely coincide. At the same time, the two categories partly overlap. Judge Frank Easterbrook and Professor Steven Calabresi, in their contributions to this symposium, appear to treat these categories as interchangeable for purposes of their arguments about "foreign law," and within the limits of their respective methodologies that may be appropriate. (2) From the broader (and I believe more justifiable) perspective taken in this Article, the differences can be significant. The category of "international law" covers a wide variety of different kinds of norms, such as customary international law, multilateral treaties, and bilateral treaties. It includes treaties to which the United States is a party, treaties that we have chosen not to ratify, and treaties that we are not eligible to ratify. Some international law is part of the basic legal architecture of the world we live in. Some international law is particularistic and ephemeral. These distinctions are relevant to how various norms of international law should be used in constitutional interpretation, but their existence should not disqualify the entire category from consideration. International law as such is not ephemeral and cannot be dismissed as a pack of "foreign moods, fads or fashions." (3) The category of "foreign law" could be understood principally as referring to the domestic legal systems of foreign states, including their national constitutions, statutes, and other domestic norms. (4) Sometimes discussions focus even more narrowly on foreign constitutional law, but the content of national constitutions varies greatly, and some systems give statutory answers to questions that other systems treat as constitutional. "Foreign law" can also be understood more broadly as further including the international obligations of a foreign state, and especially those that do not bind the United States, such as regional treaties on other continents, bilateral treaties among foreign states, and global multilateral treaties that the United States has not ratified. Thus, some "foreign law" may also be "international law." In recent cases that have excited controversy, such as Atkins v. Virginia, (5) Lawrence v. Texas, (6) and Roper v. Simmons, (7) the Supreme Court has primarily cited to foreign domestic law and to international law binding on other countries. The international sources included regional human rights treaties and jurisprudence thereunder, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the United States has not ratified. The Court in Roper also noted the prohibition on the juvenile death penalty in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the United States did ratify in 1992, but with a unique reservation excluding that particular provision. (8) Treaties ratified by the United States without pertinent reservation, on the other hand, are not foreign law at all. The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution declares them to be supreme law of the land. (9) Treaties may be viewed as having a foreign aspect, in that the United States cannot adopt them unilaterally, and cannot modify them without the consent of treaty partners. …


T gamma lymphocytes are those lymphocytes that express receptors for both the Fc portion of IgG and sheep erythrocytes. A very high proportion of normal T gamma lymphocytes are large granular lymphocytes (LGL), the cell responsible for most, if not all, natural killer (NK) and antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) in humans, rats, and mice. In general, these cells are large lymphocytes with prominent azurophilic granules in the cytoplasm. Recently, a group of lymphoproliferative disorders made up predominantly of T gamma lymphocytes has been described. The most common and best studied of these disorders we refer to as "chronic T gamma-lymphoproliferative disease" (T gamma-LPD). In most cases, this disease represents the abnormal expansion of LGL, which is reflected by an increase in functionally active NK or ADCC effector cells. The chronic T gamma-LPD lymphocytes are generally characterized as E- and EA-rosette positive, acid-phosphatase, and beta-glucuronidase positive and express the pan-T antigens OKT3/Leu-4, OKT11/Leu-5, the suppressor-associated antigens OKT5,8/Leu-2, and the NK-associated antigens Leu-7/HNK-1. Typically, the patients are older, predominantly males and characteristically have a lymphocytosis of predominantly T gamma lymphocytes with lymphocyte infiltration of the bone marrow and often the spleen. While chronic T gamma-LPD is not usually an aggressive disease, the patients are often neutropenic and have recurrent bacterial infections requiring antibiotic therapy. Some patients have benefited from cytotoxic chemotherapy., but most patients have not required chemotherapy. An experimental LGL leukemia in F344 rats appears morphologically, functionally, and clinically similar to the human chronic T gamma-LPD and serves as an experimental model for further examining the ontogeny and function of LGL and may be applicable for exploring new and more effective means for the treatment of patients with chronic T gamma-LPD.


We present a new puzzle involving Galactic microwave emission and attempt to resolve it. On one hand, a cross-correlation analysis of the Wisconsin H a Mapper map with the Tenerife 10 and 15 GHz maps shows that the well-known DIRBE correlated microwave emission cannot be dominated by free-free emission. On the other hand, recent high-resolution observations in the 8 ¨ 10 GHz range with the Green Bank 140 foot telescope by Finkbeiner et al. failed to —nd the corresponding 8 p signal that would be expected in the simplest spinning-dust models. So what physical mechanism is causing this ubiquitous dust-correlated emission? We argue for a model predicting that spinning dust is the culprit after all, but that the corresponding small grains are well correlated with the larger grains seen at 100 k m only on large angular scales. In support of this grain-segregation model, we —nd that the best spinning-dust template involves higher frequency maps in the range 12 ¨ 60 k m, in which emission from transiently heated small grains is important. Upcoming cosmic microwave background experiments such as ground-based interferometers, the Microwave Anisotropy Probe , and the Planck low-frequency interferometer with high resolution at low frequencies should allow a de—nitive test of this model.


Panoramic radiographs are frequently used for routine follow-up of mandibular implants. The objective of this study was to determine whether measurement on a panoramic radiograph of the vertical dimension of the mandible near by an implant, using the known implant length as a reference, is a reliable method. In 11 patients, 2 permucosal implants were placed in the anterior part of the edentulous mandible. During the first year after implantation, 2 panoramic radiographs and 2 sets of standardized oblique lateral cephalometric radiographs were made. Oblique lateral cephalometric radiographs are the golden standard for measuring the vertical dimension of an edentulous mandible. The length of the implants and the vertical dimension of the mandible dorsally to the implants were measured on all oblique lateral cephalometric radiographs. The measured and known implant length were used to calculate the image enlargement factor. This factor was used to calculate the real vertical dimension of the mandible. The same measurement procedures were performed on the panoramic radiographs. Using a paired t-test, the calculated values of the vertical dimensions of the mandibles found on panoramic radiographs were compared with the calculated values found on oblique lateral cephalometric radiographs. No statistically significant differences were found. It was concluded that under the described circumstances, panoramic radiographs can be used for reliable measurement of the vertical dimension of the mandible near by permucosal implants.