The garter snake Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis can readily tolerate several hours of freezing or anoxia exposure. Both stresses halt oxygen availability to tissues and to endure these stresses snakes must cope with potential oxidative stress arising as a result of the ischemic/anoxic condition followed by reperfusion of aerated blood during recovery. To determine whether antioxidant defenses are important for freezing and anoxia survival, we monitored the activities of antioxidant enzymes and the levels of glutathione (GSH and GSSG) during freezing (5 h at -2.5 degrees C) and anoxia (10 h under N2 gas at 5 degrees C) exposures in three organs (muscle, liver, and lung) of snakes. Freezing resulted in a significant rise in the activity of muscle and lung catalase (by 183 and 63%) and in muscle glutathione peroxidase (52%). Anoxia enhanced muscle and liver superoxide dismutase activities (by 59 and 118%) and also caused a 57% increase in muscle GSH levels. The increase in muscle GSH concentration in anoxia (from 0.45 to 0.71 mM) could also stimulate muscle glutathione peroxidase activity in vivo by 1.5-fold because of its low affinity for GSH (Km = 11 mM). The ratio of GSSG/GSH was not affected by experimental state in any tissue, suggesting that oxidative stress did not occur during the freezing or anoxic exposure. Rather, H2O2- and O2(-)-detoxification systems may be activated in preparation for possible oxygen free radical overgeneration during thawing or reoxygenation. Antioxidant defenses appear to be part of the adaptive machinery for reptilian tolerance of freezing and anoxia.


Abstract Context. Human–wildlife competition is a worldwide problem. In the Brazilian Pantanal, the competition is between livestock and large cats, such as the jaguar (Panthera onca) and the puma (Puma concolor). Only a few studies have been conducted in the region and have indicated low levels of cattle predation. In addition to the paucity of information on livestock predation levels, information on the local ranchers' understanding of cattle predation is limited. Aims. To investigate local people's perceptions of large cats and husbandry practices in order to understand some of the causes and extent of jaguar–livestock interaction in the Brazilian Pantanal. Methods. We present comprehensive surveys of the local people's perceptions towards large cats using a 5-point Likert scale evaluated using non-parametric tests in order to reach a better understanding of the causes of jaguar–livestock interaction and its extent in the Brazilian Pantanal. Key results. In general, total mortality rate due to cat predation was 2.7 ± 4.9% of total cattle holdings. However, jaguars were reported as a real menace to cattle and cattle predation by large cats was a real concern for ranch operations. The majority of ranchers who implemented cattle management accept the risk of losing cattle to predation by large cats, but only a minority of respondents reported that they would rather live without jaguars. Conclusions. The majority of the ranches surveyed had limited husbandry practices and the intensity of cattle management did influence respondents' perceptions of predation by large cats. Implications. We suggest that the focus of conservation actions be on cattle management aimed at minimising other sources of income loss caused by poor husbandry practices.


In this paper, we propose a new dwindling multidimensional fllter second-order line search method for solving large-scale unconstrained optimization problems. Usually, the multidimensional fllter is constructed with a flxed envelope, which is a strict condition for the gradient vectors. A dwindling multidimensional fllter technique, which is a modiflcation and improvement of the original multidimensional fllter, is presented. Under some reasonable assumptions, the new algorithm is globally convergent to a second-order critical point, when negative curvature direction is exploited. Preliminary numerical experiments on a set of CUTEr test problems indicate that the new algorithm is more competitive than the traditional second-order line search algorithms.


Objectives: Therrabands are commonly used for resistive exercises, streching and stabilization exercises and also isometric exercises. However, principles of practice of therrabands are mostly focused on exercise variety. Likewise it is only given point to exercise variety during therrabands' usage at cervical region. Nevertheless, for effective usage of therrabands and for proper assessment of effectiveness response, it is necessary to know the amount of resistance being given or muscle activation response against the resistance given. The aim of this study was to compare activations of cervical flexor and extensor muscles during isometric extension exercise against the resistance of therraband in healthy individuals. Methods: 14 healthy subjects (8 female,6 male)aged between 19-32 have been included in the study. Subjects with neck problems, systemic diseases, history of trauma or operation were excluded. Neck isometric exercises with therraband was 2 sets with 2 minutes' intervals and EMG records have been taken during exercises. After preparation of the skin, surface electrodes placed on the motor points of sternocleidomastoideus(SCM) and erector spinae(ES) muscles. After taking the average of 3 measures, the first 10 seconds of muscular activations were recorded. The average of integrated EMG(iEMG) values of each records was used for statistical data. Independent T test and Mann Whitney U test were used for the analysis of findings. Results: There was no significant difference between the right ES and left ES's mean iEMG during isometric neck extension against therraband (p=0.06). Although there was no difference between right SCM and right ES muscles action potentials(t=-0.895; p=0.379), there was a significant difference between left SCM and left ES muscles' action potentials (z= -2.435; p=0.01). When all the right and left SCM and ES muscle activations were compared, a significant difference was detected in favour of ES muscles ( t= -2.133; p= 0.03). Conclusion: The results show that the neck extensors may be affected by the arm muscles during isometric exercise with therraband and the arm muscle activation can interfere EMG activity of neck muscles because of holding therraband. Higher SCM muscle activation in the right side might be related to dominancy. Consequently, this study has shown that the other muscle groups can be affected from self isometric neck exercises with therraband; thus therraband exercise done by a mechanism are more convenient for the neck isometrics.


Background: In phenylketonuria (PKU), only a limited range of natural foods, such as fruits, vegetables, oils and sugars, can be consumed without restrictions. The present study aimed to study if food neophobia (i.e. an unwillingness to eat novel food) occurs in patients with PKU and to compare in non-PKU healthy controls and to identify any associated factors. Methods: This cross-sectional case-control study used a convenience sampling strategy to recruit patients diagnosed with PKU and healthy controls matched by gender and age. Patients and controls were invited to complete the food neophobia scale (FNS) questionnaire, and clinical and treatment data were collected through a review of medical records. Results: Twenty-five patients (mean age 19.3 ± 4.7 years, 13 women) with PKU and 25 controls (mean age 19.9 ± 4.9 years; P = 0.676, 13 women) were evaluated. The mean age of treatment onset in patients with PKU was 52.8 ± 29.7 days. The mean phenylalanine (Phe) level in the 12-month preceding neophobia study was 710.5 ± 346 µmol/L. The mean FNS score of patients with PKU was significantly higher (47.2 ± 9.7) than controls (29.4 ± 12.5, P < 0.001). Food neophobia was associated more with male gender (P = 0.039). Conclusions: Food neophobia is frequent in patients with PKU. It does not appear to be associated with female gender, with Phe levels and not just in children. J Endocrinol Metab. 2019;9(4):108-112 doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/jem581


To explore the expected role of Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus (BVDV) in pneumonia in cattle, cattle lungs (n=242) showing signs of pneumonia were collected from slaughter houses of three different localities located at Northern, Central and Western Sudan during 2010–2013. The collected samples were tested for the presence of BVDV antigen using Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA), and Fluorescent Antibody Test (FAT). Twenty six (10.7%) out of 242 samples were found to be positive for BVDV. Positive results were seen in all the three studied areas, with the highest prevalence (16.7%; n=4/24) at Gezira State in Central Sudan. BVDV genome could be detected in all ELISA positive samples. The results indicated the existence of BVDV infection in cattle in different areas in Sudan, and its possible association with respiratory infections in cattle. Analysis using BLAST indicated that the sequence was identical to the previously reported BVDV-1 (GenBank accession AF220247.1.); nucleotide A was found in our study at position 9 of our sequence, whereas T was present instead in the reference virus. This is the first report of detecting BVDV antigen, genome, and its sequence analysis collected from cattle lungs in Sudan.


Objectives: The study aimed to determine the effect of coffee intake on AGEs formation and platelet aggregation in diabetic Wistar rats. Methods: Coffee powder samples were used to prepare a 10% beverage. Diabetes mellitus was induced in the animals by administering 2% alloxan. All animal experiments were approved by the ethics committee for animal experiments under N°. 420/2012 and 536/2013. Diabetic and non-diabetic rats were divided into 6 groups treated and untreated with coffee (7.2 mL/Kg body weight) and aminoguanidine (AGE inhibiting agent) (100 mg/Kg body weight) for 50 days. After 50 days, the animals were fasted for 12 h and anesthetized (40 mg/Kg sodium pentobarbital) intraperitoneally. Blood samples were collected from the abdominal artery puncture. Hematological parameters (red cells, hemoglobin, hematocrit and leukocyte) and glycemic and HbA1c levels were measured. AGEs quantification (spectrofluorometric method) and the platelet aggregation test (aggregation of cuvettes in a four-channel platelet aggregometer) were also conducted. The rats' renal function was evaluated by measuring serum urea and creatinine. Results: Data showed that coffee intake had no effect on the hematological parameters. Fasting glucose and HbA1c dosage were significantly higher in diabetic animals compared to non-diabetic animals (confirmed the effectiveness of inducing and maintaining diabetic status). Results showed that coffee reduced AGE formation and platelet aggregation in our animal model, not altering the animals' renal function. Conclusions: These results suggest beneficial effects on vasculopathy, a common complication in diabetic patients.


Microarrays have been used to identify genes involved in cancer progression. We have now developed an algorithm that identifies dysregulated pathways from multiple expression array data sets without a priori definition of gene expression thresholds. Integrative microarray analysis of pathways (IMAP) was done using existing expression array data from localized and metastatic prostate cancer. Comparison of metastatic cancer and localized disease in multiple expression array profiling studies using the IMAP approach yielded a list of about 100 pathways that were significantly dysregulated (P < 0.05) in prostate cancer metastasis. The pathway that showed the most significant dysregulation, HIV-I NEF, was validated at both the transcript level and the protein level by quantitative PCR and immunohistochemical analysis, respectively. Validation by unsupervised analysis on an independent data set using the gene expression signature from the HIV-I NEF pathway verified the accuracy of our method. Our results indicate that this pathway is especially dysregulated in hormonerefractory prostate cancer. [Cancer Res 2007;67(21):10296–303]


Around such issues as historical and economic dislocation, social protest, the death of God, university unrest, educational transformation, and the use and misuse of chemical substances in the age of the pill, the generation gap is taken seriously yet is bridged as the son-father relationship moves to communication that is essentially person to person, man to man. COLIN B. GRACEY • Dialogue in Despair: Pastoral Commentary on the Book of Job: William E. Hulme; Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1968. 152 pp. $3.50.


BACKGROUND
Paroxysmal nonkinesigenic dyskinesia (PNKD) is a rare disorder characterized by attacks of involuntary movements brought on by stress, alcohol, or caffeine, but not by movement. An autosomal dominant form of this disorder was mapped to chromosome 2q33-36, and different missense mutations in exon 1 of the myofibrillogenesis regulator 1 (MR1) gene were identified recently in 2 kindreds.

OBJECTIVES
To describe studies on a new pedigree with PNKD, to explore the possibility of locus heterogeneity, and to further delineate the spectrum of mutations in MR1 in 2 families with PNKD.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS
All 10 exons of MR1 were sequenced in DNA from members of 2 pedigrees with autosomal dominant PNKD.

RESULTS
Different missense mutations in exon 1 of MR1 that cosegregate with disease were identified in each multiplex family. These single-nucleotide mutations predicted substitution of valine for alanine in residue 7 in one family and residue 9 in the other. The same mutations were found in the only 2 families previously published. Family history and haplotype analysis make it unlikely that the families with the same mutations are related.

CONCLUSIONS
The function of MR1 is unknown, but the 2 mutations identified in the 4 families with PNKD studied to date are predicted to disrupt the amino terminal alpha-helix suggesting that this region of the gene is critical for proper gene function under stressful conditions. Study of additional families will be important to determine whether analysis of a single exon (MR1 exon 1) is sufficient for genetic testing purposes.


The combination of attractive mechanical properties and high corrosion resistance make metastable austenitic stainless steels useful in various applications. They have rather low yield strength in solution-treated condition, but strain-harden significantly due to both conventional dislocation strengthening and a partial phase transformation to martensite, during cold deformation. The deformation-induced martensitic transformation (DIMT) and the exceptional strain-hardening, hence, invokes the so-called Transformation Induced Plasticity (TRIP) effect that prevent localized neck formation and give excellent ductility and formability, the strain-hardening further provide high strength after cold forming. Clearly, the significant effect of DIMT on mechanical properties suggests that a profound understanding of DIMT through experiments and physical-based materials modeling is vital to fully utilize the merits of the metastable austenitic stainless steels in technical applications. This chapter provides an introduction to DIMT in metastable austenitic stainless steels and, moreover, it aims at providing some perspectives on current activities in the field. In particular, from an experimental viewpoint, the methodologies to investigate DIMT as well as the microstructure and its mechanical response are discussed; from a modeling perspective, first-principles and thermodynamic calculations of the stacking-fault energy, and structural modeling using the phase-field method is elaborated on.


OBJECTIVE: Frequent fast-food consumption is a well-known risk factor for obesity. This study sought to determine whether the availability of fast-food restaurants has an influence on body mass index (BMI). METHODS: BMI and individual-level confounding variables were obtained from the 2007-08 Canadian Community Health Survey. Neighbourhood socio-demographic variables were acquired from the 2006 Canadian Census. The geographic locations of all restaurants in Canada were assembled from a validated business registry database. The density of fast-food, full-service and non-chain restaurants per 10,000 individuals was calculated for respondents' forward sortation area. Multivariable regression analyses were conducted to analyze the association between restaurant density and BMI. RESULTS: Fast-food, full-service and non-chain restaurant density variables were statistically significantly associated with BMI. Fast-food density had a positive association whereas full-service and non-chain restaurant density had a negative association with BMI (additional 10 fast-food restaurants per capita corresponded to a weight increase of 1 kilogram; p<0.001). These associations were primarily found in Canada's major urban jurisdictions. CONCLUSIONS: This research was the first to investigate the influence of fast-food and full-service restaurant density on BMI using individual-level data from a nationally representative Canadian survey. The finding of a positive association between fast-food restaurant density and BMI suggests that interventions aiming to restrict the availability of fast-food restaurants in local neighbourhoods may be a useful obesity prevention strategy.


Objective: The research is carried out in the framework of the development project "Improving Quality of Medical and Info-technological education in North and East Afghanistan in 2014-2016." The Afghan midwives were educated about contemporary professional theoretical and practical skills within the training, whereas prior it was necessary to determine the existing knowledge and skills of the target group. It was possible to plan the content quality of the training with the support of the results of current research in accordance with the needs of the target group. The study's aim is to describe contraceptive methods, maternal and neonatal mortality in Afghanistan and to analyses results of the interviews during professional training for Afghan midwives in Estonia, Tallinn Health Care College.
Methods: The research method is qualitative based on semi-structured interviews. The target group comprised nine Afghan midwives from North and East Afghanistan. The questionnaire consisted of questions, which were divided into three themes: contraceptive methods, maternal mortality and neonatal mortality.
Results: According to interviews, in Afghanistan, a variety of contraception is available: hormonal oral pills, birth control implants, and hormone injections, intra-uterine contraceptive and male condoms. Abortion is prohibited by law, but it is exercised in disguise. In rural areas, contraception is more difficult to access than in cities. There are several factors hindering the use of contraceptives and family planning in Afghanistan, such as family-related or societal religious standards and values, fear and ignorance of side effects, insufficient counseling skills of the midwives and lack of female doctors also high cost of contraceptives. There are many children in the families in Afghanistan. The birth of a baby boy is preferred because there is a widespread misconception that boys ensure the well-being of the family. Women from urban areas give birth in urban hospitals. Women from rural areas give birth at home, there is a high risk for the onset of complications and professional help is not available. The women are invited to the hospital for the midwife's postpartum appointment but most women prefer not to go there, which increases the risk for the onset of postpartum complications. Newborn care consists of many different factors, which are hazards to the health of a newborn, such as not using colostrum, washing the newborn and several other inappropriate methods of care. Prematurity, low birth weight, infections etc. are highlighted as causes for neonatal mortality. Healthcare in Afghanistan as a whole is uneven, and needs systematic rearrangements. Midwifery care is not available in rural areas. Training of midwives should be supported and improved at the national level in order to provide even availability and quality of midwifery care. The measures listed help to alleviate problems related to family planning and to reduce the maternal mortality and neonatal mortality rates.
Conclusions: Afghan midwives require modern and evidence-based training what is based on accepted guidelines, medical and info-technological education. Tallinn Health Care College will continue to improve medical and info-technological education training of Afghan midwives. The target groups were educated about contemporary professional theoretical and practical skills, which covered pregnancy and delivery period and postpartum period, counseling in reproductive health, includes family planning, newborn care, women's rights and digital technology.


As ever larger language models grow more ubiquitous, it is crucial to consider their environmental impact. Characterised by extreme size and resource use, recent generations of models have been criticised for their voracious appetite for compute, and thus significant carbon footprint. Although reporting of carbon impact has grown more common in machine learning papers, this reporting is usually limited to compute resources used strictly for training. In this work, we propose a holistic assessment of the footprint of an extreme-scale language model, Noor. Noor is an ongoing project aiming to develop the largest multi-task Arabic language models–with up to 13B parameters–leveraging zero-shot generalisation to enable a wide range of downstream tasks via natural language instructions. We assess the total carbon bill of the entire project: starting with data collection and storage costs, including research and development budgets, pretraining costs, future serving estimates, and other exogenous costs necessary for this international cooperation. Notably, we find that inference costs and exogenous factors can have a significant impact on total budget. Finally, we discuss pathways to reduce the carbon footprint of extreme-scale models.


The effects of dietary supplementation with high levels of polyunsaturated fatty  acids (PUFAs) and vitamin E and their interaction on biochemical and pathological  parameters in rats were investigated. A total of 40 rats (Rattus norvegicus) were  randomized in 4 groups, each containing 10 rats. Group 1 (control) was fed on basal  diet. Group 2 was fed on basal diet with added PUFAs to attain a fat level of 24%. Group 3 received basal diet supplemented with 1500 ppm of vitamin E. Group  4 was fed basal diet supplemented with 24% PUFAs and 1500ppm vitamin  E. Zoo-technical parameters on rats, including clinical picture and body weight  changes were observed daily and weekly respectively. The rats were sacrificed after 20 weeks of feeding. Pathological examinations were done on the liver, kidney and  heart. Thiobarbituric acid reactive substance concentration (TBArs) in the liver  homogenates was determined for biochemical picture. At baseline Body weight and (TBArs) were homogenous in all the groups. Following treatments, average body  weight in groups 4 and 2 was significantly higher than in group 1 and 3 and mean  TBArs levels in the liver was significantly (P<0.05) higher in group 2 rats compared to groups. Furthermore, high dietary supplementation of vitamin E showed no  deleterious effects on rats and no pathological changes in the liver, kidney and  heart tissues were observed in the treated and control groups. The current study  reveals that, peroxidative stress attributable to high levels of PUFAs  supplementation in rats maybe counteracted by supplementing PUFA with high level of vitamin E. Key words : Antioxidants, basal diet, PUFAs, vitamin E


Adaptive prompting addresses problems with locating, referencing, and selecting interface items such as elements of directory hierarchies or menu and dialog box entries. By drawing the user's attention to the most appropriate and most likely to be chosen items, adaptive prompting tries to increase users' performance on selections and to provide guidance in explorative environments. Examples for adaptive prompting include an Adaptive Tool Prompter, an Adaptive Action Prompter, and Adaptive Prompting in Dialog Boxes. In order to deal with application contexts and evolving needs and preferences of the user, adaptive prompting employs models of the application and the user. The chosen approach allows for an optional user involvement into the adaptation and for an evaluation of the embedded prompting strategies. Multimodal user interfaces provide further perspectives for adaptive prompting.


Structures obtained during Zn-Cu-Ti single crystal growth by the Bridgman method were investigated. The alloys of composition Zn-Cu0.1wt.%-Ti0.1wt.% were used for single crystals growth, which were produced at rate in the range of 1.8mm/h to 16mm/h. The Zn-Cu-Ti alloys were characterized by multiphase structure; in the solute-hardened matrix by Cu atoms exists a needle-shaped intermetallic phase Zn16Ti. The strong anisotropy of the hexagonal structure gives a significant influence on a second phase distribution in the matrix volume. In the range of the low growth rates (from 1.8mm/h to 10mm/h) oscillatory structures were observed. That effect vanished at the growth rates higher than 10mm/h. The observed oscillatory structures were characterized by existing periodic layers rich in the intermetallic phase of Zn16Ti interlaid with pure matrix (alpha phase Zn with Cu solute).


Inhibitors of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) have been reported to increase mean arterial pressure in animal models of sepsis and recently have been given to patients in septic shock. However, controlled studies to determine the effects of these agents on cardiovascular function and survival in awake animal models of sepsis have not been reported. To examine the therapeutic potential of NOS inhibition in septic shock, we challenged canines with endotoxin (2 or 4 mg/kg i.v.) and treated them with either normal saline or N omega-amino-L-arginine (10 or 1 mg/kg/h), the most specific inhibitor available for the isoform of NOS implicated in septic shock. Endotoxemic animals treated with N omega-amino-L-arginine (n = 11) had higher systemic and pulmonary vascular resistance indices (SVRI and PVRI, p less than or equal to 0.033) and decreased heart rates (p = 0.009), cardiac indices (CI, p = 0.01), oxygen delivery indices (p = 0.027), and oxygen consumption indices (p = 0.046) compared with controls (n = 6). Moreover, N omega-amino-L-arginine increased mortality rates after endotoxin challenge (10 of 11 vs. 1 of 6 controls, p = 0.005). Administration of L-arginine did not improve survival or alter the cardiopulmonary effects of N omega-amino-L-arginine, which suggests that inhibition of NOS may not have been competitive. In normal animals, N omega-amino-L-arginine alone (n = 3) increased SVRI (p = 0.0008) and mean arterial pressure (p = 0.016), and decreased CI (p = 0.01) compared with saline-treated controls (n = 3), but, at the high dose, also produced neuromuscular rigidity and seizure-like activity that was not apparent in the endotoxemic model. Thus, the mortality rate from endotoxemia increased either because of NOS inhibition per se or because of properties unique to N omega-amino-L-arginine, or both.


Since 1980, Peru has been the scene of an escalating civil war. On the one hand, the Sendero Luminoso ("Shining Path") maoists determined to destroy existing society. On the other, the Peruvian military, acknowledged as South America's worst human rights violators. Caught in the middle, and dying in their thousands each year, are the poor peasants and slum-dwellers of Peru. Victims also of a collapsing economy and radical austerity programme, the great majority of Peruvians are living a time of fear. This work looks at the astonishing success of Sendero Luminoso, examines the party's bizarre ideology and describes how its violence reaches every corner of Peruvian society. It also explains why "non-politician" President Fujimori has assumed dictatorial powers in a deal with the military.


Purpose: To develop a graphics processing unit (GPU) based ultra fast direct aperture optimization (DAO) algorithm in intensity modulated radiation therapy(IMRT)treatment planning.Method and Materials: While DAO problems are well‐studied, most of them focus on heuristic search methods such as simulated annealing and the computational efficiency is often very low. In contrast, we formulate this problem as a large‐scale convex programming problem in terms of all multi‐leaf collimator(MLC) deliverable apertures and their associated intensities. An exact method called column generation method is used which iteratively adds high‐quality deliverable apertures while the treatment plan quality is improved. The efficiency of this approach has been ensured by exploiting fine‐grained parallelism to effectively utilize the computational recourses on GPU. Results: A clinical prostate IMRT case with various beamlet and voxel sizes is used to evaluate our implementation. High quality treatment plans are obtained at a high efficiency. In particular, for a 9‐field prostate case with 5×5 mm2 beamlet size and 2.5×2.5×2.5 mm3 voxel size, the implementation takes only 7.1 seconds to generate 50 MLC apertures on an NVIDIA Tesla C1060 GPU. Conclusion: This work solved a major problem in developing ultra fast (re‐)planning technologies for fast treatment planning in conventional IMRT and for real‐time re‐planning for online adaptive radiotherapy.


The influence of the tricyclic antidepressants imipramine and ftoracizin on platelet aggregation and smooth muscle contractility was investigated in comparison with action of known smooth muscle relaxant and platelet aggregation inhibitor, papaverine. It has been shown that the tricyclic antidepressants possess potent spasmolytic activity but unlike papaverine have no effect on platelet aggregation. The biochemical mechanisms of the non-specific action of tricyclic antidepressants as well as some other structurally related-drugs are discussed.


Co-clustering is a problem of both theoretical and practical importance , e.g., market basket analysis and collaborative filtering, and in web scale text processing. We state the co-clustering problem in terms of non-parametric generative models which can address the issue of estimating the number of row and column clusters from a hypothesis space of an infinite number of clusters. To reach large scale applications of co-clustering we exploit that parameter inference for co-clustering is well suited for parallel computing. We develop a generic GPU framework for efficient inference on large scale sparse bipartite networks and achieve a speedup of two orders of magnitude compared to estimation based on conventional CPUs. In terms of scalability we find for networks with more than 100 million links that reliable inference can be achieved in less than an hour on a single GPU. To efficiently manage memory consumption on the GPU we exploit the structure of the posterior likelihood to obtain a decomposition that easily allows model estimation of the co-clustering problem on arbitrary large networks as well as distributed estimation on multiple GPUs. Finally we evaluate the implementation on real-life large scale collaborative filtering data and web scale text corpora, demonstrating that latent mesoscale structures extracted by the co-clustering problem as formulated by the Infinite Relational Model (IRM) are consistent across consecutive runs with different initializations and also relevant for interpretation of the underlaying processes in such large scale networks.


This research is motivated by the increased output of Queer documentary film in France and Italy from 2000 onwards, an increase which is seen to form part of a wider committed cinema. The impetus comes from a need to recognise the contribution of this output in marking a shift away from the categorisation of representations within set frameworks and identities to the deployment of the intricacies of documentary performance in creating an alternative and more complex sense of place and identity. In considering this shift I develop the notion of the lieu factice, which I offer as an original way of approaching the complexities of both the process of documentary representation and the context in which this takes place in France and Italy where 'difference' is generally subsumed in universal principles. The lieu factice is a temporary site of agency and resistance which allows identity and place to be explored in different ways, reflecting the position of Queer lives in contexts where the universal predominates and the interplay between visibility and invisibility is a complex phenomenon. As I progress through each chapter, providing detailed analysis of the selected films, I appropriate a range of Queer theoretical concepts to support my notion, which draws on the work of Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Leo Bersani and Nicholas de Villiers. The lieu factice is shaped by a range of representational and spatial dynamics in the foregrounding of 'difference' and is marked by shifts between local, national, and global spaces, both physical and imagined. The notion of 'Queer documentary' in France and Italy is seen to defy definition and centres on a notable challenge to the hegemony of the family as a heteronormative space within national narratives.


carcinoma, and it would appear that this tumour is a highly malignant variant of the bronchial carcinoid.6 Less common are the adenoid cystic carcinoma and the mucoepidermoid carcinoma, tumours noted most often in the salivary glands. The adenoid cystic carcinoma, also called the cylindroma, consists of trabeculae, columns, and cords of epithelial cells, some enclosing cystic spaces, which are surrounded by a dense, hyaline stroma. The mucoepidermoid carcinoma contains a mixture of squamous-cell and mucus-secreting glandular elements. A true mucus-4secreting adenoma has also been described, but it is very rare.7 Recently A. D. Turnibull and his colleagues have reviewed 61 cases of bronchial adenoma which had occurred over a period of 43 years.8 These comprised 44 carcinoid tumours, 12 mucoepidermoid carcinomata, and 5 adenoid cystic carcinomata. Most of these tumours occurred in patients between the ages of 40 and 70 years, and while the sex incidence was equal in the carcinoid group there was a male predominance in the other two groups of tumours. None of the cases of carcinoid tumour showed the typical endocrine syndrome. The most conspicuous finding in this series was the high degree of malignancy of the tumours. Only 59W/', of the patients with carcinoid tumour and 600,W of those with adenoid cystic carcinoma survived for five years, while all those with mucoepidermoid carcinoma had died during that period of time. This is especially surprising, as mucoepidermoid carcinoma is usually regarded as the most benign type of bronchial adenoma,7 other than the rare mucus-secreting adenoma, which was not encountered in this series. The observations of Turnbull and his colleagues once again contradict the traditional teaching that the various types of bronchial adenoma behave in a benign fashion and are usually compatible with prolonged survival. The time has surely come to expunge the term bronchial adenoma, and to group the tumours that have been included under this heading as bronchial carcinoids, mucoepidermoid carcinomata, and adenoid cystic carcinomata. While they are certainly less malignant than the usual varieties of lung cancer-the oat-cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma, and squamous-cell carcinoma-their serious nature must be fully acknowledged.


Reading International is a new contemporary art organisation located within the Reading School of Art at the University of Reading. It was founded and initiated in response to ongoing discussions with artists, academics, students about how we might establish new models of working in education and to respond to the growing pressures and the increasing frustration of students to see future possibilities or career progressions within the 'art world'. At the same time it is an attempt to reflect on the existence of the art school within a regional environment, to find out if it could act as a regional contemporary art hub or centre, and to explore its possibilities in connecting and engaging with the different rhythms of the local arts community, to interrelate and raise ambitions for its co-existence and future. Building on my experience in collaboration and self- institutionalisation under the collective umbrella of Szuper Gallery in developing critical partnerships with challenging institutions, as well as working as an artist in a university we wanted to create a new 'container', an idea for a space that could involve artists, students and community in order to make the art school more site-specific, and more arguably more useful for its members. With partners and collaborators we set off to imagine the art school in the university as a public arena, which opens its life beyond the academic community and actively engages with a wider public. We asked how could we create a space that is less separated from the professional sphere, where artists collaborate with students and other organisations and how we might be able to create a dynamic cultural space in a regional environment?


Regio- and stereoselective Baeyer-Villiger oxidations are difficult to achieve by classical chemical means, particularly when large, functionalized molecules are to be converted. Biocatalysis using flavin-containing Baeyer-Villiger monooxygenases (BVMOs) is a well-established tool to address these challenges, but known BVMOs have shortcomings in either stability or substrate selectivity. We characterized a novel BVMO from the thermophilic fungus Thermothelomyces thermophila, determined its three-dimensional structure, and demonstrated its use as a promising biocatalyst. This fungal enzyme displays excellent enantioselectivity, acts on various ketones, and is particularly active on polycyclic molecules. Most notably we observed that the enzyme can perform oxidations on both the A and D ring when converting steroids. These functional properties can be linked to unique structural features, which identify enzymes acting on bulky substrates as a distinct subgroup of the BVMO class.


The current global pollination crisis and the importance of insects in pollination service that maintains the native plant populations, agricultural enterprise, ecosystem resilience and food security do motivate the concern to conserve insect pollinators. Kaya forests are rich in biodiversity and endemism; they are potential sites for conservation of these pollinators in the coastal region of Kenya. However, they are threatened by illegal deforestation, charcoal burning, settlement and farming causing conservation threat to the pollinators. Understanding the composition of bee and butterfly communities and their response to the disturbance is essential if their conservation is to be successful in the area. The main objective of the study was to establish the composition of bees and butterflies along the disturbance gradient. The study examined the diversity and abundance of these pollinators and their floral resources along a disturbance gradient from the natural forest through the forest edge to farmlands. The study was carried out between April 2010 to September 2010 and data analysed using R software. Diversity, species richness, abundance and floral resources were examined in Kaya Muhaka forest, forest edge, surrounding fallow farmlands and crop fields. The survey was done at sampling points along two habitat zones in transition from the forest core to farmlands. Sampling was done using sweep nets within three permanent 50 m x 2 m belt transects at each sampling point. 36 belt transects were surveyed in 12 sampling points across the habitats for six months. Floral resources were identified and linked to the associated bees and butterflies. A total of 52 bee species and 66 butterfly species were recorded. The highest bee diversity was recorded in fallow farmlands and lowest in forest core. The diversity of bee species across the habitats was not statistically different. However, butterfly diversity was significantly higher in forest edge than in crop fields (P = 0.021). The lowest butterfly diversity was recorded in fallow farmlands. Both bees and butterflies were more abundant in the farmlands. Crop fields and forest edge were closely similar in bee and butterfly composition. Increasing distance from forest core had no significant effect on bee and butterfly diversity and abundance. The effect of floral resources richness on bee species richness was highly significant (P = 0.004). However, floral richness did not have significant effect on butterfly richness. Bees and butterflies were not evenly distributed in the habitats. These findings are important for understanding and management of insect pollinators in changing landscapes.


This Article explores the optimal level of income redistribution by examining the potential welfare gains from redistributive tax and spending policies. Drawing on recent research on human happiness, this Article argues that while wealthy nations are generally happier than their poorer counterparts, neither national nor individual economic growth appear to have an appreciable impact on the subjective well-being of the citizens of relatively wealthy nations. Significant causes of this finding include the problem of rivalry—that increases in the income of some depress the happiness of others—and the fact that individuals overestimate the degree to which additional consumption will improve their happiness. Studies show the level of inequality in a society also may affect levels of happiness. Ultimately, happiness research is consistent with the strongest justification for adopting a progressive tax structure--income has declining marginal utility thus redistribution can increase total welfare in a society.


We propose a new architecture for modeling and enacting of interorganizational business processes which captures both control flow and data flow aspects of web service orchestrations and choreographies. A major modeling concepts is a view mechanism to balance the problems of openness, privacy and coupling in cross-organization interactions. The view concept cares both for process abstraction and for data transformation between business partners. To cope with interoperability problems that arise from different data formats and internal schemas used by different choreography participants we support transformation of XML-based data types through our views. The approach allows a to enact interorganizational business processes in a fully distributed way without the need for any central coordinator.


HLA-mismatches in hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation are associated with an impaired overall survival (OS). The aim of this study is to explore whether the Predicted Indirectly ReCognizable HLA-Epitopes (PIRCHE) algorithm can be used to identify HLA-mismatches that are related to an impaired transplant outcome. PIRCHE are computationally predicted peptides derived from the patient's mismatched-HLA molecules that can be presented by donor-patient shared HLA. We retrospectively scored PIRCHE numbers either presented on HLA class-I (PIRCHE-I) or class-II (PIRCHE-II) for a Dutch multicenter cohort of 103 patients who received a single HLA-mismatched (9/10) unrelated donor transplant in an early phase of their disease. These patients were divided into low and high PIRCHE-I and PIRCHE-II groups, based on their PIRCHE scores, and compared using multivariate statistical analysis methods. The high PIRCHE-II group had a significantly impaired OS compared to the low PIRCHE-II group and the 10/10 reference group (HR: 1.86, 95%-CI: 1.02–3.40; and HR: 2.65, 95%-CI: 1.53–4.60, respectively). Overall, PIRCHE-II seem to have a more prominent effect on OS than PIRCHE-I. This impaired OS is probably due to an increased risk for severe acute graft-vs.-host disease. These data suggest that high PIRCHE-II scores may be used to identify non-permissible HLA mismatches within single HLA-mismatched hematopoietic stem-cell transplantations.


OBJECTIVE
Although evidence suggests that patients with depression use more medical services than those without depression, few studies have examined whether specific subgroups of patients with depression have higher utilization than others. The study compared costs for general medical care with and without psychiatric care for patients with major depression and disabling chronic pain (reference group) with costs for five other groups: those with depression and nondisabling chronic pain, those with major depressive disorder alone, those with no depression who had disabling chronic pain, those with depression who had chronic pain that was not disabling, and those who had neither pain nor depression. Costs for the group with major depressive disorder alone were compared to costs for the three groups without depression.

METHODS
A questionnaire assessing major depressive disorder, chronic pain, and pain-related disability was mailed to a random sample of Kaiser Permanente patients who visited a primary care clinic. A total of 5,808 patients responded (54% participation rate). Costs for a two-year period were obtained from Kaiser Permanente's Cost Management Information System. Analyses were adjusted for presence of any of four major chronic medical illnesses.

RESULTS
Total costs for patients in the reference group were significantly higher than costs for the other five subgroups. Regression analyses indicated that continuous measures of severity of pain and severity of depression were associated with increased costs, but no statistically significant interaction of depression and pain on total cost was observed.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients with major depressive disorder and comorbid disabling chronic pain had higher medical service costs than other groups of patients with and without depression. However, findings suggest that the increases in cost from having both pain and depression are additive and not multiplicative.


This book covers the literature on the human facial expression of emotion and describes the authors' own research in the field. With the inevitable banality of the conclusions of such work, for example that it is possible to obtain information about certain emotions by looking at people's faces, it might seem that the book would be pedantic and highly specialized. In fact, the authors guide the reader enthusiastically through the methodological difficulties and pitfalls of such work, and critically, but not destructively, evaluate the conflicting results of earlier studies. The result is a stimulating book, with much to teach to anyone who wishes to attempt to measure human emotions in a clinical or research setting. The book isillustrated by two platesof photographs. It would have been of interest to have seen more of the original pictures used in the various studies.


Objective: There are certain situations in obstetric ultrasound such as hydrocephalus, anencephaly, short limb dysplasia, where traditional biometric values cannot be used to assess gestational age. In these situations, we have to use other parameters for the accurate assessment of gestational age. One of the useful parameters is foetal foot length because it is easily accessed and measured easily. Objective of our study was to create a nomogram of fetal foot length (FtL) throughout gestation. Methods: It was a longitudinal prospective study of patients between 16 and 40 weeks of gestation. Inclusion criteria consisted of well-establisheddates (consistent with early ultra sound), singleton, non-anomalous fetuses, and intact amniotic membranes. Sonographic measurements included biparietal diameter (BPD), head circumference (HC), abdominal circumference (AC) and femurlength (FL). For every case, the average of three separate measurements of FtL was used. The mean, percentiles and standard deviations for FtL were calculated at 4 weeks intervals starting from 16th week to 40th week. Pearson's correlation coefficient and associated P-values for the relationships between FtL and other biometric measurements were calculated. The data were compared to anomogram of the FtL generated from previous published studies. Results: Longitudinal foot length measurements obtained in 50 antenatal women were studied. Nomograms were constructed using Mean ± 2 SD and Percentiles (5th, 50th and 95th centiles). There was strong correlation between foot length measurements and gestational age and could be linearly predicted (Foot Length = -14.02 + 2.3609 * Gestational Age, R2 = 0.97, P Conclusions: We constructed a nomogram for fetal foot length at various gestation intervals for the local population. There was a linear relationship and good correlation between foot length and other biometric measurements. These nomograms may be useful to assess gestational age when duration of pregnancy is unknown. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/sljog.v35i2.6169 Sri Lanka Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 2013; 35: 58-61


The [FeFe]-hydrogenases, although share common features when compared to other metal containing hydrogenases, clearly have independent evolutionary origins. Examples of [FeFe]-hydrogenases have been characterized in detail by biochemical and spectroscopic approaches and the high resolution structures of two examples have been determined. The active site H-cluster is a complex bridged metal assembly in which a [4Fe-4S] cubane is bridged to a 2Fe subcluster with unique non-protein ligands including carbon monoxide, cyanide, and a five carbon dithiolate. Carbon monoxide and cyanide ligands as a component of a native active metal center is a property unique to the metal containing hydrogenases and there has been considerable attention to the characterization of the H-cluster at the level of electronic structure and mechanism as well as to defining the biological means to synthesize such a unique metal cluster. The chapter describes the structural architecture of [FeFe]-hydrogenases and key spectroscopic observations that have afforded the field with a fundamental basis for understanding the relationship between structure and reactivity of the H-cluster. In addition, the results and ideas concerning the topic of H-cluster biosynthesis as an emerging and fascinating area of research, effectively reinforcing the potential linkage between iron-sulfur biochemistry to the role of iron-sulfur minerals in prebiotic chemistry and the origin of life.


Abstract The net selection effect of herbicides on herbicide-resistance traits in weeds is conditioned by the fitness benefits and costs associated with resistance alleles. Fitness costs play an important evolutionary role preventing the fixation of adaptive alleles and contributing to the maintenance of genetic polymorphisms within populations. Glyphosate is widely used in world agriculture, which has led to the evolution of widespread glyphosate resistance in many weed species. The fitness of glyphosate-resistant and -susceptible perennial ryegrass plants selected from within a single population were studied in two field experiments conducted during 2011 and 2012 under different soil water availability. Glyphosate-resistant plants showed a reduction in height of 12 and 16%, leaf blade area of 16 and 33%, shoot biomass of 45 and 55%, seed number of 33 and 53%, and total seed mass of 16 and 5% compared to glyphosate-susceptible plants in 2011 and 2012, respectively. The reduction in seed number per plant resulted in a 40% fitness cost associated with the glyphosate-resistance trait in perennial ryegrass. Fitness costs of glyphosate-resistant plants were expressed under both conditions of water availability. These results could be useful for designing management strategies and exploiting the reduced glyphosate-resistant perennial ryegrass fitness in the absence of glyphosate selection. Nomenclature: Glyphosate; perennial ryegrass, Lolium perenne L., LOLPE.


Although assertions are a great tool for aiding debugging in the design and implementation verification stages, their use in silicon debug has been limited so far. A set of techniques for debugging with the assertions in either pre-silicon or post-silicon scenarios are discussed. Presented are features such as assertion threading, activity monitors, assertion and cover counters and completion mode assertions. The common goal of these checker enhancements is to provide better and more diversified ways to achieve visibility within the assertion circuits, which, in turn, lead to more efficient circuit debugging. Experimental results show that such modifications can be done with modest checker hardware overhead.


Two W protection schemes for direct-contact bottom electrodes for PZT thin films, namely RuO2/Cr and RuO2/Ru, were compared with respect to protective performance and contact resistance up to 800 degrees C annealing temperature in oxygen. Cr clearly offers better protection for W than Ru-based schemes by forming a passivating Cr2O3 layer. No Cr is detected on the RuO2 surface, even after annealing at 800 degrees C, due to its entrapment by RuO2 by oxidoreduction. However, the formation of a continuous Cr2O3 film at the RuO2/Cr interface gives rise to an increased contact resistance above 650 degrees C. RuO2/Ru does not show any measurable contact resistance on W, but fails above 600 degrees C.


e3an is a collaborative UK project developing a network of expertise in assessment issues within electrical and electronic engineering. A major focus is the development of a testbank of peer-reviewed questions for diagnostic, formative and summative assessment. The resulting testbank will contain thousands of well-constructed and tested questions and answers. Question types include objective, numeric, short answer and examination. Initially a set of metadata descriptors were specified classifying information such as subject, level and type of cognitive skills being assessed. Academic consultants agreed key curriculum areas (themes), identified important learning outcomes and produced sets of exemplar questions and answers. Questions were authored in a word processor then converted to the database format. Major pedagogical, organisational and technical issues were encountered, including specification of appropriate interoperable data formats, the standards for data entry and the design of an intuitive interface to enable effective use.


Critical shoulder angle (CSA) is the angle between the superior and inferior bony margins of the glenoid and the most lateral border of the acromion. The acromial index (AI) is the distance from the glenoid plane to the acromial lateral border and is divided by the distance from the glenoid plane to the lateral aspect of the humeral head. Although both are used for predicting shoulder diseases, research on their accuracy in predicting supraspinatus tendinopathy in patients with shoulder pain is limited. Data were retrospectively collected from 308 patients with supraspinatus tendinopathy between January 2018 and December 2019. Simultaneously, we gathered the data of 300 patients with shoulder pain without supraspinatus tendinopathy, confirmed through ultrasound examination. Baseline demographic data, CSA, and AI were compared using the independent Student's t test and Mann–Whitney U test. Categorical variables were analyzed using the chi-square test. A receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis was performed to investigate the accuracy of CSA and AI for predicting supraspinatus tendinopathy, and the optimal cut-off point was determined using the Youden index. No statistical differences were observed for age, sex, body mass index, evaluated side (dominant), diabetes mellitus, and hyperlipidemia between the groups. The supraspinatus tendinopathy group showed higher CSAs (p < 0.001) than did the non-supraspinatus tendinopathy group. For predicting supraspinatus tendinopathy, the area under the curve (AUC) of ROC curve of the CSA was 76.8%, revealing acceptable discrimination. The AUC of AI was 46.9%, revealing no discrimination. Moreover, when patients with shoulder pain had a CSA > 38.11°, the specificity and sensitivity of CSA in predicting supraspinatus tendinopathy were 71.0% and 71.8%, respectively. CSA could be considered an objective assessment tool to predict supraspinatus tendinopathy in patients with shoulder pain. AI revealed no discrimination in predicting supraspinatus tendinopathy in patients with shoulder pain.


Several homicides characterized by peculiarities related to the occupation of the perpetrator are reported and compared with observations from literature. Common characteristics of the cases are determined by the following factors: availability of the equipment (i.e. drugs, poisons, tools) and application of special knowledge, skills or techniques provided by professional education (i.e. pharmacology, injection and dissection techniques in physicians and related professions, use of extraordinary, self-constructed weapons by technicians). Remarkable features of some cases are the long period of meticulous preparation and professional attempts to abolish or disguise suspicious findings. Thus, these homicides often present with uncommon modes of commitment and unusual forensic findings which are difficult to recognize and assess. Supplementing own experience by the cases reported in literature is an indispensable prerequisite to examine these cases properly and to provide professional and competent expert opinion for the police authorities.


This article discusses findings from a phenomenological Australian study exploring how the professional identities of newly qualified social workers are fostered and/or eroded during the first 12 months post-qualification. A total of 17 participants each completed three semi-structured interviews. The participants revealed individual and systemic factors that impacted how and whether professional identity was fostered and/or eroded. It is proposed from the findings that a combination of multilevel approaches for sustaining professional identity could improve the experiences and retention of newly qualified social workers. The implications for action by educators, employers and the social work profession in Australia and other countries are outlined.


Abstract: This paper addresses the theme of gender, sexuality, and information by considering how libraries might offer readers' advisory services to young readers in socially just ways. Readers' advisory is a service found in public and school libraries in which librarians recommend materials to library visitors, who are often young readers. Although libraries are commonly perceived as neutral, apolitical institutions, the paper shows how readers' advisory in libraries is a site of struggle and contestation for young readers in terms of their gender identity and sexuality. Drawing from the works of Nikolas Rose and Michel Foucault, the authors show how readers' advisory is a technique of self-assembly where young readers negotiate their self-identities amid surrounding library discourses. The authors provide several reasons why readers' advisory approaches, as they are presented in professional library literature, are problematic. As an alternative conceptualization of readers' advisory, the paper then proposes what is dubbed a "disjunctional" approach. The authors explain what this approach is, provide concrete examples of how it might be adopted, and suggest avenues for further study.


This study was conducted in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in a 740 bed university general hospital. For a period of two years, a prospective collection of data on 692 psychiatric consultations showed that 60% of all consultations came from internal medicine departments. Medical and psychiatric comorbidity was found in 50% of the patients; depression was diagnosed in 27.5% of the cases but schizophrenia in only 1.7%. Suicidal ideation was reported by 24% of the patients, 11.6% of them wishing to die imminently. More than 50% of suicidal patients were under 35 years of age; 42% of them were dependent on alcohol. Almost 30% of the patients seen in consultation admitted to being addicted to alcohol, 22% to benzodiazepines and 14% to illicit drugs. Among the ex-alcoholic patients, a significant dependence in benzodiazepine use was found. The patients with addictions to street drug had a greater suicide risk and were at the same time abusing alcohol. This paper will describe the overall functioning of a consultation-liaison psychiatric service and will analyze the impact of psycho-active substance abuse in a general hospital setting. The results will be compared with those in the literature.


This thesis is about International Medical Graduates or foreign doctors, trained outside the European Economic Area, who settle permanently in the Netherlands. From the early nineties the number of foreign doctors residing in the Netherlands either as refugees or as partners/spouses of Dutch citizens has risen steadily. Foreign doctors who wish to practise medicine in the Netherlands must obtain a declaration of professional competence, issued by the Department of Public Health, Welfare and Sports (VWS). A considerable number of foreign doctors received negative decisions by the Health Department. They were not allowed to practise medicine in the Netherlands. As a result, from the mid nineties, a growing number of foreign doctors applied to the medical faculties for admission as medical students in order to obtain a Dutch medical degree. Therefore, in 1995, it was decided to institute the Committee Influx Foreign Doctors (CIBA), a central placing committee. Between 1996 and 2007 the CIBA has processed over a 1000 admission requests. Until 2002, in spite of the imminent shortage of doctors, the Department of Health had done little to enhance the use of the expertise brought in by the foreign doctors for the benefit of Dutch society. The focus of this investigation has been: 1. How is it guaranteed that foreign doctors meet the medical quality standards (knowledge, skills, attitude), or how is the assessment of these qualities measured. And 2. After obtaining permanent residency in the Netherlands, do foreign doctors have access to the profession for which they had qualified before in their country of origin or another non-EEA country? Late 2001 the Department of Health and the medical schools were stimulated to cooperate in order to improve the additional training programmes for foreign doctors. It led to the new assessement procedure for foreign doctors that came into force in December 2005. This thesis contains two reports on the medical careers of foreign doctors. These investigations showed that nearly all foreign doctors had managed to find jobs as doctors in the Netherlands after their graduation. To the question which had hindered them most in their medical careers many reported that the Dutch language was their main obstacle. A comparative study into the policies towards medical doctors in ten EEA-countries shows that there are enormous differences between the European countries. The most important difference is that in Denmark, Norway and Sweden one medical school per country organises additional training programmes for non-EEA doctors on special request by their Departments of Health. Another large difference is the duration of the additional training programmes. The study reveals that the participating EEA-countries are largely unaware of the assessment procedures regarding non-EEA doctors in other countries. The study offers a preview of the preconditions of a successful implementation of the new assessment procedure. New pitfalls are the lack of preparatory courses (Dutch as a second language, Medical Dutch, English, computer skills), the high costs of the assessment procedure and the lack of any link between the procedure candidates with a university. As yet it is not clear whether in the future local social services will allow foreign doctors to study while receiving social benefits. An evaluation study into the effects of the assessment procedure is recommended.


Breast cancer is a major health problem for older women in the U.K. Older women have a high incidence of breast cancer and present with breast cancer that is often advanced, yet they may be treated less comprehensively. There appears to be limited evidence to support the prescription of chemotherapy for women over 70 years of age since this group of women are often excluded from participating in clinical trials.

A systematic review of the literature was undertaken to identify, appraise and synthesize knowledge relevant to the central question: What is known about the impact of chemotherapy on older women with breast cancer?

The systematic and rigorous approach to the review was guided by procedures set out by the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, University of York (2001). Electronic databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL, Cochrane, Web of Science, AgeInfo) and grey literature from clinical areas were included in a comprehensive search which initially identified 604 relevant research articles and documents.

Following assessment of quality and relevance, 128 articles were retrained for in-depth review. Emergent themes included: treatment regimes; physical symptoms; psychological, social and spiritual functioning; roles and responsibilities; and patient empowerment and participation in decision making. Evidence indicated that the ability of older women to tolerate standard treatments is conflicting; there is uncertainty about the actual effectiveness of adjuvant chemotherapy; true involvement in decision making is fundamental; and ageist, paternalistic attitudes can be detrimental to well-being.

This review will provide a credible knowledge base for future research and scholarly activity and be useful to nurses and other health care professionals around the world. These findings are intended to contribute towards the goal of ensuring that women of advanced age are offered and have access to optimal cancer treatments


One-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations are performed to investigate the nonlinear evolution of electromagnetic instabilities excited by the electron temperature anisotropy in homogeneous plasmas with different parameters. The results show that the electron temperature anisotropy can excite the two right-hand electromagnetic instabilities, one has the frequency higher than Ωe, the other is the whistler instability with larger amplitude, and its frequency is below Ωe. Their dispersion relations are consistent with the prediction from the cold plasma theory. In the initial growth stage (prediction from linear theory), the frequency of the dominant mode (the mode whose amplitude is large enough) of the whistler wave almost does not change, but in the saturation stage the situation is different. In the case that the ratio of electron plasma frequency to cyclotron frequency is larger than 1, the frequency of the dominant mode of the whistler wave drifts from high to low continuously. However, for the case of the ratio smaller than 1, besides the original dominant mode of the whistler wave whose frequency is about 2.6ωe, another dominant mode whose frequency is about 1.55ωe also begins to be excited at definite time, and its amplitude increases with time until it exceeds the original dominant mode.


This is the final report of the BBI/Matra project 2006/015 "Protection and Management of the Bug as an Ecological Corridor in the Pan European Ecological Network" and is based on "status reports" written for each of the three riparian countries. The purpose of the project was to investigate the options for developing and managing a transboundary ecological network along the Western Bug River and for designating a tri-lateral Ramsar Site as a constituent part of this ecological network. Status reports written for each of the three countries presented options for the establishment of a transboundary ecological network which were discussed during an international seminar held in Lublin (Poland) in November 2008. The Joint Statement that was produced as an output of this seminar bears proof of the support of all participants for the design, designation and management of the ecological network along the Bug River. However, the project also revealed how difficult it is to establish effective cooperation across the border of the European Union. The knotty visa procedures for persons from the three countries and from Belarus and Poland in particular stand in the way of smooth and effective cooperation. Also political differences between the countries hamper the smooth cooperation needed to tune activities related to the protection and management of the Bug River and its landscape and biodiversity. There is however both a basis and a need to proceed with the cooperation that exists on various levels.


This paper estimates the effect of an information campaign urging individuals to plan ahead for their long-term care needs on the purchase of long-term care insurance. Long-term care expenses represent a large, mostly uninsured risk for the elderly, and Medicaid payments for long-term care expenses total more than $150 billion annually. In an effort to curtail these expenses, the federal government partnered with 25 states over the course of five years to run the "Own Your Future'' campaign. Using a difference-in-differences strategy that takes advantage of the staggered timing of the rollout and restricted data from the Health and Retirement Study, I find that the campaign increased long-term care insurance coverage by one percentage point, an increase of about ten percent. Although the increase is concentrated among high-asset individuals, a back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates modest Medicaid savings of $400 million in present value. This estimate represents a lower bound for the total savings from the program as individuals may have made adjustments on other unmeasured margins.


Several emerging technologies for byte-addressable non-volatile memory (NVM) have been considered to replace DRAM as the main memory in computer systems during the last years. The disadvantage of a lower write endurance, compared to DRAM, of NVM technologies like Phase-Change Memory (PCM) or Ferroelectric RAM (FeRAM) has been addressed in the literature. As a solution, in-memory wear-leveling techniques have been proposed, which aim to balance the wear-level over all memory cells to achieve an increased memory lifetime. Generally, to apply such advanced aging-aware wear-leveling techniques proposed in the literature, additional special hardware is introduced into the memory system to provide the necessary information about the cell age and thus enable aging-aware wear-leveling decisions.
This paper proposes software-only aging-aware wear-leveling based on common CPU features and does not rely on any additional hardware support from the memory subsystem. Specifically, we exploit the memory management unit (MMU), performance counters, and interrupts to approximate the memory write counts as an aging indicator. Although the software-only approach may lead to slightly worse wear-leveling, it is applicable on commonly available hardware. We achieve page-level coarse-grained wear-leveling by approximating the current cell age through statistical sampling and performing physical memory remapping through the MMU. This method results in non-uniform memory usage patterns within a memory page. Hence, we further propose a fine-grained wear-leveling in the stack region of C / C++ compiled software.
By applying both wear-leveling techniques, we achieve up to $78.43\%$ of the ideal memory lifetime, which is a lifetime improvement of more than a factor of $900$ compared to the lifetime without any wear-leveling.


: The data on the relative significance and composition of Sh. dysenteriae serovars isolated in some regions of the USSR in 1975-1979 are presented. Special tests revealed that Endo agar was the best medium, while Ploskirev's agar was the worst medium for growing Sh. dysenteriae 1 (the museum strain and the newly isolated strain from Bangladesh). The testing of agar with eosine-methylene blue yielded moderate results in respect of the growth of the museum strain; as to the growth of the strain from Bangladesh, the results were identical to those obtained in testing Ploskirev's agar. The "epidemic" strain from Bangladesh was shown to correspond to the classical characteristics in its fermentative properties: polyvalent dysenteric phage and agglutinating sera produced in the USSR proved to be completely suitable for identification. The present-day clinical course and clinico-laboratory characteristics of dysentery caused by Sh. dysenteriae 1 are described. Practical recommendations on the bacteriological and clinical diagnosis of Grigoryev-Shiga dysentery, brought from an outside infection source, are proposed.


This paper investigates the robust Hinfin sliding mode control problem for a class of uncertain switched delay systems. A single sliding surface is constructed such that the reduced-order equivalent sliding motion restricted to the sliding surface is completely invariant to all admissible uncertainties. For cases of known delay and unknown delay, the existence conditions of the sliding surface are proposed respectively. The corresponding hysteresis switching laws are designed to stabilize the sliding motion with Hinfin disturbance attenuation level gamma. Furthermore, variable structure controllers are developed to drive the state of the switched system to reach the single sliding surface in finite time and remains on it thereafter. Finally, a numerical example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed design method.


The Korean Bronze Age is regarded as a time of great economic and social
transformation, witnessing the emergence of social complexity in the peninsula.
The dolmen burials of the region have been used to investigate, and indeed
represent, this social change. This thesis looks beyond the typology and grave
goods of the Korean dolmens to emphasise the actual practises of burial
construction and use which were structured by the emergent material conditions
of the dolmen architecture.
The dolmen burials from seven Bronze Age cemeteries located in the Yongdam
complex of Jinan, southern Korea, are analysed. The changing nature of burial
practices is examined in order to consider the ways in which these dolmen burials
actively contributed to the reproduction of life in the changing social and
economic conditions of the late Early Bronze Age to Middle Bronze Age. It is
proposed that, through these practices, a commitment to the `settlement
community' was maintained in the late EBA, a `Songuggni way of life' was
reproduced in the early MBA, and social differentiation was expressed and
performed in the late MBA.
This thesis presents an alternative interpretative approach which addresses the
issue of how societies are maintained and recognises the crucial role of material
culture in this process of social reproduction. It also further develops the notion
that the `meaning' of the archaeological record should be found in the possibilities
of practice and experience, as structured by the physical conditions of the
archaeological material


Liver abscesses are a cause of concern for many feedlots across the country as they lead to a decrease in feedlot performance of finishing cattle as well as a decrease in the final carcass value. Loss in carcass value is due to not only the abscessed liver being condemned, but also due to trim loss associated with the condemned liver. The macrolide drug tylosin phosphate is the drug of choice for metaphylactic treatment of liver abscesses in feedlot cattle. The Food and Drug Administration approved the drug for over-the-counter use, however, from January 2017 all medically important (used in human health) antibiotics that are to be fed in production animal diets will require a veterinary feed directive. The objective of the veterinary feed directive program is to decrease the use of medically important antibiotics in animal production. These veterinary feed directives are similar to a prescription and will encourage the use of the drug in accordance to FDA-guidelines associated with that drug. Macrolide antibiotics are considered medically important and will need a veterinary feed directive. Therefore, it is imperative to look at different methods to control liver abscesses in feedlot cattle. Various studies have noted that macrolide antibiotics (such as tylosin phosphate) are effective against pathogens for moderate to prolonged periods after initial use. The purpose of this study was to determine whether feeding tylosin phosphate periodically throughout the finishing period will have a comparable effect on decreasing liver abscesses as when we would feed tylosin phosphate continuously through the finishing period.


The diffusion of fingerprint verification systems for security applications makes it urgent to investigate the embedding of software-based presentation attack detection algorithms (PAD) into such systems. Companies and institutions need to know whether such integration would make the system more "secure" and whether the technology available is ready, and, if so, at what operational working conditions. Despite significant improvements, especially by adopting deep learning approaches to fingerprint PAD, current research did not state much about their effectiveness when embedded in fingerprint verification systems. We believe that the lack of works is explained by the lack of instruments to investigate the problem, that is, modeling the cause-effect relationships when two non-zero error-free systems work together. Accordingly, this paper explores the fusion of PAD into verification systems by proposing a novel investigation instrument: a performance simulator based on the probabilistic modeling of the relationships among the Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) of the two individual systems when PAD and verification stages are implemented sequentially. As a matter of fact, this is the most straightforward, flexible, and widespread approach. We carry out simulations on the PAD algorithms' ROCs submitted to the most recent editions of LivDet (2017-2019), the state-of-the-art NIST Bozorth3, and the top-level Veryfinger 12 matchers. Reported experiments explore significant scenarios to get the conditions under which fingerprint matching with embedded PAD can improve, rather than degrade, the overall personal verification performance.


As activity levels of intensively managed broiler chicken vary over time, detailed knowledge on their influence is potentially useful to further adjust welfare assessment schemes. Therefore, this study investigated the influence of daytime and age on the performance of broiler chicken in two applied fear tests.On-farm studies were carried out in 14 flocks of intensively managed broiler chicken. A forced and a voluntary approach test were conducted during morning and evening hours and at three different ages (1: 6-12d; 2: 21-24d; 3: prior to slaughter). At each observation, avoidance distances (AD) and the number of animals voluntarily approaching (VA) an observer were collected.No significant correlation was found between daytime and AD or VA. When tested at different ages, daytime and VA were significantly correlated (1: r= 0.56*; 2: r= 0.40*; 3: r= 0.64*), but the results were not consistent. At three weeks the VA was found to be higher in the morning but at younger age and prior to slaughter, more birds approach an observer in the evening. Both, approach and avoidance peaked at three weeks and decreased prior to slaughter. Further, the effect of differing observer locations in the chicken house on the behavioural response of broiler chicken was studied. A higher proportion of birds voluntarily approached an unknown human in the area close to the main entrance door, but the avoidance behaviour was not affected.From the results of this study I conclude, that the time of assessment has no effect on avoidance or approach behaviour of commercial slow-growing broiler chicken. However, fear related behaviour changed depending on age. This makes the applied tests potentially applicable independent of daytime restrictions when performed with birds of the same age.


This paper presents a new facial feature localization system which estimates positions of eyes, nose and mouth corners simultaneously. In contrast to conventional systems, we use the multi-stream Gaussian mixture model (GMM) framework in order to represent structural and appearance information of facial features. We construct a GMM for the region of each facial feature, where the principal component analysis is used to extract each facial feature. We also build a GMM which represents the structural information of a face, relative positions of facial features. Those models are combined based on the multi-stream framework. It can reduce the computation time to search region of interest (ROI). We demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm through experiments on the BioID Face Database.


Masses of leathery membranes, wild furs and etched bones. Intangible caresses of bodily fields. Sonic skins stretching on expanded skeletal structures. Answers to the question: What does The Beast unleash? This question, when posed as a series of provocations, acts as catalyst within a setting in which practitioners as pedagogues set the conditions for beastly emergence. As a conceptual device, The Beast realizes unthought potential by forcing interactions with the unfamiliar. When The Beast is channelled through the medium of unyielding materials, an unconventionally framed body, or unidentified sound, the setting for inevitable altercations is established. The Beast does not submit easily. It intimidates, fights and retaliates in response to the practitioners' grappling and desire to easily know. The process enables a shift from familiar actions, thoughts and processes to states of "unknowing" and affords new, unexpected and surprising outcomes. The asking of "what is beastly?" further coaxes The Beast and moves seeking beyond physical realms. Within the individual, the qualities of "beast" and "the beastly" invoke curiosity and discomfort through searching made internalized. In this circumstance unfamiliarity emerges and the hunter becomes the hunted. Framed within the context of fashion practice; centred around the "body" and "the bodily" and inherently expressed through making: how do we contend with these emergent beastly qualities? Can they be tamed or do they tame us? Investigations are led by moving, making, and through the expanded practice of listening. As a framework for expanding possibilities of practice, The Beast was tested within a series of undergraduate fashion design studios. Through the outcomes emanating from the trilogy of studios, this paper examines The Beast as an innovative tool for fashion ideation. As an enigma defying definition, The Beast pushes to unpack unknown imaginings, blur disciplinary boundaries and irreversibly reshape practice.


This article presents a generic framework for the representation and deformation of level set surfaces at extreme resolutions. The framework is composed of two modules that each utilize optimized and application specific algorithms: 1) A fast out-of-core data management scheme that allows for resolutions of the deforming geometry limited only by the available disk space as opposed to memory, and 2) compact and fast compression strategies that reduce both offline storage requirements and online memory footprints during simulation. Out-of-core and compression techniques have been applied to a wide range of computer graphics problems in recent years, but this article is the first to apply it in the context of level set and fluid simulations. Our framework is generic and flexible in the sense that the two modules can transparently be integrated, separately or in any combination, into existing level set and fluid simulation software based on recently proposed narrow band data structures like the DT-Grid of Nielsen and Museth [2006] and the H-RLE of Houston et al [2006]. The framework can be applied to narrow band signed distances, fluid velocities, scalar fields, particle properties as well as standard graphics attributes like colors, texture coordinates, normals, displacements etc. In fact, our framework is applicable to a large body of computer graphics problems that involve sequential or random access to very large co-dimension one (level set) and zero (e.g. fluid) data sets. We demonstrate this with several applications, including fluid simulations interacting with large boundaries (≈ 15003), surface deformations (≈ 20483), the solution of partial differential equations on large surfaces (≈ 40963) and mesh-to-level set scan conversions of resolutions up to ≈ 350003 (7 billion voxels in the narrow band). Our out-of-core framework is shown to be several times faster than current state-of-the-art level set data structures relying on OS paging. In particular we show sustained throughput (grid points/sec) for gigabyte sized level sets as high as 65% of state-of-the-art throughput for in-core simulations. We also demonstrate that our compression techniques out-perform state-of-the-art compression algorithms for narrow bands.


The selective autophagy pathways of xenophagy and mitophagy are initiated when the adaptor NDP52 recruits the ULK1 complex to autophagic cargo. Hydrogen-deuterium exchange coupled to mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) was used to map the membrane and NDP52 binding sites of the ULK1 complex to unique regions of the coiled coil of the FIP200 subunit. Electron microscopy of the full-length ULK1 complex shows that the FIP200 coiled coil projects away from the crescent-shaped FIP200 N-terminal domain dimer. NDP52 allosterically stimulates membrane-binding by FIP200 and the ULK1 complex by promoting a more dynamic conformation of the membrane-binding portion of the FIP200 coiled coil. Giant unilamellar vesicle (GUV) reconstitution confirmed that membrane recruitment by the ULK1 complex is triggered by NDP52 engagement. These data reveal how the allosteric linkage between NDP52 and the ULK1 complex could drive the first membrane recruitment event of phagophore biogenesis in xenophagy and mitophagy.


Abstract Predation is frequently suggested to be a key biotic process that can shape ecological communities and drive coevolution. The premise behind these hypotheses is that predators select prey to ensure maximum gain per unit effort; for example, by selecting species that are more abundant or accessible. In this study, we tested for predator selectivity in a tropical molluscan assemblage by quantifying the influence of relative abundance (encounter frequency) on predation frequencies. We collected macromollusks (> 4 mm) from 15 sites in three soft-sediment reef lagoons at One Tree Reef (southern Great Barrier Reef, Australia). Dead mollusks were counted and identified to species level (61 species, n  =  8131), and species predation frequencies were calculated as the proportion of shells with drill holes. We found that in this infauna-dominated community, levels of drilling predation were low (7.14% on average), and there was no evidence that predators selected prey based on encounter frequency. This result was consistent across prey species and lagoons. Thus, drilling predators did not specialize on more accessible prey species and were not a major cause of mortality in this modern macromollusk assemblage. Since drilling gastropods are size selective, lack of selectivity in our samples only applies to the prey size range considered. Detailed studies of prey morphological traits, as well as accounting for predator non-consumptive effects could shed light on the preferences and relevance of drilling gastropods in this soft-sediment carbonate reef assemblage.


The spontaneous polarization effect of ZnO on the thin film growth of pentacene, which is a typical π conjunction organic semiconductor, was investigated. Pentacene thin films were grown on polar ZnO surfaces by ultraslow organic film physical vapor deposition to obtain layer-by-layer growth. X-ray diffraction measurements revealed that pentacene molecules stand upright on polar ZnO surfaces, and that the films consist of two polymorphs, namely, the thin-film and bulk phases. The thin-film phases of pentacene were observed regardless of the polarity of the ZnO substrate at a thickness of less than six molecular layers. However, pentacene on a Zn-polar ZnO substrate gradually changed to the bulk phase unlike that on an O-polar ZnO substrate. Kelvin probe force microscopy measurements revealed that the surface potential of pentacene becomes more positive with increasing pentacene thickness at less than two molecular layers. The variation in the potential of pentacene on the Zn-polar ZnO substrate was larger than that of pentacene on the O-polar ZnO substrate. These findings indicate that the polarity of the semiconductor can control the growth and electronic state of the inorganic/organic semiconductor interface.


Background: Antispasmodic agents have been used to hasten labour despite little high-quality evidence to support their efficacy.Objective: To establish the safety and efficacy of hyoscine-N-butylbromide in accelerating labour in primiparous women.Methods: A randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trial was conducted at the Aga Khan University Hospital Nairobi, Kenya. Consenting primiparous women in spontaneous labour at term were randomised to receive either 40mg of hyoscine-N-butylbromide or sterile water-for-injection intravenously once confirmed to be in active labour. The dose could be repeated once after four hours. The main outcome measure was the duration of labour. Secondary outcome measures were rate of cervical dilatation and postpartum satisfaction score. Safety aspects such as drug adverse effects, APGAR scores and postpartum hemorrhage were also explored.Results: Between October 2009 and July 2010 a total of 85 women were randomised and 79 yielded data for analysis. Of these 37 received hyoscine-N-butylbromide and 42 received placebo. There was no significant difference in the mean duration of active labour to second stage between the drug and placebo arms (396.2 versus 389.3 minutes, respectively, p=0.881, 95% CI -85.9 to 99.8). The mean rate of cervical dilatation in the drug arm was 1.17 centimetres per hour (cm/hr) compared to 1.22cm/hr in the placebo arm. This difference was not statistically significant (p value=0.832). The postpartum satisfaction scores were similar between the two arms. Hyoscine-N-butylbromide was well tolerated without any major adverse effects observed in either arm.Conclusion: Hyoscine-N-butylbromide does not shorten the duration of labour in first time parturients in spontaneous labour. It also does not change maternal satisfaction with care received and is not associated with major adverse outcomes in the mother or newborn.Keywords: Antispasmodics, Hyoscine-N-butylbromide, Labour


KEVIN CULLEN. Busselton, 'V.A.. 6280. under the same condttions. It is not clear from Dr Hendry's letter whether he was t.esting his "normal strains" in "Urocult" tubes or by other methods. Furthermore, the drug concentrations used are not stated. Difficulties in the interpretation of the results of some of the arittblorics were experienced in the prototype product, but these have long since been rectified.


This year marks 300 years since the first Russian hospital opened its doors. The hospital was established by order of Tsar Peter the Great, and its leadership was given to a Dutchman, Nicolaas Bidloo. Bidloo came from a scientifically prominent Dutch family and was a student of Herman Boerhaave. He arrived in Russia as the personal physician of the Tsar Peter the Great. Besides directing the first Russian hospital, Bidloo also founded the first Russian medical school and authored the first Russian textbook on medical studies. In the Netherlands, little is known about Bidloo and his Russian ventures: he is viewed mainly as a nephew of Govard Bidloo, the renowned doctor and rector of Leiden University and author of a famous anatomical atlas. More attention is given to Bidloo in Russia, where he is considered one of the founders of Russian medicine.


In this study, models based on the regression analyses of the critical exposure time periods of humidity and temperature conditions needed for the development of brown not decay in pine and spruce sapwood are presented. The growth conditions and decay development of a typical brown rot fungus Coniophora puteana (Schum. ex Fr.) P. Karsten (BAM Ebw. 15) was studied in Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and Norway spruce (Picea abies Karst.) by exposures at 0, 5, 15, 20 and 30°C using RH of 86-88%, 90-92%, 96-98% and 99-100% under laboratory conditions. A regression model is presented for the critical response time periods of temperature and humidity conditions allowing the initiation and development of decay as expressed by the mass loss of wood. The response time for decay development in wood is strongly dependent on the temperature : after 3 months' exposure at RH of 96 and 100% and at 30°C, the wood was heavily attacked and decayed by C. puteana, but after one year exposure in different humidity conditions, no decay was detected at 0°C. According to the present model, the lowest humidity conditions for decay development must lie above RH of 90-92% during 60 month exposure time at 30°C. Between 0 and 5°C, the lowest humidity conditions for decay development lie around RH of 97% and the wood moisture content around the fibre saturation point.


Room-temperature dry sliding wear behavior of hot-pressure sintered monolithic Co, Co- 20 wt.% CuSn and Co-20 wt.% WC composites were investigated. Wear tests of the materials were carried out using a pin-on-disk wear tester at various loads of 10N-100N under a constant sliding speed condition of 0.38m/s against glass (83% SiO2) beads. Sliding distances were varied with a range of 100m-600m. A scanning electron microscopy was used to examine worn surfaces, cross sections, and wear debris. X-ray diffraction (XRD) was utilized to identify phases of the specimen and wear debris. All specimens exhibited low friction coefficients ranging from 0.12 to 0.4. The sintered Co exhibited distinctive wear that was characterized by shallow dug canals on worn surface, a very thin detaching surface layer, and fine debris. Thermal transformation of the Co specimen from ε (hcp) phase to α (fcc) phase occurred during the wear of the Co, which was inferred from XRD analysis of the wear debris. The transformation was suggested to cause the thin detaching surface layer and the fine wear debris of the sintered Co. The wear of the Co-CuSn composite proceeded by shear deformation of the CuSn particles, while WC particles of the Co-WC composite sustained most of the applied load, which resulted in the low wear rate with fine wear debris of the Co-WC composite.


Article type: Review Article To review the current situation regarding prenatal diagnosis in Islamic countries, a descriptive study (narrative review) has been done based on the available data in formal international and national published documents in 2013. The sources were papers, websites and electronic books. Time limitation of searches has started 20 years ago. The main languages were English and Persian. Forty seven nations were officially referred as Islamic since more than 50% of the citizens are Muslims. The holy Qur'an and Islamic traditions (Shari'aht) are the core of the civil laws, however, the legal grounds for prenatal diagnosis differ in Islamic countries. The main ground is the endangerment of a mother's life, however, severe suffering of parents (Osr va Haraj) is also considered in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Some other important issues such as pregnancies as a result of rape should be discussed more in some Islamic countries. Many "hard to treat diseases" such as chromosomal disorders, major hemoglobinopathies, inborn error of metabolism, Duchene muscular dystrophy, spinal muscular dystrophy are being diagnosed early in embryonic period that medical abortion is advisable. Prenatal diagnosis is an acceptable practice in both religious and secular governments in the so-called Islamic countries. Article history: Received: 24 September 2013 Revised: 15 October 2013 Accepted: 16 December 2013


Background & Aim: Menopause is one of the natural phases of women's life. At this phase, due to the large fluctuations in hormones, undesirable physical, mental and sexual symptoms would occur that have negative effects on the quality of life of women. Due to the side effects of hormonal therapy, many women would prefer complementary medicine and especially herbal medicine. The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of fennel on the quality of life in menopausal women . Methods & Materials: This randomized triple-blind clinical trial was conducted on 90 menopausal women aged 45-60 years in Tehran. Participants were randomly allocated into two groups of fennel and placebo. The participants in the fennel group received oral soft capsules containing 100mg of fennel twice a day for 8 weeks and women in the placebo group received the same doze of placebo capsules containing 100mg of sunflower oil. The measured outcomes in the present study were the quality of life in menopausal women and its different aspects including vasomotor, socio-psychological, physical and sexual aspects which were measures using Menopause-Specific Quality of Life (MENQOL) questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS14. Results: After 8 weeks of intervention, covariance analysis showed a significant difference in the score of quality of life and its four measured aspects between the two studied groups (for quality of life, vasomotor aspect, physical aspect and socio-psychological aspect: p < 0.001, for sexual aspect: p=0.013). In the fennel group, the score of quality of life and its aspects had a significant decrease after the intervention compared to before the intervention (p < 0.001). In the placebo group the scores of quality of life and socio-psychological, physical and sexual aspects had a significant decrease after the intervention (p < 0.05) but the score of vasomotor aspect was increased . Conclusions: The present study showed that the fennel could decrease the symptoms of menopause with no serious side effects and consequently improve menopausal women's quality of life.