M any scientists in the United States may not have noticed, but there's a war on about the role of their subject in the law. Scientists are often called on to serve as expert witnesses in cases ranging in scope from product liability to tort actions brought against manufacturers or polluters. Some environmentalists and members of the plaintiff's bar believe that the deck has become stacked to favor defendants, because trial judges more frequently find reasons for disallowing than allowing the presentation of expert scientific testimony to juries. Taking the other side are advocates for tort reform, who are critical of the economic impact of outsized jury awards and often refer to the scientific studies offered by plaintiffs to convince those juries as "junk science."

Well, there certainly are some examples of the latter. The cases involving the prescription drug Bendectin, which led to a well-known 1993 Supreme Court decision that gave federal trial judges criteria for evaluating expert testimony ( Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ), attracted some bad studies. So, famously, did the breast implant cases. On the other hand, plaintiffs have sometimes produced careful and responsible testimony that has been essential in resolving serious challenges to environmental quality and public health. Each side in this fight, in other words, has some weapons to turn on the other, and that guarantees it a long run.

Lawyers and scientists often explore one another's domains with a certain perplexed curiosity, in an effort to understand what differentiates the search for truth from the search for justice. When science enters the courtroom, a scientist might wonder whether the benefits it generates in the interest of justice make it worth the trouble of entering an adversarial proceeding. The attorney might ask, more often than not, whether the science will play a useful role in reaching a sound outcome. Those are among the many questions in this relationship.

![Figure][1]

CREDIT: JOE SUTLIFF

A recent case illuminates these and opens others. As described in Science (14 May 2004, p. [937][2]), a group of workers at the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) brought suit against the company, claiming that their medical problems had resulted from workplace exposures to chemicals used in computer chip manufacture. Their attorneys tried to introduce studies by two epidemiologists who analyzed IBM mortality data for all employees that had been made available through discovery. The data revealed elevated mortality rates for some cancers. Judge Robert Baines of the California Superior Court refused to admit these findings, calling them irrelevant and prejudicial, thus combining a scientific judgment with a legal one.

A protective order had been issued requiring those involved in the litigation not to use the IBM data outside the legal proceedings. The two epidemiologists had submitted a paper with their findings to a journal, but in a letter to their attorney, an IBM lawyer had called attention to the protective order and stated "IBM expressly reserves all of its rights to take any appropriate action." That killed one effort, but, encouraged by a legal opinion that their results were in the public domain, the epidemiologists tried again. Then the journal's publisher, Elsevier, decided against publication, whereupon a dozen other authors withdrew their own papers in protest (see the letter from IBM, p. [340][3])

Statements by the players in this case raise some interesting questions. IBM's attorney Robert Weber suggested that the testimony was flawed because it was "litigation-generated." Is that so bad? Good research spawned by lawsuits has resolved some high-profile past cases. Judge Baines said the findings were irrelevant because no link between the mortality data and the workplace conditions was established. Epidemiologists for the defense might have made that argument more convincingly, but the judge took that issue right off the table. Finally, there's the well-worn claim by Weber that the epidemiological study is "junk science."

Could be, but it appears that we'll never know. Science works to correct its own mistakes; had this study been published, it could have been evaluated by other epidemiologists interested in this or similar health risks. The decisions to disallow the testimony and to shield the work behind a gag order may have served the cause of justice, but the scientific community and the public have been prevented from reaching their own conclusions about an important matter. Indeed, in view of IBM's scornful view of the study's quality, one wonders why they tried so hard to keep it out of sight.

 [1]: pending:yes
 [2]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.304.5673.937
 [3]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.305.5682.340c


The electrostatic charge accumulates on the surface of the aerial vehicle when flying. And the electrostatic discharge would impact the aerial vehicle and the airborne equipment enormously. In order to study the triboelectrifiction of the aerial vehicle skin material and space particle, the triboelectrifiction principle of the skin material is analyzed, and aerial vehicle skin material triboelectrifiction experimental platform has been designed. Lots of troubles are overcome like the relatively high speed of aerial vehicle and space particles, required high bleeder resistance for analog devices, and testing problem of friction potential. The rotary friction method, composite insulating layer, contact electrostatic potential test method are adopted for the experimental platform. And aerial vehicle skin material has been tested using the test platform. From the experimental results, the friction contact time, the separation process, and the contact area are analyzed. So the material electrostatic test platform can be used as material electrostatic charge experimental research equipment.


We study the problem of learning individualized dose intervals using observational data. There are very few previous works for policy learning with continuous treatment, and all of them focused on recommending an optimal dose rather than an optimal dose interval. In this paper, we propose a new method to estimate such an optimal dose interval, named probability dose interval (PDI). The potential outcomes for doses in the PDI are guaranteed better than a pre-specified threshold with a given probability (e.g., 50%). The associated nonconvex optimization problem can be efficiently solved by the Difference-of-Convex functions (DC) algorithm. We prove that our estimated policy is consistent, and its risk converges to that of the best-in-class policy at a root-n rate. Numerical simulations show the advantage of the proposed method over outcome modeling based benchmarks. We further demonstrate the performance of our method in determining individualized Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) control intervals for elderly patients with diabetes.


Abstract:The demobilisation and re-integration of ex-combatants has become an important element in peace-building. The need for a more holistic, integrated approach, in which there is greater local ownership of the process, has long been recognised. However, putting this into practice remains a challenge. Re-integration ultimately takes place in the community, merging with development and post-conflict reconstruction. This study of re-integration in Sierra Leone uses the concept of 'participation' from development discourse, meaning the extent to which potential stakeholders have a say in how interventions are designed and implemented. It finds that participation and ownership are only seen to a limited extent, and only in certain situations. Many of the ex-combatants who participated in this study felt they did not receive adequate or accurate information regarding the re-integration process. This undermines the contribution that re-integration can have to the peace-building project. Participation proves to be a useful framework for assessing re-integration programmes, and for planning the more integrated approach that has long been advocated.


Though the widely available, low-cost, and disposable papers have been explored in flexible paper-based pressure sensors, it is still difficult for them to simultaneously achieve ultrahigh sensitivity, low limit and broad range of detection, and high-pressure resolution. Herein, we demonstrate a novel flexible paper-based pressure sensing platform that features the MXene-coated tissue paper (MTP) sandwiched between a polyimide encapsulation layer and a printing paper with interdigital electrodes. After replacing the polyimide with weighing paper in the MTP pressure sensor, the silver interdigital electrodes can be recycled through incineration. The resulting pressure sensor with polyimide or paper encapsulation exhibits a high sensitivity of 509.5 or 344.0 kPa-1, a low limit (∼1 Pa) and a broad range (100 kPa) of detection, and outstanding stability over 10 000 loading/unloading cycles. With ultrahigh sensitivity over a wide pressure range, the flexible pressure sensor can monitor various physiological signals and human movements. Configuring the pressure sensors into an array layout results in a smart artificial electronic skin to recognize the spatial pressure distribution. The flexible pressure sensor can also be integrated with signal processing and wireless communication modules on a face mask as a remote respiration monitoring system to wirelessly detect various respiration conditions and respiratory abnormalities for early self-identification of opioid overdose, pulmonary fibrosis, and other cardiopulmonary diseases.


Hirchsprung's disease is a developmental disorder of the enteric nervous system, characterized by abdsence of ganglion cell in the myenterric and submucosal plexuese along a variable portion of the distal intestine.The purpose of this study is the presentation of a new procedure for reduction of the postoperative complications of Hirschsprung's disease (HD) by offering a modified Swenson's technique. This was a chieved through a 10 years study of 157 patients with HD, of whom 74% were male and 26% wre female. In 100 cases the disease was diagnosed in the early neonatal period, in 129 cases the involved segments were rectosigmoid or shortsegment. Our choice of operation was a new modification of swenson's type of pull through (Swenson's operation + posterior rectal wall myectomy). Phatholgical examination has confirmed the diagnosis of HD in all patients. The overall results of surgery were good in 81% and there was no mortality.


Abstract Vinyl ester resin (VEOCN) was prepared from o-cresol epoxy resin (EOCN) and methacrylic acid in the presence of triphenyl phosphine as catalyst and hydroquinone as inhibitor with acid value of ~ 7 mg of KOH per gram of solid. O-cresol based novolac resin (OCN), OCN based epoxy resin (EOCN) and VEOCN were characterized by Fourier transform infra red spectroscopy (FT-IR), 1H-NMR and 13C-NMR. The thermal and mechanical behavior of the samples prepared at 30°C from VEOCN using styrene and methyl-methacrylate respectively as reactive diluents, in the presence of benzoyl peroxide (2 phr) as initiator was studied using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and Universal Testing Machine (UTM). Chemical resistance of above VER samples was also evaluated as a function of % weight loss and with the help of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), upon immersing the VEOCN samples in different solutions for 90 days.


Although coarticulation frequently causes insertion and deletion errors in speech recognition systems, human beings can recognize it correctly, presumably because of correct estimation of glide between phonemes. The present study is concerned with the glide characteristics of vowels, and it is shown that the trajectory of the glide appears along geodesics calculated by the metric on a phonetical vowel space. First the spectrum envelope of the stable part of a vowel is digitized by representing it by a 40‐dimensional vector. Then, this vector is projected to a three‐dimensional parameter space by discriminant analysis. The trajectory of glide generally produced a curve, which suggests that the space is non‐Euclidean, as the trajectory should be the shortest path in the space. Assuming that the distribution of each vowel is a normal distribution, it is shown that it is an ellipsoid with a covariance matrix. Second, by a transformation using metrics, based on the variance of vowels, the trajectory is transfo...


We propose a new technique, compress-spread forward (CSF), for high-performance wireless streaming from two base stations in parallel. CSF uses multiterminal source coding for efficient source compression and complete complementary sequences for error-free multiple access and synchronization. Our practical design shows significant performance gains due to spatial diversity and distributed source coding.


This paper presents some preliminary findings from research into the phonological treatment of word-finding difficulties in aphasia focusing on two areas of investigation. Firstly we report on the effects of giving a choice of phonological cues on word-finding. Secondly we describe our findings concerning the reliability of a measure of real-life interaction.


Objective:Plasma kynurenine/tryptophan ratio, a biomarker of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase-1 (IDO) activity, is a strong independent predictor of mortality in HIV-infected Ugandans initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART) and may play a key role in HIV pathogenesis. We performed a genome-wide study to identify potential host genetic determinants of kynurenine/tryptophan ratio in HIV-infected ART-suppressed Ugandans. Design/methods:We performed genome-wide and exome array genotyping and measured plasma kynurenine/tryptophan ratio during the initial 6–12 months of suppressive ART in Ugandans. We evaluated more than 16 million single nucleotide polymorphisms in association with log10 kynurenine/tryptophan ratio using linear mixed models adjusted for cohort, sex, pregnancy, and ancestry. Results:Among 597 Ugandans, 62% were woman, median age was 35, median baseline CD4+ cell count was 135 cells/&mgr;l, and median baseline HIV-1 RNA was 5.1 log10 copies/ml. Several polymorphisms in candidate genes TNF, IFNGR1, and TLR4 were associated with log10 kynurenine/tryptophan ratio (P < 5.0 × 10−5). An intergenic polymorphism between CSPG5 and ELP6 was genome-wide significant, whereas several others exhibited suggestive associations (P < 5.0 × 10−7), including genes encoding protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPRM and PTPRN2) and the vitamin D metabolism gene, CYP24A1. Several of these single nucleotide polymorphisms were associated with markers of inflammation, coagulation, and monocyte activation, but did not replicate in a small US cohort (N = 262; 33% African-American). Conclusion:Our findings highlight a potentially important role of IFN-&ggr;, TNF-&agr;, and Toll-like receptor signaling in determining IDO activity and subsequent mortality risk in HIV-infected ART-suppressed Ugandans. These results also identify potential novel pathways involved in IDO immunoregulation. Further studies are needed to confirm these findings in treated HIV-infected populations.


The 'What to do if' series aims to provide school nursing practitioners with practical safeguarding information on a variety of issues. This first article focusses on radicalisation.


This thesis explores young people's transgenderings through negotiations of language, bodies and experiences of different peer and community-based support spaces in Aotearoa New Zealand. It critically examines what 'support' means for young people in relation to developing subjectivities and embodiments shaped by being both young and transgender/ gender non-conforming. While these perspectives are varied, I argue that the production of community and peerbased support for those who are both young and transgender or gender nonconforming has been undergoing a period of significant change, reflecting queer and postmodern shifts which have worked to re-conceptualise the ways queer and transgender communities and peers are imagined, incorporating a greater inclusive focus on diversity. Utilising Sara Ahmed's concept of queer phenomenology and post-structuralist theory, the thesis thinks beyond binary approaches to gender and support, to consider support and gender nonconformity through the process of 'disorientation'. Throughout this project both 'gender' and 'support' are positioned as being subjective, embodied and discursive knowledges and actions, represented in multiple and contradictory ideas, identities and expressions of the different participants. The study utilises in-depth qualitative interviews with participants who are young people (aged 1630 years) and support providers and developers of transgender/queer based support in Aotearoa New Zealand. Working with young people and support providers, this research provides an analysis of support development for transgender and gender non-conforming young people in Aotearoa New Zealand, arguing that all participants in support (both providers and recipients) are shaping its provision.


While a considerable part of developments in the field of industrial and technical textiles involves nanomaterials, there are increasing challenges faced across the world in their acceptability and sustainability. Their potential adverse impact has been documented in the scientific literature. European Commission and USEPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency) have already come up with regulations that govern these materials. In future, therefore, we can expect trade sanctions by these countries on exports of nano-textiles from countries like India. In this paper, we shall discuss the technical literature that points towards potential hazards of nano-textiles and the policy aspects currently in place. Further, we employ a widely used global economic (Computable General Equilibrium) model (GTAP – Global Trade Analysis Project) to evaluate the economic and business impact of such sanctions quantitatively, in a stochastic and comparative setting.


This paper presents a new method for calculating the voltage profile along a given transmission line during a system transient. This may be used for detecting harmful levels of voltage signals that appear along the length of a long transmission line during transients caused by switching events or faults. It may also be useful in obtaining screen shots of waveforms to be used in animation of traveling wave transients. The voltage profile is recovered by developing a time-series model for the voltages at intermediate points along the length of the line. The proposed method is novel in the sense that once the time-series model is developed, the technique does not require any further simulations for the calculation of the voltages at intermediate points. A transient simulator such as the Electromagnetic Transients Program is utilized to obtain the necessary historical information of the voltages at terminal ends and at the intermediate points to be used in developing the time-series model. This paper presents several examples where voltage profiles are obtained during different types of transient events


BACKGROUND
In the University Medical Center Groningen in Groningen, the Netherlands, moderate-to-deep sedation is provided by nursing staff trained and supervised by the anesthesia department using protocol-based target-controlled infusions (TCIs) of propofol and remifentanil. The aim of this retrospective cohort study was to investigate the incidence of events with potential adverse health consequences within this service model and the risk factors for the occurrence of these events.

METHODS
We retrospectively interrogated a database containing the computerized anesthetic records of 2937 procedures where moderate-to-deep sedation was provided using TCI administration of propofol and remifentanil between May 2014 and October 2017. The primary outcome measures were the incidence of sedation-related events with potential adverse health consequences and risk factors for the occurrence of such events. The events under investigation were unplanned intensive care unit (ICU) admission, need for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), death on the day of the procedure due to sedation-related events, cardiovascular events (arrhythmias, hypertension, and hypotension), pulmonary events (aspiration, desaturation, unplanned tracheal intubation), anaphylactic or allergic reactions, and the termination of the procedure due to sedation-related events. Cardiovascular and pulmonary events were classified as severe, significant, or moderate. Events were identified by using computer algorithms to search the computerized records from all included procedures.

RESULTS
Data from 2937 procedures were analyzed. No patients suffered catastrophic events (death, need for CPR, or unplanned ICU admission). Thirty-two severe sedation-related events occurred in 32 procedures. Severe desaturation (0.6%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.4-0.9) and severe hypertension (0.2%; 95% CI, 0.04-0.37) were the most common severe events. Significant hypotension (8.8%; 95% CI, 7.73-9.77) and significant desaturation (1.6%; 95% CI, 1.12-2.02) were found to be the most common events with potential adverse health consequences. No patient suffered lasting health consequences. Average mean and maximum targeted effect-site concentrations (Cet) for propofol were 2.6 ± 0.83 and 3.3 ± 1.09 µg·mL, respectively, and for remifentanil 0.84 ± 0.18 and 0.99 ± 0.22 ng·mL, respectively. Maximum Cets of propofol were lower among patients with higher body mass index (BMI) and were higher among patients of younger age. Higher BMI was a risk factor for desaturation. Increased age and lower BMI were risk factors for hypotension. Longer procedure time was a risk factor for both desaturation and hypotension.

CONCLUSIONS
Moderate-to-deep sedation by propofol and remifentanil TCI has a low incidence of catastrophic and severe events.


Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with substantial phenotypic and etiological heterogeneity. It is estimated that 10-20% of cases are due to copy number variations (CNVs). Here we apply a newly developed CNV association tool (SNATCNV) to reanalyse CNV data from 19,663 autistic and 6,479 control subjects from the AutDB database. We demonstrate that SNATCNV outperforms existing CNV association methods by finding smaller genomic regions that better discriminate cases and controls. By integrating data from the FANTOM5 expression atlas we show that both known ASD causal genes identified by the SFARI and MSSNG consortia and genes within the CNVs identified by SNATCNV have brain enriched expression patterns; both brain-enriched coding and long-non-coding RNA genes are over-represented. We provide full lists of these brain enriched coding and lncRNA genes as a resource to the research community. We also go on to show that each CNV region is associated with a distinct set of phenotypes, that some are sex biased and highlight one deleted region where a brain-enriched lncRNA is the only gene present. Our analyses identify 47 high confidence ASD associated CNV regions and identifies brain-enriched genes which underlie this neurodevelopmental disorder.


The influence of the spatial position of the acoustic signal in audiovisual speech perception was investigated in a series of experiments using the McGurk effect. Subjects viewed video disk recordings of faces producing visual VCV nonsense syllables while simultaneous acoustic VCV stimuli were presented from one of 7 different speakers locations. The speakers were positioned in a semicircular array in front of the subject. In separate studies subjects were required to name the intervocalic consonant, indicate the location of the sound source using a computerized pentiometer system, or perform both tasks. Preliminary results suggest that the subjects' ability to localize the position of the auditory stimulus was influenced by the presence of a visual stimulus. Specifically, subjects tended to localize the sound closer to the position of the monitor showing the visual stimulus. However the strength of the McGurk effect was not influenced by the spatial position of the sound source. Subjects perceived the visual /g/ and the auditory /b/ combination as /d/ equally often at all sound locations. The independence of the ventriloquist effect and audiovisual integration in the perception of the McGurk effect will be discussed in terms of spatial constraints on the cross‐modal perception of speech.


The natural color pattern of individuals of the unpalatable and mimetic butterfly Heliconius erato was altered to a unique nonmimetic pattern. When returned to natural populations, the nonmimetic individuals remained for shorter periods of time and received more wing damage indicative of predator attacks than did the controls. The results indicate that M�llerian mimicry was functioning to protect the butterflies from predation.


The design of a very-high-flow-rate inertial particle impactor with integrated sampling for use in a walk-through explosive-trace detection portal is presented. This impactor is designed to collect particles of explosives from the aerodynamic wake of a walking subject, which requires a sampling capability of ~ 1m3/s and must reliably collect particles of ≥ 5-μm diameter. An impactor cross-section of 0.3 × 0.3 m was used, with three linear slot nozzles and corresponding impactor blades. The central impactor blade has a rotating impaction surface with an integrated heater for automated thermal desorption of the impacted material. An ion mobility spectrometer is used to interrogate the desorbed vapor for trace explosives detection. The process of sampling a subject and interrogating its aerodynamic wake for explosives requires about 8 s totally, allowing very-high throughput sampling for security-screening purposes.


The Valvatacea is one the most ecologically important, taxonomically diverse, and widespread groups of post-Palaeozoic (i.e. modern) Asteroidea. Classification within the group has been historically problematic. We present a comprehensively sampled, three-gene (12S, 16S, early-stage histone H3) molecular phylogenetic analysis of the Valvatacea. We include five of the six families within the Paxillosida, the monotypic Notomyotida, and 13 of the 16 families of the living Valvatida. The Solasteridae is removed from the Velatida (Spinulosacea) and joins the Ganeriidae and the Leilasteridae as members of the clade containing the Asterinidae. The Poraniidae is supported as the sister group to the large cluster of Valvatacea. Asteropseids and poraniids are phylogenetically distant, contrary to morphological evidence. Several goniasterid-like ophidiasterids, such as Fromia and Neoferdina are supported as derived goniasterids rather than as Ophidiasteridae. The Benthopectinidae (Notomyotida) are supported as members of the Paxillosida as are two members of the Pseudarchasterinae that have traditionally been considered members of the Goniasteridae. Our data suggest that Antarctic valvataceans may be derived from sister taxa in adjacent regions.

© 2011 The Linnean Society of London, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2011, 161, 769–788.


Background: There has been no previous case report of a patient whose visual acuity improved after long-term blindness caused by tumor invasion into the optic canal. Case Description: A 65-year-old Asian woman presented with a 6-month history of blindness caused by a meningioma located on the inner third of the sphenoid ridge. An operation was performed to prevent further tumor invasion into the cavernous sinus and contralateral optic nerve. During surgery, optic canal decompression was performed using an epidural approach. Subtotal removal of the tumor was achieved. Two days after the surgery, her left visual acuity recovered from blindness. Conclusion: Normally, long-term blindness caused by optic nerve compression by a brain tumor is regarded as irreversible, and even a surgical excision of the optic nerve is performed in some cases. However, because we experienced a case in which the patient recovered from long-term blindness after optic canal decompression, we believe that this surgical procedure should definitely be considered as an option.


The problems encountered designing very large scale integrated circuits (VLSI) are fundamentally different from the problems encountered in the design of small scale integrated circuits. The differences require a new methodology of design for the new large scale circuits, and the new design methodology requires a new set of tools. The computer-aided design work at Caltech has progressed from a recognition of the inherent differences and has produced a new design methodology and a set of tools which attack the new problems in integrated circuit design.


Laser surface treatment of engineering ceramics offers various advantages in comparison with conventional processing techniques and much research has been conducted to develop applications. Even so, there still remains a considerable gap in knowledge that needs to be filled to establish the process. By employing a fibre laser for the first time to process silicon nitride (Si3N4) and zirconia (ZrO2) engineering ceramics, a comparison with the CO2 and a Nd:YAG lasers was conducted to provide fundamental understanding of various aspects of the laser beam-material interaction. Changes in the morphology, microstructure, surface finish, fracture toughness parameter (K1c) were investigated, followed by thermal finite element modelling (FEM) of the laser surface treatment and the phase transformation of the two ceramics, as well as the effects of the fibre laser beam parameter - brightness (radiance).

Fibre and CO2 laser surface treatment of both Si3N4 and ZrO2 engineering ceramics was performed by using various processing gases. Changes in the surface roughness, material removal, surface morphology and microstructure were observed. But the effect was particularly more remarkable when applying the reactive gases with both lasers and less significant when using the inert gases. Microcracking was also observed when the reactive gases were applied. This was due to an exothermic reaction produced during the laser-ceramic interaction which would have resulted to an increased surface temperature leading to thermal shocks. Moreover, the composition of the ceramics was modified with both laser irradiated surfaces as the ZrO2 transformed to zirconia carbides (ZrC) and Si3N4 to silicon dioxide (SiO2) respectively.

The most appropriate equation identified for the determination of the fracture toughness parameter K1c of the as-received, CO2 and the fibre laser surface treated Si3N4 and ZrO2 was K1c=0.016 (E/Hv) 1/2 (P/c3/2). Surfaces of both ceramics treated with CO2 and the fibre laser irradiation produced an increased K1c under the measured conditions, but with different effects. The CO2 laser surface treatment produced a thicker and softer layer whereas the fibre laser surface treatment increased the hardness by only 4%. This is inconsiderable but a reduction in the crack lengths increased the K1c value under the applied conditions. This was through a possible transformation hardening which occurred within both engineering ceramics.

Experimental findings validated the generated thermal FEM of the CO2 and the fibre laser surface treatment and showed good agreement. However, a temperature difference was found between the CO2 and fibre laser surface treatment due to the difference in absorption of the near infra-red (NIR) wavelength of the fibre laser being higher than the mid infra-red (MIR) wavelength of the CO2 laser. This in turn, generated a larger interaction zone on the surface that was not induced further into the bulk, as was the case with the fibre laser irradiation. The MIR wavelength is therefore suitable for

the surface processing of mainly oxide ceramics and surface treatments which do not require deep penetration. Phase transformation of the two ceramics occurred at various stages during the fibre laser surface treatment. The ZrO2 was transformed from the monoclinic (M) state to a mixture of tetragonal + cubic (T+C) during fibre laser irradiation and from T+C to T and then a partially liquid (L) phase followed by a possible reverse transformation to the M state during solidification. The Si3N4 transformed to a mixture of α-phase and β-phase (α→ α+β) followed by α+β and fully transforms from α+β →β-phase. What is more, is a comparison of the fibre laser-beam brightness parameter with that of the Nd:YAG laser. In particular, physical and microstructural changes due to the difference in the laser-beam brightness were observed.

This research has identified the broader effects of various laser processing conditions, as well as characterization techniques, assessment and identification of a method to determine the K1c and the thermal FEM of laser surface treated engineering ceramics. Also, the contributions of laser-beam brightness as a parameter of laser processing and the influence thereof on the engineering ceramics have been identified from a fundamental viewpoint. The findings of this research can now be adopted to develop ceramic fuel cell joining techniques and applications where laser beam surface modification and characterization of engineering ceramics are necessary.


A B S T R A C T After mastering Western architecture in the 1910s, Japanese top architects have been confronted with two problems: creating their own style based on Japanese traditions and climatic or seismological conditions and educating common people on taste for architecture beyond superficial imitation of the Western one. First of all, an elite and initially expressionist architect Horiguchi Sutemi discussed non-urban-ness that connects Japanese tearooms and Dutch rural houses. This was through his modernist interpretation of function, his experience in the Netherlands and his reaction against the administrative viewpoints on city and architecture in the 1920s. Secondly, despite his former distant stance on monumentality, his request of the world-wide supreme expression to some projected monuments revitalized his own inclination. Seemingly his attitudes toward monumentality changed and the property of the monuments that honored the war victims or enhanced national prestige opposed the "international" feature of modern architecture. Although these points may hide his consistency, we can find his continuous dualism: one is the functionality that prevailed over architectural discourses at that time including Horiguchi himself and another is his expression that provided a local vernacular practice with the position in the world. These arguments enable us to cast a potential understanding among modern architects in those days in a new light.


This paper presents a diffusion bonding technology at vacuum using a high-boiling liquid protection, diethylene glycol dimethyl ether (C6H19O3). After washing in alcohol, the specimens were immersed in diethylene glycol dimethyl ether. Before heating, the vacuum chamber was vacuumized to about 10-1Pa. Then chamber was heated to about 80°C, and held for 20 minute to evaporate the liquid protection in order to make the clean bonding surfaces contact. Metallographic observations of the interface by optical microscope were carried out. The experimental results show that the protections have successfully protected the bonding surfaces from re-oxidation prior to bonding. The metallographs show that the vacancies at the bonding interface bonding at 560°C for 2 hours are obvious and the materials at the interfaces of specimens bonded under the pressure of 5 MPa at 535°C for 2 hours were well joined.


In this study we examined the adsorption, kinetics and thermodynamics of heavy metals of used engine oil that come during engine operation and forsaw the possibility of polluting soil and ground water. the effect of temperature on adsorption was investigated in the range (15 – 45 o C) and results showed that maximum removal occurred at 45 o C. Effect of pH indicated that maximum removal of both Zn and Pb was at pH =13. Increasing adsorbent (soil) dosage from 0.5 to 3g showed that maximum adsorption of both Zn and Pb onto soil occurred with 3 g of soil. Equilibrium concentration happened at 90 minutes. Lanqmuir and Freiundlich models were used to study adsorption process at equilibrium and the results showed that Frenundlich is better for Zn while Lanqmuir fits better with Pb. In order to investigate adsorption behavior of Zn and Pb on soil, three kinetic models applied; Pseudo-first order, Pseudo-second order and intra- particle diffusion models were applied to fit kinetics data. The rate constants and correlation coefficients were determined for the three models. Thermodynamic parameters such as Gibbs free energy, standard enthalpy and standard entropy change were calculated for both zinc and lead.


OBJECTIVE
The optimal surgical management of arachnoid cysts remains controversial. The cerebellopontine angle (CPA) is a rare location for arachnoid cysts, and only 28 cases of arachnoid cysts occurring in the CPA have been reported in the literature. We discuss the diagnosis, radiographic imaging, and surgical management of CPA arachnoid cysts.

METHODS
Five patients (three male and two female patients) with a mean age of 5.6 years have been operated on at our institution since 1980. Magnetic resonance imaging allows for the accurate diagnosis of these arachnoid cysts, which can present with only discrete symptoms, such as headache or ataxia. All five arachnoid cysts compressed the cerebellum or brain stem. One patient had associated hydrocephalus. Three patients presented with refractory headaches associated with nausea and vomiting. The remaining two patients presented with cerebellar signs. No patient had an initial cranial neuropathy.

RESULTS
All patients underwent a retrosigmoid suboccipital craniotomy and microsurgical resection and fenestration of the cyst walls. One patient underwent two procedures. A cystoperitoneal shunt was inserted at the first operation. After the shunting procedure, the patient's condition deteriorated; however, after the microsurgical resection and fenestration, his symptoms improved. With a mean 5.2-year follow-up, there has been no evidence of clinical or radiographic recurrence.

CONCLUSION
Although CPA arachnoid cysts represent a small number of total arachnoid cysts, the CPA is the second most common location for arachnoid cysts to occur. CPA cysts are congenital lesions found in children who present with subtle signs or symptoms. The definitive treatment for these arachnoid cysts is a retrosigmoid suboccipital craniotomy and microsurgical resection and fenestration of the cyst walls.


Positively charged membrane filters (Pall, Posidyne®) were studied for their ability to retain both bacterial endotoxins and bacteria. Filters (0.2 μm pore size) were challenged with high (up to 5*105 EU) levels of bacterial endotoxin. When the endotoxin was dispersed in water, a more than 10.000 fold reduction of the endotoxin was obtained, whereas the reduction was only a factor 20 when Ringer's solution was used to disperse the endotoxin. Retention of bacteria was dependent on the type of organism, the pore size of the filter and the suspending liquid. Although filters with pore sizes >0.2 μm were not suitable to be used as a final filter in an aseptic production process, a very reduction in the number of bacteria could be obtained. Possible applications for these filters in the production of sterile pharmaceuticals are discussed.


Consumers increasingly are turning to complementary medicine, such as acupuncture, chiropractic, naturopathy, massage therapy, dietary supplements and herbs, energy healing, meditation and yoga, and mind-body therapies. This book addresses the growing interest in the legal, ethical, and regulatory aspects of integrating such care into conventional clinical settings.Integration of divergent philosophies, paradigms, and practices requires responsible investigation, informed judgment, and open-minded yet critical study and analysis of various systems of healing. Michael H. Cohen offers providers and policymakers vitally important information by addressing questions such as credentialing, malpractice, informed consent, and liability for referrals. He describes both practical strategies for minimizing liability, as well as the necessary future evolution of the legal and regulatory structure.Cohen also probes uncharted ethical and bioethical issues in complementary medicine and integrative health care. He further explores the connection between law, medicine, and spirituality and the role of this connection in human evolution. The book's range mirrors the integrative process itself, a process of grappling with, and meaningfully assimilating, disparate traditions and unfamiliar ways of thinking about the significance of health, body, and being."Beyond Complementary Medicine" is required reading for anyone involved in health care, including executives, insurers, managed care organizations, attorneys, ethicists, and lawmakers; physicians integrating complementary and alternative therapies; complementary and alternative medicine practitioners; medical schools, law schools, and educational institutions offering programs in health care, public health, and complementary therapies; companies manufacturing herbs and dietary supplements; and most of all, patients and their families.Michael H. Cohen is President of the Institute for Integrative and Energy Medicine, a nonprofit organization in health care policy, ethics, and legal and regulatory affairs, and an attorney with an international practice in integrative health care.


An analysis by Danish investigators published in JAMA shows that taking oral fluconazole during pregnancy is associated with a significant increased risk of spontaneous abortion. Plus: What persuades parents to vaccinate for HPV? Also: Does prenatal exposure to lithium increase risk of congenital malformations?


Most state-of-the-art filtering methods for speech enhancement require an estimate of the noise statistics, but the noise statistics are difficult to estimate in practice when speech is present. Thus, nonstationary noise will have a detrimental impact on the performance of most speech enhancement filters. The impact of such noise can be reduced by using the signal statistics rather than the noise statistics in the filter design. For example, this is possible by assuming a harmonic model for the desired signal; while this model fits well for voiced speech, it will not be appropriate for unvoiced speech. That is, signal-dependent methods based on the signal statistics will introduce undesired distortion for some parts of speech compared to signal-independent methods based on the noise statistics. Since both the signal-independent and signal-dependent approaches to speech enhancement have advantages, it is relevant to combine them to reduce the impact of their individual disadvantages. In this paper, we give theoretical insights into the relationship between these different approaches, and these reveal a close relationship between the two approaches. This justifies joint use of such filtering methods which can be beneficial from a practical point of view. Our experimental results confirm that both signal-independent and signal-dependent approaches have advantages and that they are closely-related. Moreover, as a part of our experiments, we illustrate the practical usefulness of combining signal-independent and signal-dependent enhancement methods by applying such methods jointly on real-life speech.


Pipeline-interleaving is an implementation method yielding a reduced area. This paper discusses the power consumption for such implementations, compared to a direct implementation. An examplefilter has been implemented, both as a direct structure and a pipeline-interleaved structure, and the results show a 38% and 23% increase in power consumption for correlated and uncorrelated input data respectively using a pipeline-interleaved structure. Possible explanations of the results are discussed for the example filter.


The proposed microwave link design between Metropolis Extension Office (Auxiliary Business Center) and Alabang Main Branch (Buiness Center) would provide larger capacity for data and voice transmission that would greatly help these centers in their operations. In addition, the leasing of extra E1s of the design would provide additional revenues for the company. The design features a path length of 2.4 km. The frequency utilized for the design is the 15 GHZ band with a channel capacity of 21E1. Through the determination of path losses and other deteriorating factors, the system was prepared for any possible occurrence in its operation. The study was able to perform all the necessary computations for the design to satisfy the link requirements as well as the system reliability of 99.999% specified by the school and the company. The study also determined the economic computations of the link which includes the computation of ROR (rate of return) of the overall investment. The project was proven to be feasible having a payback period of two years and four months with a rate of return of 43.78%.


This study estimates inter-fuel substitution elasticities and long-run substitution elasticities between energy and non-energy aggregate inputs used by production sectors in Malawi. All fuels are Morishima substitutes but there are significant sectoral variations in the magnitude of the elasticities. This indicates that economic instruments should be considered for energy policy but such policies should take into account not only differences in technology used across sectors but also the systematic distribution of costs when the relative prices of fuels change. Estimates of long-run elasticities for aggregate input demands indicate that energycapital input ratios adjust faster than labor-capital input ratios. This suggests that investment policy should take into consideration tradeoffs between environmental gains and employment implicit in the production structure of the Malawian economy, as both capital and labor demands have dynamic interactions with energy in the long run, with potential significant cumulative impacts on the environment.


Concrete is a material that the mechanical properties of which change over time. This change is due to chemical reactions within the concrete known as hydration. One of these properties is the modulus of elasticity and longitudinal wave velocity, which has a direct relation with the concrete age and its setting. Just after the materials mixing, the concrete setting is fast, and over time its rate decreases. Here, a series of cubic concrete specimens are prepared and changing in longitudinal wave velocity and modulus of elasticity in different ages is monitored during the process of curing and a relationship has been presented. Materials specifications impact and concrete mixing ratios, including the water to cement ratio and fine to coarse aggregates ratio is studied. Ultrasonic wave velocity has been increased faster at early ages of specimens where the concrete setting process is fast and in last days, rates of increasing the longitudinal wave velocity decreases. An increase in the water to cement ratio leads to increases in the longitudinal wave velocity over time. The empirical equations have been formulated as logarithmic curves. These empirical equations have been developed and a model with more efficiency and precision has been presented. These empirical equations can be used in the analytical and numerical analysis of structures. These models can be used to determine the loading time of concrete structures and to predicting their other physical and mechanical properties, such as strength and stiffness.


Perm Urals in the middle ages was inhabited by numerous tribes due to a large number of resources in the region, in particular, furbearers. Therefore, this region has developed rapidly as an important trading center. One of the tribes inhabited the territory at that time were Hungarians. Currently, the attention of many researchers studying the material culture of Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, turned to the so-called "Artefacts of Hungarian style", among which a special place is occupied by belt sets' elements. In the Perm region, which is regarded as one of the hypothetical outcome places of the Hungarians into the territory of Pannonia, we found a relatively large number of such artefacts; based on detailed technological analysis of the most expressive sets, there are attempts to identify features that are typical for this style. Based on the analysis of "Artefacts of Hungarian style", which were in sepulchers of Perm Urals, there were determined the main features of these findings. These features include gold planting of ornament, decorative floriated elements, edging by means of border ornament patterns.


Abstract Cleft palate is one of the challenging problems in the field of craniofacial surgery. In particular, the conventional methods of bilateral and severe cleft palate repairs have failed to achieve normal speech. In most instances, secondary procedures such as pharyngoplasty and pharyngeal flap surgery are performed to improve speech. This study introduces secondary palatal elongation (SPE) as a new approach to cleft palate repair. The patients included usually had a short palate and unrepaired palatal muscles. The authors' procedure involved dissecting the previously repaired palatal mucosa and pushing back and cutting the nasal mucosa of the palate horizontally and further pushing it back. Then, 1 or 2 buccal mucosal flaps were used to repair the nasal mucosal defect of the palate. In case of unrepaired veloplasty from the primary surgery, the levator muscles were dissected and sutured together to perform veloplasty. The range of palatal elongation was 15 to 25 mm. Secondary palatal elongation has been performed on 17 patients since 2007 with a high rate of speech improvement. Based on this 9-year experience with performing SPE, SPE is a radical anatomic technique of palatal elongation as compared with pharyngoplasty and pharyngeal flap surgery. All 17 patients who underwent SPE showed improvement in speech, from very poor to poor speech and from normal to good speech.


Load balancing (LB) is a challenging issue in the hybrid light fidelity (LiFi) and wireless fidelity (WiFi) networks (HLWNets), due to the nature of heterogeneous access points (APs). Machine learning has the potential to provide a complexity-friendly LB solution with near-optimal network performance, at the cost of a training process. The state-of-the-art (SOTA) learning-aided LB methods, however, need retraining when the network environment (especially the number of users) changes, significantly limiting its practicability. In this paper, a novel deep neural network (DNN) structure named adaptive target-condition neural network (A-TCNN) is proposed, which conducts AP selection for one target user upon the condition of other users. Also, an adaptive mechanism is developed to map a smaller number of users to a larger number through splitting their data rate requirements, without affecting the AP selection result for the target user. This enables the proposed method to handle different numbers of users without the need for retraining. Results show that A-TCNN achieves a network throughput very close to that of the testing dataset, with a gap less than 3%. It is also proven that A-TCNN can obtain a network throughput comparable to two SOTA benchmarks, while reducing the runtime by up to three orders of magnitude.


Daily sittings of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia (BC), Canada begin with a prayer or reflection delivered by a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA). MLAs have the option of using a sample prayer from a list of five provided by Legislative staff, or of delivering a prayer of their own devising. The Office of the Clerk is currently revising the list of sample prayers to include a greater diversity of beliefs. To accomplish this task, bureaucrats face a number of practical and constitutional challenges. This article explores these challenges. The Office of the Clerk will have to first identify religious and belief groups that are present in BC, then select a reasonable number of those groups to include on the list, and finally identify prayers and reflections that are representative of those traditions. Each of these steps raises practical questions with respect to how bureaucrats can actually make these decisions, and to more fundamental questions regarding the appropriateness of the decisions made. Given these challenges, this paper concludes that the practice of offering sample prayers should be avoided, and that MLAs should be called upon to deliver prayers and reflections of their own devising, or that legislative prayer be abolished.


The statistical properties of interacting fermions have been studied for various angular momentum with the inclusion of pairing interaction. The dependence of the critical temperature on angular momentum for several nuclei, have been studied. The yrast energy as a function of angular momentum for 28Si and 24Mg nuclei have been calculated up to 60.0 MeV of excitation energy. The computed limiting angular momenta are compared with the experimental results for 26Al produced by 12C+14N reaction. The relevant nuclear level densities for non-zero angular momentum have been computed for 44Ti and 136Ba nuclei. The results are compared with their corresponding values obtained from the approximate formulas.


. Over 80% of cancer patients with advanced metastatic disease suffer pain caused mostly by direct tumor infiltration. Pain undermines quality of life considerably and is a clinically important indicator of tumor progression. Cancer pain may be acute or chronic and should be addressed accordingly. Approximately 20% of pain in cancer patients may be attributed to the effects of surgery, radiotherapy, or chemotherapy.


The antioxidant and antibacterial activities of ethanolic extract and phenolic compounds extract of Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) and Oregano (Oreganum vulgare) plants were studied; the phenolic content and the relationship between these compounds and the above activities were also investigated. The results showed that the Lemon balm had the highest phenolic content (56.5% mg\ g) and the phenolic content of Oregano was twice lower than Lemon balm. Lemon balm has the highest antioxidant activity which causes lipid peroxidation inhibition activity of linoleic acid (90.5%), this activity was more than αtocopherole antioxidant activity (79.3 %). It was found that the main source of antioxidant activity of these plants was belonging to phenolic compounds and the results proved the strong relationship between antioxidant activity and phenolic content. The ethanolic extract of Lemon balm was exhibited strong antibacterial activity ,the inhibition included all bacterial isolates , with highest inhibition zone against Bacillus cereus ( 26 mm), while Oregano did not exhibit clear antibacterial activity, Aeromonas hydrophila was the most resistant isolate . It was obvious from the results of effect of phenolic compounds on bacteria that no relationship between antibacterial activity and phenolic content and the inhibition may be due to other compounds.


Transcriptional regulation by Wnt signalling is primarily thought to be accomplished by a complex of β-catenin and TCF family transcription factors (TFs). Although numerous studies have suggested that additional TFs play roles in regulating Wnt target genes, their mechanisms of action have not been investigated in detail. We characterised a Wnt-responsive element (WRE) downstream of the Wnt target gene Axin2 and found that TCFs and Caudal-related homeodomain (CDX) proteins were required for its activation. Using a new separation-of-function TCF mutant, we found that WRE activity requires the formation of a TCF/CDX complex. Our systematic mutagenesis of this enhancer identified other sequences essential for activation by Wnt signalling, including several copies of a novel CAG DNA motif. Computational and experimental evidence indicates that the TCF/CDX/CAG mode of regulation is prevalent in multiple WREs. Put together, our results demonstrate the complex nature of cisand transinteractions required for signal-dependent enhancer activity.


Peer relationships are important for children's social development, with good quality friendships linked to well-being and school belonging (Hamm & Faircloth, 2005). Children who have problematic peer relationships (e.g. bullying), risk a range of negative outcomes, are more likely to dislike school and feel disconnected from classmates. Bullying is complex and can vary in its nature, extent and involvement of others. Research has indicated that it is a group-based phenomenon, including not only the perpetrator and victim, but also others who 'join in', passively observe and/or try to defend the victim (Salmivalli, 1996). Bullying can also occur within friendship groups (Mishna et al., 2008) but may be less likely to be identified as such.

This paper will report on 'work in progress' research into the peer relationships of children (aged 9-11 yrs), and links to their feelings of self-worth and school belonging. Children completed an abbreviated version of the 'About me' scale (Maras, 2005) to measure their identification with peers, school, and self-worth. They then identified their friends in their class. A Friendship Qualities Scale(Bukowski et al, 1994) was completed which measured the quality of their closest friendship (including positive and negative aspects). Children then completed a peer-nomination activity where they were given a list of behavioural descriptions (based on the 'participant roles' in bullying identified by Salmivalli, 1996) and asked to identify who in their class the descriptions best suited.

We will report our initial findings into the relationships between friendship quality, school belonging and global self-worth, along with analysis of negative relationships within friendships, and the manifestation of bullying behaviours within the peer group. The paper will highlight the complexity of children's peer relationships, and how positive relationships, negative interactions and bullying behaviour can co-occur. We will discuss the implications of our findings for schools and educational practitioners.


The MicroLeadFrame® (MLF®)/Quad Flat No-Lead (QFN) packaging solution is extremely popular in the semiconductor industry. It is used in applications ranging from consumer electronics and communications to those requiring high reliability performance, such as the automotive industry. The wide acceptance of this packaging design is primarily due to its flexible form factors, size, scalability and thermal dissipation capabilities. The adaptation and acceptance of MLF/QFN packages in automotive high reliability applications has led to the development of materials and processes that have extended its capabilities to meet the performance and quality requirements. One of process developments that is enabling the success of the MLF/QFN within the automotive industry has been the innovation of side wettable flanks that provide the capability to inspect the package lead to printed circuit board (PCB) interfaces for reliable solder joints. Traditionally, through-board X-ray was the accepted method for detecting reliable solder joints for leadless packages. However, as PBC layer counts and routing complexities have increased, this method to detect wellformed solder fillets has proven ineffective and incapable of meeting the inspection requirements. To support increased reliability and more accurate inspection of the leadless package solder joints, processes to form side-wettable flanks have been developed. These processes enable the formation of solder fillets that are detectable using state-of-the-art automated optical inspection (AOI) equipment, providing increased throughput for the surface mount technology (SMT) processes and improved quality as well.


STUDY DESIGN
A case series.

OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this case series was to assess the effect of high-intensity neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) on quadriceps strength and voluntary activation following total knee arthroplasty (TKA).

BACKGROUND
Following TKA, patients exhibit long-term weakness of the quadriceps and diminished functional capacity compared to age-matched healthy controls. The pain and swelling that results from surgery may contribute to quadriceps weakness. The use of high-intensity NMES has previously been shown to be effective in quickly restoring quadriceps strength in patients with weakness after surgery.

METHODS AND MEASURES
All patients were treated for 6 weeks, 2 to 3 visits per week, in outpatient rehabilitation. Five patients (NMES group) participated in a voluntary exercise program for both knees and NMES for the weaker knee. Three patients (exercise group) participated in a voluntary exercise program for both knees without NMES. For each treatment session, 10 isometric electrically elicited muscle contractions were administered at maximally tolerated doses to the initially weaker leg of the NMES group. Quadriceps strength and muscle activation were repeatedly assessed up to 6 months after surgery using burst superimposition techniques.

RESULTS
At 6 months, the weak NMES-treated legs of 4 of 5 patients in the NMES group had surpassed the strength of the contralateral leg. In contrast, none of the weak legs in the exercise group were stronger than the contralateral leg at 6 months. Changes in quadriceps muscle activation mirrored the changes exhibited in strength.

CONCLUSION
When NMES was added to a voluntary exercise program, deficits in quadriceps muscle strength and activation resolved quickly after TKA.


The embryological processes after acute irradiation in the zone of Chernobyl (radiation level 4-5 Yy) were studied in ovules from the second-year-old cones of scotch pine. Four types of anomalies were detected in ovules of all experimental pine trees: undeveloped ovules in layer of strobiles; a substitution of female gametophit by tissues originaled from tapetal or nucellar cells; death of macrogametophytes connected with the interruption of divisions during the cenocitic stage in full-fertile pine trees. These anomalies appear during the normal development of microgametophytes.


In an election the probability that a ruling party wins the election and forms the government is affected by the electoral system that is, the rule for aggregating constituency wise results into a single outcome (i.e. forming the central government). We find the probability that a particular party wins the election from a constituency given that party has won the last election from that particular constituency, under the assumption that all candidates are equally likely (i.e. random selection) given that they are from the same party. The original goal of our work is to estimate the probability of winning by ruling party (i.e. the party which has won the last election from that constituency), irrespective of whether that party forms a coalition during election, formed the last government in center or was the part of the last central government in case of coalition government. In particular, we are not taking into account the effect of the central government's ruling, while we are emphasizing on the effect of constituency wise ruling and the results of that particular constituency. We estimate the average probability of winning for all India's General elections from 1971 to 1999 under given electoral system, using Binary Choice Model.


\kdtree \citefriedman1976algorithm has long been deemed unsuitable for exact nearest-neighbor search in high dimensional data. The theoretical guarantees and the empirical performance of \kdtree do not show significant improvements over brute-force nearest-neighbor search in moderate to high dimensions. \kdtree has been used relatively more successfully for approximate search \citemuja2009flann but lack theoretical guarantees. In the article, we build upon randomized-partition trees \citedasgupta2013randomized to propose \kdtree based approximate search schemes with $O(d łog d + łog n)$ query time for data sets with n points in d dimensions and rigorous theoretical guarantees on the search accuracy. We empirically validate the search accuracy and the query time guarantees of our proposed schemes, demonstrating the significantly improved scaling for same level of accuracy.


Energy-maximizing controllers for wave energy devices are normally based on linear hydrodynamic device models. Such models ignore nonlinear effects which typically manifest themselves for large device motion (typical in this application) and may also include other modeling errors. The effectiveness of a controller is, in general, determined by the match between the model the controller is based on and the actual system dynamics. This match becomes especially critical when the controller is highly tuned to the system. In this paper, we present a methodology for reducing this sensitivity to modeling errors and nonlinear effects by the use of a hierarchical robust controller, which shows small sensitivity to modeling errors, but allows good energy maximization to be recovered through a passivity-based control approach.


The purpose of this guide is to highlight websites and books to assist TRU students in planning their careers and hunting for jobs.


Representative deman cardiac pacemakers were tested with several common radiation therapy devices and ancillary equipment. The experimental set-up essentially duplicated the dosimetric and electroconductive environment of the radiation therapy patient bearing a pacemaker. Observations of pulse width and interval confirmed that pacemaker output was generally not appreciably affected by the simulated treatments. Occasionally, changes were caused by ancillary equipment and start-up of treatment. We conclude that although interference hazards are sometimes seen, radiation therapy is not contraindicated in patients wearing pacemakers.


Author(s): Munteshari, Obaidallah Mohammad | Advisor(s): Pilon, Laurent G | Abstract: Electrochemical capacitors (ECs) serve as promising electrical energy storage systems due to their potential to achieve both high energy and high power densities. ECs are usually cycled at high current densities resulting in significant amount of volumetric heat generation. This, in turn, may lead to excessive temperature rise that can reduce their lifetime and performance. This dissertation aims to experimentally measure the heat generation rate at electrodes of ECs with different electrodes materials under various charging and discharging conditions.First, the design, fabrication, and validation of an in operando calorimeter are presented. The in operando calorimeter was able to measure the heat generation rate in each electrode of the EC cell separately. First, EDLC cells consisted of two typical activated carbon (AC) electrodes were investigated. The irreversible heat generation rate in each electrode was in excellent agreement with predictions for Joule heating. The reversible heat generation rate in the positive electrode was exothermic during charging and endothermic during discharging. By contrast, the negative electrode featured both exothermic and endothermic heat generation during both charging and discharging steps. Such asymmetric heating was attributed to asymmetry in the charging mechanism due to the overscreening effect caused by interactions between the anionic functional groups of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) binder and the cations at the negative electrode. Second, the effect of potential window on heat generation rate in EDLCs in ionic liquid electrolyte was investigated under galvanostatic cycling. The irreversible heat generation rate increased with increasing the potential window and exceeded Joule heating. This could be attributed to the effect of potential-dependent pore resistance. In addition, a further increase in the irreversible heat generation rate was observed at high potential window due to electrolyte degradation. The reversible heat generation rate increased with increasing potential window due to the increase in the amount of ion adsorbed/desorbed at the electrode/electrolyte interface.Moreover, the thermal signature associated with the charge storage mechanisms in hybrid supercapacitors consisted of highly porous pseudocapacitive electrode and AC electrode was investigated under constant current cycling. Pseudocapacitive electrodes made of either molybdenum dioxide on reduced graphene oxide (MoO2-rGO) or manganese dioxide on graphene (MnO2-G) were synthesized to investigate heat generation associated with reversible redox reactions involving ion intercalation or fast surface redox reactions, respectively. The irreversible heat generation rate in the pseudocapacitive electrodes exceeded Joule heating. This was attributed to irreversible heat generation associated with redox reactions, polarization heating, and hysteresis in EDL formation and dissolution. Moreover, MoO2-rGO featured endothermic reversible heat generation during charging due to Li+ intercalation. Similarly, MnO2-G featured endothermic heat generation during charging due to non-spontaneous surface redox reactions.Finally, successful separation of EDL current from faradaic current in pseudocapacitive electrodes will improve the heat generation analysis and provide insights into the physicochemical phenomena associated with each regime. Here, step potential electrochemical spectroscopy (SPECS) and multiple potential step chronoamperometry (MUSCA) methods for determining the respective contributions of EDL and faradaic reactions to charge storage in pseudocapacitive electrodes were theoretically validated.


Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are important in the immune defense against invading pathogens, but they are also key molecules in the regulation of inflammatory reactions. Low levels of ROS production due to a polymorphism in the neutrophil cytosolic factor 1 (Ncf1) gene are associated with autoimmunity and arthritis severity in mouse models induced with adjuvant. We established an adjuvant-free arthritis model in which disease is induced by injection of the autoantigen collagen type II (CII) and depends on IL-5-producing T cells and eosinophils. In addition, the transgenic expression of mutated mouse CII allowed us to investigate an autoreactive immune response to an autologous Ag and by that natural tolerance mechanism. We show that a deficient ROS production, due to a spontaneous mutation in Ncf1, leads to increased autoantibody production and expansion of IL-33R-expressing T cells, impaired T cell tolerance toward tissue-specific CII, and severe arthritis in this unique model without disturbing adjuvant effects. These results demonstrate that the insufficient production of ROS promotes the breakdown of immune tolerance and development of autoimmune and adjuvant-free arthritis through an IL-5- and IL33R-dependent T cell activation pathway.


Simultaneous transmissions from different nodes in a network can result in multiuser interference in which an intended receiver hears the overlapping combination of two or more transmissions. In the case where there are multiple observations with different time offsets of a collision (e.g., if the packet retransmissions also collide, or if there is a cooperating receiver with different propagation delays to the transmitters), zigzag [1] decoding can be employed. In this paper, we analyze the performance of zigzag decoding for the case of two receiving nodes with two simultaneous transmitters in an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. We also present a soft-decision version of zigzag decoding and show that it is the optimal MAP decision rule.


We characterize the open-loop and the Markov perfect Stackelberg equilibria for a differential game in which a cartel and a fringe extract a nonrenewable resource. Both agents have stock dependent costs. The comparison of initial market shares, across different equilibria, depends on which firm has the cost advantage. The cartel's steady state market share is largest in the open loop eqnilibrium and smallest in the competitive equilibrium. The initial price may be larger in the Markov equilibria, so a decrease in market power may make the equilibrium appear less competitive. The benefit to cartelization increases with market share. *Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Califoruia, Berkeley. **Academy of Finland.


Plant-parasitic nematodes pose a significant threat to agriculture causing annual yield losses worth more than 100 billion US$. Nematode control often involves the use of nematicides, but many of them including non-selective fumigants have been phased out, particularly due to ecotoxicological concerns. Thus new control strategies are urgently needed. Spirotetramat (SPT) is used as phloem-moble systemic insecticide targeting acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC) of pest insects and mites upon foliar application. Our studies revealed that SPT known to be activated in planta to SPT-enol acts as a developmental inhibitor of the free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and the plant-parasitic nematode Heterodera schachtii. Exposure to SPT-enol leads to larval arrest and disruption of the life cycle. Furthermore, SPT-enol inhibits nematode ACC activity, affects storage lipids, fatty acid composition and disrupts surface coat synthesis. Silencing of H. schachtii ACC by RNAi induced similar phenotypes and thus mimics the effects of SPT-enol, supporting the conclusion that SPT-enol acts on nematodes by inhibiting ACC. Our studies demonstrated that the inhibition of de novo lipid biosynthesis by interfering with nematode ACC is a new nematicidal mode of action addressed by spirotetramat, a well-known systemic insecticide for sucking pest control.


We report a rare case of virilizing adrenocortical adenoma complicated with Cushing's syndrome, thyroid papillary carcinoma and hypergastrinemia. A 45-year-old woman had a history of amenorrhea for 10 years, hypertension for 8 years, and diabetes mellitus for 3 years. Physical examination showed a masculinized woman with severe hirsutism, male-like baldness, deep voice, acne in the precordia, and clitorism. Plasma testosterone, DHEA-S and urinary 17-KS were high, and plasma cortisol level was it at the upper limit of the normal range, but it did not show a diurnal rhythm nor was suppressed by 2 and 8 mg of dexamethasone. Abdominal CT scan showed a left adrenal tumor (4.5 cm in size). Adrenal scintigram revealed uptake of the tracer on the left side, and plasma cortisol concentration was high in a blood sample from the left adrenal vein. Left adrenalectomy was performed. Histopathological features of resected adrenal tumor were consistent with those of adrenocortical adenoma, consisting of tumor cells with eosinophilic compact cytoplasm. Immunohistochemical staining for steroidogenic enzymes showed reactivity for P450sec, 3 beta-HSD, P450c17, P450c21 and P450c11. Plasma testosterone and cortisol levels decreased to the normal range postoperatively. The patient was also found to have a papillary thyroid carcinoma and hypergastrinemia. Our patient is a rare case of virilizing adrenocortical adenoma associated with Cushing's syndrome, thyroid papillary carcinoma, and hypergastrinemia.


Inverter plays an important role in the present world across the speed variation of asynchronous machine (Motor) in industries using vector and scalar control. Many researchers have proposed typical topologies among them Cascaded H bridge inverter suits to some of the applications, such as electric drives, Renewable energy sources etc. As such, among the contemporary inverter (Neutral Point clamped inverter(NPC) and Flying capacitor Multilevel inverter) exists still Cascaded HBridge inverter gives superior performance in terms of its modulating techniques which is unique in nature. Conventional H bridge inverter with sine PWM suffers from high THD, a novel SVPWM with sample reference phase voltage is proposed which is easy to implement and increases bus bar utilization with reduced THD in currents. In order to validate results it is implemented using MATLAB/SIMULINK environment.


Presents a direct adaptive neural network control strategy for unknown nonlinear systems which are described by an unknown NARMA model. Taking the neural network as a neuro model of the system, control signals are directly obtained by minimizing either the instant difference or the cummulative differences between a setpoint and the output of the neuro model. An application to a flow rate control system is studied and desired results are obtained.


Abstract Hydrotalcite, ideally [Mg6Al2(OH)16](CO3)(H2O)4, was studied in samples from Dypingdal, Snarum, Norway (3R and 2H), Zelentsovskaya pit (2H) and Praskovie–Evgenievskaya pit (2H) (both Southern Urals, Russia), Talnakh, Siberia, Russia (3R), Khibiny, Kola, Russia (3R), and St. Lawrence, New York, USA (3R and 2H). Two polytypes, 3R and 2H (both 'classical'), were confirmed on the basis of single-crystal and powder X-ray diffraction data. Their chemical composition was studied by electron-microprobe analysis, infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, and thermogravimetric analysis. The crystal structure of hydrotalcite-3R was solved by direct methods in the space group R$ {\bar 3} $m on three crystals (two data collections at 290 K and one at 120 K). The unit-cell parameters are as follows (290/290/120 K): a = 3.0728(9)/3.0626(3)/3.0617(4), c = 23.326(9)/23.313(3)/23.203(3) Å and V = 190.7(1)/189.37(4)/188.36(4) Å3. The crystal structures were refined on the basis of 304/150/101 reflections to R1 = 0.075/0.041/0.038. Hydrotalcite-2H crystallises in the P63/mmc space group; unit-cell parameters for two crystals are (data collection at 290 K and 93 K): a = 3.046(1)/3.0521(9), c = 15.447(6)/15.439(4) Å, V = 124.39(8)/124.55(8) Å3. The crystal structures were refined on the basis of 160/142 reflections to R1 = 0.077/0.059. This paper reports the first single-crystal structure data on hydrotalcite. Hydrotalcite distribution in Nature, diagnostic features, polytypism, interlayer topology and localisation of M2+–M3+ cations within metal hydroxide layers are discussed.


Background: Kidney transplant recipients are a population who experience a high likelihood of gaining a significant amount of weight (between 6 and 13 kilograms) during the first year after transplantation. However, not all kidney transplant recipients gain weight. Studies have found little difference in physical activity and nutritional intake among those who do and do not gain weight. Immunosuppressant medications have also not been shown to play a substantive role in post-transplant weight gain. Additionally, although some studies have shown that age, gender, and race can influence weight gain, this information does not fully capture the observed variance. These observations suggest that genetic factors may have a role in the differential weight gain experienced by kidney transplant recipients. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that has previously been implicated in substance addiction. Recently, neuroimaging and neurogenetic data have shown that dopamine may also play a role in obesity. Both dopamine receptor genes and genes related to overall dopamine activity have been associated with obesity, weight gain, and food addiction. Gene expression studies in subcutaneous adipose tissue of kidney transplant recipients showed that expression of some dopaminergic pathway genes was negatively correlated with weight gain. Polymorphisms in some of these genes have been linked to weight gain by others. Taken together, these results suggest that genetic variation in some dopaminergic genes may underlie changes in their expression or function and may contribute to the risk for gaining weight. The purpose of the proposed study was to determine if polymorphisms associated with these previously found dopaminergic genes have predictive value when combined with demographic characteristics to identify kidney transplant recipients who are at risk of gaining weight. Methods: The subjects for this study represent a subsample of participants in a previous observational study. As a part of this study, age, race, and gender information were collected, as well as baseline and twelve month weight and height. Additionally, white blood cells were collected at baseline. Quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) techniques were used to determine the genotype of these dopaminergic polymorphisms noted in previous work and in the literature as being related to weight gain. This included a total of 10 variants in 7 genes: dopamine receptor type 2 gene (DRD2) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) rs1800497, rs6277, and rs12364283, dopamine receptor type 3 gene (DRD3) SNP rs6280, dopamine receptor type 4 gene (DRD4) variable number tandem repeat (VNTR), catechol-o-methyltransferase gene (COMT) SNPs rs4680 and rs4818, monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA) VNTR, monoamine oxidase B gene (MAOB) SNP rs1799836, and dopamine active transporter gene (SLC6A3/DAT1) VNTR. Genotypes were analyzed using dose dependent and risk allele approaches, and those variants with p≤0.20 were included in regression modeling. Regression models were built in a stepwise manner, first by building a model with only demographic characteristics, then by building a model with only genetic variants. Next, models were built with demographic and just individual genetic variants, and finally a model was built with demographic and all genetic variants included. Results: Seventy subjects were included in this study (43% female, 57% African American, mean age 50.7 ±13.2 years). Age was found to be weakly correlated with percent weight change (r=-0.32), but race and gender showed no appreciable relationship to percent weight change at 12 months. A simple regression of age on percent weight change was significant (p=0.006) and explained 11.2% of the variance. Multiple regression models of genetic and demographic factors explained between 11.4 and 25% of the variance, but no model reached statistical significance overall. However, age was consistently significant as a regressor. The SLC6A3/DAT1 9/10 genotype and the DRD2 rs1800497 TC genotype both approached significance in the modeling with p values of 0.08 and 0.07 respectively. The DRD2 rs1800497 genotype was also significantly correlated with percent weight gain in a dose dependent fashion (r=-0.28, p=0.05). Conclusions: Increasing age is associated with less weight gain in the first year after kidney transplantation. Although the regression modeling failed to find significant association between weight gain and specific genotypes in the set of dopaminergic genes, this study was conducted as a pilot study to test the feasibility of the methodology. Even with the current sample size and effect size limitations, these results suggest that the DRD2 SNP rs1800497 and the SLC6A3/DAT1 VNTR have value in prediction of weight gain in kidney transplant recipients. To test the predictive value of these polymorphisms, further studies using a larger cohort of patients is required.


One crucial feature of expertise is the ability to spontaneously recognize where and when knowledge can be applied to simplify task processing. Mental arithmetic is one domain in which people should start to develop such expert knowledge in primary school by integrating conceptual knowledge about mathematical principles and procedural knowledge about shortcuts. If successful, knowledge integration should lead to transfer between procedurally different shortcuts that are based on the same mathematical principle and therefore likely are both associated to the respective conceptual knowledge. Taking commutativity principle as a model case, we tested this conjecture in two experiments with primary school children. In Experiment 1, we obtained eye tracking data suggesting that students indeed engaged in search processes when confronted with mental arithmetic problems to which a formerly feasible shortcut no longer applied. In Experiment 2, children who were first provided material allowing for one commutativity-based shortcut later profited from material allowing for a different shortcut based on the same principle. This was not the case for a control group, who had first worked on material that allowed for a shortcut not based on commutativity. The results suggest that spontaneous shortcut usage triggers knowledge about different shortcuts based on the same principle. This is in line with the notion of adaptive expertise linking conceptual and procedural knowledge.


(No paper) Typically, chlorine decay has been described by a first-order decay model. The first-order model, however, has two drawbacks: 1) the reactive species within the water is assumed in excess, and 2) the inability of the model to describe chlorine decay from time t = 0. A second-order decay model with fictitious reactive compound, while still a simplification, is investigated here as an alternative to the first-order approach. By accounting for the reactive material, the second-order model is found to describe chlorine decay more accurately, particularly under rechlorination scenarios. Rechlorination occurs during booster disinfection and, given distribution systems are looped networks, whenever two, or more, influent links in a distribution system connect. Therefore, the second-order model has the potential to more accurately describe chlorine decay in a distribution system water quality model. An additional model for describing trihalomethane (THM) formation, which assumes formation is linear with respect to chlorine demand, is also tested. Chlorine decay, with and without rechlorination, was observed using five different treated source waters: four surface waters and one ground water. The finished dissolved organic carbon of the source waters ranged from 0.65 mg/L to 3.50 mg/L. Initial chlorine doses produced initial chlorine concentrations ranging from 0.71 to 8.75 mg/L. Rechlorination consisted of a single rechlorination dose applied some time after the initial dose. The resulting chlorine concentrations after rechlorination dose ranged between 0.37 and 8.75 mg/L and were applied from 5 to 430 hours after the initial chlorine dose. For describing the chlorine decay of the initial dose, the second-order model always performed as well as, or better than, the first-order model.


Background. Recent studies indicate that not all low-level donor-specific human leukocyte antigen (HLA) antibodies (HLA-DSA) (i.e., positive by solid-phase assays, negative by complement-dependent cytotoxic-crossmatch) have a detrimental clinical impact. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the pretransplant C4d-fixing capability allows distinguishing harmful from presumably clinically irrelevant HLA-DSA. Methods. We retrospectively investigated 64 patients with low-level HLA-DSA detected by single-antigen flow beads (SAFB). Thirty-four of 64 patients (53%) experienced early antibody-mediated rejection (AMR), whereas 30 patients (47%) did not. HLA-DSA characteristics (i.e., number, class, and strength), frequency of retransplants, and immunosuppressive regimens were not different in these two groups. Pretransplant sera were reanalyzed using a modified SAFB assay measuring C4d fixation induced by HLA antibodies. Results. C4d-fixing HLA-DSA were observed in 11 of 64 patients (17%). AMR occurred in 6 of 11 patients (55%) with C4d-fixing HLA-DSA and in 28 of 53 patients (53%) without C4d-fixing HLA-DSA (P=1.0). Positive C4d staining in peritubular capillaries was detected in 6 of 11 patients (55%) with C4d-fixing HLA-DSA and in 21 of 53 patients (40%) without C4d-fixing HLA-DSA (P=0.50). Conclusion. The pretransplant capability of low-level HLA-DSA to trigger C4d fixation in vitro is not predictive for early AMR or C4d deposition in peritubular capillaries in vivo. This argues against pretransplant C4d SAFB testing to define the clinical relevance of low-level HLA-DSA.


A direct hydrothermal synthesis approach to Fe/ZSM-5 zeolites was developed by using a ferric complex, i.e. ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid ferric sodium (EDTA-FeNa), as both an iron source and a structure-directing agent. During the hydrothermal synthesis, EDTA-FeNa complexes were encapsulated within zeolite channels of ZSM-5 and they underwent transformation to highly dispersed extraframework iron species, i.e. isolated ferric ions and oligomeric FexOy clusters, upon calcination removal of organic species. The as-prepared Fe/ZSM-5 zeolites could be established as bi-functional catalysts containing both acid sites and iron sites. As expected, the as-prepared Fe/ZSM-5 zeolites exhibited remarkable catalytic activity in the selective reduction of nitrogen oxides by ammonia (NH3-SCR), with a nitrogen oxide conversion of >99% in a wide temperature range of 573–693 K under simulated industrial conditions. Meanwhile, good stability and tolerance to water vapor and sulfur dioxide could be achieved, making these Fe/ZSM-5 zeolites promising candidates for practical application. In contrast to conventional post-synthesis modification approaches to Fe/ZSM-5, the one-pot hydrothermal synthesis approach appeared to be very simple and easily reproducible, and the formation of inactive iron oxide nanoparticles can be completely avoided, which accordingly leads to high NH3-SCR activity.


White-copy A4 paper is an important kind of substrate for preparation of most formal as well as informal documents. It often encountered as questioned document in cases such as falsification, embezzlement or forgery. By comparing the questioned piece, (e.g. of a contract) against the rest deemed authentic, forgery indicator could be derived from an inconsistent chemical composition.  However, classification and even differentiation of white copy paper have been difficult due to highly similar physical properties and chemical composition. Self-organizing map (SOM) has been proven useful in many published works as a good tool for clustering and classification of samples, especially when involving high-dimensional data. In this preliminary paper, we explore the feasibility of SOM in classifying white copy paper for forensic purposes. A total of 150 infrared spectra were collected from three varieties of white paper using Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier-transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy. Each IR spectrum composed of over thousands of wavenumbers (i.e. input variables) and resembles chemical fingerprint for the sample. Comparative performance between raw wavenumbers and its reduced form (i.e. principal components, PCs) in SOM modeling also conducted. Results showed that SOM built with PCs is much efficient than built with raw wavenumbers, with the classification accuracy of over 90% is obtained with external validation test. This study shows that SOM coupled with ATR-FTIR spectroscopy could be a potential non-destructive approach for forensic paper analysis.


Humans have the fascinating ability to achieve goals in a complex and constantly changing world, still surpassing modern machine-learning algorithms in terms of flexibility and learning speed. It is generally accepted that a crucial factor for this ability is the use of abstract, hierarchical representations, which employ structure in the environment to guide learning and decision making. Nevertheless, how we create and use these hierarchical representations is poorly understood. This study presents evidence that human behavior can be characterized as hierarchical reinforcement learning (RL). We designed an experiment to test specific predictions of hierarchical RL using a series of subtasks in the realm of context-based learning and observed several behavioral markers of hierarchical RL, such as asymmetric switch costs between changes in higher-level versus lower-level features, faster learning in higher-valued compared to lower-valued contexts, and preference for higher-valued compared to lower-valued contexts. We replicated these results across three independent samples. We simulated three models—a classic RL, a hierarchical RL, and a hierarchical Bayesian model—and compared their behavior to human results. While the flat RL model captured some aspects of participants' sensitivity to outcome values, and the hierarchical Bayesian model captured some markers of transfer, only hierarchical RL accounted for all patterns observed in human behavior. This work shows that hierarchical RL, a biologically inspired and computationally simple algorithm, can capture human behavior in complex, hierarchical environments and opens the avenue for future research in this field.


Monthly time series of temperature, wind speed and sea level pressure recorded at Neumayer polar research station (70°39'S, 8°15'W) during the last 30 years are analysed in order to identify the climate oscillations and associated teleconnection patterns at time scales from half-year to decades. Oscillations with periods of six months (semi-annual) and one year (annual) were identified in all records. Both annual and semi-annual oscillations are non-stationary in time. The dominant pattern of interannual to decadal variability, which captures the out of phase variations of temperature and wind speed with sea level pressure, shows a persistent 2-3 years oscillation. This oscillation is related with a wave-train atmospheric circulation pattern similar to the Pacific South American (PSA) modes. This suggests a tropical origin of this oscillation. The second pattern of interannual to decadal variability, which captures in-phase variations of these variables, shows enhanced variability at 5-6 year time scales. This oscillation is induced by the Antarctic Oscillation (AAO) which shows enhanced variability at these time scales. Analysis of the variability of high resolution stable isotope time series from four ice cores from Neumayer region reveals similar oscillations. This suggests that ice core data from the region could be used to reconstruct the phase and amplitude of atmospheric circulation patterns associated to these oscillations during past periods.


After the publication of the EUPHAS trial, the clinical use of polymyxin B hemoperfusion (Toraymyxin®) increased significantly in Italy. Nevertheless, no structured data collections have been carried out to underline the characteristics of treated patients. Therefore, a collaborative registry of clinical data was promoted among users in order to better define the structure of the prospective data collection named the EUPHAS2 project. Neither inclusion criteria nor therapeutic constraints were imposed, highlighting adherence to clinical evidence provided by previous randomized controlled trials, and also unusual or borderline practice in the selection of patients for polymyxin B-based cartridges (PMX-DHP). This first retrospective phase of data collection included patients with severe sepsis and septic shock treated with Toraymyxin over the last 3 years, up to July 2013. Thirty-one hospitals participated in the EUPHAS2 study, collecting data on 306 patients. Enrolled patients were grouped according to the main source of sepsis: abdominal (41.8%) and nonabdominal (58.2%). The abdominal patients had characteristics well matching those selected for the EUPHAS randomized controlled trial in terms of time-to-enrolment, severity of the illness, 28-day mortality and in-hospital mortality. Their 28-day mortality rate was 35% with a significant reduction of the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment Score (SOFA) score after 72 h of treatment (p < 0.001). Patients with nonabdominal sepsis were heterogeneous and only a few of them had their endotoxin activity tested in a manner not allowing a reliable evaluation of the real efficacy of the treatment and organ dysfunction control. Their 28-day mortality rate was 49% and the SOFA score did not significantly change before and after treatment. In conclusion, clinical experience confirms the results of the original EUPHAS randomized trial in terms of outcome for patients with abdominal severe sepsis. Specific studies focused on a population of patients with Gram-negative infections of nonabdominal origin are needed before recommending treatment with Toraymyxin as an effective therapy.


: The cellular and molecular mechanisms of host defenses to histoplasmosis, a prototype of respiratory fungal infections are described. Although, cell-mediated acquired immunity is considered as a hallmark of protective immunity to histoplasmosis, the recent findings provide mounting evidence on the importance of natural cellular immunity in host resistance to fungal infections. The natural immunity to Histoplasma capsulatum infection is primarily mediated by natural killer cells, endothelial cells and platelets but mechanisms of intercellular communication and their interactions with the pathogen are not clearly defined.


This case study responds to the current trends in ICT. Mobile Touch iPads can provide very good assistance to disabled seniors. The intuitive tablet environment, the possibility of the formation environment and its portability, has a very positive effect on the use of particular communication. For comparison, using a conventional PC/notebook, word processor, keyboard and computer mouse compared to the iPad and selected applications. The results of this case study show that the use of mobile touch devices iPad for seniors with mental retardation is a great benefit. These devices do not require high demands on graphomotorics like a standard PC devices.