BACKGROUND
Little is known about the function of T cells in the inflammatory infiltrate in Helicobacter pylori-associated gastritis and B-cell lymphoma of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT type). Previous studies have proposed a dominant Th1-type response in low-grade MALT lymphoma consistent with the Th1 response observed in H. pylori-associated gastritis.

METHODS
We performed a novel flow cytometric approach in which CD3 panning for enrichment and activation of small numbers of T cells and intracellular cytokine analysis were combined to selectively characterize the cytokine profile of T cells (IFN-gamma for Th1) derived from the gastric mucosa of 23 patients with low-grade MALT lymphoma stage IEI1 (lymphoma infiltration of mucosa/submucosa sparing the muscularis). Endosonography was performed in each case to control the depth of lymphoma infiltration. For comparison, 19 patients with H. pylori-positive gastritis were also analysed.

RESULTS
There was a CD4/CD8 ratio of 4 in patients with MALT lymphoma and of 2 in chronic gastritis. The proportion of IFN-gamma producing cells within the CD4-positive T-cell population in MALT lymphoma was 22%; in chronic gastritis it was 13% while no such difference could be encountered in CD8-positive T cells.

CONCLUSIONS
The data point towards a dominant intratumoral IFN-gamma dominated T-cell response associated with early low-grade MALT lymphoma. A polarized IFN-gamma dominated Th1-type response may either contribute to the inability of the immune system to eradicate H. pylori infection, thereby promoting the activation status of the lymphocytic infiltrate in low-grade MALT lymphoma, or may mirror a concomitant tumor-specific T-cell response accompanying early stages of tumor progression.


With the rapid increase in energy demand, renewable energy has been considered as an alternative energy resource around the world. A new nonlinear mathematical model is developed in the presented study and a comparison is obtained with a mathematical modelling study from the literature. The results superior according to power generation under a single wind direction. Jensen's wake decay model is used to state multiple wake effect among the turbines. The power production is maximized in terms of the minimization of wake effects. Mathematical formulations are represented and compared with the model from the literature. The generated layouts are presented and expected power among the Introduction turbines are significantly improved.


The research objectives were: 1) to know the composition of cocoa bean pulp as substrate for fermentation; 2) evaluate the effect of variation of cocoa seed fermentation technique on microbial population. Stages of research conducted are as follows (1) testing the composition and water content of cocoa bean pulp as a fermentation substrate. (2) Fermented cocoa beans with 3 variations of fermentation technique ie first treatment without addition of inoculum (control), both using inoculum S. cerevisiae (FNCC 3056), L. lactis (FNC 0086) and A. aceti (FNCC 0016), respectively about 108 cfu/g is given simultaneously at the beginning of fermentation (IA). (3) gradual inoculum administration of yeast at the beginning of fermentation, lactic acid bacteria at 24 hours and acetic acid bacteria at 48 h with microbial population equal to second treatment (IB). Fermentation is carried out for 120 hours. Temperatures are adjusted during fermentation, respectively 35 oC (first 24 hours), 45 oC (24 second hours), 55 oC (24 hours three) and 35 oC (last 48 hours). The third stage of fermented cocoa beans from the three treatments was roasted and analyzed for their volatile compounds. The results showed that during the fermentation of cocoa beans showed that all treatments increased the ethanol kosentarsi in line with the increasing population of S. cerevisiae at the beginning of fermentation. Next L. lactis increased followed by lactic acid, at the end of A. aceti fermentation increased followed by acetic acid. From the results of this study it can be concluded that the rehydration of cocoa bean pulp can improve the composition of pulp as fermentation substrate. The microbial population indicated that there was a microbial succession shown in the gradual addition of inoculum treatment.


In this study we investigated the mechanisms of cytotoxicity mediated by pokeweed mitogen (PWM)-activated human peripheral blood monocytes. By using DNA electrophoresis and propidium iodide (PI)-DNA staining flow cytometry, we demonstrated that apoptotic cell death of target U937 cells and Raji cells was induced in lectin (PWM)-dependent monocyte-mediated cytotoxicity (LDMC). The LDMC-mediated DNA fragmentation in U937 cells and Raji cells was induced in lectin (PWM)-dependent monocyte mediated cytotoxicity(LDMC). The LDMC-mediated DNA fragmentation in U937 cells was completely inhibited by anti-TNF alpha monoclonal antibody (mAb), but not by the addition of monosaccharide (N-acetylglucosamine, GlcNAc, a sugar specifically recognized by PWM and a lectin-like receptor on monocytes). In contrast, GlcNAc inhibited the DNA fragmentation in Raji cells induced by LDMC which the anti-TNF alpha mAb had no effect. PWM was found to stimulate the production of nitric oxide (NO) from monocytes. The NO-production was enhanced in the presence of target Raji cells, while the enhancement was abolished by the treatment with GlcNAc. By flow cytometry, we found that PWM bound to tumour cells as well as monocytes, and inhibited the expression of HLA-DR antigen on tumour cells. These results suggest that the presence of lectin molecules on the surface of monocytes and tumour cells may bring the two cells together, thus facilitating the induction of apoptosis in target cells by triggering the production of cytolytic factors (TNF and NO) and the modification of target cell surface antigen (HLA-DR).


Dear readers, students, fellow scholars, welcome to this tenth instalment of Mutual Images Journal, which we have titled "Aesthetic journeys and media pilgrimages in the contexts of pop culture and the creative industries from and to East Asia", trying to subsume in it the variety of themes the volume hosts.
Audaces fortuna iuvat
The Latin adage of this introduction states: "good luck helps the daring ones". We think this is what happened to us and Mutual Images, both the journal and the association as a whole. We had left 2020 with more than just the proverbial mixed feelings: we were all uncertain and confused about what would and could happen in 2021. We won't give you a summary of the many facets of what 2020 has been for the world, because each of you knows that all too well. But for MIRA, at least, 2021 was a moment of rally and refocus on what we hold dear: research, publishing, and the careful organisation of workshops and similar events. We rolled up our sleeves as so many people around the world did, and, in our microcosm of transcultural research in the humanities, media, cultural sociology, and area studies — whether supported by universities or independently run — we brought home two very nice workshops and a summer school. One workshop was held in Italy and Spain in November 2020 and the other in Japan in January 2021, although, for obvious reasons, both were technically conducted mainly online; and the summer school took place on-site in China, in June 2021.
The two workshops saw [...]


A small-size inductive-coupling dc voltage transceiver for highly-parallel wafer-level testing is experimentally demonstrated in 90-nm CMOS technology, which can reduce the total cost of a low-price IC by 18%. In order to carry out dc tests, the proposed transceiver outputs dc voltage to the die-under-test (DUT) without any area-consuming digital circuits. In addition, digital calibration with digital feedback channel which calibrates the output dc voltage enables the removal of calibration circuits on the DUT. All of the circuits for dc tests are implemented into the area of an inductor (100 μm ×100 μm). The proposed dc voltage transmission is successfully demonstrated with 6-bit resolution.


Although digital signals have been used as inputs in some DNA computing applications, there has been a small research regarding the application of DNA computing principles in solving DSP problems. This article offers a first step towards filling this gap and thus strengthening the ties between biology and signal processing. By focusing the attention of the article to a specific domain, the author believes that many new exciting applications of DNA computation can be discovered. A short overview of molecular biology and tools commonly used in DNA computing is also provided for presentation purposes. This article offers the signal processing community some future directions regarding the unexplored area of research in biocomputing technology.


Abstract The pathogenesis of L. monocytogenes strain Scott A was studied by challenging day-old male turkey poults by air sac inoculation with tryptose phosphate broth containing 100 cfu (control), 104, 105, and 106 cfu (low challenge), or 107 and 108 cfu (high challenge) of the Scott A (serotype 4b) strain of L. monocytogenes. Mortality at 2 wk postinfection (PI) ranged from 25% for low challenge to 100% for high challenge (P = 0.0001). Gross and histopathological lesions were observed in heart, liver, spleen, lung, and bursa of Fabricius of mortalities at 4 days PI. Listeria monocytogenes challenge resulted in significantly decreased relative weight of the bursa of Fabricius and increased relative weight of the spleen, and L. monocytogenes was isolated by direct plating of liver, pericardium, brain, and both left and right stifle joint synovium (knee) cultures, as well as gall bladder, yolk sac, and cecal tonsil from transfer swabs onto Listeria-selective agar. Isolates were confirmed as positive using Gram stain, biochemical tests, and the Biolog system. High challenge resulted in confirmed L. monocytogenes isolation from 48% of left knee and 59% of right knee cultures. Low challenge resulted in isolation of L. monocytogenes from 11% of both left and right knee cultures. These results suggest that L. monocytogenes Scott A colonization of turkey knee synovial tissue can initiate in day-of-age poults and that L. monocytogenes Scott A can be invasive through air sac infection.


Ubiquitous Computing (UC) is a paradigm in which stakeholders interact with machines in a natural way, without constraints of time, place or access medium. Data is available everywhere to be read, consulted and modified if needed. Thus, UC becomes a powerful tool for industrial applications, where a plenty of sensors, actuators and controllers are integrated in order to produce outcomes efficiently. Nevertheless, it is common to find a lot of communication schemes that use proprietary protocols, so it is difficult to connect those different devices. Furthermore, some Information Systems inside companies are not able to transmit data outside their own networks into Internet. This work aims to show a study case where UC device is designed and implemented in a power generation plant, sensing level of combustible tanks. A System on Chip platform is used to provide flexibility, usability, better performance, better energy management and integration capabilities.


The effects on both cellulose conversion rate and lactic acid yield were studied by adding inhibitors, including formic acid, acetic acid, furfural, and vanillin into the hydrolysate of steam-pretreated Lespedeza stalks. The results suggest that formic acid has a significant influence on the enzyme activity and poisoned bacterial cells, resulting in the reduction of cellulose conversion rate and lactic acid yield by 21% and 16.4%, respectively. Acetic acid showed a strong inhibition on simultaneous saccharification fermentation (SSF) process, but little effect on enzymatic hydrolysis. Hydrolysis and SSF were less affected by furfural and vanillin compared with weak acids. The lactic acid yield of Lespedeza stalks rinsed with water increased from 64.0% to 89.4%, and the time to reach the maximum concentration was shortened from 96 hours to 48 hours when compared with the unwashed materials.


Users in a social network are usually confronted with decision making under uncertain network state. While there are some works in the social learning literature on how to construct belief on an uncertain network state, few study has been made on integrating learning with decision making for the scenario where users are uncertain about the network state and their decisions influence with each other. Moreover, the population in a social network can be dynamic since users may arrive at or leave the network at any time, which makes the problem even more challenging. In this paper, we propose a Dynamic Chinese Restaurant Game to study how a user in a dynamic social network learns the uncertain network state and make optimal decision by taking into account not only the immediate utility but also subsequent users' negative influence. We introduce a Bayesian learning based method for users to learn the network state, and propose a Multi-dimensional Markov Decision Process based approach for users to achieve the optimal decisions. Finally, we apply the Dynamic Chinese Restaurant Game to cognitive radio networks and demonstrate from simulations to verify the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed scheme.


UDP-glucuronosyltransferase (UGT) 1A1 glucuronidates endogenous metabolites, such as bilirubin, and exogenous substances, and plays a critical role in their detoxification and excretion. In a previous article, we described the phenobarbital response activity to a 290-base pair (bp) distal enhancer sequence (–3499/–3210) of the human UGT1A1 gene that is activated by the constitutive androstane receptor (CAR). Here, we show that dexamethasone at submicromolar concentrations enhances the pregnane X receptor (PXR) activator-mediated expression of the UGT1A1 gene and protein in HepG2 cells. We investigated the molecular mechanism of UGT1A1 induction by glucocorticoids at submicromolar concentrations and PXR activators and the functional cross-talk between the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and CAR/PXR. The glucocorticoid-response element (GRE) was characterized by cotransfection experiments, site-directed mutagenesis, and electrophoretic mobility shift assays. Analysis of the human UGT1A1 promoter revealed GREs at –3404/–3389 and –3251/–3236 close to the CAR/PXR response element gtNR1 (–3382/–3367). Furthermore, in an in vitro reporter gene assay, dexamethasone effectively enhanced CAR/PXR-mediated transactivation of the 290-bp distal enhancer module in HepG2 cells and CV-1 cells in the presence of exogenously expressed GR and glucocorticoid receptor-interacting protein 1 (GRIP1). In glutathione S-transferase pull-down experiments, CAR and PXR interacted with GRIP1. Together, these results demonstrate a rational mechanistic basis for UGT1A1 induction by glucocorticoids and PXR activators, showing that activated GR enhances CAR/PXR-mediated UGT1A1 regulation with the transcriptional cofactor GRIP1 and that GR may be involved synergistically in the xenobiotic-responsive regulation of UGT1A1 by CAR/PXR.


Objective: To test the hypothesis: the distribution of rural fixed adult public dental clinics of the states of Western Australia, Queensland and Victoria reflected the population characteristics and burden of oral disease by making use of geo-coding. Design: A cross-sectional study design was used integrating data from open access sources. The longitudes and latitudes of each clinic were obtained through a free access geo-coding website. Population data were obtained from the Australian Census of Population and Housing 2006, divided by collection districts defined by geographic boundaries. Socioeconomic data by the Index of Relative Socio-Economic Disadvantage (IRSD) aggregated to census collection districts were also obtained from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. ArcGIS9 software was used to generate individual and overlay maps incorporating all data bases as mentioned before. Setting: The study included data from three states of Australia: Western Australia, Queensland and Victoria. Main outcome measures: We used a normative 200 kilometres radius from a fixed adult public dental clinic as the cut off limit to operationalise the accessibility. Findings: Distinct disparities were evident in access to rural fixed adult public dental clinics in the three states. The Victorian population enjoyed the highest level of access. On the contrary, Western Australians appeared to be the worst affected and Queenslanders were placed in between. The same pattern was emulated in terms of socio-economic gradient in the three states as the greatest proportion of people outside the 200 kilometre radius were those who in the lower half of the IRSD deciles. Conclusions: The distribution of fixed public dental clinics did not reflect the population characteristics and burden of oral disease. The spatial approach provides a useful tool in planning public dental clinics in Australia.


The cartography of autonomous Palestine, as it has been forming since the peace process, appears to be designed for failure. A sovereign state consisting of fragmented territorial units harbors serious obstacles to effective governance. The national boundaries of such a state alone pose a major challenge in terms of internal and external security, national unity, trade, resource allocation, transportation/mobility, and socioeconomic development. Moreover, these challenges are immensely magnified relative to a newly independent, underdeveloped state, as seen in historical examples. This article analyzes the (non)governance of divided territories, drawing on the analogy of divided Pakistan. The case of East Pakistan/Bangladesh serves as an example of the difficulties embodied in governing geographically separated territories. This article proposes that autonomous Palestine is seemingly at risk of making similar mistakes in attempting to govern divided territories.


A hybrid method is presented by which Monte Carlo techniques are combined with iterative relaxation techniques to solve the Radiative Transfer Equation in arbitrary one-, twoor three-dimensional optical environments. The optical environments are first divided into contiguous regions, or elements, with Monte Carlo techniques then being employed to determine the optical response function of each type of element. The elements are combined, and the iterative relaxation techniques are used to determine simultaneously the radiance field on the boundary and throughout the interior of the modeled environment. This hybrid model is capable of providing estimates of the under-water light field needed to expedite inspection of ship hulls and port facilities. It is also capable of providing estimates of the subaerial light field for structured, absorbing or non-absorbing environments such as shadows of mountain ranges within and without absorption spectral bands such as water vapor or CO, bands.


It has been demonstrated recently that metal gratings can significantly improve the near-infrared absorptance of graphene from 0.023 to nearly 0.70 because of the excitation of magnetic polaritons (MPs). In the present study, it is shown that the absorptance of graphene can be further enhanced to more than 0.80 by surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) enabled by the grating. Meanwhile, graphene behaves as a sheet resistor that is able to boost the absorption when MPs or SPPs are excited without changing their resonance frequencies or dispersion relations. The effects of higher-order MPs, as well as the grating geometry on the enhanced absorptance, are also examined. Rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA) is employed to calculate the radiative properties and power dissipation density in both the graphene and the metal grating. This study will facilitate the understanding of the coupling phenomena between graphene and nanostructures and may also benefit the design of next-generation graphene-based optical and optoelectronic devices.


THIS paper presents the development of a bidirectional fabric-based soft pneumatic actuator requiring low fluid pressurization for actuation, which is incorporated into a soft robotic gripper to demonstrate its utility. The bidirectional soft fabric-based actuator is able to provide both flexion and extension. Fabrication of the fabric actuators is simple as compared to the steps involved in traditional silicone-based approach. In addition, the fabric actuators are able to generate comparably larger vertical grip resistive force at lower operating pressure than elastomeric actuators and 3D-printed actuators, being able to generate resistive grip force up to 20N at 120 kPa. Five of the bidirectional soft fabric-based actuators are deployed within a five-fingered soft robotic gripper, complete with five casings and a base. It is capable of grasping a variety of objects with maximum width or diameter closer to its bending curvature. A cutting task involved bimanual manipulation was demonstrated successfully with the gripper. To incorporate intelligent control for such a task, a soft force made completely of compliant material was attached to the gripper, which allows determination of whether the cutting task is completed. To the authors' knowledge, this work is the first study which incorporates two soft robotic grippers for bimanual manipulation with one of the grippers sensorized to provide closed loop control.


A pre-modern thinker and polymath of great stature, Ibn 'Arab? (A.H. 560-638/A.D. 1165-1240) or, as his full title and name has come down to us, Shaykh al-Akbar Muḥy? al-D?n Muḥammadibn 'Aliibn al-'Arab? was born in Murcia in Andalusia. In search of knowledge and spiritual benefits, he made his way through the Iberian peninsula, North Africa and the Middle East, including the holy city of Mecca, finally settling in Damascus where he died. The legacy of Ibn 'Arab? is profound and according to William C. Chittick, the leading interpreter of Ibn 'Arab? in the West, "no one has exercised deeper and more pervasive influence over the intellectual life of the [Islamic world] during the past seven hundred years".


The entomopathogenic Fungi comprise a wide range of ecologically diverse species. This group of parasites can be found distributed among all fungal phyla and as well as among the ecologically similar but phylogenetically distinct Oomycetes or water molds, that belong to a different kingdom (Stramenopila). As a group, the entomopathogenic fungi and water molds parasitize a wide range of insect hosts from aquatic larvae in streams to adult insects of high canopy tropical forests. Their hosts are spread among 18 orders of insects, in all developmental stages such as: eggs, larvae, pupae, nymphs and adults exhibiting completely different ecologies. Such assortment of niches has resulted in these parasites evolving a considerable morphological diversity, resulting in enormous biodiversity, much of which remains unknown. Here we gather together a huge amount of records of these entomopathogens to comparing and describe both their morphologies and ecological traits. These findings highlight a wide range of adaptations that evolved following the evolutionary transition to infecting the most diverse and widespread animals on Earth, the insects.


1. Almost one third of all freshwater crayfishes are threatened with extinction. The factors influencing the distribution of freshwater crayfishes in lentic systems are poorly understood, hampering the conservation and enhancement of those populations. Cherax cainii is the third largest freshwater crayfish in the world and is endemic to south‐western Australia. The distribution of the species has declined markedly, largely attributable to secondary salinization and habitat decline. There is the potential for population enhancement through habitat restoration and the restocking of reservoirs that act as important non‐salinized refuges; however, there is limited understanding of the distribution and habitat associations of C. cainii in these systems.

2. Mark–recapture was undertaken to determine the population abundance and fine‐scale distribution of C. cainii in a large reservoir over a 5‐month period, with generalized linear mixed modelling used to determine those factors that explained the variation in its distribution.

3. Cherax cainii distribution in the reservoir was positively associated with complex habitat (large woody material) and the level of inaccessibility to humans, and negatively associated with depth. The population had a non‐uniform distribution within the reservoir with significant hot‐ and cold‐spots present and there was limited distance between recaptures during the coolest period of the year.

4. The findings suggest that C. cainii would benefit from the provision of additional complex habitat in such habitat depauperate reservoirs to provide increased shelter from predators. It may also be vulnerable to localized depletion through legal and illegal fishing pressure. The study highlights the importance of understanding habitat preferences and movement patterns of freshwater crayfish to underpin their conservation.


Background: A recent study was conducted to evaluate tree volume, biomass, and carbon stock in Java, Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia in the mixed plantation of Artocarpus heterophyllus. Forest acts as a source or sinks for atmospheric CO2 to catches from the atmosphere in different carbon pools by trees in a forest. It was improperly managed and Illegal activities were done.
Methods: Sample trees were selected by a simple random sampling method in the study site and the elevation was recorded by GPS. Each sample tree height, diameter at (DBH) point, and crown cover were measured as a source of primary source data. Data were analyzed statistically and results were composed in excel, Sigma Plot, and Past software.
Results: The results of the conducted study are, average tree basel area was 0.00063 ± 0.00016 m2, while tree volume was 0.0039 ± 0.0017 m3, although the average total tree biomass was 0.0033 ± 0.0014 tons. Still, the mean carbon stock was 0.0016 ± 0.00071 tons, and the average absorb CO2 was 0.0060 ± 0.0026 tons. The results also concluded, tree basel areas have a strong positive correlation with tree volume, the value of R2 is 0.9088, while for stem biomass and R2 value is 0.9966. The correlation of total biomass with a carbon stock and R2 is 1.000 while the correlation with absorbing carbon dioxide and R2 is 1.000.
Objectives: Aims of the study to estimate the volume, stem, and total biomass, carbon stock, and absorb carbon dioxide and to expose the impact of basal area on tree volume and stem biomass and total biomass on carbon stocks and absorb carbon dioxide. The study concluded that it is needed to have Proper scientific management and proper utilization it can be significant measures to enhance the potential to stored and sink more carbon and control illegal activities.


A Huffman code is a variable-length entropy code used in data compression. The compression operation of a Huffman code can be done very efficiently on the GPU. However, the decompression is very hard to parallelize, because the compressed data have no separator to identify each variable-length codeword. We present a Huffman Code with Gap Array (GHCA), which accelerates the GPU decompression. The experimental results using Geforce RTX2080Ti GPU shows that, the GHCA may have at most 1 . 5% size overhead, but the decompression is 1.536-4713 times faster than the previously published GPU decoding for Huffman codes.


The right ventricular function is crucial for maintaining hemodynamic stability in critically ill patients who suffer from sud-den increases of right ventricular pressure overload and/or severely decreased right ventricular contractility. The morphologi-cal and functional assessment of the right ventricle is usually performed by bedside echocardiography and hemodynamic measurements with a pulmonary artery catheter. The therapeutic approach to patients with right ventricular failure in-cludes measures to decrease right ventric-ular afterload and to improve its coronary perfusion and contractility.


In India, Dalit women wrestle not only with gender and economic deprivation, but also discrimination associated with caste and untouchability, which results in the denial of their social, economic, and political rights. Today, Dalit women's life narratives form an important segment of not only Dalit literature, but also world literature. The narration of their sufferings due to gender and caste forms the basis of these narratives. The articulation of the past, which is a "narrative strategy of reminiscence", is the most crucial aspect of Dalit women's life narratives. While narrating the past, Dalit women try to negotiate direction for the future, and their mother's story is the pedestal on which their life story depends: "...a woman writing thinks back through her mothers'" (Woolf 1929: 81). The oppression of caste, class, and gender pushes Dalit women to understand the construction of power structures. In their life narratives, Dalit women narrate their oppressive lived experiences, but simultaneously acknowledge the resilience of their mothers. They see their mothers as a source of strength as they display "tremendous strength in adverse conditions" (Collins 2000: 75). Against this background, this paper analyses the select life narratives of Dalit women: Urmila Pawar's The Weave of My Life (2008), Baby Halder's A Life Less Ordinary (2006), and Sujatha Gidla's Ants Among Elephants (2017). The study underlines the mother's story as a past which becomes the 'Third Space' in Dalit women's life narratives that acts as a space of emancipation for the future generation, thus giving the marginalized voices a space to articulate and redefine the center.


A holistic approach for the simulation of evacuations from buildings in cases of fire and toxic gas spread is developed within the German project iSiGG to achieve high reliability in fire safety planning. Its essence is in the mutual interaction of the domains of crowd simulation, pollutant gas spread simulation (CFD) and Building Information Modeling (BIM), embedded in a coherent IT system. The conceptual basis of this system is provided by a dynamic multimodel ensuring interoperability of all system components and supplying simulation tasks with the necessary building and environmental data. More importantly, it allows to take into account various possible changes of the state of building elements, which may be caused by inhabitants or by the building control systems and can lead to strong changes in the simulation models. The simulations themselves are coupled on numerical level through a shared Voxel Model in a co-simulation approach.


We consider a natural setting where network parameters are estimated from noisy and incomplete information about the network. More specifically, we investigate how we can efficiently estimate the number of small subgraphs (e.g., edges, triangles, etc.) based on full access to one or two noisy and incomplete samples of a large underlying network and on few queries revealing the neighborhood of carefully selected vertices. After specifying a random generator which removes edges from the underlying graph, we present estimators with strong provable performance guarantees, which exploit information from the noisy network samples and query a constant number of the most important vertices for the estimation. Our experimental evaluation shows that, in practice, a single noisy network sample and a couple of hundreds neighborhood queries suffice for accurately estimating the number of triangles in networks with millions of vertices and edges.


As a measure to control minor surgical bleeding, surgeons usually depend on a number of hemostatic aids. Topical use of bovine thrombin is a widely used procedure to arrest such minor bleeding. A 35 year old male sergeant of Bangladesh Air Force presented with repeated development of hematoma in his left thigh without any history of trauma or previous history of bleeding. Critical analysis of the patient's history, routine and sophisticated hematological investigations revealed that the patient developed anti-thrombin antibody following the application of hemostatic paste in the tooth socket five years back during minor dental procedure to stop ignorable bleeding episodes. Therefore, topical use of hemostatic glue/paste or bovine thrombin should be avoided to desist minor bleeding as recombinant human thrombin is now available for topical use.


Since 1968, the federal government has played an essential role in establishing and implementing early intervention and preschool services for young children with disabilities and their families. This has been accomplished through a series of laws, regulations, supports, and incentives that collectively have shaped the nature and extent of current practice. I predict that as we enter the new millennium, we will not see new major legislation comparable in impact to IDEA and ADA. There will be a continued shift from federal to state control over decision making about practice. However, pressing national issues will require ongoing federal leadership. This leadership will continue in the form of increased levels of directed research and cooperative agreements based on federal perceptions of national need. Large-scale studies using nationally representative samples of children will provide important information about services and outcomes but will limit field-initiated efforts. A successful federal role will require a continued balance of federal leadership and grass roots initiatives. Hopefully we will see increased collaboration across federal agencies to address issues of mutual national importance.


Indigenous knowledge (IK) is the knowledge that people in a given community developed over time, and has made positive contributions towards sustainable development. Indigenous communities around the world face ongoing threats to the survival of their indigenous knowledge in view of its tacit nature. Traditionally, libraries have concentrated more on promoting a reading culture than on managing and promoting IK. If IK is well documented, packaged and deposited in libraries and information centres, it could be directly accessed by individuals.The study explores how the indigenous knowledge can best be managed in the libraries in order to contribute positively to the community. Within this area of interest, this paper answers the question: what roles the library professionals can play in the management and preservation of IK. While highlighting the IFLA mandate towards the management and preservation of IK, different activities associated with the management of IK — such as, collection, recording and documentation, organization, preservation and storage, dissemination and networking are discussed. Concludes that library professionals need to be proactive in devising strategies for the management and preservation of IK with the help of their professional knowledge and skills in order to ensure access to this valuable resource.


How can technology assessment methodologies be developed to move ethical questions to the forefront of enquiry? This methodological question was one of the key factors in an exercise in Responsible Research and Innovation carried out as part of SNIFFPHONE, a project on medical diagnostics. This paper discusses the methods used to apply Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in SNIFFPHONE, one of the European Commission's H2020 projects. In addition we will describe shortly implementation plan and first activities of RRI in another H2020 project, called BODEGA. The aim of the project is to build an expertise at the European level about human factors in future smart borders (e.g. ABC gates, video based risk analysis) in a way to enhance its efficiency without negative side effects.


During the 1990s, conditional cash transfers (CCTs) were adopted by countries across Latin America as central elements of their poverty reduction strategies. Alongside other developments in the area of social assistance, CCTs represent an opportunity for countries to develop an integrated and inclusive set of social policies. At the same time, particular CCT features risk promoting the further residualisation and fragmentation of safety nets. Drawing on the experience of six countries in Latin America, this paper identifies the variations and recent trends in CCT design and implementation. Based on this review, it considers the contribution of CCTs to the potential transition from a largely absent or minimal safety net to a coordinated system of social policies.


Abstract This paper explores the power of threats in the absence of binding commitment. The threatener cannot commit to carry out the threat if the victim refuses payment, and cannot commit not to carry out the threat if payment is made. An important assumption of the model is that once the threat is carried out it cannot be repeated. If exercising the threat is costly to the threatener, then the threat cannot succeed in extracting money from the victim. If exercising the threat would benefit the threatener, however, then the threat's success depends upon whether the threat may be repeated after a payment is made. In the equilibrium of a finite-period game, the threat is carried out and the victim makes no payments. In an infinite-horizon game, however, it is an equilibrium for the victim to make a stream of payments over time. The expectation of future payments keeps the threatener from exercising the threat.


Lipolysis is an important metabolic pathway controlling energy homeostasis through degradation of triglycerides stored in lipid droplets and release of fatty acids. Lipid droplets of mammalian cells are coated with one or more members of the PAT protein family, which serve important functions in regulating lipolysis. In this study, we investigate the mechanisms by which PAT family members, perilipin A, adipose differentiation-related protein (ADFP), and LSDP5, control lipolysis catalyzed by hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL), a major lipase in adipocytes and several non-adipose cells. We applied fluorescence microscopic tools to analyze proteins in situ in cultured Chinese hamster ovary cells using fluorescence recovery after photobleaching and anisotropy Forster resonance energy transfer. Fluorescence recovery after photobleaching data show that ADFP and LSDP5 exchange between lipid droplet and cytoplasmic pools, whereas perilipin A does not. Differences in protein mobility do not correlate with PAT protein-mediated control of lipolysis catalyzed by HSL or endogenous lipases. Forster resonance energy transfer and co-immunoprecipitation experiments reveal that each of the three PAT proteins bind HSL through interaction of the lipase with amino acids within the highly conserved amino-terminal PAT-1 domain. ADFP and LSDP5 bind HSL under basal conditions, whereas phosphorylation of serine residues within three amino-terminal protein kinase A consensus sequences of perilipin A is required for HSL binding and maximal lipolysis. Finally, protein kinase A-mediated phosphorylation of HSL increases lipolysis in cells expressing ADFP or LSDP5; in contrast, phosphorylation of perilipin A exerts the major control over HSL-mediated lipolysis when perilipin is the main lipid droplet protein.


Rate constants are reported for the alkaline- and acid-catalysed hydrolysis of endo-6-hydroxybicyclo[2.2.1]-heptane-endo-2-carboxamides in aqueous solution. The product of the acid-catalysed reaction is endo-6-hydroxybicyclo[2.2.1]heptane-endo-2-carboxylic acid lactone and this lactone is also formed as an intermediate in alkaline solution before giving the hydroxy-acid anion as the product. The effective concentration of the intramolecular alkoxide ion group is ca. 108M. This is in good agreement with the maximum entropic advantage predicted for intramolecular reactions as the system is thought to be free of major strain energy and solvation effects. Variation of substituents in the amine leaving group gives a β1g value of +0.30 for the hydroxide-ion-catalysed lactonisation reaction. This is interpreted in terms of rate-limiting breakdown of the tetrahedral intermediate in which there is considerable positive charge on the amine nitrogen. Mechanisms consistent with this involve either proton transfer from water to the amine nitrogen occurring synchronously with carbon–nitrogen bond fission or a stepwise process in which the nitrogen of the tetrahedral intermediate is fully protonated and the rate-limiting step is either diffusion apart of this intermediate and hydroxide ion or collapse of this intermediate with hydroxide ion acting as a 'spectator'. The β1g value for the acid-catalysed lactonisation reaction is 0.0.


Magnifying spectacles represent one of the indispensable optical aids (Keplerian systems having surpassed Galilean systems during the last years), closed-circuit television, Optacon, and navigating aids based on ultrasound as environmental sensors. -None of the other navigating aids have proved useful. Initial successes have, however, been achieved with a miniature hand-held camera for closed-circuit television and a portable electronic reading system (View-Scan). Genuine progress has been made with the braille information storage systems, which utilize computer technology to store texts which have been read and written, and subsequently to print them or reproduce them on a screen or in synthetic language. Braillex in the Federal Republic of Germany and Versabraille in the U.S.A. are examples of such systems. In special cases a newly developed stereo photocopy system (Minolta) will be useful for newly blinded adults. However, texts in the form of tactile copies have to be highly magnified in order to be palpable and readable.


Parenting young children has become a more complex and stressful business, especially for those families in our community with the least resources (Grose, 2006; Hayes et al, 2010; Poole, 2004; Richardson & Prior, 2005; Trask, 2010). A widening gap exists between families that function well and those that are vulnerable. The paradox of service delivery for children and families is that vulnerable families – that is, those families with the greatest needs – are also the least likely to be able to access those services (Ghate & Hazel, 2002; Fram, 2003). A range of barriers exist for vulnerable and at risk families in making use of services (Carbone et al, 2004). One of the key barriers to vulnerable families accessing services is that many find it difficult to relate to the formal service system and are easily alienated by practices others find acceptable. Research regarding parents' experiences of support services suggests that parents want services where they are simultaneously cared for and enabled in their role as parents, and to receive services characterised by empathy, competence, functionality, respect, flexibility and honesty (Attide-Stirling et al, 2001; Winkworth et al, 2009). Vulnerable parents fear a loss of autonomy in their interactions with support services and want services that are non-judgemental and that provide continuity of care (Ghate & Hazel, 2002; von Bultzingslowen, 2006). In addition to the barriers faced by vulnerable and marginalised families in accessing services, the system does not work in an integrated or coherent fashion to ensure that all children and families needing support receive it. Furthermore, the vast majority of services for children and families in Australia do not have an outreach function, that is, a means of engaging these vulnerable and at risk families who are in need of support but use services inconsistently or not at all. In short, the service system was not designed to meet the needs of vulnerable families within the context of a rapidly changing social and economic climate. Therefore, many families requiring support are not receiving it. A research collaboration between the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY), the Centre for Health Equity Research and Evaluation (CHETRE) and the Centre for Community Child Health (CCCH)


The aim of the study is the development of integral methods for early diagnosis and treatment of systemic pathobiochemical disturbances in patients with diabetes mellitus under conditions of acute surgical endotoxicosis as well as optimisation of surgical policy and drug pathogenetic correction. Blood lipids peroxidation (malonic dyaldehyde content in NADF and ascorbate-dependent systems, intermolecular sewings in erythrocytes membranes) and central hemodynamic parameters. The study was carried out in 199 patients with acute surgical diseases accompanied with diabetes mellitus. Peculiarities of the course of the disease were revealed in dependence of the form of blood lipoperoxidation. The scheme of intensive care in conditions of decompensation of diabetes mellitus aimed at correction of pathobiochemical disturbances in patients with acute surgical endotoxicosis has been developed.


: The use of ibuprofen by patients with systemic lupus erythematosus poses a major threat of aseptic meningitis. Although previously reported cases have all been in young adults, our case of ibuprofen-induced meningitis occurred in a 73-year-old woman. This report greatly expands the age population that may suffer meningitis from this analgesic, now available over the counter, and emphasizes the importance of recognizing this causative relationship in patients with headache.


ABSTRACT Recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) vectors stably transduce hepatocytes in experimental animals. Following portal-vein administration of rAAV vectors in vivo, single-stranded (ss) rAAV genomes become double stranded (ds), circularized, and/or concatemerized concomitant with a slow rise and, eventually, steady-state levels of transgene expression. Over time, at least some of the stabilized genomes become integrated into mouse chromosomal DNA. The mechanism(s) of formation of stable ds rAAV genomes from input ss DNA molecules has not been delineated, although second-strand synthesis and genome amplification by a rolling-circle model has been proposed. To begin to delineate a mechanism, we produced rAAV vectors in the presence of bacterial PaeR7 or Dam methyltransferase or constructed rAAV vectors labeled with different restriction enzyme recognition sites and introduced them into mouse hepatocytes in vivo. A series of molecular analyses demonstrated that second-strand synthesis and rolling-circle replication did not appear to be the major processes involved in the formation of stable ds rAAV genomes. Rather, recruitment of complementary plus and minus ss genomes and subsequent random head-to-head, head-to-tail, and tail-to-tail intermolecular joining were primarily responsible for the formation of ds vector genomes. These findings contrast with the previously described mechanism(s) of transduction based on in vitro studies. Understanding the mechanistic process responsible for vector transduction may allow the development of new strategies for improving rAAV-mediated gene transfer in vivo.


Prejudices against minorities are amplified by distorted media coverage that highlights these groups disproportionally in crime coverage. But while the specifications of alleged criminals' affiliations to minority groups—so-called minority signification—has been studied after key events and between outlets, no research has yet investigated changes over a longer time, including different key events and outlets. Using a partly automated content analysis, our research fills this gap with a case study of minority signification in Germany from 2014 to 2019. We show that first, culturally more distant nationalities are slightly overrepresented while European nationalities are underrepresented in crime news compared with German crime statistics. Second, some spikes in the data could be linked to key events but others remain unexplained. Third, the political-right newspaper mentions minority affiliations most, the tabloid second, and the political-left outlet mentions them least. Surprisingly, this pattern changes over the years.


The Fukui function is a frequently used DFT concept in the description of a system's regioselective preferences to undergo electrophilic, nucleophilic, or radical attacks. Until now, this function has usually been evaluated using finite difference approximations. The first paper in this series proposed a method for obtaining the Fukui function by a direct calculation of the functional derivative of the chemical potential with respect to the external potential. This paper extends the method to condensed Fukui functions and applies it to an extensive testing set of molecules. Results are promising, which demonstrates the usefulness of the new formalism.


Friction stir welding is not used for hard alloys because of premature tool failure. A scheme is created that exploits the physical three-dimensional heat and mass flow models, and implements them into a fast calculation algorithm, which, when combined with damage accumulation models, enables the plotting of tool durability maps that define the domains of satisfactory tool life. It is shown that fatigue is an unlikely mechanism for tool failure, particularly for the welding of thin plates. Plate thickness, welding speed, tool rotational speed, shoulder, and pin diameters and pin length all affect the stresses and temperatures experienced by the tool. The large number of these variables makes the experimental determination of their effects on stresses and temperatures intractable and the use of a well-tested, efficient friction stir welding model a realistic undertaking. An artificial neural network that is trained and tested with results from a phenomenological model is used to generate tool durability maps that show the ratio of the shear strength of the tool material to the maximum shear stress on the tool pin for various combinations of welding variables. These maps show how the thicker plates and faster welding speeds adversely affect tool durability and how that can be optimized.


The effects of sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) on the seed germination, seedling growth (radicle length, radicle number and fresh weight), mitotic activity and chromosomal aberrations of Allium cepa L. germinated under salt stress were studied. Salt stress considerably inhibited the seed germination and seedling growth of A. cepa. Furthermore, it markedly reduced the mitotic index in root tip meristems of the seeds and increased the number of chromosomal aberrations. Whereas, the detrimental effects of salt on the seed germination, seedling growth, mitotic activitiy and chromosomal aberrations were dramatically alleviated in varying degrees by NaClO application.


We test various international asset pricing models with multiple risk factors in a large cross section through time. Despite the cross-sectional variation of our sample countries, the integration hypothesis is supported even when we pool Emerging with Developed Markets. Besides the world market risk which is always significant and robust in all our models, time-varying intertemporal risk is priced alongside exchange rate risk. Yet, disentangling currency and intertemporal risks requires careful analysis when conditional time-variation is introduced, as both risks are likely proxies of the state variables that affect asset prices over time. A model with residual intertemporal risk in addition to the other sources of risk is statistically different from one with only currency risk and delivers a small and insignificant alpha on average and through many of the weeks in our time sample. Across the countries, the fit of the conditional model with multiple risk factors is three times better for Developed Markets than for Emerging Markets.


Recently, a design of model matching and adaptive control systems under the presence of measurement noise is reported by employing a non-minimal order state observer. But this method can be only used for the case where the plant has a stable inverse. In this paper, we will show that the idea is also applicable for a nonminimum phase plant. We will consider the plant having not only measurement noise but also input noise. The freedom which arises by employing non-minimal order observer will be used for noise reduction. To clarify the degrees of freedom, a parametrization using an extended division algorithm will be shown.


The decade of the 1980s brought significant change to the traffic management function. Freed from the strictures of transportation regulation, traffic managers were able to form strategic alliances and effective partnering relationships with carriers. Advances in information technology permitted faster and more accurate transfer of critical information throughout the logistics system. According to a national survey of over 200 traffic managers, logistics executives, and carrier executives, transportation deregulation and new information technology have been the primary drivers of change in the traffic function over the past ten years. While deregulation was the primary driver of change during the 1980s, changes in the 1990s will be technology‐driven. New management skills and talents will be required. Organizational changes will occur as firms react and adapt to the opportunities presented to them. This paper explores the influence that new information technology will continue to have on the evolving practice of corporate traffic management in the years ahead.


Background The aim of this study was to evaluate whether community-based nurse-led continence care interventions are effective in improving outcomes for adult Chinese primary care patients with lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS). Research Design and Subjects A case-controlled intervention study was conducted. An intervention group of 360 primary care patients enrolled into a nurse-led continence care programme were recruited by consecutive sampling. A control group of 360 primary care patients with LUTS identified by screening were recruited from the waiting rooms of primary care clinics by consecutive sampling. Both groups were monitored at baseline and at 12 months. Measures Outcome measures included symptom severity, health-related quality of life (HRQOL), self-efficacy, global health and self-reported health service utilization at 12-months. The effect of the continence care programme on symptom severity and HRQOL was assessed by the difference-in-difference estimation, using independent t-test and multiple liner regression. Chi-square test was used to compare the self-efficacy, global health and self-reported health service utilization between the two groups at 12-months. Results After adjusting for baseline severity and socio-demographics, the intervention group had significant improvements in LUTS severity (P<0.05) and HRQOL (P<0.05). Improvements in the amount of urine leakage were not significantly different between the two groups. A higher proportion of subjects in the intervention group reported increased self-efficacy (43.48% vs. 66.83%), improved global health condition (17.74% vs. 41.5%), having doctor consultation (18.5% vs. 8.06), having medication due to LUTS (26.50% vs.11.29%) and having non-drug therapy due to LUTS (59.5% vs.9.68%). Conclusions Community-based nurse-led continence care can effectively alleviate symptoms, improve health-related quality of life, and enhance self-efficacy and the global health condition of Chinese male and female primary care patients with LUTS.


Abstract New methodological and co-creation approaches are needed in Digital Humanities (DH) for cross-disciplinary collaboration oriented to sustainability. More specifically—in the context of Environmental Humanities and regarding biocultural diversity—a key challenge is to set effective and engaging ways of rapid knowledge generation for public awareness and policy-making. According to the 2019 United Nations report on biodiversity, the world will lose one million species in the upcoming years. In parallel, it is acknowledged that the degradation of biological diversity also threatens cultural and linguistic diversity, as declared by UNESCO. In an attempt to contribute to knowledge safeguarding this diversity, a hybrid approach combining the tradition of participatory design with DH tools and with the collaboration of a variety of scholars and stakeholders, has resulted in the co-creation of a manifesto on "biodiversity in connection with linguistic and cultural diversity". We outline the design thinking methodology applied for this experimental case study, and in parallel apply software-aided discourse analysis of the manifesto co-writing process—from a "sprint" collaborative writing format to an online publication, moving from a face-to-face context into digital collaboration channels. Results highlight the importance of facilitation, flexibility and adequate ways of visualization "in progress" (via analogue materials and DH tools) during the co-writing sprint process, as well as the need to set basic co-creation protocols in such transdisciplinary context, considering synchronous and asynchronous collaboration. We discuss the importance of advancing between DH and sustainability-driven experimental co-creation, connecting practices with opportunities to develop collaborative writing and knowledge generation in the margins of academic settings.


Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) mainly affects women in the fertile age of life. A patient with SLE is as fertile as the general population except for treatment with drugs with ovarian toxicity, severe flare of the disease, or autoimmune oophoritis for anti-ovarian antibodies. Pregnancy in a woman with SLE implies greater maternal and fetal mortality and morbidity. Fetal loss, premature birth, intrauterine growth restriction associated with antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL), and neonatal lupus associated with anti-Ro are important fetal problems. Similarly, preeclampsia and lupus nephritis may lead to diagnostic confusion. Treatment options during pregnancy are limited to a few safe medications, which further restricts options. The loss of refractory pregnancy associated with antiphospholipid antibodies and the complete heart block associated with anti-Ro antibodies remain unresolved problems. The planning of pregnancy with sustainable treatments during pregnancy, no flare of SLE in the previous 6 months, and absence of nephritis are important for a good maternal and fetal prognosis. A gestation planning, multidisciplinary approach, and close monitoring are essential to obtain optimal results.


Horse eosinophils preincubated with 3H-labelled acetate and stimulated with the Ca2+ ionophores ionomycin or A23187 form a radioactive compound, which we have shown to be 1-O-alkyl-2-[3H]acetyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (platelet-activating factor). We could detect no 1-O-acyl-2-[3H]acetyl-glycero-3-phosphocholine in the radioactive fraction. The formation of platelet-activating factor was strongly correlated to the generation of leukotriene C4, the main arachidonate metabolite in horse eosinophils, suggesting that platelet-activating factor and leukotriene C4 have a common precursor pool (1-O-alkyl-2-arachidonyl-glycero-3-phosphocholine) and a common regulation of synthesis. Even though both ionomycin and A23187 are described as Ca2+ ionophores, they have a series of significantly different effects on the eosinophils with respect to formation of platelet-activating factor and leukotriene C4. While A23187 induces an asymptotic maximum of mediator formation at concentrations higher than 20 microM, ionomycin expressed a narrow optimum at 2 microM. The effects of exogenous pH on the release of mediators also differ strongly between the two ionophores: for A23187 the effects are the same for both mediators but when ionomycin is used as stimulant, generation of platelet-activating factor and leukotriene C4 are affected differently.


A 58-year-old Japanese woman who was engaged in dairy farming presented with multiple subcutaneous nodules and abscesses on the dorsum of her left hand from 5 months ago. These had been unsuccessfully treated with oral itraconazole. The patient had a history of Sjögren syndrome and diabetes mellitus, for which she had been taking oral prednisolone for 10 years. Direct microscopy of a pus sample treated with potassium hydroxide (KOH) showed brownish-red branching hyphae. In fungal culture, black colonies covered with gray-white villi were formed. Slide culture showed conidiogenesis from an annellide. The fungal strain was identified as Exophialia oligosperma by molecular biological techniques. Histopathological examination revealed abscesses and surrounding granulomatous infiltration in the dermis and subcutis, and hyphae in the granulomatous infiltration in the outer area. However, no eumycotic granules were observed. The diagnosis was phaeohyphomycosis caused by E. oligosperma. Since the previous treatment with itraconazole had not been effective, we performed daily hyperthermia using a disposable body warmer and drainage of the pus, which ceased after 3 weeks. After approximately 4 months, the skin eruptions became scarred. To the best of our knowledge, this is the second case of phaeohyphomycosis caused by E. oligosperma reported in Japan which was successfully treated with hyperthermia.


This guide, intended for the novice legal researcher, law student, or law librarian, provides suggested resources for finding cases, statutes, regulations, and historical documents related to patent law.


Human society faces increasingly complex problems that require coordinated collective action. Artificial intelligence (AI) holds the potential to bring together the knowledge and associated action needed to find solutions at scale. In order to unleash the potential of human and AI systems, we need to understand the core functions of collective intelligence. To this end, we describe a socio-cognitive architecture that conceptualizes how boundedly rational individuals coordinate their cognitive resources and diverse goals to accomplish joint action. Our transactive systems framework articulates the inter-member processes underlying the emergence of collective memory, attention, and reasoning, which are fundamental to intelligence in any system. Much like the cognitive architectures that have guided the development of artificial intelligence, our transactive systems framework holds the potential to be formalized in computational terms to deepen our understanding of collective intelligence and pinpoint roles that AI can play in enhancing it.


Airway smooth muscle (ASM) remodeling is a key feature in asthma and includes changes in smooth muscle-specific gene and protein expression. Despite this being a major contributor to asthma pathobiology, our understanding of the mechanisms governing ASM remodeling remains poor. Here, we studied the functional interaction between WNT-11 and TGF-β1 in ASM cells. We demonstrate that WNT-11 is preferentially expressed in contractile myocytes and is strongly upregulated following TGF-β1-induced myocyte maturation. Knock-down of WNT-11 attenuated TGF-β1-induced smooth muscle (sm)-α-actin expression in ASM cells. We demonstrate that TGF-β1-induced sm-α-actin expression is mediated by WNT-11 via RhoA activation and subsequent actin cytoskeletal remodeling, as pharmacological inhibition of either Rho kinase by Y27632 or actin remodeling by latrunculin A attenuated sm-α-actin induction. Moreover, we show that TGF-β1 regulates the nuclear expression of myocardin-related transcription factor-A (MRTF-A) in a Rho kinase-dependent fashion, which in turn mediates sm-α-actin expression. Finally, we demonstrate that TGF-β1-induced MRTF-A nuclear translocation is dependent on endogenous WNT-11. The present study thus demonstrates a WNT-11-dependent Rho kinase-actin-MRTF-A signaling axis that regulates the expression of sm-α-actin in ASM cells.


Belief change is an important research topic in AI. It becomes more perplexing in multi-agent settings, since the action of an agent may be partially observable to other agents. In this paper, we present a general approach to reasoning about actions and belief change in multi-agent settings. Our approach is based on a multi-agent extension to the situation calculus, augmented by a plausibility relation over situations and another one over actions, which is used to represent agents' different perspectives on actions. When an action is performed, we update the agents' plausibility order on situations by giving priority to the plausibility order on actions, in line with the AGM approach of giving priority to new information. We show that our notion of belief satisfies KD45 properties. As to the special case of belief change of a single agent, we show that our framework satisfies most of the classical AGM, KM, and DP postulates. We also present properties concerning the change of common knowledge and belief of a group of agents.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE
Marrow transplantation results in disease-free survival for less than one-third of patients treated for secondary leukemia. The objective of this report is to review results following allogeneic marrow transplantation for treatment of secondary leukemia or myelodysplasia at a single tertiary referral center to determine the patient characteristics which lead to better survival and lower relapse.

DESIGN AND METHODS
The medical records of 99 patients with secondary leukemia or myelodysplasia transplanted consecutively at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center between 1971 and 1997 were reviewed. Prior to development of secondary leukemia or myelodysplasia, the patients' original diagnoses were hematopoietic malignancies, solid tumors, aplastic anemia, or miscellaneous individual disorders previously treated by chemotherapy alone, radiation alone, chemoradiotherapy, or immunosuppressive therapy. At the time of transplantation, at each stage of myelodysplasia the numbers of patients were 52 with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), 15 with refractory anemia with excess blasts in transition (RAEB-T), 18 with refractory anemia with excess blasts (RAEB), 11 with refractory anemia (RA), 1 with refractory anemia with ringed sideroblasts (RARS), and 2 with hypoplastic unclassifiable hematologic disorders. Sixty-five patients received marrow from an HLA identical or partially identical family member, and 34 received marrow from an HLA identical unrelated donor after conditioning with chemotherapy and total body irradiation or chemotherapy alone.

RESULTS
The Kaplan-Meier probability of survival after transplantation for all patients was 13%, and by stage of disease was 33% for RA/RARS, 20% for RAEB, and 8% for RAEB-T/AML. The probability of relapse for all patients was 47%, was 34% for RAEB, and 58% for RAEB-T/AML. None of the patients with RA/RARS has relapsed. The overall probability of non-relapse mortality was 78%, divided equally among infection or organ failure-related causes of death.

INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS
The main impediments to long-term survival after transplantation for secondary leukemia or myelodysplasia are relapse and mortality from infections or organ failure. The survival is better when transplantation is done during the early stages of myelodysplasia because it is then associated with a lower relapse rate. These data suggest that patients at risk of secondary myelodysplasia should be followed prospectively to detect the early stages of myelodysplasia, and be considered for transplantation at that time.


Understanding habitat requirements of species is fundamental for their conservation and urban parks can provide key habitat for species in otherwise disturbed settings. Northwestern Gartersnakes ( Thamnophis ordinoides ) are common in parks in Saanich, British Columbia, but their specific habitat requirements are poorly understood. Based on previous studies and thermoregulatory needs of snakes, we predicted that edges, particularly field margins, would be heavily used by active snakes. We therefore used surveys that focused on edges to find snakes and measured edge-habitat use by comparing habitat variables at locations where snakes were found to the same variables at nearby random locations. Habitat variables included composition and structure of vegetation, substrate temperature, aspect, and slope. Overall, litter depth, canopy cover, a lack of bare ground and woody vegetation were the most important habitat variables for determining where snakes were found. our results provide a preliminary assessment to improve our understanding of habitat use for this species. The abundance of snakes found while surveying edges supports our initial assumption that edges are important habitat features but more work is required using multiple survey methods to further test this hypothesis.


The control of blood pressure in patients with hypertension is an important challenge in everyday medical practice. It can do much to reduce complications, but too often we fall short of our therapeutic goals. Much more can be done to help our patients help themselves if physicians, along with their paramedical staffs and their patients, make the effort. The results are gratifying in terms of motivation and successful long-term control of the blood pressure and the risks associated with hypertension. This paper outlines objectives and practical approaches to patient education and self-care of this common medical problem.


Increased parental Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) sharing has been repeatedly reported in recurrent spontaneous abortions (RSA). Parental HLA sharing increases the chance of feto-maternal histocompatibility and potentially affects maternal allo-recognition of the fetus. However, strong linkage disequilibrium across the whole Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) region makes it difficult to interpret parental HLA sharing conclusively. It is not known whether the shared HLA gene as such or an unknown gene(s) in linkage disequilibrium or a combination of several loci are causing the disease. Interestingly, in mouse and rat MHC-linked, recessive genes are known to control the reproduction, development and growth of the fetus. Human analogs have not been identified. Compared to HLA genes, MHC Class III has been studied much less in RSA. However, there are some observations of an increased number of unexpressed complement C4 alleles in RSA spouses. Complement C4 genes are located in a chromosomal region characterized by extremely high gene density and frequent gene rearrangements. C4 "null" alleles can act as markers of gene rearrangements in Class III unfavorable for pregnancy outcome. Many of the novel genes located in this region by sequencing serve as new candidates for RSA, since they have housekeeping functions and some of them are highly expressed in human reproductive organs.


Activation of the Wnt signaling pathway occurs frequently in human cancers, but an understanding of the targets and regulation of this important pathway remains incomplete. In this study, we report that phospholipase D (PLD), a cell survival mediator that is upregulated in cancer, is an important target of the Wnt signaling pathway that functions in a positive feedback loop to reinforce pathway output. PLD1 expression and activity was enhanced by treatment with Wnt3a and glycogen synthase kinase-3 inhibitors, and the Wnt pathway-regulated transcription factors beta-catenin and TCF-4 were required for this effect. Three functional TCF-4-binding sites were identified within the PLD1 promoter. Interestingly, suppressing PLD1 blocked the ability of beta-catenin to transcriptionally activate PLD1 and other Wnt target genes by preventing beta-catenin/TCF-4 complex formation. Conversely, tactics to elevate intracellular levels of phosphatidic acid, the product of PLD1 enzyme activity, enhanced beta-catenin/TCF-4 complex formation as well as beta-catenin-dependent TCF transcriptional activity. In cell-based assays, PLD1 was necessary for the anchorage-independent growth driven by Wnt/beta-catenin signaling, whereas beta-catenin/TCF-4 was necessary for the anchorage-independent growth driven by PLD1 activation. Taken together, our findings define a function for PLD1 in a positive feedback loop of Wnt/beta-catenin/TCF-4 signaling that provides new mechanistic insights into cancer, with implications of novel strategies to disrupt Wnt signaling in cancer.


On May 24, 2002, President Bush and Russia's President Putin signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (known as the Treaty of Moscow) that will reduce strategic nuclear weapons to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads by December 31, 2012. Russia convinced the United States to sign a legally binding treaty, but the United States rejected any limits and counting rules that would require the elimination of delivery vehicles and warheads removed from service. It wanted the flexibility to reduce its forces at its own pace, and to restore warheads to deployed forces if conditions warranted. Russian officials have hailed the success of Russia's diplomacy in convincing the United States to sign a legally binding Treaty that casts Russia as an equal partner in the arms control process.


To address the needs of the EU NoAW project, in this paper we solve the problem of efficiently generating the argumentation graphs from knowledge bases expressed using existential rules. For the knowledge bases without rules, we provide a methodology that allows to optimise the generation of argumentation graphs. For knowledge bases with rules, we show how to filter out a large number of arguments and reduce the number of attacks.


This paper presents a detailed analysis of CSL (Current Steering Logic) and compares its characteristics with FSCL (Folded Source Coupled Logic), two logic families intended to be applied in mixed-mode CMOS circuits. These logic families generate small current spikes compared to the CMOS static family. They feature high robustness to process fluctuations, and are capable of operating at low quiescent current and power supply voltage. Simulation results, based on ES2 0.7 CMOS low voltage technology, are presented.


IDEALS (Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship, online at www.ideals.illinois.edu) is the set of scholarly communication services and collections that use the institutional repository (IR) as infrastructure at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. IDEALS is a joint initiative of the University Library and the Campus Information Technology and Education Services (CITES), the central information technology (IT) unit on the Illinois campus. Since opening its doors in 2006, IDEALS has grown to include over 8,000 items (including published material, gray literature, presentations, data sets, student research, and blog posts) with representation from 60 percent of the colleges and schools on campus. IDEALS now sees approximately 1,400 downloads per day. While IDEALS was originally initiated as a traditional IR, that is, as a repository-centric infrastructure to collect, manage, provide access to, and preserve research produced on campus, the program is slowly and steadily shifting to provide a range of services to support scholarly communication activities in close collaboration with faculty, academic units, and students. This case study provides a brief history of IDEALS and an overview of IDEALS services, infrastructure, policies, and scope, and it discusses some of the services and projects under the scope of IDEALS and reflects on lessons learned.


I. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND Meiner Gesinnung nach bin ich so gut Schleswiger oder Holsteiner als Dane [...] Wir lebten lange friedlich beisammen, klagten gemeinschaftlich uber Druck und schwere Zeiten, aber ohne misgunstigen Groll; in den spaten Jahren aber hat dies Unkraut fruchtbaren Boden gefunden, was allerseits sehr zu bedauern ist, denn nur durch Einigkeit gewinnt man Kraft und Starke.1 In the vast literature on the conflict in Schleswig that occurred in the middle of the nineteenth century, opinions like those of the 80-year old miller Hans Wulff from Nebel Molle, close to the border between the Danish kingdom and the Duchy of Schleswig, have been largely absent. In his letter of 12 January 1844 to the editor of Itzehoer Wochenblatt, the most widely read Holsteinian newspaper of the time, Wulff rejected a call from the prominent Holsteinian politician and landowner Neergaard for people in Schleswig and Holstein to organize their own regional associations and institutions. Wulff's dissenting position appealed to the traditional sentiments of unity and respect that existed among the different ethnic groups of the composite state. Instead of confrontation and strife, national organization and indiscriminate hatred he advocated compromise and cooperation in order to maintain the old societal balance that had enabled Danes, Schleswigers and Holsteinians to live peacefully together over centuries. Wulff was far from alone in adopting a loyal position towards the king and the government of the composite state. However, in the end, he and like-minded defenders of the old order could not hold back the tide of nationalism. The small empire of the Oldenburg dynasty fell apart in two bloody wars (1848-1850 and 1864) and gave way to the nation state, where the past was reinterpreted through national ideologies and a nation state-based understanding of history. By this reading, the breakdown of the composite state had been inevitable, and historians of the triumphant nation state ignored the arguments of those representing the lost cause. The latter were silenced and practically excluded from the work of national historians, who would not admit the slightest doubt that the multiethnic composite state had been almost unanimously rejected. They adopted a very effective strategy of damnatio memoriae: today we can hardly think of an argument in favour of the ancien regime, and the idea of a composite state including the Danish kingdom and the partially German-speaking regions north of the Elbe seems obsolete. However, the miller's letter leaves us with the impression that the national conflict, which resulted in the construction of a sharp national border, was perhaps not the only possible outcome after all. This paper will discuss some aspects of the end of the composite state.2 It presents a critical and, in some respects, alternative reading to the traditional nation state-biased way of describing the development that led to the breakdown of the Gesamtstaat in the nineteenth century, and suggests that the composite state was not inherently destined to fail. We should be aware that the ancien regime lost out by only very small margins, and should not uncritically accept the view propagated by adherents of national ideology that different nations cannot live together in peace and harmony within the same state. The miller's conviction that a solution could be found, and his unwillingness to admit that the subjects of the monarchy could no longer agree, was a sign that there were different perspectives within the national conflict. It lies beyond the scope of this paper to discuss in detail why the national ideologies succeeded in breaking the old order, but my research on political developments in Denmark and the duchies during the first half of the nineteenth century points towards the king's and the government's failure to adopt a more progressive line with respect to the constitutional question and win the liberal elites at an earlier stage when they would still have been able to take the initiative. …


In the scientific community is built scientific communication which will continuously produce various kinds of scientific information. Scientific information was recorded in a variety of media such as books, journals, research reports, articles, papers, audio-visual, nor in an electronic or digital media. The media are often called library materials or documents. Supposedly, the documents are available and accessible at the University Library. But in reality, the documents that containing scientific information relevant to the needs of users sometimes very hard to find. Many factors, some of which are: the growth of scientific information is very powerful today; many of the scientific information that is not publicly disclosed; the tendency of scientific information began to be published in the electronic media that requires the library should use information technology. The factors above is a part of the challenges faced by academic libraries today. To confront this challenge, academic libraries require a large fee, librarians who have expertise in the field of information technology, and a number of other requirements. Keyword: Library Materials, Scientific Information, Information Explosion


During the period between July 1, 1993 and July 31, 1994 the authors preinduced 52 pregnant women in term using the cervical dilator Dilapan. The group comprised patients with single pregnancies > or = 38 weeks, vertex presentation, cervical score < 5 and reactive NST. They introduced into the cervical canal 4 Dilapan rods for 12-18 hours and after extraction of the rods, depending on the finding, the patients were induced with Prostin e.a. or oxytocin i.v. The preinduction was successful in 46 patients (88.5%), in 16 patients (30.8%) uterine contractions were induced by Dilapan alone. Forceps delivery was performed 4 times (7.7%) and Caesarean section 12 times (23.1%). Apart from pain in the hypogastrium resembling menstruation pain, no side-effects were recorded. There were no irregularities such as the length of labour stages, blood loss due to injury during labour and the incidence of neonatal hypoxia. Based on the described experience Dilapan can be recommended as a preinduction method for maturation of the portio uteri.


OBJECTIVES
To examine the effect of burden of treatment and multimorbidity on the relationship between baseline characteristics and oral oncolytic agent (OOA) temporary stoppages.

SAMPLE & SETTING
272 patients newly prescribed OOAs at six National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers.

METHODS & VARIABLES
Patients were randomly assigned to an adherence and symptom management group or a usual care/control group. Temporary OOA stoppages, symptom interference, OOA regimen complexity, and multimorbidities were explored. Data were collected at four-week intervals for 12 weeks.

RESULTS
Burden of treatment variables and multimorbidity had no significant effect on OOA temporary stoppages. Women and those prescribed kinase inhibitors were significantly more likely to experience a temporary stoppage.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Oncology nurses are in a crucial position to educate patients on self-management of OOAs and symptoms. Nurses should be aware of patients who may be more susceptible to severe symptoms, including those with multimorbidities. Future research is needed to better understand OOA stoppages and factors associated with preventing stoppages.


Background Public involvement is mandated by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and its 'UK Standards for Public Involvement in Research' provide a benchmark for effectiveness. Whilst guidance exists about how, when and why to enact public involvement, there is still debate around how to evaluate it and its impact. Public involvement is an integral component of the personalised care planning for older people with frailty programme (PROSPER). This work aimed to evaluate public involvement structures in the feasibility stage of the PROSPER programme and provide recommendations for its optimisation. Methods Two lay representatives with requisite training and skills conducted qualitative face-to-face interviews with lay members and stakeholders from all levels of the PROSPER programme, from strategic to operational. The interviews explored influence and impact. In addition, documentary analysis of minutes from meetings involving lay members was performed to identify to what extent lay member involvement was embedded in the Programme along with barriers and facilitators to engagement. Two researchers and the lay representatives conducted thematic analysis of both sets of data using a framework based on the NIHR standards. Results Twelve qualitative interviews and twenty three documentary analyses of meeting minutes were conducted. Identified themes were centred on: 1) individual members, notably training and skills utilisation and development and learning around the research process, and 2) the demonstrable impact of public involvement on individuals, the Programme, NHS research and the wider community. Improvements to current arrangements, including diversity of representation in the public involvement groups and the timely communication of information to its members, were proposed as recommendations for the development of public involvement in the definitive trial. Conclusion This evaluation has shown that the current public involvement structures in PROSPER largely meet the NIHR standards. Furthermore, it has highlighted tangible impacts of public involvement for individuals, the Programme and the wider community. However, several areas of improvement were recognised which will be addressed in the definitive trial. Strengths and limitations around lay representatives conducting interviews and members' impact on the research were identified.


The authors describe an innovative academic health center (AHC)-led program of health care delivery and clinical education for the management of complex, common, and chronic diseases in underserved areas, using hepatitis C virus (HCV) as a model. The program, based at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, represents a paradigm shift in thinking and funding for the threefold mission of AHCs, moving from traditional fee-for-service models to public health funding of knowledge networks. This program, Project Extension for Community Health care Outcomes (ECHO), involves a partnership of academic medicine, public health offices, corrections departments, and rural community clinics dedicated to providing best practices and protocol-driven health care in rural areas. Telemedicine and Internet connections enable specialists in the program to comanage patients with complex diseases, using case-based knowledge networks and learning loops. Project ECHO partners (nurse practitioners, primary care physicians, physician assistants, and pharmacists) present HCV-positive patients during weekly two-hour telemedicine clinics using a standardized, case-based format that includes discussion of history, physical examination, test results, treatment complications, and psychiatric, medical, and substance abuse issues. In these case-based learning clinics, partners rapidly gain deep domain expertise in HCV as they collaborate with university specialists in hepatology, infectious disease, psychiatry, and substance abuse in comanaging their patients. Systematic monitoring of treatment outcomes is an integral aspect of the project. The authors believe this methodology will be generalizable to other complex and chronic conditions in a wide variety of underserved areas to improve disease outcomes, and it offers an opportunity for AHCs to enhance and expand their traditional mission of teaching, patient care, and research.


Abstract When we're trying to articulate principles of justice that we have reason to take seriously in a world like ours, one way to start is with an understanding of what our world is like, and of which institutional frameworks promote our thriving in communities and which do not. If we start this way, we can sort out alleged principles of justice by asking which ones license mutual expectations that promote our thriving and which ones do otherwise. This is an essay in the how and why of nonideal theory: in particular, how and why principles of property come first and principles of justice second. Ownership conventions, and property law as it develops under the pressures of case by case dispute resolution, tend to become touchstones for conflict mediation down through generations. They may be imperfect, retaining vestiges of adaptations to ancient problems that no longer exist, yet still they work, coordinating expectations so as to make it easier for people to live well together. A priori reasons for endorsing principles of justice generally are not good enough. A good enough reason would be something like this: to endorse this way of applying this principle in this kind of circumstance is to support institutional frameworks that position us to play positive sum games.


The presumption of innocence and #BelieveWomen both embody compelling considerations, and we may wonder how to reconcile them. My project does not aim to reconcile the positions, but rather, it is prior to it. My goal in this paper is to better explicate the claims that underlie both #BelieveWomen and the presumption of innocence in law and life, as well as to identify instances in which cross-pollination, between our everyday evaluations and the legal system, is contaminating our thinking.

First, I begin with #BelieveWomen and sort through various ways to interpret this demand (though my survey is not exhaustive). I spend additional time on one particular interpretation, an understanding that ties a cry for trust to a non-reductionist position with respect to the justification for believing testimony — that is, the idea that we have reason to believe someone, and are justified in so doing, just on her say-so. Although it is not my contention that this view is superior to other understandings, I believe it has received less attention in the literature and thus warrants additional examination. Next, I demonstrate how complicated our calculations are in life. Then, I turn to law. Here, I show how the various interpretations of #BelieveWomen raise distinct legal questions, but also note that flat footed understandings of this demand have created confusions. I suggest the law may meet the demands of #BelieveWomen through a corrective of the kind proposed by Miranda Fricker, evidentiary instructions, and (potentially by) alterations of the burden of proof, but that full belief may be too much to ask in this context. That is, law may be unable to accommodate a demand that we believe women, though it may be able to treat them respectfully as epistemic agents. In making this claim, I reject that increasing one's credence in light of testimony "counts" as believing someone.

Second, I look at the presumption of innocence, noting that under the Supreme Court's jurisprudence it amounts to no more than the requirement that in a criminal trial, the prosecution must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Additionally, following Larry Laudan, I endorse the view that the presumption in law is simply the claim that a juror has no evidence. But that is not what we want in life. The questions we want to ask in life are (1) what do we owe each other and (2) when there are contested factual situations, what is the default position. The presumption of innocence rhetoric assumes the answers to these questions.


Widowhood in later life, an expected life course transition for older women, is
generally presented in the literature as a homogenous 'problem' of old age, a
time of unhappiness, loneliness and decline. The bulk of the research has been
quantitative and has been carried out within two years of the death of the
spouse, during a time in which some women are still coming to terms with loss.
Little attention has been paid to the ongoing experience of widowhood, despite
the fact that an older woman may spend many years as a widow. Furthermore,
widowhood has been treated as an entity in itself rather than an integral part of
older women's lives. This paper suggests that by using a biographical
approach, which engages older women in the research process, it is possible to
look at widowhood through a different lens: one, which acknowledges both the
multiplicity of experiences and relationships that older women bring to this
time of their lives and the diversity therein. Drawing on a series of unstructured
interviews with older widows from Stockport, the paper suggests that the use
of a biographical approach, underpinned by feminist gerontology, provides us
with a unique opportunity to gain an understanding of the multi-faceted
experience of later life widowhood from the perspective of older widows
themselves.


This page explains what product range is. This is for activity 1 - Research store clothing range for the unit WRRSS1B - Recommend and fit clothing and accessories.


This thesis outlines a new compositional grammar for my recent compositional practice as demonstrated by the collection of original musical work supplied in the accompanying folio of compositions, itself collectively titled the churches of lalibela. The grammar here outlined and explored presents developments in compositional procedure resulting from re-considering acts of musical transformation in terms of erosion and encrustation. Within the terminologies of this thesis, erosion and encrustation are understood as classes of compositional action (applied to musical materials) defined by operations of erasure/removal and addition/accrual respectively. Using examples from the visual arts as a mechanism for discussion, the thesis develops a wider conceptual understanding of these terms, allowing them to be considered no
longer as opposites but as intertwined mechanisms mutually achieving a state of material distortion. A compositional scenario is thus derived in which the sonic surface of a given instance of a composition can be understood as being comprised of the debris resulting from such processes. To develop an understanding of this scenario, the thesis further explores ideas concerning ambiguity of material definition and the role such ambiguity can play in relation to material comparison within the experience of a musical discourse. As such, the grammar here derived can be said to exposit a preoccupation with comparison of material debris of different classes and/or degrees of distortion within the listening experience. The thesis also explores the nature and function of material consistency with regard to definition, illustrating the difference between two terms with a notion of consistency achieved through inconsistency.


An excellent report on the spectrum of readback voltages from magnetic media can be found in Ref. [1] (Thurlings) where the power density spectrum was developed from basic assumptions on the distributions of the particles in the media. In attempting to fit our experimental observations with the above model, it was found that the expressions suggested in [1] had to be extended in order to fit the variations in gain as a function of frequency of the written signal. The extensions include the formulation of a simple but adequate model for magnetic interaction among particles. This interaction model explains the dependence of noise on the frequency of the written signal.


An electron microprobe with wavelength-dispersive x-ray spectrometry (WDS) was found to be useful for the determination of Ca concentrations in leaf tissue deficient in Ca. WDS effectively detected Ca concentrations as low as 0.2 mg/g dry wt in the presence of high levels of K and Mg (120 and 50 mg/g dry wt, respectively). Leaf specimens were prepared for analysis by quick-freezing in liquid nitrogen and freeze-drying at -20 degrees C to maintain elemental integrity within the tissue. Because dry material was analyzed, sample preparation was simple and samples could be stored for long periods before analysis. A large beam diameter of 50 gm was used to minimize tissue damage under the beam and analyze mineral concentrations within several cells at one time. Beam penetration was between 50 and 55 microns, approximately one-third of the thickness of the leaf. For analysis of concentrations in interveinal areas, analyses directed into the abaxial epidermis were found most useful. However, because of limited beam penetration, analyses of veinal areas would require use of cross sections [correction of crosssections]. Solid mineral standards were used for instrument standardization. To prevent measurement errors resulting from differences between the matrix of the mineral standards and the analyzed tissue, concentrations in leaves were corrected using gelatin standards prepared and analyzed under the same conditions. WDS was found to be useful for documenting that very low Ca levels occur in specific areas of lettuce leaves exhibiting the Ca deficiency injury termed tipburn.


Background: Antiepileptic drug  (AED)consumption has increased in recent years mainly from those AEDs marketed since 1990. The purpose is to describe and compare AED consumption in Catalonia, Denmark and Norway.
Methods: Population-based descriptive study set in the outpatient healthcare sector. Data were retrieved from the Norwegian Prescription Register, Danish Register of Medicinal Product Statistics and DATAMART® in Catalonia, for 2007-2011.
We calculated defined daily doses/1000 inhabitants/day (DID), by age and gender. AEDs were defined according to the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical classification (N03A). We reviewed the population covered by the databases, the drug data source and the definition of outpatient healthcare sector to compare the results across the three settings.
Results: Total AED use steadily increased over the study period in the three settings. In 2011, consumption was highest in Catalonia (15.20 DID), followed by Denmark (15.06 DID) and Norway (14.24 DID). The "other AEDs" (N03AX) subgroup represented 60% of all AED use. The N03A pattern by gender did not differ across the three settings. Marked differences by age and gender appeared when studying lamotrigine, topiramate, gabapentin, pregabalin and levetiracetam.  Differences among the databases were mainly in the definition of outpatient healthcare setting.
Conclusions: There was a rapid increase in "other AEDs" in all three settings. Although we did not have information on the indication for the use of AEDs, the drug data source, population coverage of the database and definition of the healthcare setting helped us interpret the results.


Optimal structured feedback control policies for rate-based flow control of available bit rate service in asynchronous transfer mode networks are obtained in the presence of information and propagation delays, using a numerically efficient two-timescale simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation algorithm. Models comprising both a single bottleneck node and a network with multiple bottleneck nodes are considered. A convergence analysis of the algorithm is presented. Numerical experiments demonstrate fast convergence even in the presence of significant delays. We also illustrate performance comparisons with the well-known Explicit Rate Indication for Congestion Avoidance (ERICA) algorithm and describe another algorithm (based on ERICA) that does not require estimating available bandwidth (as in ERICA).