Objectives Skin biopsies from local sites of herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2)-induced ulcers can show infiltrates of inflammatory cells several months after macroscopic healing. We hypothesise that foreskin tissue samples of asymptomatic HSV-2 seropositive men had remaining signs of inflammation at the molecular level. Even in the absence of clinical lesions, genital inflammation may contribute to increased HIV susceptibility on sexual exposure to the virus. Setting Foreskin tissue samples were collected from men undergoing elective circumcision in Kisumu, Kenya. Participants The foreskin tissue samples (n=86) were stratified into study groups based on HSV-2 serology and assessed for mRNA expression of inflammatory markers. Markers of interest were further assessed by immunohistochemical staining within the tissue samples. Results The two study groups had comparable levels of all molecular markers (CD3, CD4, CD8, CD69, CCR5, HLA-DR, Langerin, DC-SIGN, Mannose Receptor 1, IL-1, IL-6, TNF-α, β7, IgA, IFN-α, CCL5, E-cadherin, ZO-1 and occludin), except for lower mRNA levels of the epithelial junction protein claudin-1 in the HSV-2 seropositive group (p=0.008). Although mRNA levels of claudin-1 were lower in HSV-2 seropositive individuals, the corresponding protein could be visualised in the foreskin epithelium of all samples tested. Conclusions Whereas no general inflammation was demonstrated in the foreskin of asymptomatic HSV-2 seropositive individuals, a decreased expression of claudin-1 indicates a less robust genital epithelial barrier. An intact epithelial barrier is essential for blocking mucosal entry of genital infections, including HIV.


Introduction Cancer is a public health problem in Brazil and the National Policy for Oncology determines that health services should provide all levels of oncologic care. The aim of this study was to assess the need for palliative care in hospitalised cancer patients in Mato Grosso do Sul, one of the Brazilian states that has no public hospital offering this type of care. Methods A descriptive study of all hospitalisations due to "complications of clinical oncology (ICPO)" in hospitals of the Unified Health System (SUS) in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, was conducted from January 2008 to August 2010. Data were obtained from the Hospital Information System of the Unified Health System (SIH-SUS). Results There were 5165 hospitalisations for ICPO with cancer as the underlying cause in 94.7%. Average length of stay was 6.2 days and 1189 patients (23.0%) died. Individuals aged 65 years or older accounted for 44.3% of these deaths and for every 3.5 hospital admissions in this age group, one ended in death. Many patients died without the appropriate care. Conclusion The ageing of the population and the increased incidence of cancer brought new challenges to the Brazilian Unified Health System, including the need for palliative care. This need is not always met for instance as in Mato Grosso do Sul. In this sense, deaths of patients hospitalised for ICPO can be thought of as indicators of advanced disease and they could be useful to national and state policies for oncologic palliative care.


Soybean oil is a common vegetable oil, which is used for edible purposes. However, this oil is rich in unsaturated fatty acids that enhance oil deterioration by their oxidation. Such deterioration can be reduced using suitable antioxidants, preferably natural antioxidants. This work was made to assess the suitability of phenolic compounds that can be extracted from olive leaves to improve soybean oil stability against oxidation. Olive leaves extracts were tested for their content of phenolic compounds and have been then added to soybean oil which was subjected to accelerated oxidation. The oxidation stability was monitored following several technical methods commonly used for this purposes such as peroxide value, p-Anisidine value, as well as induction time by Rancimat method. The results have proved that the extracts of olive leaves can be used efficiently as a safe natural antioxidant in edible oils. However, the dose to be added should be adjusted as to achieve the activity of synthetic antioxidants.


Genomic comparison of two sibling yeast species, Saccharomyces bayanus and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, was performed by Southern blot analysis with various S. cerevisiae gene probes following electrophoretic karyotyping. Fifteen genes on chromosome IV of S. cerevisiae were examined and classified into two groups. Gene probes of CEN4 and TRP1, as well as six other genes located on the left arm of the chromosome hybridized to a 1100‐kb chromosome of S. bayanus that is smaller than chromosome IV of S. cerevisiae. On the other hand, probes of seven genes located on the right arm of chromosome IV hybridized to a 1350‐kb chromosome that is homeologous to chromosome IV, judging from its size. Two genes located on the left arm of chromosome II hybridized to the 1350‐kb chromosome, while four genes on the right arm hybridized to the 1100‐kb chromosome. These pieces of evidence indicate that chromosomes II and IV of S. cerevisiae are rearranged into 1350‐kb and 1100‐kb chromosomes in S. bayanus. Furthermore, it is suggested that chromosome XV is rearranged into two chromosomes (800 and 850 kb in size) in S. bayanus. The translocation points of chromosomes II and IV were delimited using S. cerevisiae prime clone membranes. The results indicated that the translocation points are located close to the FUR4 locus on chromosome II and close to the RAD57 locus on chromosome IV.


Delivery Networks (CDNs) appeared at late 90's as a means of reducing response time experienced by Internet users by distributedly placing multiple servers, called surrogates, in the client network neighbourhood. Many companies have deployed their own propietary CDN hiding implementational aspects, which guides to a lack of a general open model that describes CDN behaviour from an analytical perspective. This article proposes a general expression for a CDN considering certain design parameters, such as caching hit rate, delay and number of clients and surrogates.


Surface patterning that occurs spontaneously during the formation of a thin film is a powerful tool for controlling film morphology at the nanoscale level because it avoids the need for further processing. However, one must first learn under which conditions these patterning phenomena occur or not, and how to achieve control over the surface morphologies that are generated. Mexylaminotriazine-based molecular glasses are small molecules that can readily form amorphous thin films. It was discovered that this class of materials can either form smooth films, or films exhibiting either dome or pore patterns. Depending on the conditions, these patterns can be selectively obtained during film deposition by spin-coating. It was determined that this behavior is controlled by the presence of water or, more generally, of a solvent in which the compounds are insoluble, and that the relative amount and volatility of this poor solvent determines which type of surface relief is obtained. Moreover, AFM and FT-IR spectroscopy have revealed that the thin films are amorphous independently of surface morphology, and no difference was observed at the molecular or supramolecular level. These findings make this class of materials and this patterning approach in general extremely appealing for the control of surface morphology with organic nanostructures.


Recent progress based on microscopic imaging has given significant contribution in diagnosis of malaria infection based on blood images. Due to the requirement of prompt and accurate diagnosis of malaria, the current study has proposed an unsupervised colour image segmentation of malaria parasites using moving k-means (MKM) clustering algorithm. It has been applied on malaria images of P. vivax species. The proposed segmentation method provides a basic step for detection of the presence of malaria parasites in thin blood smears. With the aim of obtaining the fully segmented red blood cells infected with malaria parasites, the malaria images will firstly enhanced by using the partial contrast stretching technique. Then, the MKM clustering algorithm has been applied on the saturation and intensity components of HSI (hue, saturation, intensity) colour space for segmenting the infected cell from the background. After that, the segmented images have been processed using median filter and seeded region growing area extraction algorithms for smoothing the image and removing any unwanted regions from the image, respectively. Finally, the holes inside the infected cell are filled by applying region filling based on morphological reconstruction algorithm. The proposed segmentation method has been analyzed using 100 malaria images which consist of the trophozoite and gametocyte stages. Overall, the results indicate that MKM clustering that has been performed on saturation component image has produced the best segmentation performance with segmentation accuracy of 99.49% compared to the intensity component image with segmentation accuracy of 98.89%.


Abstract : Aerospace ophthalmology combines the practice of clinical ophthalmology and aerospace medicine in attempting to solve the visual and ophthalmological problems of the aviator and astronaut. The Ophthalmology Branch of the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine has exclusively performed this task for nearly 93 years. The visual problems and solutions proposed are documented in the publications and invited presentations of Ophthalmology Branch personnel, listed for the years 2006-2010. They deal primarily with applied visual and clinical topics, such as visual standards for flying, the use of contact lenses in aviation, visual illusions and aircraft accidents, air-to-air target acquisition, management of glaucoma in flying personnel, refractive surgery in the aviator, etc.


Procedures were developed for the estimation of orthogonality in two-dimensional (2D) separations. The parameters evaluated include peak spreading angle, retention correlation, and practical peak capacity. Solute retention parameters, such as retention times and capacity factors on both dimensions, were used to establish a correlation matrix, from which a peak spreading angle matrix was calculated using a geometric approach to factor analysis. The orthogonality is defined by the correlation matrix with correlation coefficients that vary from 0 (orthogonal) to 1 (perfect correlation). Equations were derived for the calculation of practical peak capacity in 2D separations. The calculations are based on the peak capacities obtained on each dimension and the peak spreading angle in an orthogonal, 2D retention space. The equations and the procedures can be used to evaluate the performance of a comprehensive 2D separation. Using experimental data from a 2D GC separation, it is demonstrated that the equations are very useful for the comparison, evaluation, and optimization of 2D separations.


Network (or graphs) are often used to represent complex systems in a variety of fields. Tipically, the set of vertices of the graph corresponds to the set of entities under study and the edges represent relations holding for pairs of vertices. The analysis of networks is so gaining more and more attention, specially the analysis devoted to the detection of clusters, or communities. Clusters correspond in fact to subgroups of entities among which strong relations exist. In this paper we are particularly interested in clustering problems in which the underlying graph is a tree T = (V,E). Trees are undirected graphs in which any two vertices are connected by exactly one simple path. Clustering on trees [3] arises in a variety of applications, such as phylogenetic analysis in biological classification and the analysis of communication or distribution networks which exibit a tree-like structure.


In this work an integrated set of numerical methods is developed for the analysis of gas
turbine combustors, which can predict the flow, temperature and stress fields in modern
geometrically complex combustor walls.
A key problem for accurate flow and temperature field prediction is the wide range of
geometric length scales within modern combustor components. These components
typically contain multiple small-scale cooling features such as pedestals and effusion
cooling holes, which cannot be resolved by a computational mesh without incurring
huge penalties in terms of computer processor and memory requirements. In this work a
sub-grid-scale model is developed, which accounts for the effects of small-scale
features such as pedestals without resolving them in the computational mesh. Validation
of this model using experimental results from the literature shows that the pressure
drop, turbulence generation and heat transfer effects of pedestal arrays can be
successfully modelled using this approach.
Another difficulty in the analysis of combustors is coupling the interdependent
temperature field predictions in the fluid and solid regions. This has led to a unified
approach to conjugate heat transfer prediction being adopted in this work, whereby a
structured finite volume solver is used to predict temperature fields throughout fluid
and solid domains. A new conjugate heat transfer discretisation scheme is developed,
which can cope with the demanding combination of strong temperature gradient
discontinuities and highly skewed grids. Several test cases are presented which
demonstrate the accuracy of this new scheme, as well as demonstrating the inadequacy
of conventional treatment of the diffusive fluxes for the solution of conjugate problems.
The assembled numerical methods are used to predict the flow, thermal and stress fields
in a geometrically complex combustor heatshield/backplate assembly, typical of that
found in modern engines. This calculation shows that a viable route to computational
life prediction has been established.


Relevance matching between two information objects such as a document and query or a user and product (e.g. movie) is an important problem in information retrieval systems. The most common and most successful way to approach this problem is by probabilistically modelling the relevance between information objects, and computing their relevance matching as the probability of relevance. The objective of a probabilistic relevance retrieval model is to compute the probability of relevance between a given information object pair using all the available information about the individual objects (e.g., document and query), the existing relevance information on both objects and all the information available on other information objects (other documents, queries in the collection and the relevance information on them). The probabilistic retrieval models developed to date are not capable of utilising all available information due to the lack of a unified theory for relevance modelling. More than three decades ago, the notion of simultaneously utilising the relevance information about individual user needs and individual documents to come to a retrieval decision was formalised as the problem of a unified relevance model for Information Retrieval (IR). Since the inception of the unified model, a number of unsuccessful attempts have been made to develop a formal probabilistic relevance model to solve the problem. This thesis provides a new theory and a probabilistic relevance framework that not only solves the problem of the original unified relevance model but also provides the capability to utilise any available information about the information objects in computing the probability of relevance. In this thesis, we consider information matching between two objects (e.g. documents and queries) to be bi-directional preference matching and the relevance between them is thus established and estimated on top of the bi-directional relationship. A key benefit of this bi-directional approach is that the resulting probabilistic bi-directional unified model not only solves the original problem of a unified model in information retrieval but also has the ability to incorporate all of the available information on the information objects (documents and queries) into a single model while computing the probability of relevance. Theoretically, we demonstrate the effectiveness of applying our single framework by deriving relevance ranking functions for popular retrieval scenarios such as collaborative filtering (recommendation), group recommendation and ad-hoc retrieval. In the past, the solution for relevance matching in each of these retrieval scenarios approached with a different solution/framework, partly due to the kind of information available to the retrieval system for computing the probability of relevance. However, the underlying problem of information matching is the same in all scenarios, and a solution to the problem of a unified model should be applicable to all scenarios. One of the interesting aspects of our new theory and model in applying to a collaborative filtering scenario is that it computes the probability of relevance between a given user and a given item while not applying any dimensionality reduction technique or computing the explicit similarity between the users/items, which is contrary to the state-of-the-art collaborative filtering/recommender models (e.g. Matrix Factorisation methods, neighbourhood-based methods). This property allows the retrieval model to model users and items independently with their own features, rather than forcing it to use a common feature space (e.g., common hidden factor-features between a user-item pair of objects or a common vocabulary space between a document-query pair of objects). The effectiveness of this theoretical framework is demonstrated in various real-world applications by experimenting on datasets in collaborative filtering, group recommendation and ad-hoc retrieval tasks. For collaborative filtering and group recommendation the model convincingly out-performs various state-of-the-art recommender models (or frameworks). For ad-hoc retrieval, the model also outperforms the state-of-the-art information retrieval models when it is restricted to use the same information used by the other models. The bi-directional unified model allows the building of both search and personalisation/recommender (or collaborative filtering) systems from a single model, which has not been possible before with the existing probabilistic relevance models. Finally, our theory and its framework have been adopted by some large companies in gaming, venture-capital matching, retail and media, and deployed on their web systems to match their customers, often in the tens of millions, with relevant content.


OBJECTIVES
The study objectives were to examine the contents of individualized education programs (IEPs) of adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including postsecondary transition goals, services, and changes in special education classification over time.

METHODS
This study involved a longitudinal population-based surveillance cohort from the Autism Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network from 2002 to 2018 in 3 catchment areas in the United States. The sample included 322 adolescents who were born in 2002, identified with ASD, and had an IEP available for review at ages 15-16 years.

RESULTS
We found that 297 (92%) adolescents with ASD had an IEP including a transition plan. Those without intellectual disability (ID) were more likely to have postsecondary education and employment goals and have those goals be to pursue higher education or competitive employment compared with those with ID. Forty-one percent of adolescents with ASD had a postsecondary living arrangement goal. Although 28% of adolescents with ASD received school-based mental health services, none of these adolescents were Black; additionally, 15% of those with ID received mental health services compared with 34% without ID. The percentage of adolescents with ASD served under an autism classification increased from 44% at age 8 years to 62% by age 16.

CONCLUSIONS
We identified gaps and disparities in school-based postsecondary transition planning. Working with education partners, families, and adolescents will be important to identify what challenges contribute to these findings and what supports are needed to improve the equity and quality of the transition planning process for adolescents with ASD so they are prepared for adulthood.


Objective: To report a case of giant sialolith in the submandibular duct in which sialolithotomy and sialodochoplasty procedures were performed with an intraoral and extraoral approach. Method: A 47 years old male patient reported a complaint of swelling in the left lower jaw which triggered discomfort, particularly when eating. The extraoral examination found 50 mm sized swelling that was firm in consistency, not painful and showed the same colour as the tissue in the left submandibular region. Meanwhile, the intraoral examination indicated a 5 mm sized whitish firm mass on the mucosal floor of the mouth. The panoramic radiograph examination showed a multiple radiopaque mass in the left mandible with a well-defined border. A multiple mass was found by the CT-scan examination in the left submandibular region and floor of the mouth. Sialographic examination described a total obstruction in the left submandibular duct and allegedly chronic inflammation-induced sialolith. Results: Sialolithotomy was done with an intraoral and extraoral approach after which sialodochoplasty was also performed to insert the pediatric feeding tube no. 8 aiming to retain the shape and function of the submandibular duct. Conclusion: Treating giant sialolith with sialolithotomy followed by sialodochoplasty has given a satisfactory result without any complication and recurrence.


This policy statement provides a framework for the pediatrician's role in promoting the health and well-being of all children in the context of their families and communities. It offers pediatricians a definition of community pediatrics, emphasizes the importance of recognizing social determinants of health, and delineates the need to partner with public health to address population-based child health issues. It also recognizes the importance of pediatric involvement in child advocacy at local, state, and federal levels to ensure all children have access to a high-quality medical home and to eliminate child health disparities. This statement provides a set of specific recommendations that underscore the critical nature of this dimension of pediatric practice, teaching, and research.


In this study, perception of service quality and its impact on satisfaction were examined through a research where students using the refectory within the university campus were selected as the sample. In the study, a survey questionnaire was used as the data collection technique and Ruetzler's (2005) scale, which was developed to measure service quality in a college refectory, was used for creating the survey form. In the methodology, factor analysis, ANOVA, t-test, and multiple regression analysis were performed on 689 valid cases of survey data. Multiple regression analysis was applied to three dimensions of refectory service quality (service, hygiene and atmosphere) that were determined as a result of factor analysis and it was found that these dimensions affect satisfaction positively in general and at the level of 44%. Among the service quality dimensions, it was determined that atmosphere did not have a significant effect on satisfaction. It was concluded that hygiene dimension had a higher impact on satisfaction than the service dimension. Furthermore, it is among remarkable findings of the research that statistically significant differences were found between groups in terms of gender, the amount of monthly expenditure, and the faculty of the respondents as a result of the one-way ANOVA tests and the t-tests.


Tea flavonoids have been suggested to offer potential benefits to cardiovascular health. This review synthesized the evidence on the relation between tea consumption and risks of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and all-cause mortality among generally healthy adults. PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Food Science and Technology Abstracts, and Ovid CAB Abstract databases were searched to identify English-language publications through 1 November 2019, including randomized trials, prospective cohort studies, and nested case-control (or case-cohort) studies with data on tea consumption and risk of incident cardiovascular events (cardiac or peripheral vascular events), stroke events (including mortality), CVD-specific mortality, or all-cause mortality. Data from 39 prospective cohort publications were synthesized. Linear meta-regression showed that each cup (236.6 mL)  increase in daily tea consumption (estimated 280 mg  and 338 mg  total flavonoids/d for black and green tea, respectively) was associated with an average 4% lower risk of CVD mortality, a 2% lower risk of CVD events, a 4% lower risk of stroke, and a 1.5% lower risk of all-cause mortality. Subgroup meta-analysis results showed that the magnitude of association was larger in elderly individuals for both CVD mortality (n = 4; pooled adjusted RR: 0.89; 95% CI: 0.83, 0.96; P = 0.001), with large heterogeneity (I2 = 72.4%), and all-cause mortality (n = 3; pooled adjusted RR: 0.92; 95% CI: 0.90, 0.94; P < 0.0001; I2 = 0.3%). Generally, studies with higher risk of bias appeared to show larger magnitudes of associations than studies with lower risk of bias. Strength of evidence was rated as low and moderate (depending on study population age group) for CVD-specific mortality outcome and was rated as low for CVD events, stroke, and all-cause mortality outcomes. Daily tea intake as part of a healthy habitual dietary pattern may be associated with lower risks of CVD and all-cause mortality among adults.


Guanosine cyclic 3′:5′-monophosphate phosphodiesterase activity of murine leukemic cells (L1210) was 400 times that of human peripheral blood lymphocytes and 15 times that of murine splenic lymphocytes. Adenosine cyclic 3′:5′-monophosphate (cyclic AMP) phosphodiesterase activity of L1210 cells was 320 times that of human peripheral blood lymphocytes and 24 times that of normal murine lymphocytes. The total cyclic AMP and guanosine cyclic 3′:5′-monophosphate phosphodiesterase activities of rapidly growing cultured human lymphoid cells (normal and leukemic lymphoblastoid cell lines) were also markedly elevated when compared to quiescent peripheral blood lymphocytes. Human peripheral blood lymphocytes stimulated by phytohemagglutinin showed a 10-fold increase in total enzyme activity.

Leukemic and normal murine cells contain a low-affinity cyclic AMP phosphodiesterase as normally observed in most mammalian tissues. In contrast, kinetic analyses of cyclic AMP phosphodiesterase activities of human B and T lymphoblastoid cells were similar to those of peripheral blood lymphocytes in that no evidence of a low-affinity enzyme was found. All the lymphoid cells tested showed a 3 to 4 S enzyme form by linear sucrose gradient fractionation. Proliferating and quiescent human cells also contain a higher-molecular-weight cyclic AMP-specific form (5.9 S), while the murine cells contain a 7.0 S higher-molecular-weight form. Both the 5.9 and 7.0 S forms show anomalous kinetic behavior. These results are discussed with respect to the biochemical nature of cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases and the role of this enzyme system in the proliferation of lymphoid cells.


We investigate the viability of highly efficient organic solar cells (OSCs) based on non-fullerene acceptor (NFA) by taking into consideration efficiency loss channels and stability issues caused by triplet excitons (TE) formation. OSCs based on a blend of the conjugated donor polymer PBDB-T and ITIC as acceptor were fabricated and investigated with electrical, optical and spin-sensitive means. The spin-Hamiltonian parameters of molecular TEs and charge transfer TEs in ITIC e.g., zero-field splitting and charge distribution, were calculated by Density Functional Theory (DFT) modelling. In addition, the energetic model describing the photophysical processes in the donor-acceptor blend was derived. Spin-sensitive photoluminescence measurements prove the formation of charge transfer states (CTS) in the blend and the formation of TEs in the pure materials and the blend. However, no molecular TE signal is observed in the completed devices under working conditions by spin-sensitive electrical measurements. The absence of a molecular triplet state population allows to eliminate a charge carrier loss channel and irreversible photooxidation facilitated by long-lived triplet states. These results correlate well with the high power conversion efficiency of the PBDB-T:ITIC-based OSCs and their high stability.


This paper investigates the changed in the microstructure in HAZ of dissimilar weld between carbon steel and 304 austenitic stainless steel. Continuous cooling transformation diagrams (CCT), peak temperature profiles and cooling rates can be used to predict the change in the microstructure of the HAZ during the welding process. Optical microscopy, X – ray, SEM and TEM were used to determine the phases which formed in HAZ of carbon steel and austenitic stainless steel. The results of this study indicate that grain size in HAZ depended on the temperature at that point could be reached during the welding. Fully Martensitic layer observed at the interface in carbon side due to the combination of the rapid cooling subsequent to weld and local chemical composition. Cooling rate played the rule on forming Widmanstatten ferrite,  Bainite and Pearlite. On the other hand, microstructures and grain size in HAZ of austenitic stainless steel were not affected by temperature and cooling rate. Carbides precipitation (M 23 C 6 , M 7 C 3 ), however, were found in the boundary of grains.


The control of work hardening in laser-assisted milling process while keeping a desirable cutting efficiency is quite challenging. Surface hardness is a good indicator of the work hardening. Therefore, it is valuable to predict surface hardness in laser-assisted milling such that the effects of process parameters can be better quantified to facilitate process planning. In the current study, a general surface hardness predictive model based on theories of metal machining and microstructure evolution in laser-assisted milling process is proposed to describe the grain size variation-induced hardness change. The laser preheating temperature field is first calculated by treating the laser beam as a moving heat source. Then, the oblique milling process is transferred to equivalent orthogonal cutting process at each rotation angle to predict the grain size dependent on dynamic recrystallization process. The inverse relationship between the grain diameter and surface hardness is applied to decide grain size variation-induced hardness change. The model is validated through laser-assisted milling experiments on Ti-6Al-4V and Ti-6Al-4V ELI. The proposed predictive model is able to match the experimental measurements in all cases with an average error of 3% for Ti-6Al-4V and 3.3% for Ti-6Al-4V ELI. In addition, a sensitivity analysis is conducted on Ti-6Al-4V to study the influences of cutting speed, depth of cut, laser power, and laser-tool distance on hardness. The proposed analytical model is valuable for providing a fast, credible, and physics-based method for the prediction of surface hardness in laser-assisted milling of various materials. Through sensitivity analysis, the model is able to guide the selection of cutting and laser parameters when the control of surface hardness is the main target.


INTRODUCTION Optimal nutrition is critical in the management of the very low birth weight (VLBW) infant. METHODS The type of feeding, initiation, route and schedule of feeding, and the rate of increase in feeding volume were reviewed. RESULTS Human milk from the preterm infant's mother is the feeding of choice. When full enteral feeding is established, supplementation of human milk with a multi-nutrient fortifier is required. In VLBW infants having poor weight gain when exclusively fed human milk, feeding of hindmilk is encouraged if the mother expresses large quantities of breast milk. Lactation support is vital for the mother, including appropriate methods of milk collection, storage and transport to the nursery. In mothers who produce no or insufficient human milk, preterm formulas are an alternative feeding, used either alone or in conjunction with human milk. Minimal enteral nutrition using sub-nutritional feedings in the first week of life is advantageous. Intragastric intermittent ("bolus") tube feeding is the route of choice for the infant born at < 32 to 34 weeks gestational age. Feeding volume must be advanced cautiously at < 20 mL/kg/day. CONCLUSION Future goals of nutrition research in the VLBW infant must include determining the role and optimal composition of the various nutrients and duration of use.


The development of practical and flexible vaccines to target liver stage malaria parasites would benefit from an ability to induce high levels of CD8 T cells to minimal peptide epitopes. Herein we compare different adjuvant and carrier systems in a murine model for induction of interferon gamma (IFN-γ) producing CD8 T cells to the minimal immuno-dominant peptide epitope from the circumsporozoite protein (CSP) of Plasmodium berghei, pb9 (SYIPSAEKI, referred to as KI). Two pro-inflammatory adjuvants, Montanide and Poly I:C, and a non-classical, non-inflammatory nanoparticle based carrier (polystyrene nanoparticles, PSNPs), were compared side-by-side for their ability to induce potentially protective CD8 T cell responses after two immunizations. KI in Montanide (Montanide + KI) or covalently conjugated to PSNPs (PSNPs-KI) induced such high responses, whereas adjuvanting with Poly I:C or PSNPs without conjugation was ineffective. This result was consistent with an observed induction of an immunosuppressed environment by Poly I:C in the draining lymph node (dLN) 48 h post injection, which was reflected by increased frequencies of myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) and a proportion of inflammation reactive regulatory T cells (Treg) expressing the tumor necrosis factor receptor 2 (TNFR2), as well as decreased dendritic cell (DC) maturation. The other inflammatory adjuvant, Montanide, also promoted proportional increases in the TNFR2+ Treg subpopulation, but not MDSCs, in the dLN. By contrast, injection with non-inflammatory PSNPs did not cause these changes. Induction of high CD8 T cell responses, using minimal peptide epitopes, can be achieved by non-inflammatory carrier nanoparticles, which in contrast to some conventional inflammatory adjuvants, do not expand either MDSCs or inflammation reactive Tregs at the site of priming.


Objectives To elicit patterns in pathogenic biofilm composition we characterized the oral microbiome present in patients with dentin caries in comparison to healthy subjects. Methods 16S amplicon sequencing was used to analyse a total of 56 patients; 19 samples of carious dentin (pooled from at least three teeth) and 37 supragingival samples (pooled from three healthy tooth surfaces). Oral and periodontal status and socio-demographic parameters were recorded. Group assignment, smoking and further socio-demographic parameters were used as explanatory variables in the microbiome composition analysis. Results Overall, a total of 4,110,020 DNA high-quality sequences were yielded. Using a threshold of similarity >97% for assigning operational taxonomic units (OTU), a total of 1,537 OTUs were identified. PERMANOVA showed significant differences in microbiome composition between the groups caries/healthy (p = 0.001), smoking/non-smoking (p = 0.007) and fluoride intake during childhood yes/no (tablets p = 0.003, salt p = 0.023). The healthy microbiome had a significantly higher diversity (alpha diversity, p<0.001) and a lower dominance (Berger-Parker index, p<0.001). It was dominated by Fusobacteria. A linear discriminant analysis effect size (LEfSe) yielded a set of 39 OTUs being more abundant in carious dentin samples, including Atopobium spp. (14.9 log2FoldChange), Lactobacillus casei (11.6), Acinetobacter spp. (10.8), Lactobacillus gasseri (10.6), Parascardovia denticolens (10.5), Olsenella profusa (10.4), and others. Also Propionibacterium acidifaciens (7.2) and Streptococcus mutans (5.2) were overabundant in caries lesions. Conclusions The healthy microbiome was highly diverse. The advanced caries microbiome was dominated by a set of carious associated bacteria where S. mutans played only a minor role. Smoking and fluoride intake during childhood influenced the microbiome composition significantly. Clinical significance The presented investigation adds knowledge to the still not fully comprehended patterns of oral microbiomes in caries compared with oral health. By analysing the genetics of biofilm samples from oral health and severe tooth decay we found distinct discriminating species which could be targets for future therapeutic approaches.


The purpose of a critical appraisal of the various hypotheses concerned with the mechanism of supersensitivity to sympathomimetic amines is not so much to belabor the negative aspect (that none of them can, at the present time, provide a full explanation) but rather to emphasize the pressing need for the recognition that this field is much more complicated than is generally realized. The main complications may be enumerated as follows:

1) The mechanism responsible for the termination of the biologically active life of injected or released norepinephrine is not known. Present evidence indicates that neither catechol-O-methyl transferase nor monoamine oxidase is involved; a binding process, a carrier mechanism, a storage process, or diffusion seems to be responsible.

2) The exact mechanism of action of indirectly acting (tyramine-like) substances remains a field of some justified disagreement. The evidence for actual displacement of the transmitter by the nontransmitter sympathomimetic amines with indirect actions has become increasingly, but not yet fully, convincing.

3) The concept that the norepinephrine stores of the tissue consist of only one uniform compartment must be abandoned in favor of the view that the stores consist of at least two (and possibly more) compartments of different size and different physiological and pharmacological importance. There is an urgent need for a proper definition of these compartments and for methods which will permit measurement of their norepinephrine contents individually. The usefulness of measurements of total norepinephrine content of tissues is questionable in the absence of detailed knowledge about the distribution of norepinephrine within the different compartments.

4) Supersensitivity should not be regarded as a simple phenomenon. As far as organs with adrenergic innervation are concerned, it should be recognized that decentralization supersensitivity is quite different from the type of supersensitivity observed after the administration of cocaine. Furthermore, it should be recognized that denervation supersensitivity is apparently a combination of both these types of supersensitivity. If, in fact, there are different types of supersensitivity, then entirely different mechanisms may be involved.

5) Any study concerned with supersensitivity should take into account the striking differences between sympathomimetic amines of closely related chemical structure. Any comprehensive theory of supersensitivity should also furnish an explanation for these differences. Comparative, quantitative studies of the pharmacology of such closely related compounds may be very helpful in elucidating the mechanisms involved in the development of supersensitivity.

6) It should be borne in mind that any well-established correlation does not necessarily indicate a causal relationship. For example, it has been found that the administration of cocaine delays the disappearance of injected norepinephrine from the circulation and that the resultant increase in the plasma level of norepinephrine has been correlated significantly with the increased response of the blood pressure to the injection of norepinephrine (143a). It is tempting to speculate that this supersensitivity is the consequence of the increase in the plasma concentration of norepinephrine. However, there are three serious objections to this view: (a) this observation fails to explain why the administration of cocaine increases the sensitivity of the cardiovascular system to norepinephrine by a factor of about 5 but increases that of the nictitating membrane by a factor of about 50 (60); (b) prolonged pretreatment with reserpine also causes supersensitivity to norepinephrine, but fails to produce such an increase in norepinephrine plasma levels (152); (c) if the norepinephrine plasma level were determining importance, then the administration of cocaine should cause further increase in sensitivity of the already supersensitive denervated nictitating membrane; this is contrary to the experimental evidence which indicates that cocaine is unable to cause further sensitization beyond that already achieved by denervation (87). It is quite possible that the increased norepinephrine plasma level is the consequence of the impairment of the mechanism responsible for the uptake of norepinephrine into the tissue stores (or into one specific compartment of these stores), while a second and completely different action of cocaine responsible for the phenomenon of supersensitivity. If it is assumed that cocaine prevents the uptake of sympathomimetic amines into the tissue (or a compartment of the store) by an action on the membrane of the postganglionic nerve terminal ( i.e. , a presynaptic site of action), then it is not unreasonable to assume that cocaine in a similar concentration is also able to affect the postsynaptic membrane in such a manner that supersensitivity results.

7) There is growing evidence for the view that many of the compounds considered in this review have multiple sites of action. This is by no means astonishing, since the "master key," norepinephrine, must fit all of the following receptor-like sites: the postulated carrier mechanism responsible for uptake into the stores (or compartments of stores), the binding site inside the stores, the postulated less specific binding sites outside the actual stores, catechol-O-methyl transferase, monoamine oxidase, and the alpha- and beta-receptors. Any substance capable of fitting into one of these sites should be suspected of fitting into one, or some, or all of the others. This would account for the large variety substances recently described to interfere with the storage, the release, or the action of norepinephrine.

8) Several years ago, presynaptic adrenergic nerve endings were generally believed to have only one function: to release norepinephrine in response to the arrival of a nerve impulse. When Burn (24) first advanced the idea that nerve terminals might also function as a site for uptake of sympathomimetic amines, the suggestion failed to find the proper receptor. During recent years this situation has changed markedly; in fact, it has changed to such a degree that it now seems necessary to point out that postsynaptic events are in danger of being neglected. Recent discussions about the mechanism of supersensitivity have dealt almost exclusively with hypotheses concerned with presynaptic events. this connection, it may be worthwhile to point out that supersensitivity skeletal muscle has clearly been demonstrated to be a postsynaptic event: after degeneration of the motor fiber the acetylcholine-sensitive area (which normally is restricted to the endplate region) extends until it covers the whole the postsynaptic (muscle) membrane (9, 10, 48, 100, 101). Smooth muscle has no obvious equivalent of the endplate region, and norepinephrine receptors may be more or less uniformly distributed over the cell membrane. Nevertheless, supersensitivity of smooth muscle might be visualized as the consequence of an increase in the number of receptors (in analogy to skeletal muscle). As a result of such an increase in the density of the receptor population, one would expect to obtain a uniform type of supersensitivity such as is actually observed after decentralization. Moreover, the time element involved in the development of decentralization supersensitivity in the nictitating membrane (69) resembles closely the time course of the development of denervation supersensitivity in skeletal muscle (48). Finally, just as a pharmacological interruption of the pathway to the endplate (by the administration of botulinum toxin) is enough to produce this type of supersensitivity in skeletal muscle (134), so also are various pharmacological procedures (all resulting in prolonged interruption of the pathway between the center and the end organ) capable of producing the decentralization-type of supersensitivity in the nictitating membrane. Hence, if supersensitivity in smooth muscle is due to a general increase in receptors, as appears to be the case in skeletal muscle, one could account for at least the decentralization-type of supersensitivity On a postsynaptic base. This is, of course, pure speculation; it has been claimed, to the contrary, that denervation of the iris results in a reduction of the number of receptors (155). But such considerations serve to point out that our intense interest in presynaptic events should not lead to the tacit assumption that postsynaptic events can safely be excluded. It is hoped that electrophysiological studies will help to classify the relative importance of these two possibilities.


Production of oriental melon (Cucumis melo var. makuwa) in Asia is often limited by two potyviruses, the watermelon infecting type of Papaya ringspot virus (PRSV W) and Zucchini yellow mosaic virus (ZYMV). In order to engineer transgenic resistance to these two viruses, an untranslatable chimeric DNA comprising partial coat protein (CP) sequences of ZYMV and PRSV W was constructed and used to transform the elite cultivar of oriental melon, Silver Light, by Agrobacterium. Greenhouse evaluation by mechanical challenges with ZYMV and PRSV W, alone or together, identified transgenic lines exhibiting different levels of resistance or complete immunity to ZYMV and PRSV W. Molecular analyses of transgenic lines revealed random insertion of transgene into the host genome, with insert numbers differing among transformants. There was no correlation between transgene insert numbers and the degree of resistance expressed by transgenic lines. The levels of accumulation of transgene transcript varied among transgenic lines. However, an inverse correlation was observed between the level of accumulation of transgene transcripts and the degree of virus resistance. Moreover, small interfering (si)RNA was readily detected from the immune and highly resistant lines, but not from the weakly resistant and susceptible lines. Altogether, our results indicated that RNA-mediated post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) was the underlying mechanism of double-virus resistance of the transgenic melon lines. The segregation analysis of the R1 progeny of the immune line ZW-1 indicated that the single inserted transgene is associated with the resistance phenotype and is inherited as a dominant trait. These transgenic melon lines with high degrees of resistance to ZYMV and PRSV W have great potential for the control of ZYMV and PRSV W in C. melo in Asia and elsewhere.


ABSTRACT Valentini, N.; Balouin, Y., and Bouvier, C., 2020. Exploiting the capabilities of Surfcam for coastal morphodynamic analysis. In: Malvárez, G. and Navas, F. (eds.), Global Coastal Issues of 2020. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 95, pp. 1333–1338. Seville (Spain), ISSN 0749-0208. A free webcam network is used in this study, operated by ©Viewsurf, a European company with more than 1200 stations in France, among beaches, urban and mountain areas in order to assess the capabilities of surfcam for coastal morphodynamics analysis. Four representative coastal sites, with different tidal range and wave energy are monitored in order to extract optical signatures for morphodynamic analysis: three in the Atlantic and a gravel beach in the Mediterranean area. A representative site is here documented, Hendaye beach, which is characterized by a meso-tidal environment, with highly energetic waves often present, which makes the image processing challenging. Shoreline detections for beach width and intertidal area calculation are accomplished by using a new image segmentation algorithm, based on a framework, derived by opportunely coupling a superpixels algorithm and a Deep-Conditional-Neural-Network DCNN model. Aiming to exploit the capabilities of cBathy algorithm (Holman, Plant, and Holland, 2013), a version of the open-source methodology (https://coastal-imaging-research-network.github.io), is employed for bathymetry reconstruction. A coupled bathymetry by merging cBathy depth estimate and intertidal reconstructed depth from automatically extracted shorelines is accomplished, which is compared with survey and lead to an RMS error of 0.43 m. Discussions are given with respect to this new potential open-source resource and its limitations.


Background Therapeutics generate non-specific effects (the placebo effect), and specific ones, like the 5 tumour necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors used in the treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). Few abstracts deal with the placebo effect. Its role in clinical responses to treatments has not been clearly accounted for. A systematic review must henceforth be conducted to appraise its rate in TNF-blockers treatments. This rate seems quite important in the first 3 months of treatment. Objectives The aim of this study was to estimate the placebo effect in ACR 20, 50 and 70 responders in patients suffering from RA and being treated by TNF-blockers after MTX failure. Methods A systematic literature review was conducted using PubMed, Embase and Cochrane library databases. The articles selected till March 2013 reported on double-blind RCTs of TNF-blockers versus placebo with patients receiving concomitant MTX. These patients, suffering from RA according to ACR 1987 criteria, were naive of biotherapies. MTX therapy with a minimum dosage of 10 mg/week had proved unsuccessful for at least 6 months. The data collected dealt with RA patients and the rates of ACR 20, 50 and 70 responders in each group at week 24. A meta-analysis was conducted using Methodomics for global responders, each molecule and injection method. Results Twenty-two RCTs out of 1,386 were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis: 6 studied infliximab, 5 etanercept, 4 adalimumab, 3 certolizumab, and 4 golimumab. ACR 20 responses at W24 were available in 13 RCTs. The placebo effect was 24.70% on the whole (IC95% [0.192;0.301] p=0) with significant statistical results for adalimumab: 26.70% (IC95% [0.161;0.373] p=0.001), certolizumab: 16.40% (IC95% [0.068;0.26] p=0), infliximab: 31.90% (IC95% [0.154;0.485] p=0.001). The subgroup analysis concerning the injection method showed 31.90% vs. 23.30% for the IV route (IC95% [0.154;0.485] p=0.001). The ACR 50 non-specific response at W24 was 10.90% (IC95% [0.074;0.144] p=0) for the 14 RCTs. It was only significant for adalimumab, estimated at 15.40% (IC95% [0.026;0.281] p=0). It was not increased by the IV relative to the SC routes. The ACR 70 placebo effect response at W24 was estimated at 3.40% (IC95% [0.019;0.049] p=0) in 13 studies. No result was statistically significant. The more the ACR criteria were stringent, the more the placebo effect decreased. Heterogeneity was important due to both MTX and TNF-blockers different dosages and administration frequencies. The rates were analysed by the random model. Conclusions Even if RCTs showed that TNF-blockers were more efficient than MTX alone, this meta-analysis shows that the non-specific effect must be taken into account. It is estimated at about 20% even if patients are in failure with the treatment. Adalimumab, certolizumab and infliximab rose above others in placebo effect responses, as well as for the IV route. This placebo effect seems to decrease with strict evaluation criteria. It would be interesting to better consider its role in clinical responses aspects and to take into account the cost margin. Disclosure of Interest None declared


Phytophthora ramorum Werres, De Cock & Man in't Veld, causal agent of sudden oak death (SOD) and ramorum blight, has been detected in container-grown plants, soil and irrigation ponds in various United States' nurseries. Phytophthora ramorum has also been detected in runoff water from some nurseries and adjoining streams. Despite emergency regulatory actions, there is concern that P. ramorum infected nursery stock may further spread the disease in the United States of America (USA), particularly to previously unaffected wildlands. If established in the south-eastern USA, it could cause damage similar to that occurring in the coastal forests of California and Oregon. To develop solutions for nurseries that trade plants susceptible to P. ramorum, a quarantine nursery was established in Marin County, California, to investigate pathogen eradication and disease management. More than four years of collaborative efforts between the California Department of Food and Agriculture, California county Agriculture Commissioners, the California Oak Mortality Task Force, US National Plant Board, United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Plant Protection and Quarantine and nursery industry resulted in locating a suitable site for developing the National Ornamentals Research Site (NORS) at the Dominican University of California (DUC). Funding to set-up and run the research nursery was awarded in 2008 through congressionally approved, Farm-bill (Section 10201) funding. The site is designed to perform research on quarantine pests and pathogens while safeguarding plant health and the surrounding natural environment. Research initiatives on P. ramorum have commenced at the NORS-DUC. Research grants are awarded to undertake research at the NORS-DUC and proposals can be submitted through www.dominican.edu/norsduc. † Based on a paper presented at the fifth meeting of the IUFRO working party S07-02-09, Phytophthora Diseases in Forests and Natural Ecosystems, 7 – 12 March 2010, Auckland and Rotorua, New Zealand.


We investigated how covert narcissism influences depression through shame-focused coping strategies, and tested the moderating effect of self-compassion in this mediating link. Participants were 316 Chinese international students living in South Korea who completed a battery of measures, including the Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale, the Compass of Shame Scale, the depression items of the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised, and the Chinese Self-Compassion Scale. We found an association between covert narcissism and depression, and this link was mediated by the shame-focused coping strategies of attack self and withdrawal. Further, self-compassion had a significant moderating effect in the relationship between covert narcissism and the coping strategies of attack self or withdrawal. These findings support a moderated mediation model in which self-compassion buffered the relationship between covert narcissism and depression by mediating the link between covert narcissism and the attack self and withdrawal coping strategies. Our findings may be useful for understanding and helping individuals who have a high level of covert narcissism.


An intermediate representation for behavioral and structural designs that is based on annotated state tables is described. It facilitates user control of the synthesis process by allowing specification of partially designed structures, and a mixture of behavior, structure, and user specified bindings between the abstract behavior and the structure. The format's general model allows the capture of synchronous and asynchronous behavior, and permits hierarchical descriptions with concurrency. The format is easily translated to VHDL for simulation at each stage of the design process. It therefore complements a good simulation language (VHDL) by providing an excellent input path for behavioral and register-transfer synthesis. The format's simple and uniform syntax allows it to be used both as an intermediate exchange format for various behavioral synthesis tools, and as a graphical tabular interface for the user, thereby allowing a natural medium for automatic or manual refinement of the design.<<ETX>>


There has been a dramatic rise in public, and particularly the media, attention directed at concerns regarding childhood obesity, and body shape/contents/images more broadly. Yet amidst the torrential call for increased attention on so-called "body epidemics" amongst youth in Canada and elsewhere, links between youth masculinities and bodily health (or simply, appearance) are largely unquestioned. Whilst there is a well-established literature on the relationship between, for example, body image and marginalized femininities, qualitative studies regarding boys and their body images (and how they are influenced within school settings) remain few and far between. In this paper, we offer insight into the dangerous and unsettled spaces of high school locker-rooms and other "gym zones" as contexts in which particular boys face ritual (and indeed, systematic) bullying and humiliation because their bodies (and their male selves) simply do not "measure up." We draw on education, masculinities, health, and the sociology of bodies literature to examine how masculinity is policed by boys within gym settings as part of formal/informal institutional regimes of biopedagogy. Here, Foucault's (1967) notion of heterotopia is drawn heavily upon in order to contextualize physical education class as a negotiated and resisted liminal zone for young boys on the fringes of accepted masculinities in school spaces.


Complex new technologies are frequently added to the palate of modern cardiac care, and numerous potential technologies are poised for patient availability upon successful clinical trials. Some cardiac implants, while thoroughly understood by many cardiologists and most cardiac surgeons, are poorly understood by prehospital (e.g., paramedic, emergency medical technician) and emergency department care providers (e.g., physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists), potentially facilitating improper or inadequate patient care. Exploring the technologies of coronary stents, left ventricular assist devices, and the currently experimental total artificial heart, it is offered that prehospital and emergency department care providers (and ultimately their patients) would benefit by formal training regarding these devices.


Three-dimensional molecular dynamics simulations are performed to investigate the AFM-based nanometric cutting process of single crystal copper. The effects of cutting velocities (180, 360, and720 m/s) on the cutting force, the ratio of the thrust force and cutting force and subsurface layers. The results show that the dislocations nucleate beneath the tool, and propagate along the [-11-1] direction in the (111) plane. The effects of the nanocutting action from the tool on the subsurface damaged layers decrease gradually as the distance from the tool tip increases. With the increasing cutting speed, the cutting forces increase accordingly. However, the ratio of the the ratio the thrust force and cutting force decrease as the cutting speeds increase. With the proceeding of the cutting process, that tends to the same on the whole.


Dynamical systems theory can significantly contribute to the understanding and control of fluid flows. Fluid dynamical systems are governed by the Navier-Stokes equations, which are continuous in both time and space, resulting in a state space of infinite dimension. To incorporate tools from systems theory it has become common practise to approximate the infinite-dimensional system by a finite-dimensional lumped system. Current techniques for this reduction step are data driven and produce models which are sensitive to the simulation or experimental conditions. This dissertation proposes a rigorous and practical methodology for the derivation of accurate finite-dimensional approximations and output feedback controllers directly from the governing equations. The approach combines state-space discretisation of the linearised Navier-Stokes equations with balanced truncation to design experimentally feasible low-order controllers. The approximation techniques can be used to design any suitable linear controller. In this study the reduced-order controllers are designed within an H2 optimal control framework to account for external disturbances and measurement noise. Application is focused on control of laminar wall-bounded shear flows to delay the classical transition process initially governed by two-dimensional convective perturbations, to extend laminar flow and reduce skin friction drag. The controllers are successfully tested in the vertical wind tunnel at the TU Delft.


In the communication by Kurita et al 2007 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 19 152101, peaks in the liquid diffraction pattern of triphenyl phosphite have been attributed to intermolecular phosphor–phosphor distances. Based on our previous neutron and x-ray diffraction studies we argue that this assignment is incorrect and the peak contributions are likely to be much more complex.


The HIV/AIDS Policy & Law Review recently carried a feature article recounting the spread of problematic new HIV laws in west and central Africa. It outlined less-than-model approaches in the AWARE-HIV/AIDS "model" law and described how its provisions had been replicated in many national HIV laws. At the time of writing that article, eight national HIV laws had been passed in the region. Since that date, the rush to legislate HIV in west and central Africa in ways that do not accord with human rights law or policy has continued unabated.


Young people have a high prevalence of mental health problems, yet tend not to seek help. Trusted adults in young people's lives, such as teachers and sports coaches, can make a major positive contribution to the mental health of young people. Teachers and sports coaches may be in a position to be effective in supporting young people's mental health through promotion, prevention and early intervention. This study reports findings from interviews with 21 teachers and 13 sports coaches of young people aged 12 to 18 in Canberra, Australia, regarding their perceptions of the relevance and effectiveness of their role in supporting young people's mental health. Both teachers and coaches perceived having influential but slightly different roles to play in supporting mental health. There may be potential to elevate the influence of teachers and coaches as sources of support for young people and their mental health care. Keywords—Early intervention, mental health promotion, coaches, teachers, young people


Editors-in-Chief: Geetam Tiwari, Transport Research and Injury Prevention Programme, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India Samuel N. Forjuoh, Department of Family & Community Medicine, Texas A&M HSC College of Medicine, Scott & White Santa Fe, Century Square, 1402, West Avenue H, Temple, TX 76504-5342 USA Shrikant I. Bangdiwala, Department of Biostatistics, Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center, University of North Carolina, 137 E Franklin Street, Suite 203, Chapel Hill NC 27514-4145 USA


The plastic deformation of polycrystalline Cu with ultrathin lamella twins has been studied using molecular dynamics simulations. The results of uniaxial tensile deformation simulation show that the abundance of twin boundaries provides obstacles to dislocation motion, which in consequence leads to a high strain hardening rate in the nanotwinned Cu. We also show that the twin lamellar spacing plays a vital role in controlling the strengthening effects, i.e., the thinner the thickness of the twin lamella, the harder the material. Additionally, twin boundaries can act as dislocation nucleation sites as they gradually lose coherency at large strain. These results indicate that controlled introduction of nanosized twins into metals can be an effective way of improving strength without suppression tensile ductility. © 2007 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.2794884


In Tagalog, an argument that is in narrow focus can be fronted
 to the clause initial position, deviating from the default verb-initial word
 order. This so-called ang-inversion has been claimed to be
 obligatory (Nagaya, 2007) or at least
 the go-to strategy (Kaufman, 2005) of
 encoding narrow focus. There is, however, an alternative that has so far
 received little attention in the literature: reversed
 ang-inversion. Structurally, this construction can be
 understood as the result of combining two inversion constructions:
 ang-inversion and ay-inversion. As a
 consequence, the focal constituent appears at the end of the sentence rather
 than at the beginning.
 This article presents spoken data elicited during field work as
 well as written data on reversed ang-inversion. Comparing the
 use of regular and reversed ang-inversion indicates that
 discourse-structural considerations play an important role in construction
 choice between the two.


The medium-range atomic structure of magnesium and barium aluminosilicate glasses doped with Gd2O3 as a model rare earth oxide is elucidated using molecular dynamics simulations. Our structure models rationalize the strong dependence of the luminescence properties of the glasses on their chemical composition. The simulation procedure used samples' atomic configurations, the so-called inherent structures, characterizing configurations of the liquid state slightly above the glass transition temperature. This yields medium-range atomic structures of network former and modifier ions in good agreement with structure predictions using standard simulated annealing procedures. However, the generation of a large set of inherent structures allows a statistical sampling of the medium-range order of Gd3+ ions with less computational effort compared to the simulated annealing approach. It is found that the number of Si-bound non-bridging oxygen in the vicinity of Gd3+ considerably increases with growing ionic radius and concentration of network-modifier ions. In addition, structure predictions indicate a low driving force for clustering of Gd3+, yet no precise correlation between the atomic structure and luminescence lifetimes can be conclusively established. However, the structure models provided in this study can serve as a starting point for future quantum mechanical simulations to shed a light on the relation between the atomic structure and optical properties of rare earth doped aluminosilicate glasses.


The demand-side control and data acquisition capabilities of two-way power line carrier load management systems enhance and complement the Supervisory Control and Energy Management (supply-side) operations. Many utilities now recognize that the supply-side and demand-side functions should be integrated into one system and placed under control of the same operator. This paper discusses the hardware and firmware which is required for system integration and illustrates some alternative methods used to achieve full system integration.


In this paper, we present a novel system for facilitating the creation of stylized view‐dependent 3D animation. Our system harnesses the skill and intuition of a traditionally trained animator by providing a convivial sketch based 2D to 3D interface. A base mesh model of the character can be modified to match closely to an input sketch, with minimal user interaction. To do this, we recover the best camera from the intended view direction in the sketch using robust computer vision techniques. This aligns the mesh model with the sketch. We then deform the 3D character in two stages ‐ first we reconstruct the best matching skeletal pose from the sketch and then we deform the mesh geometry. We introduce techniques to incorporate deformations in the view‐dependent setting. This allows us to set up view‐dependent models for animation.


The self-controlled case series method (SCCSM) is a novel study design to investigate associations between acute responses with transient point exposures (for example vaccination). The method provides an attractive alternative to cohort and case-control designs. The method is unusual in that it requires data only on individuals who experience a response (the 'cases'). The method works as follows. Prior to the study a post-exposure risk period is defined, which corresponds to the period in which responses causally related to exposure are likely to occur. An observation period is also defined, and individuals with responses arising within this observation period are sampled. The data are then analysed using a Poisson model, conditional on the total number of events occurring for each individual. This conditioning ensures that including only cases does not bias the relative risk estimator.

The self-controlled case series method has been used to good effect in many settings, particularly in investigating putative associations between adverse events and paediatric vaccines. However, so far only limited research has been undertaken on the statistical properties of the method in finite samples, and virtually no work has been undertaken on design issues. The method also needs to be extended in various directions, for example application in surveillance methods.

This thesis provides detailed investigations of these topics. To this end, expressions for the asymptotic bias, variance and mean square error of the log-relative incidence are derived. Simulation studies taking account of age are carried out to study small and medium sample performance. Sample size formulae are obtained and validated via simulations, thus improving the design of self-controlled case series studies. The method is extended to applications in surveillance and simulation studies are conducted to evaluate this use of the method. The methods are illustrated using data on intussusception and oral polio vaccine.


The aim of this study was to investigate the difference between the effect of using traditional teaching instruction and using iPad to teach math for first grade students. This study was conducted in one private elementary school in Jordan. The study used a quasi-experimental control design. Students have access to a few math software and websites that was downloaded to improve their math skills. Every student in the experimental group will have a personal iPad to be used during their math class period. Both groups will be given a pre-test and a post-test to measure their achievements in math. The motive for this research was encouraging teachers and students to use iPad for educational purpose instead of use it most of the time for fun and games. it a helpful tool to be used as part of the mathematic learning process. Also, there are many software and internet sites that can be downloading in the iPadt to improve students' math skills.
Index Terms — math, tablet, e-textbook, e-learning, education, educational technology.


: There were 300 admissions to the Cook Hospital with rheumatic fever in 1958-83. During 1958-73 oral penicillin was used for secondary prophylaxis and 77 (35%) of 223 admissions were recurrences. From 1974-83 when parenteral benzathine penicillin was increasingly used there were 77 admissions of which 14 (18%) were readmissions. An effective programme of secondary prophylaxis using benzathine penicillin and co-ordination of hospital and community health services is outlined. One hundred and eight patients with a first attack of rheumatic fever were seen in 1968-82. The chance of a recurrence in patients in whom oral prophylaxis was instituted was 15% two years after the initial attack and 35% after six years. Institution of parenteral prophylaxis significantly reduced the risk of recurrence (p = 0.0009) which was 2% six years after the first attack.


Fifty-six mature Polypay ewes were used in two experiments to examine the effects of feeding a high-grain diet at a restricted intake on milk production and composition, lamb performance and out-of-season breeding. Ewes were fed either a high-grain diet (85% concentrate and 15% forage) or a high-forage diet. The high-forage diets were 68% forage and 32% concentrate in Experiment 1 and 80% forage and 20% concentrate in Experiment 2. Forage forage and 20% concentrate in Experiment 2. Forage source was orchardgrass hay (Experiment 1) or alfalfa cubes (Experiment 2). Feed intake of the high-grain diet was restricted by 20% (compared with ewes fed high forage) so that intake of energy was similar for both dietary groups. Daily milk production was 19% higher (P < .05) in Exp. 1 and 8% higher (P < .10) in Exp. 2 for ewes fed high grain than for those fed high forage (2.71 vs 2.28 kg/d and 3.18 vs 2.95 kg/d in Exp. 1 and 2, respectively). Milk protein percentage and daily amount of milk protein were higher (P < .05) and the percentage of milk fat was lower (P < .03) for ewes fed the high-grain diet than for those fed the high-forage diet. Diet did not affect milk fat production (grams/day) or lamb growth rate. In both experiments blood insulin concentration was higher for ewes fed the high-grain diet than for those fed the high-forage diet; however, no improvements in reproductive performance were observed. Limit feeding high-grain diets is an effective alternative to forage for lactating ewes.


We consider the problem of maximizing the multicast lifetime in multihop wireless networks in which each node is static and has limited energy, bandwidth, memory, and computation capabilities. Unlike most multicast algorithms that use centralized greedy algorithms, our algorithm can construct a global optimal maximum lifetime multicast tree in a distributed manner. It has a low complexity of O(λu) for both memory and computation requirements at each node u, where λu is the degree of node u. The simulation results have shown that it has an expected linear communication complexity under different network sizes and multicast group sizes. This means that our distributed algorithm is also scalable in terms of communication overhead and it is very useful for large-scale energy and bandwidth constrained multihop wireless networks like sensor networks.


A program of research named Towards an Integrative Biology (TAIB) has recently been promoted by the International Union of Biological Sciences, involving multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research. Studies of Miscanthus plants which emphasized the TAIB theme were undertaken. Miscanthus species are the most widely distributed and dominant species in Taiwan, growing everywhere from the coastal to mountainous areas, and from agricultural to polluted land. Particularly, the grasses grow well in habitats under environmental stresses. Physiological and genetic adaptations are fundamental mechanisms for these grasses' survival in stressful environments. Findings based on field measurements and laboratory analyses were able to elucidate some of the mechanisms of grasses adapted to stressful environments. Adaptive radiation occurred when most niches were open during the postglacial periods. Particularly, population discontinuity of the grasses was found on the Orchid and Green islets of Taiwan. Likewise, Miscanthus sinensis var. glaber and var. formosanus occupied lands from low to middle elevations of Taiwan, while Miscanthus transmorrisonensis appeared in the highlands above 2400 m. Phylogenetically, Miscanthus has evolved into various ecotypes, varieties and species in Taiwan as well as in other parts of Asia. The grass then evolved into Miscanthus floridulus, M. sinensis var. formosanus, Miscanthus flavidus, then to M. transmorrisonensis. Furthermore, the phylogeny of the Miscanthus sinensis complex of Taiwan was reconstructed by cladistic analysis on nucleotide sequences of nuclear ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacers (nrDNA ITS) region and atpB-rbcL non-coding spacer of the chloroplast DNA. Rooted at M. floridulus the monophyly of M. sineneis was significantly supported by molecular evidence. The origin of this complex could be dated to the last glacial withdrawal about 20 000 years ago.


This book presents an overview of developments in social choice theory and welfare economics, drawn from the proceedings of the eighth conference in the International Symposia in Economic Theory and Econometrics series under the general editorship of William Barnett. The volume is divided into four parts, each exploring broad themes in social choice theory and welfare economics. First, an overview of the short, yet intense, period of the subject's historical development. Second, a discussion of the ethical aspects of social choice, encompassing such issues as equal opportunity, individual rights, and population monotonicity. Third, a study of the algebraic and combinatorial aspects of social choice theory. The final section is devoted to a study of aggregation with risk aversion to current and future variables, and the creation of an intertemporal framework to go beyond the usual static description of income distributions measured over a short period.


The development of advanced coronary atherosclerosis was studied in the FHC swine. This model exhibits spontaneous elevations in plasma cholesterol, LDL, and apo B while fed a low-cholesterol, low-fat diet. Hypercholesterolemic animals bearing the apo B genotypes Lpb2/3, 3/3, 3/5, 5/5 and 3/8 developed stenotic coronary lesions containing necrotic cores, fibrous caps, calcification, neovascularization, hemorrhage, and fissuring. Myocardial infarction and myocardial ischemia were also observed. The complicated atherosclerotic plaques observed in this swine model closely resemble advanced coronary artery disease (CAD) found in humans. While coronary atherosclerosis was not observed in the absence of hypercholesterolemia, neither the apo B genotype nor the level of hypercholesterolemia was found to predict the extent of lesion formation. Similar to the case in humans, the familial dyslipidemia associated with the development of CAD in the FHC swine appears to be polygenic.


Many plant-associated bacteria produce and utilize diffusible N-acyl-homoserine lactones (AHLs) to regulate the expression of specific bacterial genes and operons. AHL-mediated regulation utilizes two genes that encode proteins similar to the LuxI/LuxR system originally studied in the marine symbiont Vibrio fischeri. The LuxI-type proteins are AHL synthases that assemble the diffusible AHL signal. The LuxR-type proteins are AHL-responsive transcriptional regulatory proteins. LuxR proteins control the transcription of specific bacterial genes in response to the levels of AHL signal. To date, AHL-mediated gene regulation has been identified in a broad range of gram-negative bacteria, most of which are host-associated. However, it seems unlikely that such a widely conserved regulatory mechanism would be limited only to host-microbe interactions. These signals probably play central roles in ecological interactions among organisms in microbial communities by affecting communication among bacterial populations as well as between bacterial populations and their eukaryotic hosts.


Quali tative modeling of technical processes may be accomplished by dynamic fuzzy systems. A new inference method with interpolating rules is proposed as an essential basis for the analysis of this class of systems. Using this approach, the system output is dependent on both an interpolating rule derived from the fuzzy input and the fuzzy input itself. A simple example shows the typical behavior of such dynamic fuzzy systems and leads to a stability definition.


I was fascinated to read the case report by SenguptaGiridharan et al. on a patient with a long-term eating disorder, Bartter's syndrome and pregnancy, particularly as I care for a young woman with Gitelman's syndrome who is planning a pregnancy in the near future. I did, however, have two concerns related to their paper. The first related to their reliance on urinary sodium values to make the diagnosis of Bartter's syndrome as the cause of hypokalaemic alkalosis with hyperreninaemic hyperaldosteronism without hypertension. I would be grateful if they would consider answering the following queries: 1 Was urinary chloride excretion measured to differentiate between hypokalaemic alkalosis due to vomiting (low urine chloride) and Bartter's syndrome (high urine chloride)? 2 Was 24 h urine calcium excretion measured to differentiate between the more common Gitelman's (low urine calcium) and Bartter's syndromes (high urine calcium)? This would need to take into consideration the approximate 30% rise in calcium excretion in pregnancy. 3 Was genetic testing performed to confirm the diagnosis and determine the subtype of potassium tubulopathy? My second concern related to their attributing a cervical spine fracture solely to underlying osteoporosis. Conventional teaching has been that osteoporosis alone is not associated with fractures above the level of the fourth thoracic vertebra. Was there any history of neck trauma in their patient, and was computed axial tomography or magnetic resonance imaging performed to exclude other pathology such as tumour or infection?


The effect of Sr on the microstructures and mechanical properties of Al-20 wt% Si alloys were investigated. The results show that with increasing of the Sr content, the primary silicon firstly changes from polygonal block or large plate to small block, then to large polygonal block, and a large number of honeycomb-like on the primary silicon block. The eutectic silicon firstly changes into a fine start with a long needle-like fibrous or branched further to a short stubby dendrite or worm-like, continuously columnar dendrite α of quantity increase. In addition, with increasing the Sr content, the elongation of alloy increases, but there are ups and downs, the tensile strength changes little after the first sharp increases in hardness is parabola. When the Sr content is between 0.04 wt% and 0.06 wt%, the morphology and mechanical properties is the most ideal.


Asthma is a complex and highly heterogeneous disorder, having many clinical phenotypes and underlining
mechanisms, a broad spectrum of severity and variable response to controller therapy. Intensive research has been focused
on identification and validation of the most appropriate biomarkers in the clinical management of asthma, mostly addressed
to severe and refractory cases. The use of reliable biomarkers in severe asthma can contribute to better understanding of
disease biology, diagnosis and screening, by a refined characterization of particular phenotypes and endotypes, assessment
of severity, control and prognosis. There is an increasing interest to validate biomarkers able to indicate the adequate
therapeutic choice from the class of biological agents, most of them targeting T2 inflammation. Using a reliable and
validated biomarker, the clinician can monitor the response to initial therapy and early identify a severe phenotype. The aim
of this paper is to review the clinical utility of relevant biomarkers currently used in asthma management. Indication for a
more advanced and efficient therapy, such as monoclonal antibodies and selection of the optimal molecule is based on
biomarkers and clinical criteria, according to the most recent experts' recommendations. Peripheral blood eosinophils is
considered an important biomarker for selection and identification of responders to anti-eosinophil biological therapy. Reallife long-term studies to confirm the precise use and cutoffs of the already approved biomarkers for T2 phenotypes and to
identify reliable biomarkers for non- T2 severe asthma are still unmet needs in asthma management.


Building on existing theories of fertility dynamics, this article provides a theoretical perspective that connects two recent strands of the literature. The first concerns gender equity and equality where institutions play a critical role. The second is that subjective well-being matters in explaining childbearing behaviour (and vice versa). Our key argument is that subjective well-being is a direct function of the discrepancy between aspirations and attainment, here interpreted as a potential mismatch between gender equity and equality. As aspirations change over time, discrepancy arises in so far institutions are unable to follow suit with new emerging preferences. This lowers subjective well-being associated with childbearing, and hence leads to lower levels of fertility. Our empirical analysis is based on the European Social Survey, and although taking an indirect approach, we provide support for this idea. Fertility and happiness are higher where institutions appear to have adapted to women's new preferences and aspirations, which is further supported by strong gender differences in happiness associated with parenthood. Fathers are always happier than non-fathers—no matter the circumstances of the country where they reside—whereas mothers are happier only when relevant institutions are in place.


Cardiovascular diseases continue to be a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Cardiomyocytes, as the elementary heart components, play a crucial role in maintaining a healthy heart by coordinating contractions throughout the heart muscle that lead to a heartbeat. This study aims to characterize fine-grained ionic-level manipulation of cardiomyocytes for the controlled electrical activity that will offer new insights within the medical field. We explore the concept of Molecular Communications (MC) to analyze the propagation of potassium ions in the cardiomyocyte cytosol. By associating the number of the potassium ions in the cytosol with the membrane- and action potentials, we use metrics from the well-known Shannon's information theory to optimize the ionic injection process and manipulate cardiomyocytes electrical activity. In case ON/OFF keying modulation is adopted as the potassium ion injection method, the optimal input distribution in terms of information capacity follows the derived Bernoulli distribution. This study offers underlying concepts that can be exploited in the creation of cardiomyocyte signals either for data communication via cellular infrastructure or heart pacing. The framework presented here needs to be upgraded in the following phases and made more physiologically plausible.


Hippocampal place cells are a model system of how the brain constructs cognitive representations and of how these representations support complex behavior, learning, and memory. There is, however, a lack of detailed knowledge about the properties of hippocampal afferents. We recorded multiple single units from the hippocampus and the medial and lateral entorhinal areas of behaving rats. Although many medial entorhinal neurons had highly specific place fields, lateral entorhinal neurons displayed weak spatial specificity. This finding demonstrates a fundamental dissociation between the information conveyed to the hippocampus by its major input streams, with spatial information represented by the medial and nonspatial information represented by the lateral entorhinal cortex.


The report concerns changes on the concentrate feedstuff market in Poland. The aim of the paper was an analysis of the changes on the feedstuff market in 2000-2014. Problems regarding the usage of row materials in feedstuff production both cereal and with high protein content are included in the report. Furthermore, the amount of produced feedstuff and its structure is also considered. The analysis confirms the substantial development of the production of feedstuff processed. The further development of feedstuff industry comes from the findings.


Automatic detection and classification of lesions in medical images is a desirable goal, with numerous clinical applications. In breast imaging, multiple modalities such as X-ray, ultrasound and MRI are often used in the diagnostic workflow. Training robust classifiers for each modality is challenging due to the typically small size of the available datasets. We propose to use cross-modal transfer learning to improve the robustness of the classifiers. We demonstrate the potential of this approach on a problem of identifying masses in breast MRI images, using a network that was trained on mammography images. Comparison between cross-modal and cross-domain transfer learning showed that the former improved the classification performance, with overall accuracy of 0.93 versus 0.90, while the accuracy of de-novo training was 0.94. Using transfer learning within the medical imaging domain may help to produce standard pre-trained shared models, which can be utilized to solve a variety of specific clinical problems.


We report a case of actinomycosis affecting the buccal mucosa in a patient with systemic lupus erythematosus. A 66-year-old woman with systemic lupus erythematosus presented with a swelling of the lower lip and left cheek. We suspected a salivary gland adenocarcinoma on inspection, palpation, and evaluation of the serum CA19-9 level. Enhanced computed tomography showed the location of the tumor. Other imaging techniques, including magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasonic tomography, were employed to support the clinical diagnosis. We performed a biopsy and histopathologically diagnosed the lesion as actinomycosis. The patient underwent abscess incision several times and received intravenous injections of 3g ABPC daily for 7 days, followed by 400mg of oral ABPC for 4 weeks. There was no sign of recurrence after treatment. Imaging methods were considered useful for the clinical diagnosis of actinomycosis.


Occupational therapy is based on core values of altruism, equality, and honoring the dignity of others. Embedded in these values is the ever-present negotiation of power. To honor the concern for the welfare of others, researchers are challenged to think about issues of power throughout the research process. This paper identifies dilemmas and raises questions researchers might ask themselves as they struggle to share power in the interpretive research process.


We have discovered a high oxide ion conductor within the perovskite-type (Ba1-x-ySrxLay)InO2.5+y/2 solid-solution system. The system was derived from brownmillerite-type Ba2In2O5, which possessed a ordered oxide ion vacancies. When we doped La3+ into the Ba site, the vacancy changed to a disordered state. The oxide ion conductivity increased with the amount of doped La3+, reaching a maximum value of 0.12 (S/cm) at 800 oC in (Ba0.3Sr0.2La0.5)InO2.75, a level exceeding that of yttria-stabilized zirconia. The oxide ion conductivity of this system was strongly dependent on the unit cell free volume, which appears to be the key parameter governing oxide ion mobility.


Human resources are regarded as the most important competitive factor of today organizations. Therefore, the valuable role of staff in organizations and their desirable management are emphasized. In this regard, Purposeful and precise selection of human resource is a key factor in the success of an organization. This research has been carried out in three oil and gas industry-related organizations. Research community includes seven managers in each organization. So total of 21 persons were participated in this research. The purpose of this research is to identify a set of most important and most influential factor affecting human resource selection. The next step is to use multi-criterion techniques, as well as referring to experts, for evaluation and prioritization of these factors. Finally, the finding of research shows that "Professional and personal skills" is the most important factor in human selection and "Personal characteristics" is in the last. Therefore Professional and personal skills is more important for human resource selection. 1 / 5 Volume 8 : Issue 1, March 2018


We present a novel Bayesian model for semi-supervised part-of-speech tagging. Our model extends the Latent Dirichlet Allocation model and incorporates the intuition that words' distributions over tags, p(t|w), are sparse. In addition we introduce a model for determining the set of possible tags of a word which captures important dependencies in the ambiguity classes of words. Our model outperforms the best previously proposed model for this task on a standard dataset.


Introduction: Glaucoma is a common neurodegenerative disease for which current therapies are often insufficient. The purpose of our investigation was to determine whether Oligodendrocyte Precursor Cells (OPCs), a type of neural stem cell, can protect Retinal Ganglion Cells (RGCs) from glaucomatous damage in vivo.

Methods: Intraocular pressure was chronically increased by trabecular laser treatment delivered unilaterally to adult rat eyes. OPCs were isolated in vitro and then transplanted intra vitreally either before, or concurrent with, injury induction.

Results: Transplanted OPCs were found to survive within the eye for at least 12 weeks and to localize close to the RGCs. Moreover, OPCs significantly enhanced the survival of RGCs in the glaucomatous eye, but only when concomitantly activated by inflammation.. Amelioration of RGC death was not attributable to inflammation but relied on an interaction between inflammatory cells and OPCs. Engrafted cells also displayed multipotentiality in vivo.


OBJECTIVE
To compare the results of recording enamel opacities using the TF and modified DDE indices.

DESIGN
Enamel opacities on the maxillary central incisors were recorded two weeks apart. On the first occasion scoring was according to the criteria of the TF index and on the second occasion the modified DDE index was used. An intraoral colour slide photograph was taken of the teeth of each subject and these were scored on two occasions in random order, first using the TF index and secondly using the modified DDE index.

SUBJECTS
Three hundred and twenty-five 9-year-old children who were life time residents in an area where the domestic water was fluoridated at one part per million.

RESULTS
Agreement between clinical and photograph scoring was good for both TF and modified DDE indices, Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficients being 0.77 and 0.69 respectively. There was also good agreement between the distribution of scores for the two indices as indicated by Coefficients of 0.75 for clinical scores and 0.76 for photographic scores.

CONCLUSIONS
There was good agreement between the TF and modified DDE indices when recording the distribution of milder types of enamel opacities in a population of 9-year-old children.


Selenium vapour distribution and consumption during selenization process of Cu-In metallic layers provided in a quasi-closed system with inert gas environment at atmospheric pressure were studied. A model taking into account the four most important mechanisms of Se consumption, namely the creation and maintenance of Se vapour over-pressure, the out-diffusion through open boundaries of quasi-closed system, the drift transport by constant nitrogen flux and chemical reactions with Cu-In metallic layers, is developed to estimate the total amount of selenium required for selenization process. The diffusion mechanism was found to be dominating the selenium consumption for the used reactor design. Calculated values find a good agreement with experimental results from weighing of the Se source material before and after selenization.


Novelist, biographer, proponent of new journalism, and political activist, Norman Mailer was an important force in American literature and culture


In this Article we argue for substantial reforms to our system of combating workplace gender discrimination in light of the Supreme Court's ruling in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes. To help counter discrimination victims' decreasing access to the courts, our proposals call for a narrow construction of the holding of Dukes. At the same time, agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) can better use their regulatory authority to address gender discrimination. Further, regulatory agencies, arbitrators, and courts can mandate mentoring programs to assist employees in overcoming the effects of discrimination and provide a potential pathway for career success.


Introduction: Echinococcus granulosus is a small intestinal tapeworm found in dogs and occasionally in other carnivores. In the literature, information on the incidence of Echinococcus manifestations in the head (noncerebral) and neck region is relatively rare. Purpose: To present a case of an unusual case of echinococcus in the masseter muscle of a young female patient at the Department of Oral and maxillofacial surgery, University Hospital 'St. .Anna', Sofia. Material and Methods: The medical history of 14 years old female patient revealed a painless swelling of the left masseter muscle. Bimanual palpation showed two mobile thick lesions in the left masseter muscle. Pain and neurologic deficits were absent. Salivary flow was normal from the left Stennoni's duct. The patient denied any prior medical problems. All hematologic parameters were within normal limitsno eosinophilia was evident. A computed tomography (CT) scan was obtained, and it showed two, well-defined lesion parasite cysts in the left masseter muscle which were with high degree of calcification. The patient was scheduled to undergo excisional biopsy of the lesion under general anaesthesia. Result: Pathohystological examination showed the presence of the cyst parasite hooklets fully calcificated with characteristic for E. granulosus which were non active lesions (Hematoxylin and eosin stain original magnification _10.) showed absence of scolexes).Conclusion: Although a rare event, echinococcosis must be considered in the differential diagnosis of head and neck tumours.