The association between sodium‐glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2is) and cancer risk is unclear. The objective of this study was to analyze whether a disproportionate number of cases of bladder cancer are reported for SGLT2is in EudraVigilance. A case/noncase study was conducted to assess the association between bladder cancer and SGLT2is, calculating reporting odds ratios (RORs) from November 11, 2012 (approval date for the first SGLT2i, dapagliflozin) to May 19, 2020. First, cases involving SGLT2is were compared with those involving all other drugs; and similar analysis was performed for each SGLT2i. Second, to reduce the risk of confounding by indication, the RORs for SGLT2is compared with other antidiabetics were obtained. Besides, 2 measures were taken to evaluate a possible notoriety bias: a sensitivity analysis excluding pioglitazone was performed and the evolution of the ROR over time for SGLT2is was measured. There were 6602 cases of bladder cancer in the 4,213,637 reports during the study period. SGLT2is were involved in 155 cases. The ROR for pooled SGLT2is was 3.97 (95% confidence interval [CI], 3.39–4.66), disproportionality also being observed for each SGLT2i separately. The association was strongest for dapagliflozin (ROR, 7.02; 95%CI, 5.69–8.66). Nonetheless, this association disappeared when comparing SGLT2is with other antidiabetic drugs (ROR, 0.20; 95%CI, 0.17–0.24). But when excluding pioglitazone from the analysis, a safety signal for SGLT2is compared with other antidiabetics emerged (ROR, 6.84; 95%CI 5.41–8.65). Our study found a disproportionately high number of cases of bladder cancer among users of SGLT2is. However, observational analytical studies will be needed to confirm these results.


OBJECTIVE
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a heterogeneous autoimmune disease that is characterized by the production of antinuclear antibodies (ANAs) and leads to immune complex deposition in the kidneys and nephritis. Lyn tyrosine kinase is a regulator of antibody-mediated autoimmune disease, as evidenced by studies in gene-targeted mice and as suggested in genome-wide association studies in SLE. Like SLE patients, Lyn-deficient mice have increased levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6). Deletion of IL-6 from Lyn-deficient mice abrogates levels of inflammation, pathogenic autoantibodies, and nephritis. The purpose of this study was to assess the role of IL-6 trans-signaling in autoimmune disease by overexpressing soluble gp130Fc (sgp130Fc) in a mouse model.

METHODS
The effect of overexpression of sgp130Fc on immune cell phenotypes was determined by flow cytometry in young and aged mice with lupus, and ANAs were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Glomerulonephritis was assessed by histopathologic analysis, by measuring the glomerular area and the blood urea nitrogen concentration, and by immunohistochemistry. Immunofluorescence defined renal immune complex and complement deposition. The acute-phase response was determined by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction.

RESULTS
In contrast to removing IL-6, impaired IL-6 trans-signaling had little effect on many immune cell abnormalities in Lyn-/- mice. Pathogenic ANAs and kidney deposition of immune complexes were also unaltered by sgp130Fc. However, sgp130Fc overexpression led to diminished macrophage expansion, reduced glomerular leukocyte infiltration, reduced complement fixation, significantly attenuated glomerulonephritis, and improved renal function in Lyn-deficient mice.

CONCLUSION
Our results reveal key roles of leukocytes, complement, and the innate immune system in mediating glomerulonephritis, and they implicate IL-6 trans-signaling in this process. We suggest that targeting this pathway may be an effective adjunct to B cell depletion in SLE treatment.


A 49-year old woman was hospitalized for generalized rash and pruritus following the administration of ophthalmic drops containing ciprofloxacin to treat conjunctivitis. Physical examination demonstrated diffuse erythematous papules and plaques with a targetoid appearance, injected sclera, and multiple erosions in the oropharynx. Skin biopsy confirmed a diagnosis of erythema multiforme major. The eye drops were discontinued and supportive treatment was initiated; the patient recovered in four weeks and was discharged from the hospital. Although cases such as this are rare, it is important that physicians take a thorough medication history from all patients with suspected erythema multiforme, including topical and ophthalmic medications. Prompt discontinuation of the offending agent can hasten patient recovery and optimize outcomes.


Tagging a protein-of-interest with GFP using genome editing is a popular approach to study protein function in cell and developmental biology. To avoid re-engineering cell lines or organisms in order to introduce additional tags, functionalized nanobodies that bind GFP can be used to extend the functionality of the GFP tag. We developed functionalized nanobodies, which we termed "dongles", that could add, for example, an FKBP tag to a GFP-tagged protein-of-interest; enabling knocksideways experiments in GFP knock-in cell lines. The power of knocksideways is that it allows investigators to rapidly switch the protein from an active to an inactive state. We show that dongles allow for effective knocksideways of GFP-tagged proteins in genome-edited human cells. However, we discovered that nanobody binding to dynamin-2-GFP caused inhibition of dynamin function prior to knocksideways. While this limitation might be specific to the protein studied, it was significant enough to convince us not to pursue development of dongle technology further.


In the thesis of Marcel Hoppentocht the feasibility to treat bacterial infections effectively with inhaled dry powder antibiotics is explored. Most antibiotics are currently administered pulmonary by wet nebulisation or via the parenteral route and both methods have numerous disadvantages. For instance, needle fear and the need for 'cold chain storage' of the drug solution are major drawbacks of parenteral administration. Nebulisation is time-consuming, it requires electricity or pressurised air and this, in addition to their size, makes nebulisers not very portable. Cleaning and disinfection of nebulisers burden patients particularly and this results in poor compliance with the instructions for use of their equipment and negatively affects the therapy. In the thesis, dry powder inhalation is presented as an alternative and current developments and strategies for inhaled dry powder antibiotics in tuberculosis therapy are critically evaluated in relation to the technological challenges, safety and practical needs. A new strategy is presented based on the philosophy to keep the inhaler simple and cheap, but safe and effective and for this approach new inhaler technology has been developed based on the Twincer® high dose, disposable inhaler with air classifier technology. Re-designing the basic Twincer® concept into a new device named Cyclops enabled effective delivery of aminoglycosides (tobramycin, amikacin and kanamycin) without using an excess of excipients and complex particle engineering techniques for the drug formulation. Promising results of a first patient study with the developed formulation-device combination are presented and they show the way to new and better treatments for bacterial infections.


We present the results of our work that seek to negotiate the gap between low-level features and high-level concepts in the domain of web document retrieval. This work concerns a technique, called the latent semantic indexing (LSI), which has been used for textual information retrieval for many years. In this environment, LSI determines clusters of co-occurring keywords so that a query which uses a particular keyword can then retrieve documents perhaps not containing this keyword, but containing other keywords from the same cluster. In this paper, we examine the use of this technique for content-based web document retrieval, using both keywords and image features to represent the documents. Two different approaches to image feature representation, namely, color histograms and color anglograms, are adopted and evaluated. Experimental results show that LSI, together with both textual and visual features, is able to extract the underlying semantic structure of web documents, thus helping to improve the retrieval performance significantly, even when querying is done using only keywords.


Abstract Predicting soil organic carbon (SOC) content distribution accurately from limited soil samples has received a great deal of attention recently in an effort to support soil fertility mapping and to improve our understanding of carbon sequestration variability. Kriging methods combined with auxiliary variables are frequently used at present. However, studies using categorical information, such as soil type and land use, which are closely related to local trends in SOC spatial variation, as auxiliary variables are seldom conducted. In the present investigation, a total of 254 surficial soil samples were collected in the study area, Yujiang county in the hilly red soil region of South China, and a comparison of performance of four kriging approaches was conducted, ordinary kriging (OK), kriging combined with soil-type information (KST), land use (KLU) and combined land use–soil type information (KLUST). Results of the assessment were based on 85 validation samples. The results indicate that the best correlation between the measured and predicted values for validation location was obtained with KLUST (r = 0.854), whereas the lowest was obtained using OK (r = 0.383). Furthermore, the root mean square error (RMSE) from KLUST (3.47 g kg−1) is the lowest, whereas the one obtained using OK (6.49 g kg−1) is the highest. The correlation coefficient and RMSE from KST (r = 0.784, RMSE = 4.15 g kg−1) and KLU (r = 0.795, RMSE = 3.95 g kg−1) are the second and third most correlated, respectively. Comparing the SOC distribution maps generated by the four prediction approaches, the KLUST rendering best reflects the local change associated with soil types and land uses, whereas the map from the OK is the least representative. The results demonstrate that soil type and land use have an important impact on SOC spatial distribution, and KLUST, which reduces their influence as a local trend, is an efficient and practical prediction approach for the hilly red soil region of South China.


We manually mapped particles ranging in longest axis from 0.3 cm to 95 m on (101955) Bennu for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) asteroid sample return mission. This enabled the mission to identify candidate sample collection sites and shed light on the processes that have shaped the surface of this rubble-pile asteroid. Building on a global survey of particles, we used higher-resolution data from regional observations to calculate particle size-frequency distributions (PSFDs) and assess the viability of four candidate sites for sample collection (presence of unobstructed particles ≤ 2 cm). The four candidate sites have common characteristics: each is situated within a crater with a relative abundance of sampleable material. Their PSFDs, however, indicate that each site has experienced different geologic processing. The PSFD power-law slopes range from −3.0 ± 0.2 to −2.3 ± 0.1 across the four sites, based on images with a 0.01-m pixel scale. These values are consistent with, or shallower than, the global survey measurements. At one site, Osprey, the particle packing density appears to reach geometric saturation. We evaluate the uncertainty in these measurements and discuss their implications for other remotely sensed and mapped particles, and their importance to OSIRIS-REx sampling operations.


JOHN SCATTERGOOD Occasions for Writing: Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Literature, Politics and Society. Four Courts: Dublin, 2010. 272 pp. 14 black & white illustrations. This volume gathers together twelve essays by John Scattergood, Professor Emeritus of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Trinity College, Dublin. Seven have already appeared in print, between 2001 and 2008; the remaining five are new. Those familiar with Professor Scattergood's work will not be surprised to find here immensely intricate treatments, studded with detail, of the social, political and literary environments of late medieval Europe, with an emphasis on England and Ireland. Most of these essays are described by the author as "occasional" pieces, both in the sense that they are about texts written in response to external factors and that they are themselves prompted by such factors. He does not provide much specific information about what these latter might be, so the reader can enjoy speculating what it was that might have provided the stimulus for individual essays. The collection is divided into two unequal sections. "Movements" treats broad themes across time and place in the Middle Ages, while "Incidents" focuses on the more local and specific from the fourteenth to the early sixteenth century. Part I opens with the most ambitious and wide-ranging chapter in the book, previously unpublished: "Redeeming English: Language and National Identity in the Later Middle Ages." This moves in masterly fashion from the erasure of English as an "official" language in post-Conquest England to its triumph by the mid-fourteenth century as the national language of England and also the dominant language of Ireland. "'The Unequal Scales of Love': Love and Social Class in Andreas Capellanus's De Amore and Some Later Texts" sets off unexpectedly from Ben Jonson but then travels from twelfth-century Champagne to Margery Paston, via Le Roman de la Rose, Medwall's Fulgens and Lucres, and Aucassin and Nicolette. "Writing the Clock: the Reconstruction of Time in the Late Middle Ages" examines references to clocks, and time, in Chaucer, Dante, Villon, and the Cely letters, before discussing the invention of the mechanical clock, probably in the late thirteenth century, and its influence on changing concepts of time. Part II is arranged chronologically, opening with "Elegy for a Dangerous Man: Piers of Bermingham," a contribution to the controversy over this early fourteenth-century Anglo-Irish poem in BL Harley MS 913. The criminal theme continues in "On the Road: Langland and Some Medieval Outlaw Stories," which considers outlaws' equivocal position and their strategies, as evidenced in English and Anglo-Norman texts. "London and Money: Chaucer's Complaint to his Purse" considers another controversial poem, setting it beside other texts that attack London as an expensive city where public servants could not rely on being paid (sounds familiar? …


A hydraulic fracture is a key technology to increase production of the low permeability oil fields. Fracture additives such as gels, friction reducers, pH adjusters and clay stabilizers were injected into the underground. While more than 50% of the fracture fluid remains underground. The residue of fracture fluid comes out with the produced liquid (a mixture of crude oil and water) in the subsequent oil recovery process, which results in a highly stable crude oil-water emulsion.

 The stability and stable mechanism of the emulsion with fracture fluid have been experimentally investigated.

 The influences of fracture additives and components of crude oil on the stability of emulsion were investigated by bottle test and microscopic examination. The interfacial tension and modulus of dilation were explored by a spinning drop interfacial tension meter and an interface expansion rheometer, respectively.

 The fracture additives played the key role on the emulsion stability. On one hand, the interface energy of oil-water was reduced by friction reducer (IFT was decreased from 24.0 mN/m to 1.9 mN/m), which was a favor for the formation of an emulsion. On the other hand, the dilational modulus of crude oil-water film was increased by hydroxypropyl guar and pH adjuster (Na2CO3) to form a viscoelastic film, which resulted in a highly stable emulsion.

 The residual fracture fluid accompanied by produced liquid resulted in a highly stable emulsion. The emulsion with fracture additives was difficult to be broken, which may affect the normal production of the oil field. A positive strategy such as developing demulsifier with high efficient should be put onto the schedule.


Summary The study of RNA synthesis in isolated calf thymus lympho cyte nuclei indicates that most of the DNA is nonfunctional as a template in RNA synthesis. This view is supported by high resolution autoradiography and by fractionation procedures, which permit a separation of the active and inactive states of the chromatin. Because the addition of histones to nuclei in hibits many of their biosynthetic activities, including RNA synthesis, while the removal of nuclear histones leads to increased rates of RNA synthesis, studies were made of histone metabo lism in cells in which RNA synthesis can be altered experimen tally. Striking changes were observed in histone acetylation, a reaction in which the terminal amino groups in the histones accept acetyl groups from acetyl-coenzyme A. Histone acetyla tion correlates very well with gene activation in lymphocytes stimulated to enlarge and divide by the addition of phytohemagglutinin. An early acetylation of the histones appears to signal a later change in the capacity of the chromatin to synthesize RNA. Hormonal stimulation of RNA synthesis in the liver of adrenalectomized rats also has a parallel in increased histone acetylation. Cells in which RNA synthesis is inhibited (by the addition of phytohemagglutinin) show a corresponding decrease in histone acetylation. Autoradiography shows that acetylation occurs on the chromosomes in Chironomus salivary gland cells. It is also more pronounced in active chromatin fractions than in fractions which are relatively inactive in RNA synthesis. Such chromatin fractions in thymus nuclei also differ with respect to their content of phosphoproteins. A study of phosphoprotein metabolism in isolated calf thymus nuclei indicates that the phosphorylation of serine and threonine in nuclear proteins is an energy-dependent reaction, that it is reversible,


In chromatography, if analytes are strong acid anions or strong alkali cations, the dependence of a logarithm of the adjusted retention value on the logarithm of the concentration of the eluent is given by log tR' = const - (j/i).log C, where j is the charge of the analyte ion, i is the charge of the eluent ion, const is a constant that depends on the column, eluent and analyte ion. But in weak acid anion chromatography, existing forms of the sample anion change with the change of the concentration of the eluent. So the study on the relationship between retention value of weak acid anion and concentration of the eluent is more difficult. Relationship between adjusted retention value of some weak acid anion and concentration of the eluent was studied with sodium hydroxide as eluent. The nonlinear fitting function has been set up. We transform it into multiple linear fitting to give the answer. The correlation coefficients for phosphate defined by the function were over 0.99. The relative errors with the use of function were below 5%.


The strength and durability of adhesively bonded sandwich structures often depend on the mechanisms of fracture, which in turn depend on the properties of the adhesive and the microstructures of the interface, When the thin adhesive layer is ductile, cavitation either within the layer or along the interface is often the dominant failure mechanism. In the present paper, fracture due to cavity growth in a thin ductile layer is analyzed. A new method utilizing fluid mechanics solutions is developed. Solutions of fluid flow field are used to approximate the plastic deformation field in the corresponding solid body with a cavity. The equilibrium condition is satisfied by using the principle of virtual work rate. Stress-separation curves due to cavitation in the thin layer can thus be obtained. The method is validated by reevaluating the one-dimensional problem of cavity growth in a sphere-a problem for which an exact, analytical solution exists. A two-dimensional plane strain cavitation problem is analyzed using the new method. The stress-separation curves and the fracture resistance due to this mechanism are obtained. The results show that both the stress-separation curves and the fracture resistance are sensitive to the strain-hardening exponent and the initial void size, but not the yield strength of the material. The new method has clear advantages over numerical methods, such as the finite element method, when parametric studies are performed.


BACKGROUND
Mean vascular resistance in the retrobulbar arteries of SLE patients and the statistical relationship between its parameters and the presence of certain antibodies were determined.

MATERIAL/METHODS
Forty-three eyes of 43 SLE female patients aged 46.28+/-8.45 years with disease duration of 10.03+/-7.96 years were examined. Physical and ophthalmic examinations with assessments of the immunological markers ANA/IgG-IgM, aCL, anti-beta2GPI, LA, and anti-dsDNA antibodies were performed. color Doppler imaging (CDI) was used in the OA, CRA, LPCA, and MPCA vessels. The vascular resistance indices (RIs) were compared with those of 43 eyes of 43 female controls. Covariance and multiple regression analysis with chi squared, Pearson, Shapiro-Wilk, and Levene tests were used in the statistical analysis (significance levels at p<or=0.01 and p<or=0.05).

RESULTS
Significantly increased RIs in the OA, CRA, LPCA, and MPCA were recorded. aCL, abeta2GPI, and LAC correlated significantly with increased RI in the CRA. SLE diagnosis significantly correlated with RI in the OA and PCAs. Significant relationship between age and RI in the CRA and LPCA was detected.

CONCLUSIONS
Retrobulbar resistance disturbances were detected in SLE patients by CDI. SLE diagnoses and presence of aPLs antibodies were associated with an increased resistivity index in ophthalmic and retino-choroidal vessels.


During everyday web browsing and search users reveal many pieces of private information to third parties. Even though people report being concerned about their privacy online, they often do not take steps to protect it. This is known as the 'privacy paradox' in the literature. In this work we study two well-known strategies based on theories from the behavioral sciences, nudging and boosting, which encourage users to browse in a way that their private data are less exposed. First, an online survey (N=127) tested the comprehensibility and efficacy of various facts (boosts), before the most effective of these were evaluated against 'nudge' interventions previously shown to be efficacious in lab-studies. A three week naturalistic study (N=68) using a browser extension revealed that both nudges and boosts improve browsing privacy, as approximated by different measures. Boosts are also shown to improve user knowledge about privacy in the short term, but the benefit weakens over time.


Rose (see ibid. vol.40, no.8, p.1310-1318, 1992) has been stated that "in general, there is no analytical expression for the average distance between the nodes in the Manhattan street networks (MSNs)." The purpose of this comment is to bring the work of Khasnabish (1992, 1991, 1989) and Khasnabish, Ahmadi and Shridhar (1991, 1992) to the attention of the engineering community. >


In order to facilitate studies on the maintenance of cryptic plasmids from Gram-positive bacteria we have constructed a novel cassette cAPG1000 (5.0 kb) which carries both a selectable marker (chloramphenicol resistance from Staphylococcus aureus plasmid pC194) and a screenable marker (the xylE gene from the TOL plasmid of Pseudomonas putida expressed from a cloned promoter of Bacillus phage SPO2) and which is flanked by terminators to prevent transcription from the cassette activating or inhibiting loci adjacent to the site of insertion. To demonstrate the usefulness of this cassette we have mapped loci required for stable maintenance of an 8.6 kb cryptic plasmid endogenous to Bacillus subtilis (pPOD2000) from the properties of cAPG1000 insertion and insertion/deletion derivatives. We have identified the replication region as well as separate regions required for segregational and structural stability. The segregational mechanism is very efficient since it allows no detectable loss despite the fact that bacteria carrying the plasmid have a greatly increased mean generation time.


Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are advanced applications which, without embodying intelligence as such, aim to provide innovative services relating to different modes of transport and traffic management and enable various users to be better informed and make safer, more coordinated, and 'smarter' use of transport networks. Today ITS (Intelligent Transport system) has the main focus in research of Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) Communications. A Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) is a self-configuring network of mobile devices called mobile nodes. Vehicular Ad-hoc Network (VANET) is a prime concept of MANET where security, privacy and reliability are major issues. To support message differentiation in VANET, IEEE 802.11p standard is incorporated in vehicular communication. In this paper, we analyze various security aspects and threats in VANET and propose the novel solutions based on network coding. Network coding is a technique in which node is allowed to combine and encode one or more input packets into encoded packets instead of directly forwarding them over finite field. In this paper, we also examine the tradeoffs of the proposed solutions along with the necessary solutions to overcome them.


24years-old nullipara was referred at 23 weeks of gestation because absent cavum septum pellucidum was noticed at a routine ultrasound scan. Ultrasonography showed complete absence of septum pellucidum resulting in box like frontal horns and a mild form of holoprocencephaly. No other abnormalties were detected. An MRI image at 25 weeks has confirmed absent septum pellucidum without fusion of frontal lobes ruling out the diagnosis of lobar holoprocencephaly. Bilateral atrophy of optic nerve with hypoplasia of optic chiasm was seen on coronal 3D image. A normal male karyotyping was found. The fetus was followed up on 4-weekly basis. At 41 weeks gestation, following the onset of spontaneous contractions, an emergency caesarean section was performed for fetal distress. A 3650-g male baby was delivered with Apgar scores of 9, 10 and 10 at 1, 5 and 10 min, respectively. No resuscitation or respiratory support was required. Neonatal dilation fundoscopy examination at 3 months of age has revealed slightly small right optic nerve head and normal left one. Neonatal MRI at 4 months of age has confirmed complete absence of the septum pellucidum, low lying fornices, hypoplasia of cerebral white matter and mild ventriculomegaly. The posterior fossa, anterior visual pathway and optic nerves were normal. A hydrocortisone day curve at 4 months of age revealed low endogenous cortison level, which was replaced. the neonate has normal milestone. He was followed up until age of 14 months when he required a growth hormone replacement and his vision was normal. In conclusion, prenatal diagnosis of septo-optic dysplasia should involve MRI examination in order to outline the diagnosis followed by neonatal MRI and ophthalmological examination to help define the extent of optic-nerve lesion and therefore the prognosis. Neonatal multidisciplinary care is crucial for satisfactory outcome


This article provides criteria for the design of electrostatic arch micro-tweezers. The tweezers can be operated in two modes: a traditional quasi-static mode where a direct current voltage commands the tweezers arms along a trajectory to manipulate objects and dynamic mode where a harmonic signal commands release or characterization of objects. While the arms are rigid and move in tandem in the static mode, this is not guaranteed in the dynamic mode. To satisfy this, we carried out modal analysis of the tweezers using a finite element model (FEM) and a reduced-order model (ROM). The results show that the arms kinetic and potential energies divide the beam span into a middle sub-span between the arms and two outer sub-spans and result in significant changes in the relative compliance of the sub-spans. The changes in the platform compliance place limitation on the tweezers dynamic operation, such that only the first symmetrical mode shape of the tweezers satisfies the design criteria. We also investigate the adequacy of an ROM using straight unbuckled beam mode shapes as basis functions to represent the tweezers response by comparing its results with those of FEM. A five-mode ROM is found adequate to represent small motions in the vicinity of the tweezers initial curvature. It is inadequate for larger motions involving snap-though motions between the initial and counter curvatures. To capture larger motions, ROM should be improved by incorporating higher order straight beam modes or using the actual tweezers modes.


AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
To identify the effects of applying Progressive Muscle Relaxation Technique on Quality of Life of patients with multiple Sclerosis.

BACKGROUND
In view of the growing caring options in Multiple Sclerosis, improvement of quality of life has become increasingly relevant as a caring intervention. Complementary therapies are widely used by multiple sclerosis patients and Progressive Muscle Relaxation Technique is a form of complementary therapies.

DESIGN
Quasi-experimental study.

METHOD
Multiple Sclerosis patients (n = 66) were selected with no probability sampling then assigned to experimental and control groups (33 patients in each group). Means of data collection included: Individual Information Questionnaire, SF-8 Health Survey, Self-reported checklist. PMRT performed for 63 sessions by experimental group during two months but no intervention was done for control group. Statistical analysis was done by SPSS software.

RESULTS
Student t-test showed that there was no significant difference between two groups in mean scores of health-related quality of life before the study but this test showed a significant difference between two groups, one and two months after intervention (p < 0.05). anova test with repeated measurements showed that there is a significant difference in mean score of whole and dimensions of health-related quality of life between two groups in three times (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
Although this study provides modest support for the effectiveness of Progressive Muscle Relaxation Technique on quality of life of multiple sclerosis patients, further research is required to determine better methods to promote quality of life of patients suffer multiple sclerosis and other chronic disease.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
Progressive Muscle Relaxation Technique is practically feasible and is associated with increase of life quality of multiple sclerosis patients; so that health professionals need to update their knowledge about complementary therapies.


Alpinia purpurata flower is one type of cut flower with great opportunity as an exported flower for its attrac- tive shapes and colors. In order to gain maximum benefit from cut flowers as ornaments, post-harvest treatments require attention. One of those treatments is packing which aims to maintain the quality of cut flowers during transport or shipping. The objectives of this study were to determine the type of primary packaging material and the most suitable placement inside the packaging during transport in order to conserve the quality. Factorial Completely Randomized Design with 3 replications was used. To find out the effects of the treatments, analysis of variance was done using F-test. Difference among treatments was tested using LSD at 5% significance level. The results showed that the use of PP plastic as packaging material gave a significant difference on weight loss, flowers' freshness during transport, freshness period during demonstration time and the amount of holding solution absorbed. Packaging technique with plastic as the packaging material gave the best result with longer freshness period (7.77 days), flowers had the lowest weight loss (0.71%), the flowers seemed quite fresh (score of 4) and were able to absorb more holding solution (4.81ml/stalk/day) during demonstration time and therefore they remained in fresh condition. One-way orientation of placement was the best treatment at weight loss (0.77%) and the amount of holding solution absorbed (5.04ml/stalk/day).


Nowadays, titanium alloys are widely used in a variety of industries like automotive and aerospace due to their high strength to weight ratio. Ti-5%Al-5%V-5%Mo-3%Cr is a metastable near beta titanium alloy with excellent fatigue performance and corrosion resistance. Hence, it is mainly used in the airframe structure and the landing gear components. As the additive manufacturing (AM) industry grows everyday, so does the interest in printing of strategic Titanium alloys. Selective Laser Melting (SLM) is a powder-bed fusion process utilizing the laser power as the heat source which scans over a compact powder layer along a pre-defined path. In this study, the printability of Ti-5553 by pulsed-laser SLM is investigated, thoroughly. To this end, a batch of powder was first characterized in terms of size distribution, porosity level, chemical composition and microstructure. Afterwards, the effect of Volumetric Energy Density (VED), sample geometry and scanning strategy was evaluated on the microstructure and properties of the printed parts. Various tests such as Archimedes method, Nano-CT scanning, surface roughness, Optical Microscopy (OM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) and hardness mapping were applied. Results showed that the virgin plasma-atomized powder had a high quality with a mean sphericity of 0.95 and porosity of less than 0.01%. In addition, it was observed that there was an optimized VED range leading to a nearly fully dense part, i.e. 99.7%, with a smooth surface. Low and High VEDs resulted in a lack of fusion and spattering, respectively, both undermining the density of the printed parts. Moreover, high VEDs provided the energy required for the beta to alpha transformation and caused in-situ precipitation hardening. This in-situ heat treatment is not desired due to the lack of homogeneity. Furthermore, the sample geometry, i.e. cubic or cylindrical, was determined to have negligible effects on the achieved properties while the choice of scanning strategy directly affected the texture and density of the printed parts. It was seen that the chessboard, stripes and total fill strategies led to the optimized, medium and poor properties, respectively. Finally, the best density of 99.94% was achieved by using the VED of 112 J/mm and the chessboard scanning strategy. The sample showed a homogeneous hardness distribution with an average of 295 ±10 HV. The TEM analysis determined that the sample was in the beta to omega phase transformation stage. Also, it had a columnar grain structure elongated parallel to the building direction indicating a highly crystallographically textured part. The EBSD analysis supported these findings by suggesting a preferred growth direction with crystal texture seven times higher than the random intensity. The melt pool shape of the optimized sample was seen to be goblet-like with a lower penetration compared to the sample printed by the stripes strategy.


Wireless Mesh networks are multi-hop networks mostly based on IEEE 802.11 technology and are considered as a viable alternative for providing broadband wireless Internet access. As a consequence, they require support for Quality of Service or advanced mechanisms for selecting Internet gateways. One important required information is the one-way delay between different nodes. In this paper, we have developed, implemented, and evaluated an one-way delay estimation technique for wireless mesh networks which is based on estimating intra node queuing and inter node forwarding delay. An IP-header option field is used to accumulate the per hop delay estimate to provide an end-to-end estimate. We also outline problems with the implementation and compare results with real one-way delays obtained from a 14 node mesh testbed. We show how estimation accuracy depends on network load and provide insights into further improvements.


Adolescent and young adult (AYA) patients need additional support, while they experience the challenges associated with their age. They need specific training to learn the knowledge and skills required to confidently self‐manage their allergies and/or asthma. Transitional care is a complex process, which should address the psychological, medical, educational and vocational needs of AYA in the developmentally appropriate way. The European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology has developed a clinical practice guideline to provide evidence‐based recommendations for healthcare professionals to support the transitional care of AYA with allergy and/or asthma. This guideline was developed by a multidisciplinary working panel of experts and patient representatives based on two recent systematic reviews. It sets out a series of general recommendations on operating a clinical service for AYA, which include the following: (a) starting transition early (11‐13 years), (b) using a structured, multidisciplinary approach, (c) ensuring AYA fully understand their condition and have resources they can access, (d) active monitoring of adherence and (e) discussing any implications for further education and work. Specific allergy and asthma transition recommendations include (a) simplifying medication regimes and using reminders; (b) focusing on areas where AYA are not confident and involving peers in training AYA patients; (c) identifying and managing psychological and socio‐economic issues impacting disease control and quality of life; (d) enrolling the family in assisting AYA to undertake self‐management; and (e) encouraging AYA to let their friends know about their allergies and asthma. These recommendations may need to be adapted to fit into national healthcare systems.


K-nearest-neighbor query is an important query in uncertain network, which is finding the k close nodes to a specific node. We first put forward the concept of the credible nearest neighbor query in uncertain network, and give credible k-nearest-neighbor query algorithm. Credible distance is used to describe the distance between nodes in uncertain network. Fuzzy simulation is adopted to decrease the problem difficulty. Network distance constraint is used to reduce the searching space. Priority queue is used to fast find k-nearest-neighbor query result. Theoretical analysis and experimental results show that our approximation algorithm can well solve k-nearest- neighbor query problem under the uncertain network.


In this paper, the authors present a study of the stability problem of the input DC voltages of the three-level neutral point clamping (NPC) voltage source inverter (VSI). They remind the model of the double stator induction machine (DSIM). Then, they develop a knowledge and a control models of this inverter using the connection functions of the semiconductors. After that, they propose a PWM strategy to control his converter. To analysis the instability problem of the input DC voltages of the inverter, the authors study a cascade constituted by two two-level PWM rectifiers-two three-level NPC VSI-DSIM. The results obtained show that the input DC voltages of the inverters are not stables. To remedy to this problem, the authors propose, in this paper, a solution which uses a clamping bridge. The results obtained with this solution confirm the good performances of the proposed solution.


The literature on Clostridium perfringens infections is reviewed up to 1983. An additional case is reported with bilateral clostridial infections of the eye and orbit. One eye followed the classical course of relentless panophthalmitis, amaurosis, and orbital cellulitis ending in enucleation. The second eye contained intracameral mud and gas bubbles that were removed by vitrectomy instrumentation. Subsequent removal of the toxic cataract resulted in a final aided visual acuity of 6/18, N8. This is the third report of a retained globe, and we believe the only known case where the patient was left with useful vision.


This article examines the place held by multilateral development banks in Canada's policy of external cooperation. It seeks to show how, in keeping with the overall logic of its aid policy, Canada's participation in these international financial institutions has resulted from a many-sided configuration of political, development al, and economic interests. The purpose of this article finds it s justification first of all in the fact that, by focusing mainly on bilateral assistance programs, the literature on Canadian aid has largely neglected the study of the many channels for distributing multilateral assistance.


For the past several years, an orientation program for novice educators at Long Island College Hospital has had a measure of success. A process was developed to encourage qualified applicants to participate in a program designed to develop their competency in the teaching-learning process. This article describes the strategies used as well as challenges in hiring novice educators.


Introduction There are gaps in global understanding about how to design and implement interventions to improve sanitation. This formative study provided insights for the subsequent redesign of a government-led national sanitation campaign targeting rural populations in Tanzania. Methods The Behaviour Centred Design approach was used to investigate the determinants of toilet building, improvement and use. Varied, novel, and interactive research tools were employed in fifty-five households in two regions of rural Tanzania. Results were analysed to articulate a Theory of Change, which then informed intervention design. Results Participants valued hard work, enterprise, and improving their lives over many years. They wanted better toilets but felt no urgency to act quickly. A common emotional motivator for improving toilets was to protect children from disease (Nurture) but this was insufficient to drive rapid change. Disgust with traditional toilets meant they were built at a distance from the house: an 'out of sight, out of mind' attitude. Other powerful motives included the desire to improve living conditions (Create), and to become a modern Tanzanian (Status), albeit without 'showing off'. Construction costs and water scarcity were the main stated barriers. Receiving information about realistic costs, support accessing materials, and visiting better latrines elsewhere were commonly reported reasons for improving latrines. Conclusions The resulting Theory of Change recommended that the intervention should surprise people with a novel conversation about toilets, promote toilets as a means of conferring status, and introduce a perceived urgency to 'act now'. It should suggest that modest improvements would lead to a better life. Feelings of disgust and fear with poor quality toilets should be amplified, and barriers lessened through promoting transformational toilet improvements, and improving access to modern toilet products. This research provided considerable insight into sanitation behaviours in rural Tanzania, which informed creative intervention design.


Background and Objective: According to Iranian, Asian, Indian, and Chinese traditional medicine, basil is used in the treatment of different diseases. In this study, the effect of basil on lowering the blood glucose was examined in healthy and diabetic rats. Methods: Sixty Wistar rats were divided into a control group(n=10), a basil receiving group (n=20) and a diabetic group (n=30)(60 mg/kg Streptozotocin- Intraperitoneal injection) and the rats in each group received basil orally in pairs. Forty-eight hours after injection of streptozotocin, 2 and 4 mg/kg doses of basil were prescribed orally for the diabetic group daily for 45 days. in end of study for record serum testosterone ,5 cc blood was sampled from each rat. Results: There was a significant correlation between the oral administration of 2 and 4 mg/kg doses of basil and reduced blood glucose level and testosterone changes in the diabetic groups (P<0.05). Twenty-four hours after the first administration, basil caused a significant decrease in the blood glucose level and this effects continued for 24, 48, and 72 hours, respectively. In contrast, basil had no hypoglycemic effect in the healthy rats. Conclusion: The results indicated that 2 and 4 mg/kg doses of basil had significant hypoglycemic effects on the diabetic groups and compensated for the testosterone level in diabetic rats, but had no effect on the healthy rats.


In this paper, lung sounds were classified as healthy and pathological. Means and standard deviations of Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficients were used as features and also parameters obtained by exponential curve fitted to these values. Optimum performance obtained as 92.65% when exponential curve fit parameters used for the average of Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficients. k-Nearest Neighbor algorithm were used in the classification process.


In physically unclonable functions (PUFs), generating random cryptographs is required to secure private information. Various memory-based PUFs (MemPUFs), where cryptographs are generated independently from each PUF cell to increase the unpredictability of the cryptographs, have been proposed. Among them, the spin-transfer torque magnetic random-access memory MemPUF generates constant responses under temperature and voltage variations by exploiting a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) as the variation source. However, its response stability is diminished by the different characteristics of the two access transistors used in a PUF cell. To solve this problem, a novel PUF array that employs a diode-connected transistor and a shared access transistor, is proposed. In addition, a two-step postprocessing is adopted: 1) a write-back technique that amplifies the initial mismatch of MTJ resistances, and 2) a cell-classification technique that detects unstable PUF cells and discards their responses. The Monte Carlo HSPICE simulation results using industry-compatible 65-nm technology show that the proposed PUF system achieves the highest independence (autocorrelation factor of 0.0306) and the lowest maximum bit error rate (BER) under temperature and supply-voltage variations (<0.01% and 0.04% in the ranges of −25 to 75 °C and 0.8–1.2 V, respectively) compared with conventional PUF systems that exploit independent variation sources.


This working paper analyzes demographic change in Southeast Asia's main cities during and soon after the World War II Japanese occupation. We argue that two main patterns of population movements are evident. In food-deficient areas, a search for food security typically led to large net inflows to main urban centres. By contrast, an urban exodus dominated in food surplus regions because the chief risk was to personal safety, especially from Japanese and Allied bombing. Black markets were ubiquitous, and essential to sustaining livelihoods in cities with food-deficit hinterlands. In Rangoon and Manila, wartime population fluctuations were enormous. Famines in Java and northern Indochina severely impacted Jakarta and Hanoi through inflows of people from rural areas. In most countries, the war's aftermath of refugees, revolution and political disruption generated major rural-urban population relocations. Turmoil in the 1940s had the permanent consequences of augmenting the primacy of Southeast Asia's main cities and promoting squatter settlement.


Abstract Purpose To assess the knowledge gap of healthcare workers about practice with needleless connectors. Background Catheter-related bloodstream infection (CR-BSI) and lumen occlusion can be directly related to practices of cleaning needleless connectors, IV administration set management, and flushing and clamping methods. Review of Relevant Literature Five publications report outbreaks of CR-BSI from hospitals in the US and Australia. A significant increase in CR-BSI rates after an organizational change of products was observed. No randomized controlled trials are available from the USA comparing types or designs of needleless connectors. Device instructions state some devices can be locked with normal saline. Two randomized clinical trials assessed outcomes with catheter lock solution. Both reported higher rates of occlusion with the use of normal saline only and one documented a higher rate of CR-BSI. Methods An invitation to participate in a survey with 22 questions was sent electronically to approximately 4000 healthcare workers with a response from 554 in clinical practice. Results The specific type of needleless connector being used was unknown by 25% and correct clamping sequence was chosen by 52.8% of respondents. The majority, 94.3% reported that they always clean these devices before each use, however there are differences in technique. Conclusions There is a significant gap of knowledge about the specific needleless connectors being used, the most appropriate cleaning, flushing, and clamping sequence for the specific device. Implications for Practice Staff education should focus on the connections between needleless connectors, CR-BSI and lumen occlusion. Frequent product training on needleless connectors, the specific type in use and correct techniques are necessary.


A considerable volume of research has investigated the positive, as well as negative, effects of large assortments from a consumer perspective. Despite Business-toBusiness suppliers typically offering very large assortments though, similar inquiries have yet to be made in the context of professional purchase decisions. Thus, it is unclear if professional buyers suffer from the same negative effects (particularly choice overload), as consumers do, for example, reduced satisfaction when having to make a choice from a large assortment. The fact that a is accountable for a purchasing decision is especially salient in differentiating professional buyers from consumers. Obviously, because buyers have a certain job or, more specifically, a role located somewhere in the hierarchy of a company, they will typically have a boss evaluating their job performance and, thus, holding them officially accountable. Furthermore, research has long postulated that a typical Business-to-Business purchase decision involves more than one person, since such decisions are made in a so-called buying center. This means that people, who do not hold a higher position in the hierarchy than the buyer, may influence the purchase decision. For instance, user preferences often play an important role because users will have to work with the product purchased by the buyer and, in many cases, have relevant knowledge gained from experiencing a certain product class. However, in most performance but can still have a strong influence on the buyer. As Doney and Armstrong (1996) postulate, mplaints from [the users] and a buyer may . This latter form of accountability is classified as informal. Having identified this gap in research, this dissertation seeks to offer a contribution to the field by investigating whether negative effects from large assortments, specifically choice overload, exist in a Business-to-Business context, with a particular focus on the joint effects of assortment size and accountability. In addition, this dissertation investigates the effects of color-coding, i.e., using a certain color as a code for a certain attribute characteristic regarding the most important attribute(s) of a product. This is applied as a possible means of reducing negative effects on buyer satisfaction which may exist in some circumstances when the buyer is choosing from a large assortment. To achieve these goals, a conceptual framework based on various research streams, e.g., on choice overload, the concept of the buying center and accountability, is developed and the effects investigated in three experimental studies. In detail, the conceptual framework postulates that informally accountable decision makers suffer from choice overload, with the result that satisfaction with their own decision process will decrease when they have to choose from large assortments. This effect is mediated by the justifiability of the decision, with informally accountable decision makers experiencing reduced justifiability of their decision when choosing form large assortments which, in turn, reduces their satisfaction. Moreover, this negative effect will be reduced when color-coding is applied to the assortment. These results have important implications for theory and practice regarding the ways assortments should be presented to decision makers in a Business-to-Business environment.


Thank you for reading adult psychopathology a social work perspective. As you may know, people have search numerous times for their chosen novels like this adult psychopathology a social work perspective, but end up in harmful downloads. Rather than enjoying a good book with a cup of tea in the afternoon, instead they cope with some infectious virus inside their laptop. adult psychopathology a social work perspective is available in our digital library an online access to it is set as public so you can download it instantly. Our digital library saves in multiple countries, allowing you to get the most less latency time to download any of our books like this one. Merely said, the adult psychopathology a social work perspective is universally compatible with any devices to read.


The fast-growing market of autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and fleets in general necessitates the design of smart and automatic navigation systems considering the stochastic latency along different paths in the traffic network. The longstanding shortest path problem in a deterministic network, whose counterpart in a congestion game setting is Wardrop equilibrium, has been studied extensively, but it is well known that finding the notion of an optimal path is challenging in a traffic network with stochastic arc delays. In this work, we propose three classes of risk-averse equilibria for an atomic stochastic congestion game in its general form where the arc delay distributions are load dependent and not necessarily independent of each other. The three classes are risk-averse equilibrium (RAE), mean-variance equilibrium (MVE), and conditional value at risk level $\alpha$ equilibrium (CVaR$_\alpha$E) whose notions of risk-averse best responses are based on maximizing the probability of taking the shortest path, minimizing a linear combination of mean and variance of path delay, and minimizing the expected delay at a specified risky quantile of the delay distributions, respectively. We prove that for any finite stochastic atomic congestion game, the risk-averse, mean-variance, and CVaR$_\alpha$ equilibria exist. We show that for risk-averse travelers, the Braess paradox may not occur to the extent presented originally since players do not necessarily travel along the shortest path in expectation, but they take the uncertainty of travel time into consideration as well. We show through some examples that the price of anarchy can be improved when players are risk-averse and travel according to one of the three classes of risk-averse equilibria rather than the Wardrop equilibrium.


We evaluate the problem of firms that operate platforms matching buyers and sellers, while also selling goods on these same platforms. By being able to guide consumer search through algorithmic recommendations, these firms can influence market outcomes, a finding that has worried regulators. To analyze this phenomenon, we combine rich novel data about sales and recommendations on Amazon Marketplace with a structural model of intermediation power. In contrast to prior literature, we explicitly model seller entry. This feature enables us to assess the most plausible theory of harm from self-preferencing, i.e. that it is a barrier to entry. We find that recommendations are highly price elastic but favor Amazon. A substantial fraction of customers only consider recommended offers, and recommendations hence noticeably raise the price elasticity of demand. By preferring Amazon's offer, the recommendation algorithm raises consumer welfare by approximately $4.5 billion (since consumers also prefer these offers). However, consumers are made worse off if self-preferencing makes the company raise prices by more than 7.8%. By contrast, we find no evidence of consumer harm from self-preferencing through the entry channel. Nevertheless, entry matters. The algorithm raises consumer welfare in the short and medium run by increasing the purchase rate and intensifying price competition. However, these gains are mostly offset by reduced entry in the long run.


Constraining planet formation based on the atmospheric composition of exoplanets is a fundamental goal of the exoplanet community. Existing studies commonly try to constrain atmospheric abundances, or to analyze what abundance patterns a given description of planet formation predicts. However, there is also a pressing need to develop methodologies that investigate how to transform atmospheric compositions into planetary formation inferences. In this study we summarize the complexities and uncertainties of state-of-the-art planet formation models and how they influence planetary atmospheric compositions. We introduce a methodology that explores the effect of different formation model assumptions when interpreting atmospheric compositions. We apply this framework to the directly imaged planet HR 8799e. Based on its atmospheric composition, this planet may have migrated significantly during its formation. We show that including the chemical evolution of the protoplanetary disk leads to a reduced need for migration. Moreover, we find that pebble accretion can reproduce the planet's composition, but some of our tested setups lead to too low atmospheric metallicities, even when considering that evaporating pebbles may enrich the disk gas. We conclude that the definitive inversion from atmospheric abundances to planet formation for a given planet may be challenging, but a qualitative understanding of the effects of different formation models is possible, opening up pathways for new investigations.


This aim of this research is to solve the portability problems of legacy data repositories during migration through the implementation of a data migration strategy for legacy databases. Our research revealed that provision was not made for migrating Enterprise databases from obsolete DBMS as they tend to become overgrown, excessively large and complex leading to a mutability and an inability to conform to the technology of contemporary architectures. We have carried out a re-engineering of the traditional data migration methodologies (the chickenlittle and butterfly) by building a middleware, Olaray through the development and incorporation of a software module (the condenser) into the design stages to achieve a 100% migration. Using Content Analysis techniques, a stepwise adaptation of the Structured Systems Analysis methods hybrid with Object Oriented Design for forward engineering was deployed to implement the migration tool. Microsoft Access 2010 provided the backend, while the ASP.Net, Visual Basic.Net and Java Applets were deployed for the frontend. The developed methodology was tested using different homogenous and heterogeneous databases from MYSQL, PregSQL and DbaseIV. A populated result for the migration exercises into remote database environment was obtained in this case which implied a 100% successful data migration to the cloud.


This conference brought the microbial genomics community together to share their most up-to-the-minute achievements, so much so that several talks cannot be covered here, as the work discussed has not yet been published. This meeting report has details of a cross-section of the talks from the sessions on 'Genome analysis and comparative genomics', 'Computational genomics' and 'Functional genomics', ranging from studies on complex environmental samples, to specific pathogenic bacteria, to yeasts. Copyright  2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


In the past, assessment of the reasonableness of municipal bond markups depended on anecdotal recollection of markups and subjective judgment about what was customary. Interested parties including regulators can now use the MSRB's EMMA service to determine the markups charged on a set of transactions and can make precise and accurate statements about how unusual such markups were, controlling for many factors thought to effect the reasonableness of markups. We analyze over 13.7 million customer trades, totaling $3.9 trillion in par amount traded in fixed-coupon, long-term municipal bonds. We estimate that investors were charged $10.65 billion in municipal bond markups between 2005 and 2013 in our sample - $6.45 billion in trades on which excessive markups appear to have been charged.Our sample includes about 30 percent of the fixed-coupon municipal bond trades and so the total markups charged from 2005 to 2013 is likely to be at least $20 billion. $10 billion of this $20 billion in markups were charged on trades on which excessive markups appear to have been charged. These markups are a transfer from taxpayers and investors to the brokerage industry and could be largely eliminated with simple, low-cost improvements in disclosure.


PURPOSE
An optical tracking and positioning system (OTPS) for proton therapy was developed to study the characteristics of robotic couch movement and the trend of inter-fractional displacements on positioning patients treated for prostate or brain cancers.

METHODS
For patient localization, required movements of couch must be precisely executed. Commercial robotic couch with software-driven six-degree isocentric freedom was utilized in our clinic. To align couch rotating center within 1 mm to proton beam, movements of couch without or with patient loads were accurately measured within 0.5 mm without and by the OTPS; including a stereoscopically infrared camera and rigid body tools. To investigate large 10 mm inter-fractional couch displacements with 5.0 mm standard deviation (S.D.) observed on one patient using head mask for immobilization, a mathematic formula, referred to as 3PtTrack method, was developed for studying the trend of inter-fractional patient movements within head mask.

RESULTS
Typical 4.0 mm circular couch displacements were measured at horizontal plane while displacements were 2.0 mm at vertical plane; however, large 20 mm circular displacements were observed at Procure first clinic couch. After applying software-driven ISO alignment, residual displacements at couch rotation were 0.3 mm. 85% of movements with patient loads on couch were within 0.5 mm to required values at horizontal plane. The 3PtTrack method could place daily QA device to required location within 0.5mm over a period of 3 months. Movements within mask were found to be similar (both less 5.0 mm with 2.0 mm S.D.) for two patients with largely different couch displacements.

CONCLUSION
The couch rotation was well aligned to proton beam by using OTPS. Movements with patient loads were accurately executed. Large couch displacements presented an issue of fixation on head mask to couch, while smaller movement measured by 3PtTrack indicate that patients still moved with masks.


As the radial artery is the second most commonly used graft in coronary bypass (CABG)surgery(internal thoracic artery first most common)and for transcatheter coronary interventions (angioplasty),cardiac surgeons should have thorough knowledge about the normal anatomy and possible variations of it before these cardiac procedures. Methods: 50 radial artery specimens(both right and left sided)were studied by dissection method in 25 cadavers (20 male and 05 female). The data were tabulated in Microsoft excel and analysed by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS 17th version). Mean, Proportion, Standard deviation and Unpaired't' test were applied for analysing the data obtained. Results& conclusion: Radial artery in all the specimens take origin from brachial artery at or just below the elbow joint in the cubitalfossa, running superficially and laterally, giving radial recurrent, manycollaterals, radial carpal and superficial palmar branches; total mean length of artery from origin to wrist joint is 20.63± 1.96cm; mean luminal diameter at its termination 2 cm proximal to styloid process just above the wrist joint is 2.14± 0.28mm.This study revealed anomalies like tortuosity (30%)in distal 1/3rd segment and radio-ulnar loops were not found in any specimens.


Hydrothermal conversion is a procedure which emulates organic matter's natural conversion into bio-crude having physical and chemical properties analogous to petroleum. The artificial transformation of biomass requires previous knowledge of the main reaction routes and product availability. The main component of biomass (depolymerisation by hydrolysis) is presented in hydrothermal cellulose conversion, producing oligosaccharides which exhibit dehydration and retro-aldol condensation reactions for transforming into furfurals and carboxylic acids. Other biomass components (such as lignin, proteins, and fat esters) present both hydrolysis and pyrolysis reaction routes. As long as biomass mainly contains carbohydrates, subcritical hydrothermal conversion products and their wastes will be fundamentally analogous to those displaying cellulose. These substances have added value by far surpassing raw material's acquisition cost. When the main hydrothermal conversion products' O/C, H/C molar ratios as reported in literature are plotted, an evolutionary trajectory for conversion products appears to be closely or even overlapped with fossil fuels' geological evolution.


Background and Objective: Pregnancy under the fear of Covid-19 may bring numerous maternal and neonatal consequences. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship of COVID-19-related fear and self-care behaviors with pregnancy outcomes during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Materials and Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, the sampling was performed on 300 pregnant mothers who were referred to at Akbarabadi Educational-Medical Center in Tehran during the Covid-19 pandemic from June to September 2021. The research instruments included demographic and pregnancy information questionnaires, Carvalho's Covid-19-related self-care questionnaire, Fear of COVID-19 Scale, and maternal-neonatal outcomes questionnaires. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 20.
Results: The mean age of 300 subjects was reported as 29.35±5.60 years. The gestational age of 266-278 days had the highest frequency (36%). Furthermore, the mean gestational age for all participants was 262.11±18.76 days. Moreover, 1% and 3.6% of subjects had the most and least severe COVID-19-related fear, respectively. Maternal outcomes were positively and significantly correlated with fear of COVID-19. Higher mean scores of fear were associated with more maternal outcomes; nonetheless, there was no relationship between neonatal outcomes and COVID-19-related Fear. Self-care behaviors were not correlated with maternal outcomes; however, they were related to neonatal consequences.
Conclusion: Fear of Covid-19 was associated with an increase in the adverse consequences of pregnancy; therefore, it is necessary to raise mothers' awareness of Covid-19 and reduce their fear by training them on correct self-care behaviors and health protocols.


The functionalities required for successful deployment and operation of online auction site can be broadly classified into two categories: core features and complementary features. Core features are essential for the existence of a site, whereas complementary features enhance a users experience with the site. Since a site has to have the core features, it is the complementary features that contribute to the popularity of the auction sites. We have conducted a survey of 100 auction sites to study 23 features. We found out the similarities among these sites based on their feature vectors. Three distinct groups are formed in the process. The groups are found to be distinct with respect to the core features. We also compared the complementary features of these sites. The results of the chi square tests revealed that the groups do differ with respect to most of these features. We propose a model to assign weights to the features distinctly for three auction site categories. Pareto analyses show important features that contribute to eighty percent of the weights in each group. We next define Site Evaluation Index based on these weights. The analysis shows that the sites with higher site evaluation index are indeed the popular ones, as per their ranking in the results of search engines. The highest scored sites can serve as a benchmark to choose the value adding complementary features to guide the upcoming auction sites.


A 2D cylindrical plate model has been established to study the distribution of residual stress of cold expansion hole under different interference values. In addition, the effects of material models on residual stress fields are considered also. Experiments are carried out to measure the residual stress of cold expansion hole and verify simulation results. FEM results show, with interference values increasing, the higher residual radial and circumferential stresses are obtained. At same interference value, the residual stress of Hardening Material( HM ) model is much larger than that of Elastic Perfectly Plastic Material( EPPM ) model.


The developmental success of interspecific Lepomis hybrids is used as an index of gene regulatory divergence between the green sunfish, L. cyanellus, and each of three other parental species, longear sunfish, L. megalotis, warmouth, L. gulosus, and bluegill, L. macrochirus. This gene regulatory divergence is compared to the degree of structural gene divergence among these four species (genetic distance [Nei, '78], D, ranged from 0.206 to 0.586). The developmental success of the hybrid embryos at the level of morphogenesis was higher than expected from the genetic distance between the parental species. The rates of morphogenesis of the hybrid embryos were the same as that for the green sunfish embryos. The percentage of embryos that hatched was relatively high in all crosses. However, two of the hybrid crosses resulted in enhanced percentages of hatched embryos. Slight increases in the extent of morphological abnormalities were observed in hybrids from crosses between more distantly related parental species. The schedules and levels of enzyme locus expression of the hybrids, assessed spectrophotometrically and electrophoretically for nine enzyme systems (encoded in a total of 14 loci), were different from each other and from those of the green sunfish embryos. Alterations in the time of first enzyme appearance and in the time of first increase in enzyme activity in the developing hybrid embryos were not correlated with genetic distance between parental species. However, the extents of alteration of enzyme activities over the entire period of hybrid embryogenesis were correlated with the genetic distance. We attribute the morphological and molecular anomalies observed in the hybrids to gene regulatory incompatibilities between species. Although the exact number of mutational differences and their relative developmental impacts are not known, some inferences can be drawn about the degree of divergence in gene regulation between species. It appears that an uncoupling of the rates of structural and regulatory gene evolution can occur between species of some taxa, an observation that has implications for the roles of gene regulatory differences in organismic evolution.


With the increase in waste recycling, municipal solid waste (MSW) with high organic and moisture contents are found in various landfills worldwide. If this kind of waste were put into anaerobic condition directly, the pH values will decrease sharply, which will seriously affect the biodegradation of the wastes. This study is aimed to investigate the decomposition of the type of MSW in aerobic condition before the anaerobic biodegradation. In the study, the effects of air addition and biosolids addition on the biodegradation of MSW with high organic and moisture contents were examined. Moreover, the flushing technology was compared with the leachate recirculation technology. Six simulated bioreactor landfills were set up. After about 100 days' operation, it was observed that (1) the mass reduction rate in the aerobic-anaerobic bioreactor was approximately five times of that in the anaerobic bioreactor, the leachate quality was much better than that in the anaerobic bioreactor based on the final COD, BOD 5, TS, and NH 3 concentrations. (2) biosolids have strong buffering effects and the addition of biosolids accelerated the anaerobic biodegradation progress to a great extent. Therefore, it was concluded that initially degrading MSW under aerobic condition before anaerobic degradation with biosolids addition is the optimum strategy for the decomposition of MSW with high organic and moisture contents.


Now-a-days, with increasing demand towards more eco friendly, organizations have become more responsible for their products and overall sustainability. To emulate in today's challenging business environment, companies have to focus on GSCM that have great impact on enhancing on their performance. This paper aimed to introducing the concept of GSCM and its implication for TSCM. This paper also gives the basic difference between TSCM and GSCM. This study is introduced find out what is TSCM and how to redefine the basic structure of TSCM, also explore major factors included in GSCM. GSCM is research area focused on the product to become more environment friendly. This paper conceptualizes the influences of the adoption of GSCM practices in organizational performance. This paper exposes the introduction of GSCM by taking Wal-Mart as an example.


Small sized three wheeler electric vehicles (EVs) are gaining popularity in many developing countries because of its low cost operation and excellent manoeuvrability. However, usage of such a 3Ws usage is limited to low speed application such as last mile public transport. Vehicles with such configuration are not well accepted for personal mobility. If the safe speed of such a vehicles are improved, such a vehicles can also become viable to personal transport. Active tilt control (ATC) systems are seen as one of the possible solution to improve safe speed of narrow track 3Ws.Literature indicates that many attempts have been made for establishing active tilt control system on 3W vehicles for enhancing stability of ATC vehicles and promising results were obtained. This paper presents simulation based analysis of the ATC 3W electric vehicle. This work is part of full scale experimental prototype development for the narrow track ATC 3W vehicle with one wheel in front configuration. The primarily focus of this work is to address vehicle dynamics and trajectory related issue of the tilting 3Ws.
 A multi-body model of ATC 3W vehicle using single track lateral dynamic model with nonlinear tire characteristics was prepared in SimMechanics. The lateral dynamic outputs in terms of the trajectory followed by vehicle were compared for the constant steering inputs given to non-tilting vehicle, tilting vehicle with direct tilt control (DTC) system and tilting vehicle with Steering direct tilt control (SDTC) system. Two critical driving scenarios of U-turn and Lane change manoeuvre are analyzed. It is observed from the results that there is certain trade-off in selecting a tilt actuator and controller so as to minimize the jerks in the perceived acceleration due to high gain and minimize the tilt angle error to ensure proper stability improvement. It is also identified that the controller must be tuned to the predictable trajectory control, in addition to the main task of reducing the load transfer across the rear wheel axle. The model presented in the paper is used to understand the performance of DTC and SDTC control strategies during potentially dangerous manoeuvres. The desired path following ability of the vehicle is the main measures considered for the analysis.


The use of robots in experimental psychology and behavioral neuroscience is emerging as a fundamental method in behavioral experiments using animal models. Utilizing robots in animal experiments provides a substantial advantage for delivering specific stimuli to animals in a selective manner, teaching them different and relatively difficult behaviors, and manipulating group activity. In addition to using individual robots and animals together in behavioral paradigms, biohybrid organisms are created by integrating certain robotic systems with animals. Enabling animals to be controlled by external inputs like robots and enabling robots to be controlled by animals lead to the development of new experimental methods in behavioral animal studies. In addition, artificial intelligence and robotic learning models utilize animal behavior and basic working principles of the nervous system, and the emerging technology can be used in behavioral testing. This review investigates the use of robots and animals in experimental psychology and behavioral neuroscience under three headings. Behavioral tasks that contain animal-robot interactions (1) are discussed, together with biohybrid organisms created by integrating robots into the animals (2) and biology-inspired robotic systems (3). The theoretical and technical contributions of this novel technology and the resulting applications are evaluated. Keywords: Experimental psychology, behavioral neuroscience, animal models, robotics


The survey described in this article was carried out in the summer of 1985 as part of an investigation into the merits of using photogrammetry in field recording (Browne and Pearson 1985), and the advent of new technology in the Royal Commission has made its broader dissemination now possible. A field visit was undertaken in 2005 to verify the details on file. The authors of the paper have confined themselves to considering the evidence for the medieval castles at Castle Bank and, except where relevant to these buildings, are not concerned with the nature or history of the borough or park of Cefnllys, because the survey did not cover adequately the full extent of these. No archaeological excavations have been carried out at the site. Consequently, our only available evidence for possible sequences of construction must come from historical sources. The evidence from these is considered below after a consideration of the topographic setting of the site. The earthworks are then described in some detail to explain the accompanying drawings and photographs. Lastly, a general interpretation is offered of the probable sequence in which the components of the site were built


We tackle the problem of nonparametric variable selection with a focus on discovering interactions between variables. With $p$ variables there are $O(p^s)$ possible order-$s$ interactions making exhaustive search infeasible. It is nonetheless possible to identify the variables involved in interactions with only linear computation cost, $O(p)$. The trick is to maximize a class of parametrized nonparametric dependence measures which we call \emph{metric learning objectives}; the landscape of these nonconvex objective functions is sensitive to interactions but the objectives themselves do not explicitly model interactions. Three properties make metric learning objectives highly attractive:
(a) The stationary points of the objective are automatically sparse (i.e. performs selection)---no explicit $\ell_1$ penalization is needed.
(b) All stationary points of the objective exclude noise variables with high probability.
(c) Guaranteed recovery of all signal variables without needing to reach the objective's global maxima or special stationary points.
The second and third properties mean that all our theoretical results apply in the practical case where one uses gradient ascent to maximize the metric learning objective. While not all metric learning objectives enjoy good statistical power, we design an objective based on $\ell_1$ kernels that does exhibit favorable power: it recovers (i) main effects with $n \sim \log p$ samples, (ii) hierarchical interactions with $n \sim \log p$ samples and (iii) order-$s$ pure interactions with $n \sim p^{2(s-1)}\log p$ samples.


The laser-induced plasma wakefield in a capillary is investigated on the basis of a simple two-dimensional analytical model. It is shown that as an intense laser pulse reshaped by the capillary wall propagates in capillary plasma, it resonantly excites a strong wakefield if a suitable laser pulse width and capillary radius are chosen for a certain plasma density. The dependence of the laser width and capillary radius on the plasma density for resonance conditions is considered. The wakefield amplitude and longitudinal scale of bubbles in capillary plasma are much larger than those in unbounded plasma, so the capillary guided plasma wakefield is more favorable to electron acceleration.


Methods: Since October 2002, 150 patients have been included in this study. Ultrasound examination of fetal profile was carried out between 11 and 14 weeks of gestation. All data was obtained with a Voluson 730 GE and Toshiba SSH 140 A. All patients referred to our department have accepted fetal karyotyping. Results: A total of 150 fetuses were included in this study. Of these 07 had chromosomal anomaly. Additionally 04 of these fetuses were detected using the nuchal translucency. The sensitivity was 55.1%, specificity was 81.1%, positive predictive value (PPV) was 12.9% and negative predictive value (NPV) was 97.5%. The association was statistically significant (P = 0.03-Fisher). Conclusions: Our results suggest that majority of chromosomal anomalies can be detected by the assessment of the nuchal translucency.


A setup for online fermentation monitoring was tested with suspensions containing yeast cells. A flow cell was equipped with a horizontal attenuated total reflection (ATR) unit for measurements of mid-infrared spectra. The stopped flow principle was employed to separately assess the liquid and the dispersed cells: dissolved components in the supernatant can be assessed while pumping the fermentation broth through the flow cell. Upon stopping the flow the culture can be monitored as the microorganisms settle onto the horizontal ATR diamond. Due to the surface sensitivity of ATR spectroscopy cleanness of the optical element is of particular importance. For yeast fermentations the formation of biofilms on the ATR surface was identified as limitation in regard to long-term stability. Initial experiments showed that the effective removal of residues was impossible by rinsing with water or a NaHCO3 solution. Therefore, various cleaning agents (2%) have been tested for their ability to clear off the biofilm. The problem of biofilm formation was additionally addressed by the exploitation of forces exerted on suspended particles within an ultrasonic standing wave (USW). The USW ( ~2 MHz) was built up between the ATR element and an ultrasonic transducer facing it. This technique of ultrasonic particle manipulation was applied to actively lift the sedimented material from the ATR after the infrared measurement, thus have the rinsing stream carry it away more effectively. Among the studied reagents surfactants and oxidizing agents showed to be most effective, the use of an USW was found to be feasible to remove a biofilm.


Cesare Brandi one of the most important personalities of 20th century Italy in the field of history and art criticism, was probably the first who strongly emphasized the value of restoration of the works of art. Working with great sensitivity and insistence he gradually developed a restoration theory which still remains the foundation of the evolution of this science until today as regards the restoration of the works of art either mobile objects or architectural monuments. He also contributed considerably to the handling of town-planning problems to the intricate issue of restoring antique ruins to the preventive restoration and to many other relevant subjects


OBJECTIVES
People who are exposed to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) could develop a potentially fatal disease with lung involvement and severe cytokine storm syndrome (CSS) - coronavirus disease 2019 (hereafter, COVID-19). Tocilizumab (TCZ) was administered to these subjects, despite the lack of randomised clinical trial data. Hence, summarising data on the mortality rate and related risks factors may help physicians to correctly administer TCZ.

METHODS
We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis on mortality rate in TCZ- treated patients with COVID-19 according to the PRISMA guidelines. The pooled mortality rate in TCZ-treated persons was calculated and meta-regressions were done to investigate associated factors.

RESULTS
We included 22 studies and 1520 TCZ-treated patients (mean age: 61 years, 95% CI: 59-64; male: 71%, 95% CI: 64-78%). The mortality estimated pooled prevalence was 19% (95% CI: 13-25, I2=100%, p<0.00001) and improvement estimated pooled prevalence was 71% (95% CI: 62-81). Factors associated with the mortality are the number of patients in intensive care unit, the number of patients requiring invasive ventilation and the sera C-reactive protein value before TCZ administration. We observed a reduction in the odds of mortality in TCZ-treated patients when compared to those treated with other therapies (OR=0.47, 95% CI: 0.22-0.98, p=0.004).

CONCLUSIONS
This study showed that the mortality pooled prevalence in TCZ-treated patients is lower than the overall mortality reported in patients with severe COVID-19.


Low bioavailability of rifampicin, one of the main antituberculous drug, stimulates searches of its new optimized formulations. The present study has showen possibility of rifampicin embedding into nanoparticles from plant phosphatidylcholine (diameter of 20-30 nm). Addition of sodium oleate to the phospholipid system caused a 2-fold increase of the percent of rifampicin incorporation. After oral administration to rats, the maximal drug observed in plasma one hour after was 0.5 and 4.2 mkg/ml for free rifampicin for rifampicin in phospholipids-oleate nanoparticles, respectively. These levels were maintained for more than two hours of the experiment. High rifampicin bioavailability in the oleate containing phospholipid nanosystem suggests prospectivity of its pharmaceutical elaboration.


The extended finite element method allows one to represent strong (cracks) and weak (holes, material interfaces) discontinuities independent of the finite element mesh through the partition of unity. This allows one to avoid costly remeshing which occurs in the vicinity of the crack tip in the traditional finite element framework when modeling crack growth. However, fatigue crack growth simulation has been computationally challenging due to the large number of simulations needed to model growth to failure. Reanalysis techniques are well developed in the areas of design and optimization for the modification of the finite element stiffness matrix to account for the addition/modification of degrees of freedom as a result of the design change. In this paper, it is observed that modeling quasi-static crack growth in the extended finite element framework involves the addition of degrees of freedom to a system of equations. Therefore, a new reanalysis algorithm based on an incremental Cholesky factorization is introduced for modeling quasi-static crack growth in the extended finite element method. This method is also used to predict the angle of crack initiation using an optimization algorithm. The examples contained within show that a 30-48% reduction in the total computational time is achievable for using the reanalysis approach for solving optimization problems or modeling quasi-static growth. It is shown that the assembly time for the stiffness matrix is insensitive to the number of elements for the proposed method.


Recent experimental studies have shown that the support vector machine and the random forest are "stand out" models that outperform most other supervised learning methods in benchmarked evaluations on real-world data sets. Studies have also established that both these models are closely related to nearest neighbor classifiers. Due to this connection, one would expect a similar performance from a nearest neighbor classifier; however, the latter lags greatly behind the support vector machine and the random forest in most evaluations. On the contrary, the nearest neighbor classifier has great theoretical potential because of its ability to model complex decision boundaries with low bias. Furthermore, it theoretically guarantees an error of no more than twice the Bayes error rate on an infinite data set. In this paper, we examine this obvious disconnect between the great theoretical promise and empirical reality of the nearest neighbor classifier. An additional point is that the random forest and support vector machine can be considered eager forms of the (lazy) nearest neighbor classifier. Inspired by the connections between nearest neighbor classifiers, support vector machines and random forest models, we propose a nearest neighbor classifier that is competitive to these models.


We examined the relationship between perceived organizational justice and coping styles in a cross-cultural comparison. Data were collected from university students in Paris, France (individualist culture; N = 192, age M = 21.6) and Istanbul, Turkey (collectivist culture; N = 251, age M = 22). The questionnaire (adapted from Colquitt, 2001) included ratings of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice at the university, and a coping style inventory (Vitaliano, Russo, Carr, Maiuro, Becker, 1985) measuring preference for problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping and seeking social support. In the Turkish data social-support seeking was higher than in the French sample and it was positively correlated with justice perceptions. When seeking social support was linked to problem-focused coping, it was also linked to a more positive evaluation of justice in the Turkish, but not the French data.


Introduction: Studies conducted on foods aimed for infants and young children have shown that foods containing rice have a high content of arsenic and cadmium. Arsenic and cadmium are toxic elements classified as carcinogens. It is therefore especially important to keep the levels low in foods for infants and young children since they have a high intestinal absorption and since the negative effects become apparent only after many years of chronic exposure.Aim: The aim of this project was to investigate if the rice flour in baby-food gruel could be replaced with corn flour with the aim to decrease the content of primarily arsenic and cadmium and sustain low levels of lead and mercury while retaining sensory properties. A native corn starch was also evaluated in terms of heavy metal content and sensory properties.Material & Methods: The rice flour in 4 different recipes was replaced with various proportions of flour and starch from corn whereon sensory evaluations were performed. Stability and viscosity measurements were conducted and the content of arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury was analysed.Results/Conclusion: No differences in texture and mouth feel could be perceived at low corn flour concentrations when mixed with rice flour. Replacement of 60% of the rice flour fraction with corn flour in a gruel which contained 1.1% rice flour (w/w), may have led to an increased arsenic content. The corn starch provided the highest viscosity and had a smoother mouth feel at the same concentration compared to the corn flour and might be a better choice than the corn flour. In addition, corn starch had a lower content of cadmium and lead compared to the corn flour but further research is needed to establish which one contains the lowest level of arsenic. Both had a lower content of arsenic compared to the rice flour when the flours were analysed separately.


We previously demonstrated, in transgenic tobacco plants, that the role of the movement protein (MP) of tobacco mosaic virus is to facilitate the cell-to-cell spread of viral progeny during infection. An analysis of different tissues of these transgenic plants indicated that the MP accumulated in leaf, stem, and root tissue. The highest levels were detected in older leaves. The relative levels of MP in leaf tissue from transgenic plants were equivalent to, or higher than, the levels of MP in tobacco mosaic virus-infected leaf tissue. Results of subcellular fractionation of homogenates of transgenic leaf tissue showed that the MP was most abundant in the cell wall fraction of older leaves and that the protein remained at high levels in the cell wall fraction as the leaves continued to age. Significant levels of the MP were detected in a crude membrane/organelle fraction and a soluble fraction in younger leaves but decreased to low levels in older leaves. These results suggest that the MP accumulates and is stable in cell walls. We have previously shown that the MP modifies the molecular exclusion limit of plasmodesmata, which is consistent with the hypothesis that plant viruses move from cell to cell through altered plasmodesmata. We show here that the ability of the tobacco mosaic virus MP to modify the molecular exclusion limit of plasmodesmata in tobacco depends on the developmental stage of the leaf. The implications of these findings on understanding virus movement and how plasmodesmata function are discussed.


Background: Neuropathy is a prevalent and debilitating complication of poorly managed diabetes, contributing towards poor quality of life, amputation risk, and increased mortality. The available therapies for diabetic neuropathic pain (DPN) have limitations in terms of efficacy, tolerability and patient compliance. Dysfunction in the peripheral and central monoaminergic system has been evidenced in various types of neuropathic and acute pain. The objective of the present study was to investigate 1-methyl 1, 2, 3, 4-tetrahydroisoquinoline (1MeTIQ), an endogenous amine found in human brain with a known neuroprotective profile, in a model of streptozotocin (STZ) induced neuropathic pain. Methods: Diabetic neuropathy in male BALB/c mice was induced by intraperitoneal injection of a single dose of STZ (200 mg/kg). Upon development of DPN after 4 weeks, mice were investigated for mechanical allodynia (von Frey filament pressure test) and thermal hyperalgesia (tail immersion test). Ondansetron (1.0 mg/kg i.p.), naloxone (3.0 mg/kg i.p.) and yohimbine (2.0 mg/kg i.p.) were used to elucidate the possible mechanism involved. Postmortem frontal cortical, striatal and hippocampal tissues were dissected and evaluated for changes in levels of dopamine, noradrenaline and serotonin using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) with UV detection. Results: Acute administration of 1MeTIQ (15–45 mg/kg i.p.) reversed streptozotocin-induced diabetic neuropathic static mechanical allodynia (von Frey filament pressure test) and thermal hyperalgesia (tail immersion test), these outcomes being comparable to standard gabapentin. Furthermore, HPLC analysis revealed that STZ-diabetic mice expressed lower concentrations of serotonin in all three brain regions examined, while dopamine was diminished in the striatum and 1MeTIQ reversed all these neurotransmitter modifications. These findings suggest that the antihyperalgesic/antiallodynic activity of 1MeTIQ may be mediated in part via supraspinal opioidergic and monoaminergic modulation since they were naloxone, yohimbine and ondansetron reversible. Conclusion: It was also concluded that acute treatment with 1MeTIQ ameliorated STZ-induced mechanical allodynia and thermal hyperalgesia and restored brain regionally altered serotonin and dopamine concentrations which signify a potential for 1MeTIQ in the management of DPN.


Life cycle costing (LCC) is a management technique that has been available to the
industry for some time, but despite this it continues to languish in obscurity. Some
clients, most apparently from the public sector, are fostering the technique by
commissioning studies based on the LCC appraisal techniques. However, the
majority of building designs are still currently produced unsullied by thoughts of
maintenance implications, life expectancy or energy consumption.
Recent technological developments, particularly in Web, Virtual Reality (VR), and
Object Oriented technologies and mathematical and computational modelling
techniques will undoubtedly help in resolving some of the problems associated with
life cycle costing techniques. This paper outlines a conceptual framework for an
innovative system that facilitates the implementation of LCC in various design and
occupancy stages. This system is being developed within an EPSRC-funded research
project, undertaken through a joint collaboration between the Robert Gordon
University and the University of Salford.