Soybean (Glycine max Merr.) is the world's most widely grown legume and provides an important source of protein and oil. Global soybean production and yield per hectare increased steadily over the past century with improved agronomy and development of cultivars suited to a wide range of latitudes. In order to meet the needs of a growing world population without unsustainable expansion of the land area devoted to this crop, yield must increase at a faster rate than at present. Here, the historical basis for the yield gains realized in the past 90 years are examined together with potential metabolic targets for achieving further improvements in yield potential. These targets include improving photosynthetic efficiency, optimizing delivery and utilization of carbon, more efficient nitrogen fixation and altering flower initiation and abortion. Optimization of investment in photosynthetic enzymes, bypassing photorespiratory metabolism, engineering the electron transport chain and engineering a faster recovery from the photoprotected state are different strategies to improve photosynthesis in soybean. These potential improvements in photosynthetic carbon gain will need to be matched by increased carbon and nitrogen transport to developing soybean pods and seeds in order to maximize the benefit. Better understanding of control of carbon and nitrogen transport along with improved knowledge of the regulation of flower initiation and abortion will be needed to optimize sink capacity in soybean. Although few single targets are likely to deliver a quantum leap in yields, biotechnological advances in molecular breeding techniques that allow for alteration of the soybean genome and transcriptome promise significant yield gains.


This paper describes an instrument developed and used with an experimental methodology in a pilot study of stacking in football and baseball. The instrument was a positional profile purporting to represent an evaluation of young athletes on a number of position-relevant traits. Respondents were asked to assign each player to a position solely on the basis of this written evaluation. The race of the profiled player was systematically varied in order to measure the impact of race on positional assignment. Preliminary results showed that coaches achieve a high degree of consensus when making assignments on the basis of the written evaluations alone, and players who have been identified as white are significantly more likely to be assigned to the quarterback position than are players identified as black. No other evidence of racial differences in positional assignment was indicated.


In this research, the electrical characteristics of glow discharge plasma were studied. Glow discharge plasma generated in a home-made DC magnetron sputtering system, and a DC-power supply of high voltage as input to the discharge electrodes were both utilized. The distance between two electrodes is 4cm. The gas used to produce plasma is argon gas which flows inside the chamber at a rate of 40 sccm. The influence of work function for different target materials (gold, copper, and silver), - 5cm in diameter and around 1mm thickness - different working pressures, and different applied voltages on electrical characteristics (discharge current, discharge potential, and Paschen's curve) were studied. The results showed that the discharge current and potential increase by increasing the applied voltage ranging between 300-700 V. Discharge current increased as working pressure increased in the beginning, and then semi-stabilized (slight increase) starting from 1×100 mbar, while discharge potential decreased at the beginning as working pressure increased and then semi-stabilized at the same point at which discharge current stabilized. The Paschen's curves were compared with each other. It was concluded that the lower breakdown voltage was associated with lower work function of the (Au, Cu, and Ag) cathode material. Breakdown voltages were (395, 398, and 420) for Ag, Cu and Au respectively.


Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the commonest cardiac arrhythmia and is an independent risk factor for stroke and mortality. Oral anticoagulation is the cornerstone of management for primary and secondary stroke prophylaxis in patients with AF and known additional risk factors (1). Whilst oral vitamin K antagonists (VKA) such as warfarin were the mainstay of treatment for decades, they have been superseded by the newer non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (NOACs), which offer relative efficacy, safety and convenience compared to VKAs (2,3). The NOACs include direct thrombin inhibitor, dabigatran and direct factor Xa inhibitors such as rivaroxaban, apixaban and edoxaban.


Abstract Total anthocyanins were extracted from six sweet cherry cultivars grown in Sakarya, Turkey. In vitro inhibition effects of the extracted total anthocyanins on purified carbonic anhydrase I and II were investigated using CO2 as a substrate. All the extracted total anthocyanins inhibited the activity of the human carbonic anhydrase (hCA) I and II enzymes. Among all the cultivars, 'Karakiraz' was found to be the most active on both hCA I (IC50 = 30.59 μg/mL) and hCA II activity (IC50 = 44.52 μg/mL). Additionally, all the cultivars have higher inhibitory activity on hCA I than hCA II.


Peptic ulcer is a common malady among civilized races, no age seemingly being immune. In infancy and childhood this disease is comparatively uncommon. The rarity of peptic ulcer in childhood is probably more apparent than real, as many cases are not recognized during life and others not until adult life. The diagnosis of peptic ulcer in childhood is in the same position as the diagnosis of such a condition in adults was about twenty-five years ago; only cases with the more common complications are recognized. A correct diagnosis in the uncomplicated cases is but rarely made. Palmer 1 collected reports of forty-five cases of chronic peptic ulcer in childhood; in only ten cases was a correct clinical diagnosis made. Rogers 2 stated that at present the majority of peptic ulcers in children are diagnosed post mortem. In many cases the condition is wrongly diagnosed as chronic appendicitis, pylorospasm, cyclic vomiting,


Purpose: The purpose of the study is to investigate firstly, the motivations of Swedish and Thai entrepreneurs toward internationalization business by exporting and secondly, the similarity motivation in going internationalization among Swedish and Thai entrepreneurs. Method: The multiple cases design is used in this report by conducting semi-structured interview in order to "generate understanding of the study" (Stenbacka, 2001). Two Swedish companies and three Thai companies have been interviewed. Empirical data was collected by face to face and telephone interview for Swedish companies and e-mail for Thai companies. Conclusion: Both Swedish and Thai entrepreneurs are motivated by both internal and external factors in term of going internationalization. However, there are dissimilarities in each motivation factors.


1. To elucidate further the possible role of polyamines in the synthesis of nuclei acids, a study of the effect of exogenously administered amines on the synthesis of RNA by Drosophila melanogaster larvae was undertaken. This system was chosen because of the previous investigations [Dion, A.S. & Herbst, E.J. (1967) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 58, 2367-2371; Herbst, E.J. & Dion, A.S. (1970) Fed. Proc. Fed. Am. Soc. Exp. Biol. 29, 1563-1567] relating putrescine and spermidine to growth and development of Drosophila.


The increasing frequency and economic losses from natural disasters within the framework of decreasing agricultural prices is becoming crucial in increasing poverty in the Mexican rural economy. During the past two decades, the governmental withdrawal from supporting the agricultural sector with investments in physical, financial and logistic instruments continues to stress agricultural livelihoods, as current private mechanisms have not replaced them effectively. Natural disasters occurrence is increasingly producing severe damages to the so-called traditional agriculture, highly exposed to climatic events due to its predominating rainfed cropping practices as well as its high marginalization conditions, especially in the South of the country. Together, it tends to amplify the negative effects from extreme events. This process undermines farmers' incomes given their limitations to increase neither productivity nor cropping land, as well as their overall inability to re-orientate production. This document assesses public response to natural disasters in Mexico, including risk-sharing and loss-transfer instruments. It concludes with a set of policy suggestions to the public sector in order to maximize benefits from the existing governmental programs for adaptation to the increasing natural hazard exposure of the country.


BACKGROUND: Acute coronary syndrome includes life-threatening clinical conditions ranging from unstable angina to non-Q-wave myocardial infarction and Q-wave myocardial infarction that are a major cause of emergency medical care and hospitalization in the United States. The American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) guidelines on the management of patients with unstable angina and non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (2002-2004) recommend (1) angiotensinconverting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors or angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) for ACE inhibitor intolerance, (2) beta-blockers, and (3) statins for long-term treatment of patients after an acute coronary event. OBJECTIVES: To examine rates of use of 3 key evidence-based drug therapies (ACE inhibitors/ARBs, beta-blockers, and statins) after hospital discharge for patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS). METHODS: The study cohort was identified using medical claims from commercial health plans within a managed care organization located in the Mid-Atlantic states, with approximately 3.4 million members with medical benefits of whom 1.2 million members (35.3%) had pharmacy benefits. Members were included if they were (1) aged e 18 years, (2) continuously enrolled with the same commercial plan from January 1, 2003, through December 31, 2005, (3) had any medical claims for hospitalization for ACS defined by International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes 410.xx (acute myocardial infarction) or 411.1 (intermediate coronary syndrome) during the sample identification period from July 1, 2003 through June 30, 2004, and (4) had no medical claims for ACS hospitalizations from January 1, 2003, through June 30, 2003, in any of 10 diagnosis fields on an inpatient hospital claim. Pharmacy claims for ACE inhibitors, ARBs, beta-blockers, and statins were obtained for 18 months following each index date, defined as the earliest ACS diagnosis date during the identification period. Utilization was defined as the member having at least 1 pharmacy claim within each class from index date to 3 months post-index date. Five time periods were examined to assess therapy: - 180 to 0 days (6 months prior), 0 to 90 days (3 months), 0 to 180 days (6 months), 0 to 365 days (12 months), and 0 to 548 days (18 months) following the index date. ACE inhibitors and ARBs were considered together (i.e., a patient had to have at least 1 pharmacy claim for an ACE inhibitor or an ARB). Logistic regression analyses were used to predict use of the 3 drug classes for patients with different clinical (diagnosis and prior use) and demographic (sex and age) characteristics. RESULTS: The study cohort included 1,135 patients (0.27% of 424,526 continuously enrolled members) with ACS as defined by ICD-9-CM codes in medical claims from July 1, 2003, to June 30, 2004. Nearly 65% of the sample patients were men (n = 734 men and n = 401 women), with a mean (standard deviation [SD]) age of 63.8 (SD 13.1) years. Of the 1,135 members with ACS, 588 (51.8%) had at least 1 pharmacy claim for an ACE inhibitor or ARB, 725 (63.9%) for a beta-blocker, and 710 (62.6%) for a statin during the 3-month follow-up period; receipt of at least 1 prescription in all 3 classes was found in 339 (29.9%) of patients. Patients who were aged less than 45 years, 65-79 years, and e 80 years were significantly less likely than patients aged 45-64 years to receive statins (P less than 0.05). In addition, patients who were aged e 80 years were significantly less likely to receive ACE inhibitors/ARBs (P = 0.003), beta-blockers (P less than 0.001), or all 3 classes (P = 0.002). Women were less likely than men to receive statins (P = 0.004) and all 3 drug classes (P = 0.012). Patients with intermediate coronary syndrome were significantly less likely than those with acute myocardial infarction to receive any of the study drugs (P less than 0.001). Those patients who had used ACE inhibitors/ARBs, beta-blockers, statins, and all 3 drug classes during the 6 months prior to the index diagnosis of ACS were more likely than those without prior use (odds ratios of 12.2, 9.4, 8.3, and 4.9, respectively, P less than 0.001) to have these medications continued after ACS diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: At 3 months following the index ACS hospitalization, the majority of the patients were not receiving the 3 guideline medication therapies. ACS patients with intermediate coronary syndrome and those aged 80 years or older were less likely to be receiving any of the 3 therapies, and women were less likely than men to receive statin therapy.


A set of quintuplets, three of which were born with various degrees of oral clefting, were followed up to the age of 10 years. Study models, as well as panoramic and intraoral roentgenograms were collected at ages 5 and 10 years. Cephalometrlc roentgenograms were added at the age of 10 years. Analysis of the growth charts for height and weight indicated normal somatic development, save for a persistent, albeit diminishing, lag for the two most severely affected siblings. The latter also demonstrated a more vertical craniofacial growth pattern. The dental arch dimensions were within normal range, except for the maxillary and mandibular widths in the two more affected siblings, who also exhibited a delay of one or two stages of dental development in an interslbling comparison. These findings indicate that in the more severely affected siblings, there was only partial growth catch-up at the age of 10 years.


Optimization of the piezoelectric resonance effect in a piezoelectric transformer plasma source (PTPS) is investigated. The PTPS utilizes a piezoelectric transformer (PT) effect to generate large electric potentials and aid in plasma formation in the plasma source. Finite-element simulations are used in conjunction with observations of device operation in order to optimize the PT effect used by the plasma source. Simulations were used to determine optimal crystal rotation for electromechanical coupling and evaluate the geometry of the plasma source in order to maximize the generated voltage. Input impedance measurements and an estimate of the mechanical quality were used to verify the effectiveness of device construction changes to reduce mechanical clamping.


Background: Postnatal period is defined as the first six weeks after birth and is critical to the health and survival of both a mother and newborn. Most maternal and infant deaths occur during this time. Yet, this is the most neglected period for the provision of quality care. More than half a million women die every year worldwide from complications in pregnancy and childbirth; most of these deaths are happening during the postnatal period. Despite the fact that Post Natal Care (PNC) service utilization would avert the death of mothers and their new born; the PNC service utilization is generally believed to be low in Ethiopia. Therefore, this study designed to identify the prevalence and associated factors of postnatal care service utilization. Objective : The main objective of the study was the prevalence and associated factors of postnatal care utilization in Addis Ababa 2016. Methods : An Institution based cross-sectional study was conducted from April 20 to May 20, 2016 at ten randomly selected government health centers in Addis Ababa. A total of 422 Women who delivered a baby 10 weeks before the survey and who come for child immunization up to 14 th weeks of delivery were included in the study. Data was collected through face to face interview using a pre–tested Amharic questionnaire. Data was entered cleaned and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Frequency distributions, measures of central tendency and logistic regression were calculated and interpreted accordingly. Result: A total of 422 participants were included in the analysis with a response rate of 98.3 %. The mean age of the participants was 26.7 %( + SD=4.4 years). The prevalence of this finding was 277(65.6%) having utilization of postnatal care service. PNC counseling and provision of appointment, counseling on danger sign, past experience of PNC utilization, and less than 6 hours stay at health institution before discharge were showed statistical significant association for the current PNC service Utilization [(AOR=32.6, 95% CI (14.7-72.3)], [ AOR (1.95, 95% CI (1.05-3.64)], [AOR=2.8, 95% CI (1.36-5.8)], [AOR= 0.22, 95% CI (0.06-0.83)] respectively. Conclusion and recommendations: The overall prevalence of PNC service utilization in this study was relatively good as compared to the HSDP IV report for Addis Ababa in the 2006Ethiopian feasibility year. To enhance PNC service utilization all women should be counseled about the danger signs of postnatal period and provided appointment. Further all delivering mothers should be stayed at least for 24 hours following delivery. Keywords: postnatal care utilization, prevalence, Addis Ababa .


Summary Dabigatran was as effective as warfarin for the acute treatment of venous thromboembolism in the RE-COVER and RE-COVER II trials. We compared the incidence of bleeding with dabigatran versus warfarin in pooled data from these studies. The localisation, bleeding severity, and the impact of key factors on the incidence of bleeding, were compared between the dabigatran and warfarin treatment group. Altogether, 2553 patients received dabigatran and 2554 warfarin, each for a mean of 164 days. The incidence of any bleeding event was significantly lower with dabigatran (hazard ratio [HR] 0.70; 95 % confidence interval [CI], 0.61–0.79), as was the incidence of the composite of MBEs and clinically relevant non-major bleeding events (HR 0.62; 95 % CI, 0.50–0.76). The incidence of major bleeding events (MBEs) was also significantly lower with dabigatran in the double-dummy phase (HR, 0.60; 95 % CI, 0.36–0.99) but not statistically different between the two treatment arms when the entire treatment period is considered (HR 0.73 95 % CI, 0.48–1.11). Increasing age, reduced renal function, Asian ethnicity, and concomitant antiplatelet therapy were associated with higher bleeding rates in both treatment groups. The reduction in bleeding with dabigatran compared to warfarin was consistent among the subgroups and with a similar pattern for intracranial, and urogenital major bleeding. In conclusion, treatment of venous thromboembolism with dabigatran is associated with a lower risk of bleeding compared to warfarin. This reduction did not differ with respect to the location of bleeding or among predefined subgroups.


: In a consecutive autopsy series comprising 284 subjects > or = 50 years, 22 cases (7.7%) revealed Lewy bodies (LBs) of whom 21 had LBs in substantia nigra and/or locus ceruleus and 9 (3.2%) in the cerebral cortex. Only one case had cortical LBs without concomitant inclusions in the brain stem. The mean age of subjects with LBs was significantly higher than in those without (78.0 vs. 72.3 years). Cortical LBs had not been demonstrated in routine HE stains in any case and their identification necessitated the use of staining for ubiquitin. Although great care was taken not to interpret globose neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) as LBs, anti-tau staining revealed that many of the suspected LBs were in fact NFTs. Thus, we recommend to apply both anti-ubiquitin and anti-tau staining for the demonstration of cortical LBs. In this material 21 of the 22 cases with LBs (95.5%) also revealed Alzheimer type of pathology as compared with 187 of 262 cases without LBs (71.4%). This difference may be explained by the higher age of subjects with LBs. Altogether 96 of the 284 cases (33.8%) had cerebrovascular lesions. None of the 9 cases with cortical LBs were clinically demented, and our results do not support the assertion that Lewy body-associated dementias should outnumber those of vascular origins.


With the advent of social networking, one's online identity and their personal information become embedded within the online personas of others. One problem of digital estates is this: Consider the personal information of third-parties such as: i) families of the deceased concerned with privacy, or ii) those consociates who have "friended" the deceased online or who, perhaps, are the subject-matter of the deceased's copyrighted content, e.g., such as photographs. How is that shared information of those parties protected, even after the deceased has passed? In Europe, there are "fair information practice" standards codified by law. Regardless of whether the information is held by the government or private entities, European citizens have legal rights to prevent their personal information from being misused. The United States has no such comprehensive protection for its citizens.Nor will contract law provide U.S. citizens comparable substantive rights under a third-party beneficiary theory. The law of torts will instead be explored to clarify the public policy rationales that have been successful in underpinning privacy and limitations over publication of personal information. But, also and especially, the law of property will be investigated. This is in line with leading scholars who have posited that property interests could be a viable way to internalize the costs of information to those who would primarily benefit from that information. In Part I, we define the "third-parties" whose interests are at issue by tying the concept to those whose personally identifiable information has been captured. In Part II, we analyze the existing obstacles and loopholes that serve to vitiate end-users rights to their own data. We also propose that at least one way to avoid those pitfalls is to formalize a property right in a person's data from the onset. In Part III, we analyze certain exemplars which can be used to fashion a better regulatory scheme, based on such a property right. Part IV concludes, while an appendix contains a sample code wherein a jurisdiction might attempt to implement our suggested solution.


This article describes findings from an evaluation of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) International Research Fellowship Program (IRFP), which supports postdoctoral research fellowships of 9–24 months in locations outside the USA. The evaluation assessed the role of IRFP in seeding productive international research collaborations for researchers early in their careers. Data used in the evaluation included the NSF program data and survey data from 1,039 scholars who applied to IRFP from 1992 to 2009. The evaluation employed a quasi-experimental design to compare the outcomes of IRFP-funded postdoctoral fellows (awardees) to unfunded applicants (non-awardees), using pre-award characteristics of applicants to mitigate the potential threat of selection bias; the study incorporated propensity score methodology to construct groups of awardees and non-awardees that were statistically similar across a number of preexisting characteristics. By constructing a comparison group from among applicants to the program, the treatment and comparison groups represented individuals who were similarly motivated to engage in international collaboration, and by using propensity scores to match based on characteristics at the time of application, comparisons were made among similarly qualified groups. The study found that IRFP awardees were more likely to have productive research collaborations with foreign researchers, their time abroad did not come at the expense of overall research productivity or career advancement, and the fellowships seeded collaborative relationships that extended beyond the fellowship period.


Modern vaccine designs and studies of human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-mediated immune responses rely heavily on the knowledge of HLA allele-specific binding motifs and computational prediction of HLA-peptide binding affinity. Breakthroughs in HLA peptidomics have considerably expanded the databases of natural HLA ligands and enabled detailed characterizations of HLA-peptide binding specificity. However, cautions must be made when analyzing HLA peptidomics data because identified peptides may be contaminants in mass spectrometry or may weakly bind to the HLA molecules. Here, a hybrid de novo peptide sequencing approach was applied to large-scale mono-allelic HLA peptidomics datasets to uncover new ligands and refine current knowledge of HLA binding motifs. Up to 12-40% of the peptidomics data were low-binding affinity peptides with an arginine or a lysine at the C-terminus and likely to be tryptic peptide contaminants. Thousands of these peptides have been reported in a community database as legitimate ligands and might be erroneously used for training prediction models. Furthermore, unsupervised clustering of identified ligands revealed additional binding motifs for several HLA class I alleles and effectively isolated outliers that were experimentally confirmed to be false positives. Overall, our findings expanded the knowledge of HLA binding specificity and advocated for more rigorous interpretation of HLA peptidomics data that will ensure the high validity of community HLA ligandome databases.


Since the statistical properties of speech signals are variable and depend heavily on the content, it is hard to design speech processing techniques that would perform well on all inputs. For example, in voice conversion, where the aim is to transform the speech uttered by a source speaker to sound as if it was spoken by a target speaker, different types of interspeaker relationships can be found from different types of speech segments. To tackle this problem in a robust manner, we have developed a novel scheme for data clustering and mode selection. When applied in the voice conversion application, the main idea of the proposed approach is to first cluster the target data to achieve a minimized intra-cluster variability. Then, a mode selector or a classifier is trained on aligned source-related data to recognize the target-based clusters. Auxiliary speech features can be used to enhance the classification accuracy, in addition to the source data. Finally, a separate conversion scheme is trained and used for each cluster. The proposed scheme is fully data-driven and it avoids the need to use heuristic solutions. The superior performance of the proposed scheme has been verified in a practical voice conversion system.


Purpose Acupuncture is widely used to relieve shoulder pain. A survey was conducted in order to recognize hotspots and frontiers of acupuncture for shoulder pain from the year 2000–2022. Methods The Web of Science Core Collection was used to collect literature related to acupuncture therapy for shoulder pain, which spanned January 2000 to August 2022. The number of publications yearly, countries/institutions, journals, and keywords was analyzed and visualized in shoulder pain with acupuncture therapy by CiteSpace v.5.7.R5. Results We totally analyzed 214 articles that met the inclusion criteria. The overall trend of publication volume continues to increase. The most productive authors in the field were César Fernández las Peñas and José L Arias-Buría, and the most influential author was Green S. Kyung Hee University and the People's Republic of China had the highest volume of publications, respectively. The most influential journal is Pain with high citation and impact factor. The hot keywords were "acupuncture", "shoulder pain", "dry needling", "randomized trial", and "injection". The research frontier in acupuncture for treating chronic shoulder pain was mainly "mechanism". Conclusion Over the last 22 years, the findings of this bibliometric analysis have provided research trends and frontiers in clinical research on acupuncture therapy for patients with shoulder pain, which identifying hot topics and exploring new directions for the future may be helpful to researchers. Studying mechanisms underlying acupuncture therapy for shoulder pain remains a focus of future research.


Background : The exact preoperative diagnosis of diffuse sclerosing papillary carcinoma (DSPC) is required for aggressive surgical treatment due to its extended involvement with thyroid and neck lymph nodes. The present study investigated the cytomorphologic characteristics of DSPC and identified cytologic features for preoperative diagnosis of DSPC. Methods : A retrospective review of cytologic and histologic features of 16 patients diagnosed with DSPC after thyroidectomy and underwent preoperative fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) was performed. Results : Prominent psammoma bodies were observed in 16 (100%) and 10 (62.5%) cases of histology and FNAC, respectively. Lymphocytes were observed in nine (56.2%) and four (25.0%) cases, and squamous cells were noted in seven cases (43.7%) and one case (6.2%) on histology and FNAC, respectively. Nuclear grooves and inclusions, which are characteristics of papillary carcinoma, were observed in FNAC and histology slides in all 16 cases. Conclusions : DSPC displays prominent psammoma bodies and characteristic nuclear features of papillary carcinoma such as nuclear groove and inclusion in FNAC. However, the preoperative diagnosis of DSPC using only FNAC could be difficult due to the absence of other characteristic features such as lymphocytes and metaplastic squamous cells.


In the heavy equipment industry, manufacturers are dominant in business transactions with retailers. What products manufacturers provide is what retailers can only buy and sell. In the supply chain, the manufacturer's decisions have significant impact, it determines the efficiency and system performance of the supply chain, so study the manufacturer's decision has important theoretical and practical significance. Most of the studies assumed that retailers decide order quantity, which is consistent with the actual situation in most industries. This paper assumes that the manufacturer decided the agents' order quantity, which is different from the previous studies. Furthermore, the existing research didn't study the specific form of demand function, and only assumed the demand function as the specified demand and random demand.This paper considers the impact of transport capacity flexibility on transportation costs, and assumes that heavy equipment manufacturer has the power of order quantity decision-making, supplier productivity rate is a linear function of market demand, and market demand rate is a function of price and marketing costs. Based on demand function and the transport cost function, develop heavy equipment manufacturer's wholesale price and order quantity decision model, and analyze properties of the model. The study shows that: production startup costs, production costs, fixed transportation costs and unit inventory costs have positive impact on manufacturer's optimal wholesale price, while productivity have negative impact. Market demand rate, fixed transportation costs, production start-up costs and productivity of manufacturers have positive impact on manufacturer's optimal order quantity, while retail price and unit inventory costs have negative impact.


to facilitate improvement of education and teaching modernization level in China, and promote maturity and development of multimedia teaching technology, this paper established continuous animation multimedia teaching system based on continuous animation production technology. Meanwhile, this paper took gymnastics teaching of 2015 gymnastics class in Hubei University of Arts and Science in Hubei province of China as the objects of experiment and explored teaching effect of this multimedia teaching system combined with continuous animation production technology. The results show that this multimedia teaching system combined with continuous animation production technology can significantly improve students' theoretical and practical examination scores. Based on case study of application of continuous animation and multimedia technology in gymnastics teaching, this paper aims to make certain contributions to promotion and development of multimedia teaching technology.


Reinforcement learning policies based on deep neural networks are vulnerable to imperceptible adversarial perturbations to their inputs, in much the same way as neural network image classifiers. Recent work has proposed several methods for adversarial training for deep reinforcement learning agents to improve robustness to adversarial perturbations. In this paper, we study the effects of adversarial training on the neural policy learned by the agent. In particular, we compare the Fourier spectrum of minimal perturbations computed for both adversarially trained and vanilla trained neural policies. Via experiments in the OpenAI Atari environments we show that minimal perturbations computed for adversarially trained policies are more focused on lower frequencies in the Fourier domain, indicating a higher sensitivity of these policies to low frequency perturbations. We believe our results can be an initial step towards understanding the relationship between adversarial training and different notions of robustness for neural policies.


The aim of the present study is to investigate the antioxidant properties of the lichen Cetraria aculeata. Antioxidant activity of the methanol and ethyl acetate extracts of lichen was tested by different methods including determination of total phenolics content, determination of total antioxidant capacity, DPPH free radical scavenging activity, inhibitory activity towards lipid peroxidation, ferrous ion chelating ability and hydroxyl radical scavenging activity. The extracts of the lichen C. aculeata showed significant antioxidant activity. The methanol extract showed higher values for total phenolics and total antioxidant capacity compared to the ethyl acetate extract, while the ethyl acetate extract demonstrated better results for DPPH radical scavenging, inhibitory activity towards lipid peroxidation, chelating ability and hydroxyl radical scavenging than the methanol extract. This is the first report of the antioxidant properties of Cetraria aculeata growing in Serbia. The results of antioxidant activity indicate the application of this lichen as source of natural antioxidants that could be used as a possible food supplement, in the pharmaceutical industry and in the treatment of various diseases.


Two groups of randomly selected underweight and well-nourished preschool children residing in study villages of Punjab, Ludhiana district were examined with respect to their socioeconomic background, birth weights, dietary intakes, quality of received mother care, blood biochemistry, parasite load, psychomotor development and past illness prevalence. It was found that underweight children showed significantly less favourable indices in all of the above categories except stool parasitology suggesting an extremely intricate and complex interaction of a host of ecological variables in the causation of undernutrition. Using the discriminate analysis on readily available social variables, it was found that caste affiliation and, less so parental income were the two most significant variables distinguishing between the two groups. A model for the interaction patterns of ecological variables in their effect of protein calorie malnutrition for the given area is suggested.


Stress distribution analysis on four types of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) specimen is presented in this paper. This work was performed using commercial finite element based software, ANSYS. Two types of mesh arrangements, fixed mesh with different mesh size and adaptive mesh, were employed in this work to study the effect of mesh size on stress distribution of SCC specimen. Four types of SCC specimen were studied in this work, i.e. C-ring specimen, tensile test specimen, pre-crack cantilever beam specimen and U-bend specimen. Simulation result shows that stress distribution on the SCC specimen much affected by mesh size and arrangement, especially for specimen with notch. By performing the stress analysis, less effort needed in order to determine the location of corrosion potential measurement on the SCC specimen. This will be very helpful for future work of SCC study.


A 37-year-old woman was admitted to the emergency room because of an autointoxication with hydroxychloroquine, leading to haemodynamic instability. Treatment consisted of the rapid administration of intravenous diazepam, after which the hypotension recovered rapidly even though no vasoactive medication was given. Treatment with diazepam has been advised in the Netherlands for many years in case of severe hydroxychloroquine intoxication, despite the fact that convincing evidence for its use is lacking. On the basis of the experience with the relevant cases, the administration of diazepam, 2 mg/kg initially followed by 2 mg/kg/24 hours as a continuous infusion, should certainly be considered for supportive treatment in the ICU in case of severe haemodynamic instability.


Objective Hip fractures are associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Ultrasound-guided peripheral nerve blocks are a safe method to manage pain and decrease opioid usage. The pericapsular nerve group (PENG) block is a novel, potentially superior block because of its motor-sparing effects. Through training, simulation, and supervision, we aim to determine whether it is feasible to perform the PENG block in the emergency department. Methods Phase 1 consisted of emergency physicians attending a workshop to demonstrate ultrasound proficiency, anatomical understanding, and procedural competency using a low-fidelity model. Phase 2 consisted of a prospective, observational, feasibility study of 10 patients with hip fractures. Pain scores, side effects, and opioid usage data were collected. Results The median pain score at time 0 (time of block) was 9 (interquartile range [IQR], 6.5–9). The median pain score at 30 minutes was 4 (IQR, 2.0–6.8) and 3.5 (IQR, 1.0–4.8) at 4 hours. All 10 patients required narcotics prior to the initiation of the PENG block with a median dosage of 6.25 morphine milligram equivalents (MME; IQR, 4.25–7.38 MME). After the PENG block, only 30% of the patients required further narcotics with a median dosage of 0 MME (IQR, 0–0.6 MME) until operative fixation. Conclusion In this feasibility study, PENG blocks were safely administered by trained emergency physicians under supervision. We demonstrated data suggesting a trend of pain relief and decreased opiate requirements, and further investigation is necessary to measure efficacy.


The purpose of   this paper is to examine the effect of   financial   performance   in   banking securitization      in      Southeast      Asian.      In      particular,      the      authors      examine two important issues. First,     the     ABS (Asset-Backed Securities) effect     on     Return     on Assets (ROA) as indicators of   firm   profitability. Second,   bank   securitization   improved profitability      by      securitizing      its      portfolio      loans      to      investors      to      get liquidity. The authors used a sample of    12    commercial    banks    in    Southeast    Asian Countries (including Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines). A data panel regression model was used from 1998 to 2018. The results show that ABS has found a significant positive on ROA as an indicator of firm profitability. On the other hand, ABS has a negative  relationship  with  the size as  a  moderating  variable  on  ROA.  Furthermore, banks can liquidate loans to finance the liquidity they need      without      dependence      on traditional        sources        of funds (deposits, savings, and        current        accounts).        In addition, securitization improved financial               ratios such               as ROA,               Size, and reduces banks securitization's            default            risk


The Deinococcus radiodurans protein HU (DrHU) was shown to be critical for nucleoid activities, yet its functional and structural properties remain largely unexplored. We have applied atomic force microscopy (AFM) imaging to study DrHU binding to pUC19-DNA in vitro and analyzed the topographic structures formed at the nanoscale. At the single-molecule level, AFM imaging allows visualization of super-helical turns on naked DNA surfaces and characterization of free DrHU molecules observed as homodimers. When enhancing the molecular surface structures of AFM images by the Laplacian weight filter, the distribution of bound DrHUs was visibly varied as a function of the DrHU/DNA molar ratio. At a low molar ratio, DrHU binding was found to reduce the volume of condensed DNA configuration by about 50%. We also show that DrHU is capable of bridging distinct DNA segments. Moreover, at a low molar ratio, the binding orientation of individual DrHU dimers could be perceived on partially "open" DNA configuration. At a high molar ratio, DrHU stiffened the DNA molecule and enlarged the spread of the open DNA configuration. Furthermore, a lattice-like pattern could be seen on the surface of DrHU-DNA complex, indicating that DrHU multimerization had occurred leading to the formation of a higher order architecture. Together, our results show that the functional plasticity of DrHU in mediating DNA organization is subject to both the conformational dynamics of DNA molecules and protein abundance.


The human aldosterone synthase ( hCYP11B2 ) gene encodes a key enzyme for the biosynthesis of aldosterone which is part of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system. Molecular variants in this gene have been associated with essential hypertension. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a family of small, noncoding RNAs that bind to the 3'-untranslated region (3'UTR) of the gene and regulate its expression. Our main objective in this study was to investigate whether miRNAs bind at the polymorphic sites present in the 3'UTR of hCYP11B2 gene and modulate its expression. Previous studies have suggested that -344T/C (rs1799998) polymorphism in the hCYP11B2 promoter is associated with hypertension. Here, we compared nucleotide sequences of the promoter and 3'UTR of hCYP11B2 gene from hypertensive and normotensive subjects and found that rs1799998 is in linkage disequilibrium with 735G/A (rs28491316). Thus, variant -344T almost always occurs with variant 735G; whereas variant -344C almost always occurs with variant 735A. Bioinformatic algorithms of the full-length 3'UTR for miRNAs revealed that hsa-miR-766 was possibly binding at the 735G allele. To examine if this miRNA regulates hCYP11B2 gene expression, reporter constructs were made where luciferase gene was attached to 1.4 kb of hCYP11B2 3'UTR containing either 735G, or 735A and co-transfected into HEK293 cells with either pre-miR-766 or anti-pre-miR-766. Our results showed that pre-miR-766 reduced luciferase activity in a dose dependent manner in the presence of 735G allele. There was a significant decrease (65+2%) in the luciferase activity with pre-miR-766 (50 nM) in the presence of 735G allele, whereas it was insignificant (4+5%) in the presence of 735A allele. In H295R cells that express hCYP11B2 gene, pre-miR-766 (50nM) reduced luciferase activity by 81+1% in the presence of 735G allele. We also showed that transfection of pre-mir-766 reduced hCYP11B2 mRNA level by about 23.6% in H295R cells. In corroboration with these results, anti-pre-miR-766 did not decrease luciferase activity in presence of either allele in both cell cultures. Our results suggest that hCYP11B2 gene expression may be regulated by differential binding of miR-766 at 735G/A polymorphism present in its 3'UTR.


Access control policies in distributed systems, particularly implemented in the XACML standard language, are increasingly complex. Faults may exist in complex policies for various reasons such as misunderstanding of the access control requirements, omissions, and coding errors. These faults, if not removed before deployment, may lead to unauthorized accesses or denial of service. Manual localization of these faults, however, can be a challenging task. Inspired by spectrum-based fault localization for software debugging, this paper presents an approach for automatically localizing the fault(s) in a given XACML policy by exploring test coverage information of the policy elements. We investigate two test coverage criteria (i.e., reachability and firing) of policy elements and 14 scoring methods for ranking policy elements to determine the fault location(s). To evaluate the fault localization methods, we have used real-world policy files with different levels of complexity and a large number of policy mutants with one or two seeded faults. The experiment results show that the firing-based Naish2 and CBI-Inc methods are effective in fault localization of XACML policies.


The outbreak of the First World War remains a great historical puzzle and a source of concern, for if we do not understand how it came about we run the risk of stumbling into a similar catastrophe. This article draws parallels between the world of 1914 and the present. It starts with comfortable assumptions made by so many, then and now, that a major conflict was impossible or improbable and then looks at the paradox that globalization not only made the world more interdependent and linked, but also fostered intense local and national identities. It suggests factors that propelled Europe to war in 1914, including national rivalries, imperialism, the arms race and a shifting power balance between rising and declining powers, as well as ideologies and assumptions such as Social Darwinism and militarism, and points out that similar forces and ideas are present today. The article also stresses the dangerous complacency that can arise as a result of decision-makers having successfully dealt with a series of crises. European decision-makers also assumed that they could successfully use war as an instrument of policy and largely ignored or explained away the mounting evidence that the advantage in conflict was swinging to the defence. Again, as the author points out, there are disquieting parallels with the present.


The oil from the seeds of the "Andiroba" tree, which is found throughout most tropical America, contains high levels of unsaturated triacylglycerols (TAG), which makes it attractive to the cosmetics industry. A significant amount of limonoids also confers to this Amazonian oil several pharmaceutical and medical properties. In addition, the oil is also a potential feedstock for biodiesel production, and its many uses have intensified its extractive exploitation in recent years. Herein we report on the characterization of the TAG, free fatty acids (FFA) and limonoid profiles of the Andiroba oil via mass spectrometry (MS) fingerprinting using direct electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). An ambient desorption/ionization technique known as easy ambient sonic-spray ionization (EASI-MS) was also evaluated with similar results. ESI-MS was performed either for a methanolic solution of a few microliters of the fresh oil or from a simple aqueous extract whereas EASI-MS was applied directly to a droplet of the oil resting on a paper surface. The efficacy of these MS fingerprinting techniques requiring no pre-separation and no or very simple sample preparation protocols was investigated and compared for the typification and quality of this valuable Amazonian oil.


Abstract Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) has been nutritionally highlighted when compared to other grains. In recent years the research on this pseudocereal has increased. In this work, six quinoa samples were studied: three from Peru, one from Brazil and two commercial samples. The samples were physically and physicochemically characterized, including macro- and micronutrient analysis, phenolic compounds content and antioxidant activity. Black, red and white samples showed as main difference the size, weight, ashes and dietary fibre content. Black samples were the smallest and lightest and had the lowest starch content but presented the highest levels of ashes and dietary fibre. The protein content (16.9 %) in the white Brazilian variety was higher than the others. Red and black samples had the highest levels of most minerals analysed. The antioxidant capacity measured by the DPPH method was higher for black and red samples in comparison with the white ones. However, the white Brazilian variety showed a significantly higher antioxidant capacity measured by the ABTS assay. With regard to the phenolic content, a difference was found between the samples which ranged from 55.5 to 95.5 g GAE 100 g−1. The colour of the grain was found as not related to a higher content of phenolic compounds. Because their compositions are generally similar to light-coloured grains, and in some parameters such as dietary fibre and content of some micronutrients are superior, the grains of dark-coloured quinoa varieties (RPP, BCP) would have to be explored to develop foods that take advantage of this colour diversity.


Abstract:From the pacification of favela communities in Rio de Janeiro to the heavily militarized police presence in Ferguson, Black citizens in Brazil and the United States must constantly assert why our lives matter. In what way does the common struggle for our humanity work to create community and solidarity among Black-identified individuals of diverse national origins? What happens when Black people encounter the suffering of other Black populations? In what ways does Black solidarity abroad open the possibility of an international Movement for Black Lives? Through a comparative analysis of the state of Black citizenship in Brazil and the United States, based on fieldwork observations, autoethnographic reflections, and interviews, I argue that the transnational vertigo of violence can connect local Black experiences with patterns seen across the diaspora, inspire sentiments of solidarity among disparate communities, and serve as a basis for a worldwide Movement for Black Lives.


To evaluate specific community attitudes toward psychiatric conditions and the ability to identify particular psychiatric syndromes, selected respondents associated and/or involved with Wingrove Cottage Community Clinic ( N = 49) were asked to complete questionnaires in relation to 5 hypothetical characters, each with recognized psychological conditions of: hypomanic personality, manic episode, depressive episode, obsessive compulsive personality disorder, and schizoid personality. Respondents clearly recognized traits of psychiatric illness and were able to understand/evaluate the need for psychological/psychiatric interventions. Further, the hypomanic person was perceived to be least liked when compared with other syndromes including manic episode. In contrast, the schizoid personality was perceived to be most liked and socially acceptable.


Entomopathogenic nematodes belonging to the genus Steinernema are able to infest and kill insect hosts in association with their resident, entomopathogenic symbiont bacteria in the gram-negative genus Xenorhabdus (Enterobacteriaceae). However, only a few species of Xenorhabdus have been isolated from their hosts and their insecticidal properties reported. Here we performed the genome sequence analysis of 14 Xenorhabdus strains isolated from Steinernema nematodes in Argentina, able to kill 6th instar Galleria mellonella (Lepidoptera) larvae. The 14 draft genome sequences encoded 110 putative insecticidal toxins (Tc, Pir and Mcf toxin homologs) plus other virulence factors with similarity to putative nematicidal toxins and chitinases. The genome sequences of strains Flor, 5, PSL, Reich, 42, Vera, M, 18, Cul, DI, 12, 38, 3 and ZM exhibited 4, 9, 2, 10, 9, 5, 7, 10, 10, 7, 3, 18, 8 and 8 putative insecticidal toxin genes, respectively. Strains 5, Reich, 42, 18, DI, 38, 3 and ZM carried their predicted insecticidal toxin genes arranged into putative pathogenicity islands whereas strains Flor, PSL, Vera, M, Cul and 12) showed them spread thorough different contigs. Multigene phylogenetic analysis and average nucleotide identity (ANI) calculations were also performed and allowed the identification of three strains (PSL, Reich and 12) that should be considered as novel Xenorhabdus genomospecies. In this work, we provide a dual insight into the diversity of the species belonging to the Xenorhabdus genus and into their predicted insecticidal toxin repertory, which is currently under investigation.


Background: Array Comparative Genomic Hybridization (array CGH) is increasingly applied on DNA obtained from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue, but in a proportion of cases this type of DNA is unsuitable. Due to the high experimental costs of array CGH and unreliable methods for DNA quality testing, better prediction methods are needed. The aim of this study was to accurately determine the quality of FFPE DNA input in order to predict quality of array CGH outcome. Material and Methods: DNA quality was assessed by isothermal amplification and compared to array CGH quality on 59 FFPE gastric cancer samples, one FFPE colorectal cancer sample, two FFPE normal uvula samples, one fresh frozen and six FFPE HNSCC samples. Gastric cancer DNA was also quality tested by β-globin PCR. Results: Accurate prediction of DNA quality using the isothermal amplification was observed in the colorectal carcinoma, HNSCC and uvula samples. In gastric cancer samples, the isothermal amplification was a more accurate method for selecting good quality DNA for array CGH compared to using PCR product lengths. The isothermal amplification product was used for array CGH and compared to the results achieved using non-amplified DNA in four of the samples. DNAs before and after amplification yielded the same segmentation patterns of chromosomal copy number changes for both the fresh DNA sample and the FFPE samples. Conclusion: The efficiency of isothermal DNA amplification is a reliable predictor for array CGH quality. The amplification product itself can be used for array CGH, even starting with FFPE derived DNA samples.


This paper uses the location quotient index and relative growth rate to measure the comparative advantage in the production of rice, wheat, corn and soybeans in different provinces of China. The result shows that there exists great difference in the production of major grain varieties in different areas of China and that the northern areas are accumulating their competence. Because great changes have taken place in the space structure of the production of major grain varieties and water resources will constitute a rigid restraint in the production of grain, it will become the priorities in guaranteeing the Chinese future food safety to promote the nurturing of areas with advantage in the production of corn and soybeans, and it will become the key for guaranteeing the balance between the demand and supply of grain to enhance the development of grain circulation system.


U lceration of carotid atherosclerotic plaques has been associated with plaque rupture, intraplaque hemorrhage, 1 larger lipid core, and decreased amounts of fibrous tissue 1 and decreased stability. Ulceration tends to be associated with greater plaque thickness and plaque volume. 2,3 Plaque morphology has been previously assessed with the use of ultrasound imaging. Previous studies have categorized plaque as having an irregular or smooth morphology and found that irregularity of plaque significantly increased the risk of stroke. 4 Other studies, specifically focusing on ulcer-ations, also noted the increased risk in stroke development with ulcerated plaques. Our group reported previously that ulcer number (≥3 ulcers when both left and right carotid arteries are combined) predicted stroke, transient ischemic attack (TIA), or death. 7 The aim of the current study is to determine whether total ulcer volume (TUV) identifies high-risk patients with atherosclerosis. As described previously, 8 participants were patients attending the Stroke Prevention and Atherosclerosis Center clinic at London Ontario, Canada, who volunteered for a carotid imaging study funded by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. They had been referred to the Hypertension Clinic, the Premature Atherosclerosis Clinic, or the Stroke Prevention Clinic. All had been monitored annually with carotid duplex ultrasound, including measurement of total plaque area. Patients were eligible if their total plaque area was in the top tertile among the patient populations (40–600 mm 2), representing moderate-to-severe atherosclerosis. Hypertension was defined as on antihypertensive medication or a baseline blood pressure <140 sys-tolic or 90 diastolic; diabetes mellitus was defined as on medication for diabetes mellitus; dyslipidemic was defined as on lipid-lowering medication. In total, 349 patients were enrolled in the study and consented to a protocol approved by the Western University Human Ethics Research board, approval number 12401E. The participants were followed up for ≤5 years. Background and Purpose—Previous studies have shown the presence of ulceration in atherosclerotic plaque either by categorizing the plaque as complex (irregular morphology with ulcers) or smooth or by quantifying the number of ulcers observed in a specific region of interest. The aim of this study was to quantify carotid total ulcer volume by 3-dimensional ultrasound to investigate the relationship of total ulcer volume to vascular events (strokes, transient ischemic attack, myocardial infarction, revascularization, or death because of cardiovascular reasons). Methods—In total, 349 at-risk subjects provided written informed consent to carotid 3-dimensional ultrasound and were analyzed for ulcerations. Ulcer volume was defined …


The African Robotics Network (AFRON), a community of institutions, organizations, and individuals that support robotics research and education in Africa, announced the 10 Dollar Robot Design Challenge in the summer of 2012. The competition aimed to encourage new designs for extremely lowcost robots that can be made globally available to attract primary and secondary- level student interest in engineering. The amount of US$10 was set as the ideal target cost, but entries under US$100 were acceptable. Prizes for up to ten winning designs were listed, including Raspberry Pi computers and a share of US$3,000 sponsored by the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society under the IEEE's Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (SIGHT). By the deadline of 15 September 2012, 28 highly inventive entries, all under US$100, were submitted. Six distinguished international jurors judged the entries and selected the ten winners (listed here) and six honorable mentions.


The evolutionary potential of a thermostable alpha-galactosidase, with regard to improved catalytic activity at high temperatures, was investigated by employing an in vivo selection system based on thermophilic bacteria. For this purpose, hybrid alpha-galactosidase genes of agaA and agaB from Bacillus stearothermophilus KVE39, designated agaA1 and agaB1, were cloned into an autonomously replicating Thermus vector and introduced into Thermus thermophilus OF1053GD (DeltaagaT) by transformation. This selector strain is unable to metabolize melibiose (alpha-galactoside) without recombinant alpha-galactosidases, because the native alpha-galactosidase gene, agaT, has been deleted. Growth conditions were established under which the strain was able to utilize melibiose as a single carbohydrate source when harboring a plasmid-encoded agaA1 gene but unable when harboring a plasmid-encoded agaB1 gene. With incubation of the agaB1 plasmid-harboring strain under selective pressure at a restrictive temperature (67 degrees C) in a minimal melibiose medium, spontaneous mutants as well as N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine-induced mutants able to grow on the selective medium were isolated. The mutant alpha-galactosidase genes were amplified by PCR, cloned in Escherichia coli, and sequenced. A single-base substitution that replaces glutamic acid residue 355 with glycine or valine was found in the mutant agaB1 genes. The mutant enzymes displayed the optimum hydrolyzing activity at higher temperatures together with improved catalytic capacity compared to the wild-type enzyme and furthermore showed an enhanced thermal stability. To our knowledge, this is the first report of an in vivo evolution of glycoside-hydrolyzing enzyme and selection within a thermophilic host cell.


BACKGROUND
Chronic Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has been associated with extrahepatic cancers. Few studies have reported associations between HCV and genitourinary cancers such as kidney and prostate cancers with inconsistent findings. We sought to study associations between HCV and the most common genitourinary cancers including kidney, prostate and urinary bladder.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
This case-control study included adult (≥18 years at diagnosis) cancer patients who were screened for HCV antibody (anti-HCV) at MD Anderson Cancer Center from June 2004 through January 2018. Cases had incident primary genitourinary cancers (cancers of the kidney, prostate, renal pelvis and ureter, or urinary bladder). Controls had smoking-associated cancers (esophagus, lung and pancreas). Multivariate logistic regression models were used.

RESULTS
Among 42,244 patients screened for anti-HCV, 1,493 cases (527 kidney, 691 prostate, 58 renal pelvis and ureter, and 217 urinary bladder cancer) and 1,187 controls (242 esophagus, 709 lung, and 236 pancreas cancer) were studied. In the univariate analysis, the prevalence of anti-HCV positivity did not differ significantly between the controls and the cases with cancers of the renal pelvis and ureter (8% v9%, P = .81), prostate (10% v8%, P = .34), or urinary bladder (8% v 6%, P = .18). In contrast, the prevalence of anti-HCV positivity was lower among the cases with kidney cancer than among the controls (4% v 8%, P< .001). However, in the multivariate analyses after adjustment for cofounders, no significant association between anti-HCV positivity and any genitourinary cancer we evaluated.

CONCLUSION
Our results do not support an association between chronic HCV and common genitourinary cancers.


The South Asian summer monsoon (SASM) exhibits large variability in the intraseasonal scale, and active and break cycles of monsoon constitute dominant mode of this variability. This has been subject of many model‐based studies as improved simulation of intraseasonal features also leads to better representation of the seasonal mean characteristics. We evaluate a recent Hadley centre regional climate model's performance, at low and high resolutions and forced by a reanalysis, in simulating various characteristics associated with intraseasonal variability of SASM. In particular, we compare the spatial patterns of precipitation and upper level circulation composites for active and break spells and, timing, frequency and duration of those spells. We found improvements in simulation of active and break composite precipitation in the high‐resolution simulation. These improvements probably come from improved position of the monsoon trough particularly over west India for active composite and improved low‐level flow particularly south of the Himalaya for break composite. Moreover, enhanced capacity of the model at high resolution to resolve atmospheric motions and interaction of moisture laden low‐level flow with the steep Himalayan orography is likely to contribute in reduction of excess precipitation over Indo‐Gangetic plain. Similarly, improvements over east Nepal for break spells are likely to come from model's ability to effectively capture precipitation enhancements that arise from orographic‐forced and mid‐tropospheric ascending motions. However, mixed results are obtained for temporal statistics associated with occurrence of active and break events. We also compare the model performance in simulating precipitation extremes over Nepal. The timing of extreme precipitation occurrence in relation to peak monsoon months and break spells, and contribution of the extreme cumulative precipitation to the seasonal total are improved in the high‐resolution simulation.


A combination of technological change, methodological drift and a certain degree of intellectual sloth and sloppiness, particularly with respect to philosophy of science, has allowed contemporary quantitative political methodology to accumulate a series of highly dysfunctional habits that have rendered a great deal of contemporary research more or less scientifically useless. The cure for this is not to reject quantitative methods – and the cure is most certainly not a postmodernist nihilistic rejection of all systematic method – but rather to return to some fundamentals, and take on some hard problems rather than expecting to advance knowledge solely through the ever-increasing application of fast-twitch muscle fibers to computer mice. In this paper, these "seven deadly sins" are identified as Kitchen sink models that ignore the effects of collinearity;  Pre-scientific explanation in the absence of prediction;  Reanalyzing the same data sets until they scream;  Using complex methods without understanding the underlying assumptions;  Interpreting frequentist statistics as if they were Bayesian;  Linear statistical monoculture at the expense of alternative structures;  Confusing statistical controls and experimental controls.  The answer to these problems is solid, thoughtful, original work driven by an appreciation of both theory and data. Not postmodernism. The paper closes with a review of how we got to this point from the perspective of 17th through 20th century philosophy of science, and provides suggestions for changes in philosophical and pedagogical approaches that might serve to correct some of these problems.


Maxine Hong Kingston is one of the many contemporary American novelists of non-European ethnicities and one of many women novelists who have found in mythology and folklore both stories and images which can transform the genre by providing "novel" patterns of order and "meronymic" language. These inclusive patterns and words help expand our perspective as they encompass both the linear and cyclical stories of the individual within the context of communal and social, mythic and historic, truths. In The Woman Warrior, the complex "frog knot" of her female heritage is untied for us not only to open up women9s possible stories but also to offer her readers the variety which keeps us sane, freeing us from a dominant discourse which convincingly describes the inevitable tragedy of our common death but often fails to remind us of the simultaneous richness of our uncommon lives.


Melting fine structure of the nuclear DNA isolated from the filamentous fungus Fusarium graminearum Schwabe is presented. Optical melting profiles of nuclear DNA were analyzed by using a combination of curve fitting and derivative techniques. The "melting components" were obtained from the derivative curve by a simple decomposition technique. Differential optical melting curves of unsheared nuclear DNA indicate the presence of 15 "melting components" in filamentous fungus nuclear genome. It should be emphasized that the "melting components" observed here are different from the "thermalites" which can be observed in bacteriophage DNA. The "melting components" reported here represent the separately melting of large "blocks" of fungus nuclear DNA.


Aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA) is a fine-grained task of sentiment analysis. To better comprehend long complicated sentences and obtain accurate aspect-specific information, linguistic and commonsense knowledge are generally required in this task. However, most current methods employ complicated and inefficient approaches to incorporate external knowledge, e.g., directly searching the graph nodes. Additionally, the complementarity between external knowledge and linguistic information has not been thoroughly studied. To this end, we propose a knowledge graph augmented network (KGAN), which aims to effectively incorporate external knowledge with explicitly syntactic and contextual information. In particular, KGAN captures the sentiment feature representations from multiple different perspectives, i.e., context-, syntax- and knowledge-based. First, KGAN learns the contextual and syntactic representations in parallel to fully extract the semantic features. Then, KGAN integrates the knowledge graphs into the embedding space, based on which the aspect-specific knowledge representations are further obtained via an attention mechanism. Last, we propose a hierarchical fusion module to complement these multi-view representations in a local-to-global manner. Extensive experiments on five popular ABSA benchmarks demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of our KGAN. Notably, with the help of the pretrained model of RoBERTa, KGAN achieves a new record of state-of-the-art performance among all datasets.


My research interest is to understand consumer behavior related to transnationalism. In this dissertation, I address three questions concerning consumption and transnationalism. First, I situate transnationalism within the extensive body of work in consumer culture theory on globalization. Second, I examine one aspect of transnationalism: transnational consumer lifestyle that characterizes the lifestyle of individuals who simultaneously work and/or live in multiple countries (Glick Schiller et al. 1999). This is an interesting context to re-examine important consumer behavior phenomena, including consumer acculturation, relationship to home in contemporary globalization, and the role of consumption in managing a fragmented and multicentered life. Third, I examine another aspect of transnationalism: transnational consumer movement facilitated by transnational digital spaces. Transnational digital spaces, such as social media platforms, facilitate connections between activists, transnational news agencies, and political and social figures and institutions across borders and have the potential to empower some consumers, specifically those in totalitarian societies. I believe these are important phenomena that shape contemporary global consumer culture, but they have received little attention in consumer research thus far.


For some time past a ghost has been standing behind Alistair Darling sardonically monitoring his every action and thought with the expertise that comes from having lived through the United Kingdom's last encounter with the dilemmas that are posed by the onset of a World Depression. And it is not John Maynard Keynes, who during the 1930s was little more than an observer and commentator. It is of course the Labour Party's first and probably most formidable Chancellor of the Exchequer, namely Philip Snowden.


Background The therapeutic alliance between patients and physical therapists has been shown to influence clinical outcomes in patients with chronic low back pain when consulting in-person. However, no studies have examined whether the therapeutic alliance developed between patients with knee osteoarthritis and physical therapists during telephonic consultations influences clinical outcomes. Objective This study aims to investigate whether the therapeutic alliance between patients with knee osteoarthritis and physical therapists measured after the second consultation is associated with outcomes following telephone-delivered exercise and advice. Methods Secondary analysis of 87 patients in the intervention arm of a randomized controlled trial allocated to receive 5 to 10 telephone consultations with one of 8 physical therapists over a period of 6 months, involving education and prescription of a strengthening and physical activity program. Separate regression models investigated the association between patient and therapist ratings of therapeutic alliance (measured after the second consultation using the Working Alliance Inventory Short Form) and outcomes (pain, function, self-efficacy, quality of life, global change, adherence to prescribed exercise, physical activity) at 6 and 12 months, with relevant covariates included. Results There was some evidence of a weak association between patient ratings of the alliance and some outcomes at 6 months (improvements in average knee pain: regression coefficient −0.10, 95% CI −0.16 to −0.03; self-efficacy: 0.16, 0.04-0.28; global improvement in function: odds ratio 1.26, 95% CI 1.04-1.39, and overall improvement: odds ratio 1.26, 95% CI 1.06-1.51; but also with worsening in fear of movement: regression coefficient −0.13, 95% CI −0.23 to −0.04). In addition, there was some evidence of a weak association between patient ratings of the alliance and some outcomes at 12 months (improvements in self-efficacy: regression coefficient 0.15, 95% CI 0.03-0.27; global improvement in both function, odds ratio 1.19, 95% CI 0.03-1.37; and pain, odds ratio 1.14, 95% CI 1.01-1.30; and overall improvement: odds ratio 1.21, 95% CI 1.02-1.42). The data suggest that associations between therapist ratings of therapeutic alliance and outcomes were not strong, except for improved quality of life at 12 months (regression coefficient 0.01, 95% CI 0.0003-0.01). Conclusions Higher patient ratings, but not higher therapist ratings, of the therapeutic alliance were weakly associated with improvements in some clinical outcomes and with worsening in one outcome. Although the findings suggest that patients who perceive a stronger alliance with their therapist may achieve better clinical outcomes, the observed relationships were generally weak and unlikely to be clinically significant. The limitations include the fact that measures of therapeutic alliance have not been validated for use in musculoskeletal physical therapy settings. There was a risk of type 1 error; however, findings were interpreted on the basis of clinical significance rather than statistical significance alone. Trial Registration Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12616000054415; https://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=369204


At Scotland Yard, Inspector Grant has a reputation for being able to pick them at sight. Now he is in hospital, knowing that no amount of good behaviour is going to make this anything less than an extended stay. Yet his professional curiosity is soon aroused. In a portrait of Richard III, the hunchbacked monster of nursery stories and history books, he finds a face that refuses to fit its reputation. But how, after four hundred years, can a bedridden policeman uncover the truth about the murder of the Princes in the Tower?


India has so far resisted the push from the United States of America (USA) to bring about separate legislation that regulates trade secrets. Reports and studies categorically show that such protection is desirable. It also forms part of the minimum requirements under TRIPs. In its defence, India has reiterated that mechanisms under common law exist to effectively protect trade secrets. This paper looks into these mechanisms, primarily the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 (Copyright Act) and the Indian Contract Act, 1872 (Contract Act), and provides evidence to show that deciding on trade secret issues via these Acts in India undermines the basic premise of copyright, and ignores issues of treating confidential information as confidential. Literary work as mentioned in the Copyright Act and the settled position of law by judicial decisions is discussed in this paper. This forms the first argument in favour of sui generis protection for trade secrets. The second argument in favour of the sui generis mode of protection for trade secrets is that of retaining the confidentiality of information that is regulated by contracts. This aspect is, firstly, under-examined in evidence in the Indian cases. Secondly, under the Indian Contract Act, 1857, (Contract Act) whenever the elements of confidentiality are to be examined, it is circumvented or ignored. This thereby impedes the understanding of confidential information in these case laws. Hence, this study shows that courts have overtly interfered in the basic premise of contractual obligations vis-a-vis confidential information between two parties by reading into what constitutes a trade secret. It is this lacuna in both procedural and substantive fields that holds up the second argument for a sui generis mode of protection. The conclusions from this paper address a much-required regime change in the pre-existing model of protection of trade secrets in India not only as a result of the external push (that is necessitated by international pressure and India's continued presence on the Priority Watch List) but also as a result of the internal indecisiveness in deciding matters before the Indian courts.


Spinal arteriovenous malformation (AVM) is a broad term that constitutes diverse vascular pathologies. To date, various classification schemes for spinal AVM have been proposed in literature, which helped neurosurgeons understand the pathophysiology of the disease and determine an optimal treatment strategy. To discuss indications and results of surgical and endovascular interventions for spinal AVM, this article refers to the following classification proposed by Anson and Spetzler in 1992: type I, dural arteriovenous fistula (AVF); type II, glomus intramedullary AVM; type III, juvenile malformations; and type IV, perimedullary AVF. In general, complete obliteration of the fistula is a key for better outcome in type I dural and type IV perimedullary AVFs. On the other hand, in type II glomus and type III juvenile malformations, functional preservation, instead of pursuing angiographical cure, is the main goal of the treatment. In such cases, reduction of the shunt flow can alleviate clinical symptoms. Proper management of spinal AVM should start with neurological examination and understanding of angioarchitectures, which provide critical information that guides the indication and modality of intervention. Finally, close collaboration of the microsurgical and endovascular teams are mandatory for successful treatment.


In this report, we present two cases of simultaneous infection with Blastomyces dermatitidis and Cryptococcus neoformans. In both cases, fungi were isolated from the lungs. The clinical manifestations were not suggestive of infection with two fungi. One patient was receiving immunosuppressive therapy and another was otherwise immunocompetent. A review of the literature failed to uncover any reports of co-infection with these two fungal pathogens. We discuss possible mechanisms for the isolation of both pathogens.


PURPOSE
Duplex system is one of the most common anomalies of upper urinary tract. Anatomical and clinical presentation determine its treatment. Usually, the upper moiety has a poor function and requires resection, but when it is not significantly impaired, preservation is recommended. Laparoscopic reconstruction with upper pole preservation is presented as an alternative treatment.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Four female patients with duplex system, one presenting with recurrent urinary tract infection and the others with urinary incontinence associated to infrasphincteric ectopic ureter, were treated. Surgical procedure envolved a laparoscopic ureteropyeloanastomosis of the upper pole ureter to the pelvis of the lower moiety, with prior insertion of a double J stent.

RESULTS
Surgical time varied from 120 to 150 minutes, with minimal blood loss in all cases. Follow-up varied from 15 to 30 months, with resolution of the clinical symptoms and preservation of the upper moiety function.

CONCLUSION
Laparoscopic ureteropyeloanatomosis is a feasible and safe minimally invasive option in the treatment of duplex system.


: The zonography method is gaining more and more users today and arouses a definite interest of specialists in medicine. This is due to the peculiarities of the method and the tremendous clinical possibilities which make it possible to improve and accelerate the diagnosis not only of diseases of the lungs and kidneys, but also of some segments of the bone system. The availability of zonography allows it to be used successfully in the diagnosis of various, pathological among others, types of bone fractures, tumors of the skeleton and, therefore, makes it possible to watch the reparative manifestations and the development of the process. Radio-sonographic comparisons of long tubular bones and large joints in 2,500 cases made it possible to reveal in 15 patients, aged from 17 to 80 years, solitary rarely encountered bone cysts not complicated by fractures. Their existence was suspected due to scrupulous collection of the medical history with consideration for the localization of the pain syndrome, in the absence of abnormalities in the blood and urinary tests. A fine, ++non-ectatic, regularly sclerosed capsule was seen in the 15 cases, the septa between the cavities were clearly contrasted and demonstrated better than on ordinary radiographs, and there were no infractions or pathological fractures.


Motivated by the repeated sale of online ads via auctions, optimal pricing in repeated auctions has attracted a large body of research. While dynamic mechanisms offer powerful techniques to improve on both revenue and efficiency by optimizing auctions across different items, their reliance on exact distributional information of buyers' valuations (present and future) limits their use in practice. In this paper, we propose robust dynamic mechanism design. We develop a new framework to design dynamic mechanisms that are robust to both estimation errors in value distributions and strategic behavior. We apply the framework in learning environments, leading to the first policy that achieves provably low regret against the optimal dynamic mechanism in contextual auctions, where the dynamic benchmark has full and accurate distributional information.


Past models of norms in news reporting have been characterized by the particular geographical and historical, practical and theoretical context from which they have been constructed. This has limited their interdisciplinary applicability and, in the light of normative developments in recent years, it has become increasingly clear that we need a more contemporary explanatory model to capture current developments on both sides of the Atlantic. Such a normative model - drawing on the dichotomies of active or passive journalism, and deliberative or representative journalism - is introduced in this article. This model can be used as an analytical tool by researchers and as an operational tool by news providers with a need for a normative navigation instrument, and as such it may help create or reshape a common culture between two increasingly interrelated professions: news reporters and researchers.


ObjectiveTo examine the utility of neuropsychological tests in assessing college athletes prior to and following a sports-related mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI). DesignA prospective study of college athletes who sustained mTBI while engaged in sport. Preinjury baseline neuropsychological test data were obtained for athletes at risk for mTBI. Following an mTBI, the athlete and his or her matched noninjured control were evaluated at 2 hours, 48 hours, 1 week, and 1 month postinjury. SettingMale and female athletes from a Division I college. ParticipantsMale and female athletes from the football, men's ice hockey, men's and women's soccer, and men's and women's basketball teams at Penn State University. A total of 29 injured and 20 noninjured athletes participated in the study. InterventionsNeuropsychological test batteries were administered at baseline and serially following mTBI. Main Outcome MeasuresPost-Concussion Symptom Checklist, Hopkins Verbal Learning Test, Symbol Digit Modalities Test, Stroop Color-Word Test, Trail Making Test, VIGIL/W, List Learning, Digit Span, Penn State Cancellation Test, and Controlled Oral Word Association. ResultsNeuropsychological test data yielded significant differences between injured athletes and controls at 2 hours and 48 hours following cerebral concussion; injured athletes performing significantly worse than controls. Injured athletes reported a significantly greater number of postconcussion symptoms 2 hours following injury but not at the 48-hour assessment. No multivariate group differences were found at 1 week, but univariate analyses suggested significant differences on a few measures. At 1 month postinjury, a statistically significant difference was found on one measure with injured athletes marginally outperforming controls. ConclusionsNeuropsychological tests are useful in the detection of cognitive impairment following mTBI. The test data appear to be more effective than subjective report of symptoms in differentiating between injured and noninjured athletes at 48 hours postinjury. Although significant individual variability existed, most injured athletes recovered within 1 week of injury. A battery of tests, rather than any single test, is necessary to capture the variability that exists among injured athletes.


Can a research and training institute excel in both research (R) and training (T) by crafting a "synergistic relationship" to produce what Aristotle would say "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts"? Interest in integrating research (R) and training (T) took a leap frog with the ending of the binary divide - the differentiation between polytechnic institutions and universities - in Australia (1987) and the UK (1992) (Hughes, 2004). As much as the realization of the importance to integrate research and training to enrich the process of learning by incorporating current research of staff into the learning curriculum, in reality, for higher/adult learning, empirical research on the relationship between teaching and research is rather difficult to conduct as data is not easily derived. As such, for R-T integration to be successful, it must incorporate the human activity system and provide opportunities to incorporate management skills, leadership, self-development and organization learning. It is also vital to create an atmosphere for the relationship to flourish: a live interaction between learners and researchers so that both parties will benefit from the sharing of information and knowledge. In short, it is all about first putting people in the right and conducive environment.


It is often thought that the existence of other worlds cannot be scientifically verified and therefore should be treated as philosophical speculation. In this article, I describe several methods for determining if other worlds exist, even without interacting with them. These methods are based on the following premise: if there are many worlds, then the statistical properties of a natural process are biased when measured by an observer whose existence was influenced by the process. The bias is always in the same direction, making the process appear more beneficial for the existence of the observer than it actually is. I suggest several potential ways of measuring the bias, show through a simple model of population dynamics how the bias is generated, and briefly consider whether our current drop in population growth is evidence of many worlds.


Human thymidylate synthase is the rate-limiting enzyme in the de novo synthesis of 2'-deoxythymidine-5'-monophosphate. dUMP (pyrimidine) and folate binding site hTS inhibitors showed resistance in colorectal cancer (CRC). In the present study, we have performed virtual screening of the pyrido[2,3-d]pyrimidine database, followed by binding free energy calculations, and pharmacophore mapping to design novel pyrido[2,3-d]pyrimidine derivatives to stabilize inactive confirmation of hTS. A library of 42 molecules was designed. Based on the molecular docking studies, four ligands (T36, T39, T40, and T13) were identified to have better interactions and docking scores with the catalytic sites [dUMP (pyrimidine) and folate binding sites] of hTS protein than standard drug, raltitrexed. To validate efficacy of the designed molecules, we performed molecular dynamics simulation studies at 1000 ns with principal component analysis and binding free energy calculations on the hTS protein, also drug likeness properties of all hits were in acceptable range. Compounds T36, T39, T40, and T13 interacted with the catalytic amino acid (Cys195), an essential amino acid for anticancer activity. The designed molecules stabilized the inactive conformation of hTS, resulting in the inhibition of hTS. The designed compounds will undergo synthesis and biological evaluation, which may yield selective, less toxic, and highly potent hTS inhibitors.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.


When coordinating two hands to achieve a common goal, the nervous system has to assign responsibility to each hand. Optimal control theory suggests that this problem is solved by minimizing costs such as the variability of movement and effort. However the natural tendency to produce similar movements during bimanual tasks has been somewhat ignored by this approach. Here we consider a task in which participants were asked to track a moving target by means of a single cursor controlled simultaneously by the two hands. Two types of hand-cursor mappings were tested: one in which the cursor position resulted from the average location of two hands (MEAN), and one in which horizontal and vertical positions of the cursor were driven separately by each hand (SPLIT). As expected, unimanual tracking performance was better with the dominant hand than with the more variable non-dominant hand. More interestingly, instead of exploiting this effect by increasing the use of the dominant hand, the contributions from both hands remained symmetrical during bimanual cooperative tasks. Indeed, for both mappings, and even after 6min of practice, the right and left hands remained strongly correlated, performing similar movements in extrinsic space. Persistence of this bimanual coupling demonstrates that participants prefer to maintain similar movements at the expense of unnecessary movements (in the SPLIT task), and of increased noise from the non-dominant hand (in the MEAN task). Altogether, the findings suggest that bimanual tracking exploits hand coordination in space rather than minimizing motor costs associated with variability and effort.


Abstract:In the three decades since the U.S. invasion that overthrew the dictatorship of General Manuel Noriega, Panama has undergone a remarkable—and largely overlooked—transformation. It has remained a stable democracy and is today one of Latin America's most developed countries. This article draws attention to Panama's rise and highlights several puzzling features: it is a rare case of successful democratization by military invasion; it is one of the world's most unlikely cases of authoritarian successor party regeneration; it is a standout instance of effective resource management by a state-owned enterprise; and it has achieved rapid economic development despite extremely high levels of corruption.


Context: Unpaid carers are the backbone of long-term care (LTC) systems around the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has further increased the pressure many unpaid carers experience; however, their experience has been largely absent from public reporting. Objective: We aim to map the available evidence of the impacts of COVID-19 on unpaid carers of adults (>18 years) with LTC needs as well as of measures implemented to mitigate these effects and how well they have worked. Method: We conducted a rapid review of the academic and grey literature on unpaid carers of adults with LTC needs during the COVID-19 pandemic, covering the period until November 2020. Findings: We identified six key themes that highlight the impacts of COVID-19 on unpaid carers of people living in the community. These are: care commitment, concerns related to COVID-19, availability of formal and informal support, financial implications, carer health and well-being, and carers' adaptability. In addition, we captured aspects identified by unpaid carers supporting people in residential care settings under the theme 'carers of people in residential settings'. Finally, we reported evidence of measures implemented to mitigate the impacts on carers. This included the use of technology and the receipt of financial assistance and support for working carers. Limitations: The evidence reported in this review is based largely on cross-sectional data and some of the data reported relies on convenience samples. Implications: We highlight the financial and health impacts that many unpaid carers experience. Given the vital support carers provide to adults with LTC needs, policy makers should consider supporting unpaid carers to mitigate the negative impacts on their lives.


The authors describe the method for prosthetics of the testes in mon- and anorchism, by which the operations were carried out on 12 patients whose ages ranged from 14 to 22 years. Dow Corning (USA) prostheses were used in 3 cases, Soviet--made endoprostheses designed at the Scientific Research Institute of Rubber and Latex Articles, USSR, jointly with the Vishnevsky Institute of Surgery were applied in 9 cases. There were no postoperative complications. The late-term results were studied in follow-up periods of 1 to 4 years and proved to be satisfactory. The method deserves to be introduced into the practice of plastic surgery.


The author proposes an audio-visual software requirements definition method including describing an audiovisual software requirements specification (AVSRS) with an audio-visual requirements language and executing SRSs. The method proposed here provides a describer for defining both the shape and semantics of icons to specify the requirements just what he imagines. The method also provides for describing icons' movements as a scenario description and for specifying sounds in the icons' movements. This scenario enables an execution of the SRS with animation. The describer can confirm his requirements by checking the animation. Furthermore this paper describes a supporting method of visual software requirements definition by multiple developers via network system. A visual requirements language named VRDL and tools are illustrated with examples. The audio-visual requirements specification method improves the understandability of an SRS, the easiness to write the SRS and the correctness of the SRS. This method also supports a co-operative software requirements definition.


This paper investigates the use of approximation of state functions in measurement-based transistor models. This is especially important when these models are used in third-order intermodulation distortion simulations since the dynamical spline interpolation that is typically used has possible large discontinuities in its third-order derivative. We, therefore, propose a new representation of the state functions in our model and offer a comparison between measurement and simulation to prove the validity of our approach. Also, our model can easily be implemented in any commercially available SPICE simulator, which also is a significant advantage.


Encapsulated bacteria cause some of the most common diseases in humans. Although the polysaccharide capsules of these pathogens have attracted the most attention with regard to vaccine development, recent evidence suggests that bacterial surface proteins may also be used to confer protective immunity. We have analyzed this possibility in group B streptococcus (GBS), an encapsulated bacterium that is the major cause of invasive bacterial disease in the neonatal period. Previous work has shown that the majority of GBS strains causing invasive infections express the Rib protein, and that most strains lacking Rib express a protein designated alpha. Here we report that active immunization with highly purified preparations of Rib or alpha protected mice against lethal infection with strains expressing the corresponding protein. Vaccination with the Rib protein protected against two strains of capsular type III and two strains of type II, and vaccination with the alpha protein protected against one strain of type II and one strain of type Ib. The mice vaccinated with Rib or alpha showed a good immunoglobulin G response to the immunogen. These data suggest that a vaccine against GBS disease may be based on cell surface proteins and support the notion that proteins may be used for immunization against encapsulated bacteria.


Abstract The new mineral fluorapophyllite-(NH4), ideally NH4Ca4(Si8O20)F⋅8H2O, was found at the Vechec andesite quarry located near Vechec village, Vranov nad Topľou Co., Prešov Region, Slovak Republic. It occurs in cavities of quartz–illite–saponite–tobelite xenolith embedded in pyroxene andesite. Fluorapophyllite-(NH4) is associated with calcite, tridymite, pyrite, chabazite-Ca and heulandite-Ca. It forms clusters, aggregates or crystalline crusts consisting of individual, well-developed crystals up to 4 mm in size, exhibiting the forms {110}, {101} and {001}. The mineral is colourless to light pink and translucent with white streak and vitreous to pearly lustre; it is non-fluorescent under ultraviolet radiation. The Mohs hardness is ~4½ to 5, tenacity is brittle, fracture is irregular, and there is perfect cleavage on {001}. The calculated density is 2.325 g cm–3. Fluorapophyllite-(NH4) is optically uniaxial (+) with ω = 1.5414(5) and ɛ = 1.5393(8) (λ = 589 nm). It is non-pleochroic. The empirical formula (based on 29 O + F apfu) is [(NH4)0.55K0.32Na0.07Ca0.06]Σ1.00(Ca4.01Mg0.02)Σ4.03Si7.97O20[F0.84(OH)0.16]Σ1.00⋅8H2O. Fluorapophyllite-(NH4) is tetragonal, space group P4/mnc, a = 8.99336(9) Å, c = 15.7910(3) Å, V = 1277.18(3) Å3 and Z = 2. The seven strongest X-ray powder diffraction lines are [dobs in Å,(I,%)(hkl)]: 7.897(32)(002), 7.812(13)(101), 4.547(14)(103), 3.946(100)(004), 2.985(39)(105), 2.4841(11)(215) and 1.5788(12)(00.10). The crystal structure of fluorapophyllite-(NH4), refined to R1 = 0.0299 for 743 unique (I > 3σI) observed reflections, confirmed that the atomic arrangement is very similar to that of the other members of the apophyllite group. The new mineral is named according to the current nomenclature scheme for apophyllite-group minerals and is an NH4 dominant analogue of fluorapophyllite-(K), fluorapophyllite-(Na) and fluorapophyllite-(Cs).