ABSTRACT Mineralogical studies of the silt fraction have been made on surficial sediments from the U.S. North Atlantic outer continental shelf off southeastern New England. The silt-sized heavy mineral assemblage, which is predominantly detrital, has been concentrated in this fraction by hydraulic factors and ranges between 11.8 wt. % of the silt fraction in the sandy sediments near Georges Bank to 3.4% in the clayey silt deposit south of Martha's Vineyard. By contrast, the sand fraction averages only 1.5% heavy minerals. Corundum and the rutile + leucoxene + brookite + anatase, epidote, and apatite + monazite + vivianite groups are relatively enriched in the silt fraction, whereas the amphibole and garnet + staurolite groups are relatively concentrated in the sand fraction. "Opaque" minerals verage 27.8% ilmenite, 4.8% magnetite + hematite + goethite + siderite, 1.6% ferromanganese-coated grains, and 0.9% pyrite of the silt-sized heavy mineral fraction. Lateral variability within the silt-sized heavy mineral assemblage is considerable. Zircon and ilmenite abundances progressively decrease from east to west on the continental shelf off southeastern New England. Conversely, abundances within the amphibole and the epidote groups increase from east to west. Quartz dominates the light mineral + layered silicate fraction, where it averages 70.3%. The K-feldspar/plagioclase ratios and glauconite + mica/chlorite ratios average 0.38 and 2.61, respectively. The layered silicates are concentrated in the finer-grained sediments. Although the heavy mineral assemblage is ultimately a function of provenance, the spatial trends observed in the heavy mineral populations are due primarily to sorting that is associated with westwardly-flowing bottom cu rents and are related to the specific gravity and the characteristic size of the mineral grains. Elevated concentrations of titanium in the silty sands south of Nantucket Shoals are related to the abundances of ilmenite, sphene, and the TiO2 group minerals and average 0.67 wt. % of the bulk sediment. This deposit may constitute an exploitable resource.


Structure-related biological activities of flavanones are still considered largely unexplored. Since they exhibit various medicinal activities, it is intriguing to enter deeper into their chemical structures, electronic transitions or interactions with some biomolecules in order to find properties that allow us to better understand their effects. Little information is available on biological activity of flavanone and its monohydroxy derivatives in relation to their physicochemical properties as spectral profiles, existence of protonated/deprotonated species under pH changes or interaction with Calf Thymus DNA. We devoted this work to research demonstrating differences in the physicochemical properties of the four flavanones: flavanone, 2′-hydroxyflavanone, 6-hydroxyflavanone and 7-hydroxyflavanone and linking them to their biological activity. Potentiometric titration, UV–Vis spectroscopy were used to investigate influence of pH on acid–base and spectral profiles and to propose the mode of interaction with DNA. Cyclic voltammetry was applied to evaluate antioxidant potentiality and additionally, theoretical DFT(B3LYP) method to disclose electronic structure and properties of the compounds. Molecular geometries, proton affinities and pKa values have been determined. According to computational and cyclic voltammetry results we could predict higher antioxidant activity of 6-hydroxyflavanone with respect to other compounds. The values of Kb intrinsic binding constants of the flavanones indicated weak interactions with DNA. Structure–activity relationships observed for antioxidant activity and DNA interactions suggest that 6-hydroxyflavanone can protect DNA against oxidative damage most effectively than flavanone, 2′-hydroxyflavanone or 7-hydroxyflavanone.


Since Robert Koch's 1882 discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, substantial progress has been made in tuberculosis (TB) control. Nevertheless, in the latter part of the 20th century, a long period of neglect of both quality program implementation and research led to persistently high TB incidence rates and failure to develop new tools to adequately address the problem. Today, most of the world continues to rely on the same diagnostic test invented by Koch approximately125 years ago and on drugs developed 40 years ago. The world now faces a situation in which approximately 160 persons die of TB each hour (1.45 million died in 2009), in which a quarter of all deaths in persons with human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) (PWHA) are caused by TB, and in which the evolution of the bacteria has outpaced the evolution of its treatment to such an extent that some forms of TB are now untreatable. More recently, renewed attention has been given to reducing the global burden of TB, but much remains to be done.


A 37-year-old male patient was admitted at the emergency room with headache, severe pain and bleeding in the tumor. He had a previous diagnosis of squamous-cell carcinoma of the lower lip two years before, however, despite having been informed of the need to excise the initial lesion, he refused treatment due to religious beliefs. The patient returned to seek treatment after 18 months of diagnosis, however the tumor already had great extent, being unresectable. The lesion did not respond to chemotherapy. On examination, the tumor affected all of the right hemiface, with ocular and nasal destruction; jaw and tongue exposure and severe bleeding were present. Unfortunately the patient died 12 days after the hospital admission. Although informed consent allows patients to make treatment decisions based on the most information possible and patient's right to determine his or her treatment, there are a small number of adherents to religious faiths that proscribe conventional care. Despite the efforts for early diagnosis, patients continue to neglect seeking timely treatment. In our case, this was directly responsible for the patient's poor prognosis.


Summary The mining operations of Ouels, also named Castel-Minier, close to the village of Aulus-les-Bains in the Pyrenees, was mainly effective between the 13th and 16th centuries. It was the most important mine in the French Kingdom during the 14th century, and was operated for silver, cupper and lead. Today, it is a site for archaeological studies and the archaeologists are specially interested in the cavities left by the exploitation. It is with the aim of retrieving the voids left in a remote area that geophysical facilities are requested, following the discovery of a 20th century plan attesting to the existence of a shaft and a vein in this area. Two geophysical methods have been implemented: Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) and microgravimetry. The first has been used on two parallel profiles spaced 15 m apart, and allowed the detection of a very high resistive body that could fit a cavity at less than a depth of 5 meters. On the other side, microgravimetry revealed two anomalies. It seems to confirm the one seen by ERT, while a second anomaly may attest to a deeper cavity hypothetically lying at 15 to 20 m depth. These hypotheses are compatible with the archaeological expectations.


Obesity is an abnormal physical condition where an increased and undesirable fat accumulates in the human body. Obesity is an international phenomenon. In the present study, 12 schools were randomly selected from each district considering the areas i.e. Elite Private Schools in the private sector, Government schools in urban areas and Government schools in rural areas. Interviews were conducted with male students studying in grade 5 to grade 9 in each school. The sample size was 600 students; 300 from Faisalabad district and 300 from Rawalpindi district in Pakistan. A well-structured and pre-tested questionnaire was used for data collection. The calibrated scales were used to attain the heights and weights of the respondents. Obesity of school-going children depends on family types, family size, family history, junk food consumption, mother's education, weekly time spent in walking, and sports facility at school levels. Academic performance, physical health and psychological health of school going children are affected with obesity. Concrete steps and policies could minimize the incidence of obesity in children in Pakistan.


June 12, 1997 Existing works on the economic implications of social structures examined the effect of intra-community information and contract enforcement institutions on personal exchange among that community's members. In contrast, this paper examines the extent to which common knowledge regarding social structure impact the set of feasible institutions and thereby the scope of inter-community, impersonal market exchange. When this extent is large, economic agents can condition their actions on one's social affiliation thereby enabling the operation of an institution taking advantage of intra-community, personal contract enforcement to support inter-community, impersonal exchange. This argument is embedded in a historical study of contract enforcement institution that supported inter-community, impersonal exchange in pre-modern Europe. The paper's game theoretical and historical analysis indicates the importance of a particular institution - the Community Responsibility System - in supporting inter-community, impersonal exchange from as early as the twelfth century despite the lack of appropriate legal contract enforceability provided by the state. Thus, the analysis suggests the deficiency of the common view in economic history that in pre-modern Europe impersonal exchanges were not conducted before the emerging states established the appropriate legal systems. By the thirteenth century, however, various communities attempted to abolish the Community Responsibility System and substitute it with legal contract enforcement provided by the state. Social processes that impact the extent to which social structure is common knowledge, communities' size, intra-community heterogeneity, and inter-community mobility were important contributors to this transition..


BACKGROUND: To know the usefulness of plethysmography and digital pressure indexes (DPI) to assess the vasospasm and the response to medical treatment in patients with Raynaud's phenomenon. PATIENTS AND METHODS: During a four-month period, we carried out a prospective clinical trial, with a control group (15 subjects) and other of patients with Raynaud's phenomenon (40 patients). We calculated the digital pressures, plethysmography and the DPI, in basal status and after provocation with cold water. The Raynaud's group was divided randomly in two homogeneous subgroups of 20 subjects. One of the groups underwent treatment with calcium antagonists and the other group with placebo. These determinations were repeated at the middle and at the end of the treatment. RESULTS: The basal DPI and after provocation test were lower in the Raynaud's group (0.61 [SD 0.26] and 0.25 [SD 0.26]), than in the control group (0.93 [SD 0.06] and 0.88 [SD 0.07]), with a statistical significance (p < 0.001 and p < 0.0001). After the treatment, in the subgroup treated with calcium antagonists, the DPI were increased in a statistically significative way respect to those in the placebo subgroup (p < 0.0001). Sensitivity and specificity of the DPI associated to the provocation test were of 97 and 93%, respectively. The plethysmographic wave did not suffer significant variations; sensibility and specificity were 48 and 100%. CONCLUSIONS: In the Raynaud's phenomenon the DPI associated to the provocation test have a high sensitivity and specificity, and allows determination of the degree of vasospasm and the response to treatment.


This work aimed to evaluate the genetic divergence among 16 sunflower hybrids. Experiment was developed in Umuarama County, Parana State, Brazil, in 2010/2011 cropping season. Experimental design used was randomized complete block with four replications. The characteristics evaluated were: Final stand, plant height, chapter curvature, chapter size, grain yield, weight of 1000 achene's and oil content. Significant differences were detected for grain yield, chapter size and chapter curvature (1%). For final stand and oil content, significant differences (5%) was observed, suggesting that evaluated characters are important for genetic divergence characterization. Based on Mahalanobis Generalized Distance it was established that genetic dissimilarity measures, SULFOSOL and SYN 045 genotypes were the most dissimilar with D2ii' of 134.54%. Clustering by Tocher method by using D2ii, divided hybrids into two groups. Grain yield and chapter size contributed significantly in genetic divergence observed between hybrids and it was possible to identify divergent genetic materials for obtaining lines and/or formation of new populations.

 Key words: Genetic variability, plant breeding, Helianthus annuus L., D2ii' analysis.


Background The natural history of asthma includes in some patients periods of disease remission, but the underlying mechanisms are unknown. Objectives We explored whether type 1 myeloid dendritic cell (mDC) dysfunction could be involved in the persistence of asthma, studying the controlled setting of occupational asthma after allergen avoidance. Methods We recruited 32 patients with occupational asthma to flour or latex ascertained by specific inhalation challenge and who were no longer exposed to the causal allergen. Leukapheresis was performed in each patient to isolate and characterise blood type 1 mDCs, and their functionality was studied in coculture with allogeneic CD4+ T cells from controls. Results At follow-up, 11/32 patients (34%) were characterised by the absence of symptoms and non-specific bronchial hyper-responsiveness to histamine and were considered to be cured. When compared with cured patients, mDCs from patients with persistent disease increased the production of interleukin (IL) 5 and IL-13 by CD4+ T cells, and upregulated programmed death ligand 2 (PD-L2) upon allergen pulsing. In addition, IL-5 and IL-13 responses could be reversed by exogenous IL-12, as well as by PD-L2 blockade. Conclusions This study indicates that pro-Th2 features of mDCs correlate with disease activity in asthma after cessation of exposure to the causal allergen. The findings also highlight that the Th2 programming by dendritic cells is flexible and partly mediated by PD-L2.


AIM
To explore the impact of the planned and emergency care provided by a children's hospice on children and young people with life-limiting conditions, their families and stakeholders to inform future service development.

METHODOLOGY
A two phase mixed-method qualitative and quantitative study with young people, families, health and social care professionals and hospice staff.
Phase1
Semi-structured interviews and focus groups (n=53)
Phase 2
Electronic survey (n=82)
Total (n=135)

ANALYSIS
Thematic analysis and descriptive statistics.

SELECTED RESULTS
• Families have limited or no other choice of alternative planned short breaks or emergency respite care provision when children's hospice care is unavailable.
• Families nor stakeholders had clear answers for how best to balance planned short breaks and emergency respite care provision, to enable the hospice to reach out to as many families as possible.
• Participants spoke of genuine concerns about the lack of appropriate respite provision on children and family's outcomes following discharge from the children's hospice.

CONCLUSION
Families need regular respite and support to continue to be able to meet the child's complex care needs. The lack of alternative respite care outside of and after children's hospice discharge can have far reaching consequences for the child, family and society.


The technology of today, such as the Oculus Rift, can provide immersion in ways that were unachievable in the past. The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset that allows the user to see the three-dimensional world without the use of a traditional monitor. Unlike television, computer and mobile screens, a virtual reality headset digitally transports the user into the environment. Functionality such as depth tracking and rotational head tracking provides immersion unlike anything experienced to date.   My interest is to investigate interactive storytelling in combination with the Oculus Rift, to determine if virtual reality headsets can enrich storytelling experiences. This will be achieved by developing an application where interactive storytelling is compatible with the Oculus Rift, and testing that application with participants. Finally, a conclusion will be drawn from the data collected by participants.   Alongside the written thesis, a digital application will be produced in Unreal Engine 4 (Video game engine). The application will be an Oculus Rift driven experience, meaning that users can only experience it through an Oculus Rift. The application will have an interactive plot, which allows the user to influence the storyline. The design will be iterative and will be refined after each user testing session. The application hopes to strengthen the theories and concepts found in the written section of the thesis.


The shape reconfiguration is an arising concept in advanced electronics research, which allows the electronic platform to change in shape and assume different configurations while maintaining high electrical functionality. The reconfigurable electronic platforms are attractive for state of the art biomedical technologies, where the reshaping feature increases the adaptability and compliance of the electronic platform to the human body. Here, we present an amorphous silicon honeycomb-shaped reconfigurable electronic platform that can reconfigure into three different shapes: the quatrefoil shape, the star shape, and an irregular shape. We show the reconfiguration capabilities of the design in microscale and macroscale fabricated versions. We use finite element method analysis to calculate the stress and strain profiles of the microsized honeycomb-serpentine design at a prescribed displacement of 100  μ m. The results show that the reconfiguration capabilities can be improved by eliminating certain interconnects. We further improve the design by optimizing the serpentine interconnect parameters and refabricate the platform on a macroscale to facilitate the reconfiguration process. The macroscale version demonstrates an enhanced reconfiguration capability and elevates the stretchability by 21% along the vertical axis and by 36.6% along the diagonal axis of the platform. The resulting reconfiguring capabilities of the serpentine-honeycomb reconfigurable platform broaden the innovation opportunity for wearable electronics, implantable electronics, and soft robotics.The shape reconfiguration is an arising concept in advanced electronics research, which allows the electronic platform to change in shape and assume different configurations while maintaining high electrical functionality. The reconfigurable electronic platforms are attractive for state of the art biomedical technologies, where the reshaping feature increases the adaptability and compliance of the electronic platform to the human body. Here, we present an amorphous silicon honeycomb-shaped reconfigurable electronic platform that can reconfigure into three different shapes: the quatrefoil shape, the star shape, and an irregular shape. We show the reconfiguration capabilities of the design in microscale and macroscale fabricated versions. We use finite element method analysis to calculate the stress and strain profiles of the microsized honeycomb-serpentine design at a prescribed displacement of 100  μ m. The results show that the reconfiguration capabilities can be improved by eliminating certain intercon...


The thin films of W-doped VO2 were synthesized onto Mo substrates using reactive DC and RF magnetic co-sputtering deposition techniques. The effects of W dopant on the semiconductor to metal phase transition of bare VO2 were investigated with measuring X-ray diffraction (XRD) , QJ31Wheatstone Bridge and the internal friction and modulus vs temperature. The transition temperatures of VO2 thin film from monoclinic semiconductor to tetragonal metal are decreased from 68°C to 40°C with the curves of resistance vs temperature and modulus vs temperature. In addition to, the size of grains W-doped VO2 is more than that of un-doped VO2, but more smoother.


The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), an analytic support agency of the United States Congress, has examined the process of forecasting future supplies of conventional, domestically produced natural gas in the U.S. lower 48 states to the year 2000. Its investigation focused particularly on the technical sources of uncertainty, including the incomplete geologic understanding of the remaining resources and the difficulties involved in properly interpreting and extrapolating past trends in natural gas discovery. The OTA examined the arguments developed by supply "optimists" and "pessimists" regarding both the size of the recoverable resource base and the speed with which new resources can be discovered and produced. As part of the investigation, resource-base estimates, ranging from those of H. King Hubbert and Richard Nehring to those of the U.S. Geological Survey and the Potential Gas Committee, were reviewed and compared. The OTA concluded that the credible ranges of estimates for lower-48 resources and future production potential are very wide--400 to 900 tcf for the remaining recoverable resources of conventional gas at near-current prices and technology, and 9-19 tcf/yr for the year 2000 production under the same price and technology conditions. End_of_Article - Last_Page 517------------


The modification of star formation (SF) in galaxy interactions is a complex process, with SF observed to be both enhanced in major mergers and suppressed in minor pair interactions. Such changes likely to arise on short time-scales and be directly related to the galaxy–galaxy interaction time. Here we investigate the link between dynamical phase and direct measures of SF on different time-scales for pair galaxies, targeting numerous star- formation rate (SFR) indicators and comparing to pair separation, individual galaxy mass and pair mass ratio. We split our sample into the higher (primary) and lower (secondary) mass galaxies in each pair and find that SF is indeed enhanced in all primary galaxies but suppressed in secondaries of minor mergers. We find that changes in SF of primaries are consistent in both major and minor mergers, suggesting that SF in the more massive galaxy is agnostic to pair mass ratio. We also find that SF is enhanced/suppressed more strongly for short-duration SFR indicators (e.g. Hα), highlighting recent changes to SF in these galaxies, which are likely to be induced by the interaction. We propose a scenario where the lower mass galaxy has its SF suppressed by gas heating or stripping, while the higher mass galaxy has its SF enhanced, potentially by tidal gas turbulence and shocks. This is consistent with the seemingly contradictory observations for both SF suppression and enhancement in close pairs.


Even as the lessons learned from the response to the 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak in West Africa begin to be analyzed, history provides other key examples of health crises that challenge traditional thinking and, in some cases, government structures themselves. In his new book The Politics and Crisis Management of Animal Health Security, author John Connolly examines the events and aftermath of the 2001 foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak in the United Kingdom, an event that cost >£8 billion (US ≈$11.6 billion), resulted in the death or slaughter of 6.5 million animals, and led to the country's first delay in a national election since World War II.

Caused by a picornavirus, FMD affects cloven-hoofed animals including sheep, cattle, and pigs. Because of the disease's highly infectious nature, FMD-free countries like the UK must respond quickly to outbreaks because of economic trade consequences; a quick and well-coordinated response is key to success. However, in 2001, some early and notable missteps in UK government decisions, including a 3-day lag in imposing national animal movement bans, led to viral spread via animal movements and a mushrooming of the national crisis. The atmosphere of the outbreak response was highly charged, and battles between government and stakeholders played out daily in the media with political cartoons and images of burning carcasses. The crisis led to the dissolution of the country's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the creation of the new Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA). In his book, Connelly asks, have the lessons learned during the aftermath of the 2001 FMD outbreak been adequately applied, and is the UK better prepared to deal with a substantial animal health crisis in the future?

Written in multiple parts, this book provides an initial primer in crisis management and defines theoretical drivers of change. Connelly describes the FMD outbreak in the United Kingdom as a "critical juncture" situation: that is, a public crisis combined with the political climate to drive necessary organizational change. Next, the book takes the reader through a description of the acute crisis, including technical details of the outbreak's spread and the primary features of the government response. The book then moves the reader into an understanding of DEFRA's post-FMD crisis management and how the new agency tackled a "fix" to the problem through contingency planning, improved communications, science advocacy, and stakeholder engagement. Finally, the book reviews the efficacy of DEFRA's new plans, as executed during a 2006–2007 avian influenza A(H5N1) crisis and a 2007 outbreak of FMD associated with an accidental laboratory release. The author's conclusions are that many of the lessons learned from the 2001 outbreak have resulted in positive change and a stronger capacity for the government to respond to recent and future outbreaks.

Reviewing this book carries personal significance for me, as I spent a month in England in 2001 helping the United Kingdom as part of the response. I talked directly with the farmers at the epicenter of the outbreak and saw firsthand the public distrust fueled by challenges in communicating government decisions. Now, working in public affairs and scientific communications myself, I found it very informative to review this book and look back at that time through a new professional lens. The book lacks, perhaps, a robust discussion of the role of media and public outcry in shaping government policy decisions, but nonetheless proves an excellent reference for anyone who wishes to understand organizational change in response to crises, particularly in the health and veterinary sectors. The positive changes that have taken place since 2001 provide me with hope that the United Kingdom—and other countries that choose to pay close attention—may indeed be better prepared for future outbreak responses.


Within a cross-sectional epidemiologic study in an oil refinery the "mean health score" in shift and daily workers was estimated, following a method developed by the authors and based on the mean health score technique processed by M. Koller for an Austrian refinery. No significant difference was observed in the mean health score between the shift-workers and the daily-workers. However analysis of the results shows, some meaningful trends to be considered: the mean health score would seen higher in shift-workers than in daily ones for lower class of age (30; 30-40 years), while an inverse trend is observed in higher class of age. In the Austrian refinery the shift-workers mean health score is uniformly lower in all class of age. The difference observed in the study refinery could be due to the lower class of length of employment of the young shift workers with regard to the young daily ones, while in the Austrian refinery the greater damage for the shift-workers state of health could be due to a greatly more irregular shift with less adaptability.


A controversial topic in the recent climate modeling literature is the fashion in which metastable low-frequency regimes in the atmosphere occur despite nearly Gaussian statistics for these planetary waves. Here a simple 57-mode paradigm model for such metastable atmospheric regime behavior is introduced and analyzed through hidden Markov model (HMM) analysis of the time series of suitable low-frequency planetary waves. The analysis of this paradigm model elucidates how statistically significant metastable regime transitions between blocked and zonal statistical states occur despite nearly Gaussian behavior in the associated probability distribution function and without a significant role for the low-order truncated nonlinear dynamics alone; turbulent backscatter onto the three-dimensional subspace of low-frequency modes is responsible for these effects. It also is demonstrated that suitable stochastic mode reduction strategies, which include both augmented cubic nonlinearity and multiplicative noise, are also capable of capturing the metastable low-frequency regime behavior through a single stochastic differential equation compared with the full turbulent chaotic 57-mode model. This feature is attractive for issues such as long-term weather predictability. Although there have been many applications of HMM in other sciences, this work presents a previously undescribed application of HMM analysis to atmospheric low-frequency variability and points the way for further applications including their use in extended range predictability.


The significant decrease in the water level of the Nanan agricultural dam is becoming very worrying for rice farmers. In this study, we analyzed the land use dynamics of dam watershed and its impacts on morphological characteristics and reservoir inflow. This analysis was conducted by coupling the satellites images of Landsat sensors over a thirty years, Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and direct field observation. The classification of Thematic Mapper (1986), Enhanced Thematic Mapper+ (2000) and Operational Land Imager (2015) images has gave respectively an overalls accuracies of 99.01%, 96.62% and 94.6% and kappa index of 0.98, 0.95 and 0.91. The analysis of the land use dynamics of the catchment showed that its urbanization started before 1986 and accelerated after 2000 with the transfer of the political capital of Abidjan to Yamoussoukro. The area of dam watershed was reduced between 1986 (8,272 km²) and 2000 (7,348 km²).After 2000, the construction of road infrastructures on the watershed led to a subdivision of the watershed into two sub-watersheds separated by a culvert. The current configuration is an upstream basin with an area of 4.30 km² and the downstream basin an area of 3.048 km². As a hydrological consequence of urbanization in watershed is runoff water has increased from 41.7 mm in 1986 to 43.30 mm in 2000 and 46.40 mm in 2015. However, inter-basin water transfer and grass cover at the entrance to the basin slowed runoff and reduced by a third the flow to the reservoir dam. This situation led to a decrease in the water level in the reservoir of the Nanan hydro-agricultural dam.


The tracer monitored titration (TMT) technique is evaluated for measurement of dissolved oxygen. The TMT developed in this work uses a simple apparatus consisting of a low-precision pump for titrant delivery and an optical detector based on a white LED and two photodiodes with interference filters. It is shown that the classic Winkler method can be made free of routine volumetric and gravimetric measurements by application of TMT theory, which allows tracking the amounts of titrant and sample using a chemical tracer. The measurement precision of the prototype setup was 0.3% RSD.


We estimate a model that incorporates two key features of business cycles, comovement among economic variables and switching between regimes of boom and slump, to quarterly UK data for the last four decades. Common permanent and transitory factors, interpreted as composite indicators of coincident variables, and estimates of turning points from one regime to the other, are extracted from the data by using the Kalman filter and maximum likelihood estimation. Both comovement and regime switching are found to be important features of the UK business cycle. The components produce sensible representations of the cycles and the estimated turning points agree fairly well with independently determined chronologies.


In the wake of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, considerable ink was spilled on the architecture and interior design of the buildings owned and inhabited by Donald J. Trump. In an effort to understand the inner workings of America's first real-estate-mogul-in-chief, commentators remarked on everything from the president's fastidious taste in window dressings to the exaggerated floor counts boasted by many Trump-branded towers.
 Notes on Trumpspace takes this discursive trend as a point of departure. It examines not only key examples of "Trumpitecture" but also works of film, fiction, and contemporary art that center on or otherwise illuminate the psychogeography of "super luxury" real estate. Engaging closely with current political debates, the book takes a critical approach to mainstream liberal reactions to the Trump presidency. It argues that the fascination and horror Trump has provoked is owing in part to the way he lays bare the obsession with status, self-branding, and achievement-at-any-cost that has been part and parcel of the broader neoliberal ethos. Finally, it analyzes the January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol through the lens of spatio-political theorizations of settler colonial power and conceptions of home and homeland.
 A genre-defying work of political and aesthetic inquiry, Notes on Trumpspace is a sustained investigation into the relationship between the built environment, late capitalist fantasy, and national identity. It asks what it means for current and future understandings of home and dwelling that this era's most notorious peddler of high-end real estate succeeded in peddling his way into the White House in 2016.


To the Editor. —In the MarchArchives, Snider and Powell1presented a well-organized review of the sparse and scattered data available in the literature concerning the appearance of antituberculosis drugs in human breast milk. The information available to these authors indicated thatp-aminosalicylic acid and pyrazinamide were either not detectable or unknown at the time of publication; however, my laboratory has recently analyzed both of these components in human breast milk. A 27-year-old woman (non-breast-feeding) was given 4 g ofp-aminosalicylic acid and breast milk collected at 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, and 12 hours following oral administration. A maximum concentration of 1.1 mg/L was obtained at three hours with an elimination halflife of 2.5 hours. The maximum plasma concentration of the mother at two hours was determined to be 70.1 mg/L. Gastrointestinal tract irritation later developed and thep-aminosalicylic acid was withdrawn from the


This article provides an analysis of developmental discourses underpinning preschool physical education in Scotland's Curriculum for Excellence. Implementing a post-structural perspective, the article examines the preschool experiences and outcomes related to physical education as presented in the Curriculum for Excellence 'health and wellbeing' documentation. The article interrogates the ways in which developmental discourses are evident throughout this and related documentation and how these discourses might 'work' to produce specific effects on practitioners and children as they are deployed and taken up in Scottish preschool education contexts. This analysis involves speculating about potential consequences for practitioners' and children's experiences and subjectivities. In conclusion, it is suggested that practitioners should critically engage with the curriculum, as uncritical acceptance of the discourses underpinning it could lead to practices that may have negative consequences. Furthermore, the article proposes that future research should investigate the ways in which the discourses privileged in the Curriculum for Excellence 'health and wellbeing' documentation are taken up and negotiated in Scottish preschool settings.


The Ironman triathlon was created in 1978 by combining events with the longest distances for races then contested in Hawaii in swimming, cycling, and running. The Half Ironman triathlon was formed using half the distances of each of the events in the Ironman. The Olympic distance triathlon was created by combining events with the longest distances for races sanctioned by the major federations for swimming, cycling, and running. The relative importance of each event in overall race outcome was not given consideration when determining the distances of each of the races in modern triathlons. Thus, there is a general belief among triathletes that the swimming portion of the standard-distance triathlons is underweighted. We present a nonlinear Bayesian model for triathlon finishing times that models time and standard deviation of time as a function of distance. We use this model to create fair triathlons by equating the standard deviations of the times taken to complete the swimming, cycling, and running events. Thus, in these fair triathlons, a one standard deviation improvement in any event has an equivalent impact on overall race time. We conclude that a ratio of roughly 1:4:17 for swim distance to run distance to bike distance generates appropriate distances for a "fair" triathlon. So, for example, the Olympic triathlon swim distance should be increased from 1.5 km to 2.5 km to more fairly value each discipline in the race.


study to test whether, for instance, sulphasalazine is better than placebo in rheumatoid arthritis. In deciding the sample size required to show a difference or that no difference exists between a possibly effective drug and placebo, a statistician requires to know the likely improvement rates both for the drug and for natural remission. Another reason for publishing carefully conducted uncontrolled trials of this type is that they are feasible and plausible when they come from one hospital. It would be virtually impossible for a single hospital to muster sufficient suitable patients for a controlled study. Once more than one hospital or more than one clinician is involved disparities in case selection and patient management may vitiate the results of the trial. Once we enter the league of multicentre controlled trials we enter a morass of committee work, of anonymity, and often of twoyear delays, in which the seeds of originality, such as the use of sulphasalazine, may fail to germinate or may germinate only to become blighted.


In this paper basic biographical data are presented about Wojciech Urbanski, the physicist, mathematician, and the university librarian. A special attention is paid to his publications in electrical engineering, particularly to the papers published in German, concerning the theory of potential, as well as to his contributions on the electric charge density distribution in conductive objects. His extensive physics and geometry handbooks are also described. Furthermore his publication output devoted to popularization of the nature sciences, astronomy, and the social sciences is combined and listed. Finally his significance as the promoter of the progressive  Polish culture in a difficult period of the 19th century, especially during the so-called Spring of Nations in 1848, is also brought to notice.


Medical devices in hospital operating rooms are getting increasingly inter-connected. This enables them to download instructions and report results with less risk of error compared to traditional manual techniques. However, many of these devices are safety critical. Thus, any risks from cyber-attacks can be extremely high. This paper describes BEEER, a distributed record and replay framework suitable for environments where more than one safety critical device is in simultaneous use. A prominent example is a hospital operating room where a number of networked devices work together. In such scenarios, a key step to forensically analyze an incident is understanding the causality of events produced by devices. BEEER orders events during recording by leveraging the fact that it takes significantly more time for a drug's effects to come to prominence on a patient compared to device-to-device communication on a local network. During replay, BEEER uses a newly developed token mechanism to coordinate execution of the events. We implemented and evaluated a prototype of BEEER. We found that synchronization for short medical operations can be achieved using Network Time Protocol (NTP). For longer operations we designed and developed a new event ordering protocol (projection protocol) based on vector timestamps. BEEER's replay mechanism is efficient and therefore suitable for forensics analyses in practice.


Food insecurity, a critical problem in the developing world, has recently received increased attention among wealthy nations. Food insecurity, broadly defined, is when a lack of resources prevents household members from having enough food. In the US, food insecurity has been rising while social safety net programs to ameliorate hunger among at-risk households have been targeted for cuts by conservatives. Our main objective was to assess the prevalence and impact of food insecurity among the elderly. In a survey of 500 older, homebound meal clients in New York City, we found that nearly one in five (17%) is food insecure, 89% endure chronic health problems, 14% live with severe functional impairments, 38% are in declining health, and 10% experience unmet needs for services. New York City's oldest community residents have serious health problems, multiple unmet social service needs, and often suffer from food insecurity. Understanding the relationship between these issues is critical if community organizations and government agencies at all levels—even in wealthy countries—are to be more effective in assuring the well being of their oldest residents.


ABSTRACT Neonatal sepsis is one of the most fulminating conditions in neonatal intensive care units. Antipathogen and supportive care are administered routinely, but do not deliver satisfactory results. In addition, the efforts to treat neonatal sepsis with anti-inflammatory agents have generally shown to be futile. The accumulating data imply that intracellular redox changes intertwined into neonatal sepsis redox cycle represent the main cause of dysfunction of mitochondria and cells in neonatal sepsis. Our aim here is to support the new philosophy in neonatal sepsis treatment, which involves the integration of mechanisms that are responsible for cellular dysfunction and organ failure, the recognition of the most important targets, and the selection of safe agents that can stop the neonatal sepsis redox cycle by hitting the hot spots. Redox-active agents that could be beneficial for neonatal sepsis treatment according to these criteria include lactoferrin, interleukin 10, zinc and selenium supplements, ibuprofen, edaravone, and pentoxifylline.


Corona virus pandemic (Covid-19) threatens the lives of people in the world and has an impact on the economy of society, including in Indonesia, both in the industrial, trade and agriculture sectors. In the agricultural sector, food security is the main thing that must receive attention from the government because it can disrupt national stability. One effort that can be done is the development of urban agriculture. Urban agriculture can improve local food security and quality of agricultural products. The combination of innovative urban agriculture such as vertical garden, hydroponic, and vertiminaponic cultivation systems at various scales (small, medium, and commercial) is able to support three dimensions of food security, namely food availability, food access, and food utilization. On a small and medium scale urban agriculture is able to produce a number of vegetables for the local market. On a medium and commercial scale it can be developed to complement national or even global needs. Urban innovative agriculture also has the potential to contribute to food stability, namely reducing dependence on long and poorly developed food value chains, from rural producers to urban consumers. On that basis, innovative urban agriculture has paved the way to the second green revolution, ensuring availability and maintaining food security during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. However, in its development requires cooperation from all parties, including farmers, government, surrounding communities, entrepreneurs, educational institutions, and other parties for sustainability.


Since the 1950s, cellulose pyrolysis has been the subject of intense study, with kinetic analyses forming a major part of these studies. They represent useful tools for a better understanding of the physicochemical process and for the proper design of industrial pyrolysis units. Until recently, the methods most frequently used in these analyses were based on model-fitting, i.e. the fitting of the experimental data to a number of mathematical models. Nowadays, other methods, so-called "model-free" methods, are considered to be more suited. These are based on the principle that, at constant conversion, the reaction rate depends only on temperature. In its first part, this short review presents the particularities and drawbacks of the traditional model-fitting models. Subsequently, several main contributions in this field are listed and discussed. Finally, the more suited "model-free" (isoconversional) methods are explained and several main studies presented, as well as a comparison of this method with the model-fitting ones.


The aim of this study is to illustrate the picture of the spatial diffusion of the population in Al-Jazirah in the north-west of Iraq....The region was studied in the light of the 1977 census and compared with the data of the 1987 census to determine the extent of change in population diffusion during the period between the two censuses. (EXCERPT)


Background Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors (TKI) are the standard treatment for Philadelphia chromosome positive chronic myeloid leukaemia (Ph + CML). Imatinib is also indicated for Kit- (CD117) positive metastatic malignant gastrointestinal stromal tumours. The high rates of survival obtained in recent years have turned these diseases into chronic conditions. Thus, adherence to treatment is hugely important. Many studies have shown that low adherence to treatment with imatinib ( Purpose To determine the degree of adherence to treatment with all TKI. Materials and methods One year prospective/retrospective study. All patients on treatment with TKI for at least a month coming to the Pharmacy to collect the medicine were included. The study was approved by a research ethics committee and all patients were required to give written informed consent. Adherence was assessed through two indirect methods: Structured interview: adherence was evaluated in a standardised way using the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale. Dispensing records: Patients taking less than 90% of the prescribed dose were considered non-adherent. Results Nineteen patients were prescribed these drugs and 15 agreed to enter the study (8 imatinib, 6 dasatinib and 1 nilotinib). Mean duration of treatment was 1,191 days. Mean Morisky score was 11.86 and only three patients were classified as non-adherent. According to the dispensing records, adherence was 96.82 (85.08–100%) and only one patient was non-adherent (85.08%). Only one patient showed non adherence with both methods. Conclusions Patients showed a high level of adherence similar to what has been reported with imatinib. High adherence was also seen with new TKI. This study allowed us to identify patients with suboptimal adherence and attempt to educate them. No conflict of interest.


This article discusses the underlying theoretical and operational premises in the fields of workers' health and occupational health, highlighting their respective frameworks and epistemological differences, based on Foucaultian archeology. The theme is particularly relevant, due to: the apparently limited attention to interdisciplinary research approaches in workers' health; various setbacks in public health measures at the social policy level; related weaknesses in the Brazilian trade union movement; and the conceptual misinterpretations drafted into the final report of the 3rd National Workers' Health Conference in November, 2005, convened by the Ministries of Social Security, Health, and Labor. The event resulted from the Workers' Health Conferences held in various States and Municipalities, mobilizing some 100,000 activists throughout Brazil and electing the delegates to the 3rd National Conference.


This study is based on an understanding of health and rural labor as a social process related to the characteristics of the agrarian issue in Brazilian society, focusing on sugar cane cutters in northeastern Sao Paulo State, Brazil, and attempting to identify patterns of attrition and reproduction in such labor. Based on direct observations, interviews with laborers and other agents involved in production, and a related bibliographical review, the analysis points to daily exposure of cane cutters to physical, chemical, and biological hazards resulting in various diseases, traumas, and accidents: dermatitis, conjunctivitis, dehydration, cramps, dyspnea, respiratory infections, high blood pressure, and wounds, besides aggravating the biopsychic burden underlying attrition patterns showing up in the spinal column, chest, head, and lumbar pains, nervous breakdowns, and other kinds of psychosomatic manifestations. This study of the work process pointed up its unhealthy working conditions and helped provide an overview of the conditions and means by which capital asserts itself in Brazil - in its self-reproduction process - especially in the agro-industrial sector.


Purpose We sought to evaluate common leadership experiences and academic achievements obtained by current U.S. Medical School Deans of Medicine (DOMs) prior to their first appointment as Dean in order to elucidate a common pathway for promotion. Methods In April-June 2019 the authors requested a curriculum vitae from each of the 153 LCME-accredited U.S. Medical School DOMs. The authors abstracted data on prior appointments, demographics, and achievements from CVs and online databases. Differences by gender and institutional rank were then evaluated by the Fisher's exact and Wilcoxon rank sum tests. Results CVs were obtained for 62% of DOMs (95 of 153), with women comprising 16% of the responding cohort (15/95). Prior to appointment as DOM, 34% of respondents had served as both permanent Department Chair and Associate Dean, 39% as permanent Department Chair but not Associate Dean, and 17% as Associate Deans but not permanent Department Chair. There was a non-significant trend for men to have been more likely to have been a permanent Department Chair (76% vs 53%, p = 0.11) and less likely to have been an Associate Dean (48% vs 67%, p = 0.26) compared to women. Responding DOMs at Top-25 research institutions were mostly male (15/16), more likely to have been appointed before 2010 (38% vs 14%, p = 0.025), and had higher H-indices (mean (SD): 73.1 (32.3) vs 33.5 (22.5), p<0.01) than non-Top-25 Deans. Conclusions The most common pathway to DOM in this study cohort was prior service as Department Chair. This suggests that diversification among Department Chair positions or expansion of search criteria to seek leaders from pools other than Department Chairs may facilitate increased diversity, equity, and inclusion among DOM overall.


The purpose of the study was to examine how the relationship of group communication activities towards empowerment of the poor. Specifically aimed to determine the characteristics of the poor relationship with the activity of group communication and group communication activity relationships with the empowerment of the poor in two districts in the province of Central Sulawesi. Explanatory survey research methods to study the sampling is done through a gradual cluster sampling techniques (multistage sampling), so that the selected eight villages (4 villages close access to the capital of the district and 4 villages access away from the district capital) with as many as 200 members of the group of respondents. The data collected in this study consists of primary and secondary data. Test the validity of the instrument was conducted using Pearson product moment and reliability test by Cronbach Alpha method with a value of 0.867. Validity test results of 30 respondents obtained value from 0.518 to 0.843 . The analyzes were performed with analysis of descriptive and inferential analysis. Inferential analysis using Spearman Rank. The results showed highly significant relationship between the variable characteristics of the group with group communication activities. Among these variables with a variable number of group members in the decision-making process of the group meetings. Besides the very real relationship between the variables domination, understanding the purpose of the group and group motivation with group communication activities. There is a very real relationship between the variables of group communication activities with variable empowerment group. This means that the higher activity group communication, the higher the empowerment group. The high activity group can be seen on the group's participation in group meetings as well as a conducive climate group communication.


The most commonway of producing cement today is effected through what is known as the dry process. If the raw materials used in this process contain sulphide, the plant layout can lead to emissions of SO2 from the preheater tower. SO2 emissions are most often caused by the oxidation of pyritic sulphide, which occurs between 300 and 600 C. Of the formed SO2, around 50% is often said to be emitted from the preheater. However, large variations in this number have been observed, with the circulation of CaO from the calciner given as the main reason for this phenomenon. One of the experimental goals in this thesis has been to produce CaOwith a large surface area in order to increase the absorption of SO2. For this purpose flash calcination of CaCO3, calcination under vacuum, calcination in a fixed bed and a fluid bed has been tested between 650 C and 850 C. The results showed that flash calcination at low temperatures resulted in the largest surface area, about 140 m2/g CaO. The material produced from all of the methods was a mixture of CaO and CaCO3, meaning that the material was only partly calcined, but with the particle surface area being comprised by CaO. One focus in this thesis was to investigate the reaction between CaO and SO2 in the temperature interval where SO2 is formed within the preheater tower, in order to understand the role of CaO in connection with SO2 emission. The experiments were conducted using CO2 concentrations up to 25 %. The reaction times in all cases were less than 1 second, which was possible using an entrained flow reactor. Furthermore, the experimental results were found to be limited by both external and internal diffusion. The reaction product was identified as a mixture of CaSO3 and CaSO4. For temperatures below 600 C no effect from O2 was observed. At low CO2 concentrations the CaO conversion with respect to SO2 increased with both temperature and surface area. At high CO2 concentrations no effect or even a negative effect of temperature was seen. In general, CO2 was found to inhibit the CaO/SO2 reaction. Based on the CaO experiments under carbonating conditions it was concluded that CaO recirculation within the preheater tower does not influence the SO2 emission to any significant extend. This conclusion is opposite to what previously has been stated. Modelling of experimental results concentrates on the results obtained for CaO in non-CO2enriched atmospheres. Due to external and internal diffusion limitations and very short reaction times, a time-dependent grain model with chemical reaction between SO2 and CaO at the shrinking core interface in the non-porous grains was used and found to describe data very well. The outcome of the modelling was that the chemical reaction between SO2 and CaO is so fast that the observed rates exclusively are determined by solid state diffusion in the product layer of the non-porous CaO grains. An activation energy of 115 kJ/mole was found to fit all CaO sources very well, even though data fitting by the least sum of squares method showed that this figure could be between 90 kJ/mole and 140 kJ/mole, with a corresponding change of


A model for average travel time estimation on signalized urban networks by integrating cumulative plots with probe vehicle information is presented. The integration is performed with the aim to reduce the relative deviations in the cumulative plots occurred due to mid-link sources/sinks. During under-saturated traffic conditions, concept of virtual probe is introduced and the accurate travel time can be obtained even with unavailability of real probe. For saturated and over-saturated traffic conditions and travel time estimation interval of 360 seconds: only one probe per estimation interval or 3% of vehicles traversing the link as probes has the potential to provide accurate travel time.


We have proposed a new ictal source analysis approach by combining a spatio-temporal source localization approach, and causal interaction estimation technique. The FINE approach is used to identify neural electrical sources from spatio-temporal scalp-EEGs. The Granger causality estimation uses source waveforms estimated by FINE to characterize the causal interaction between the neural electrical sources in order to distinguish primary sources, which initiate ictal events, from secondary sources, which are caused by propagation. In the present study, we applied the proposed analysis approach to an epilepsy patient with symptomatic MRI lesions. It is found that the primary ictal source is within the visible lesion, which gave the consistent presurgical evaluation as MRI for this patient


Fraud is an array of irregularities and illegal act characterized by intention deception. The purpose of this study is to formulate revealed techniques of tax fraud using indirect and direct technique. 1). Indirect technique use vertical analysis, horisontal analysis, and ratio analysis technique, and 2). Direct technique use physics test. The development of this issue can be a solution for tax fraud's problem in Indonesia. Otherwise, the study is only concerned to find sales transactions without value added tax and sales transactions that only paid a part to treasury find.This study is qualitative research with the Source of research data are balance, income statement, and cash flows statement. The method of collecting data use participation of observation. And then analysis of research data use hermeneutics.These result indicate that vertical test analysis technique and horizontal analysis technique have significant percentage and ratio analysis techniques showed indications of fraud with score M > 5,24. Besides, based on the result of physical tests showed that PT. NN less deposit the tax obligatios and hasn't paid value added tax to treasury fund.


According to theorems of C. Gordon, J. Luecke, and W. Parry, if a knot exterior X has two distinct planar boundary slopes r 1 , r 2 , then at least one of the manifolds X(r 1 ), X(r 2 ) has a connected summand M with nontrivial torsion in first homology. The 3-manifolds M obtained in this way, which we call t-manifolds, have special Heegaard splittings, or t-manifold structures. In this paper we study the topology of t-manifolds from the point of view of the homology presentation matrices induced by their t-manifold structures, classify all genus two t-manifold structures, and show that, under some conditions, one of the Dehn fillings of X is a connected sum of t-manifolds and (at most) one prime non t-manifold summand.


Abstract Subsurface saline waters in sedimentary basins can be divided into three groups based on their anionic composition and salinity: (1) Waters with anions other than Cl dominant. These include Na-HCO3 and Na-acetate waters. Most such waters have salinities of less than 10 000 mg 1−1; (2) Cl-dominated, halite-undersaturated waters having salinities between 10 000 and 250 000–300 000 mg l−1. These include Na-Cl waters and, at higher salinities, Na-Ca-Cl waters; (3) Cl-dominated, halite-saturated waters with salinities typically in excess of 300 000 mg 1−1. Ca and K become increasingly dominant and Na decreases with increasing salinity. Subaerial evaporation of marine and continental waters and the subsurface dissolution of evaporites both have the potential for producing the range of salinities and dissolved chloride concentrations observed for most subsurface brines, but not their major cation compositions. The broad systematic increase in dissolved Na, K, Mg, Ca, and Sr and decrease in pH and alkalinity with increasing salinity support the hypothesis that the approach toward thermodynamic buffering by silicate-carbonate ± (halide) mineral assemblages is a first-order control on subsurface fluid compositions, even at temperatures well below 100°C. The chemical potential of chloride or, alternatively, the aqueous concentration of anionic charge, is a master variable which ranks in importance with such other variables as pressure and temperature in driving fluid-rock exchange and controlling bulk fluid compositions. This variable is in turn controlled largely by physical processes of fluid advection and dispersion. Dissolved organic acid anions are associated primarily with low salinity waters, but dissolved metals, such as Cu, Pb, and Zn are preferentially found in brines having salinities in excess of 200 g 1−1. The high chloride concentration and low pH of these saline waters may enhance solubilization of metals through chloride complexing.


Introduction: The media can be a double-edged sword in suicide prevention with the Werther and Papageno effect as risk and protective factors respectively. Objective: This article provides a brief overview of the impact of media suicide reporting on suicidal behaviour and suicide prevention. Results: In the Malaysian context, current practices of media suicide reporting, advocacy strategies  for responsible media suicide reporting as well as challenges in stakeholder awareness and engagement are highlighted. A review of the literature suggested limited implementaton and adherence of media guidelines locally. Conclusions: Future research is warranted to establish the evidence base for effective strategies to improve stakeholder awareness, engagement and implementation of responsible media reporting of suicide. Please click PDF below to download the full paper...


ABSTRACT Most users learn new, complex systems through trial-and-error experience rather than referring to the manuals in a cognitive process that is called 'exploratory learning'. While exploring a system, people find prototypical rules for using the system based especially on frequent tasks. The rules are formed from consistent task procedures and well-expected interface elements on the designed system. These rules play the role of the basis of users' knowledge for performing tasks. The decision making to select and apply those rules interacting with an interface can be aided by properly provided hints on the interface. With appropriate hints, users can learn new systems easily and use them with reduced usability problems. This paper first reports an observation of user behavior performing tasks with prototypical interaction rules and finds a sound set of criteria to extract prototypical interaction rules systematically. Two types of hints are defined. Extending hints prompt users to apply prototypical interaction rules beyond well-known tasks. Preventive hints guide users out of possible capture errors by drawing attention to the variation of rules. A systematic and practical method is proposed to identify the opportunities for both types in designing interfaces. It is then verified through a usability test that the proposed method is effective in identifying the locations and types of appropriate hints to reduce or mitigate usability problems. Keyword: Exploratory learning, User knowledge, Hinting interface


During the last decades the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases has increased progressively, becoming a serious public health problem. Some studies have shown a positive association between saturated fatty acid intake and the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, and a negative association with unsaturated fatty acids intake. These studies indicate a need to evaluate the different kinds of fatty acids (saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated) and their effects, aiming at a better utilization and maintaining a suitable proportion in the diet in order to diminish the incidence of cardiovascular diseases. The objective of this paper is to accomplish a review of the medical literature regarding fatty acids and their effects on cardiovascular diseases, as well as the evolution of their requirements through time, consumption trends and future perspectives.


In a previous work, two-dimensional film flows were modelled using a weighted-residual approach that led to a four-equation model consistent at order $\epsilon^2$. A two-equation model resulted from a subsequent simplification but at the cost of lowering the degree of the approximation to order $\epsilon$ only. A Padé approximant technique is applied here to derive a refined two-equation model consistent at order $\epsilon^2$. This model, formulated in terms of coupled evolution equations for the film thickness $h$ and the flow rate $q$, accounts for inertia effects due to the deviations of the velocity profile from the parabolic shape, and closely follows the asymptotic long-wave expansion in the appropriate limit. Comparisons of two-dimensional wave properties with experiments and direct numerical simulations show good agreement for the range of parameters in which a two-dimensional wavy motion is reported in experiments. The stability of two-dimensional travelling waves to three-dimensional pertur-bations is investigated based on the extension of the models to include spanwise dependence. The secondary instability is found to be not very selective, which explains the widespread presence of the synchronous instability observed in the experiments by Liu et al.(1995) whereas Floquet analysis predicts a subharmonic scenario in most cases. Three-dimensional wave patterns are computed next assuming periodic boundary conditions. Transition from two- to three-dimensional flows is shown to be strongly dependent on initial conditions. The herringbone patterns, the synchronously deformed fronts and the three-dimensional solitary waves observed in experiments are recovered using our regularized model, which is found to be an excellent compromise between the complete model, which has seven equations, and the simplified model, which does not include the second-order inertia corrections. Those corrections are found to play a role in the selection of the type of secondary instability as well as of the spanwise wavelength of the emerging pattern.


This study aims to analyze the efficiency of niobium and vanadium carbides in the high energy mechanical milling of aluminum bronze alloy. Two series of experiments were made following the same steps for both niobium carbide (NbC) and vanadium carbide (VC) additions: 30 g of chips were weighed and placed in a stainless steel jar with 3 % of carbide and 1 % of stearic acid for a mass/sphere relationship of 1:10. The milling was realized using a planetary ball mill for 10, 30 and 50 hours in an inert argon atmosphere at 300 rpm. Results shown in laser diffraction indicate a great reduction in the particle sizes of powders when VC is used. For 30 hours milling, D50 values ranged from 1580 μm with NbC to 182.3 μm with VC addition. The D50 values ranged from 251.5 μm with NbC to 52.26 μm with VC addition, for 50 hours milling. The scanning electron microscopy showed that in 10 hours of milling, the energy was not sufficient to achieve the shear of chips in both cases. For 30 hours, it's possible to observe particles with sizes between 100 μm and 800 μm with NbC addition while for the same milling time, with VC it's possible to see particles with different sizes, but with many shapes of fine particulates. For 50 hours milling, particles achieved the smaller sizes between 50 and 200 μm with NbC and ranging from 5 until 50 μm with VC addition.


Erosion from forest roads is an important contribution to the sediment budget of many forested basins, particularly over short time scales. Sediment production from 74 road segments was measured over three years to examine how road slope, segment length, cutslope height, and soil texture affect sediment production and how these relationships change with time. In the first year, differences in sediment production between plots could be explained by differences in sediment transport capacity of the plots. With time, differences between plots of different slope, length, cutslope height, and soil were reduced as all plots produced less and less sediment. Recovery was rapid with around 70% recovery between by the second year and 90% recovery by the third year.


A printed book, titled 'Clinical Manual for India: Compiled for the Use of the Students of the Madras Medical College' (hereafter, 'MMC Manual'), was available for student use in the Madras Medical College (MMC) between 1878 and 1897. The first edition of this book must have served as casual class notes prepared by Arthur Branfoot, Professor of Midwifery at MMC in 1878. The second and third editions, more formally prepared than the first, were printed books compiled and edited by Charles Sibthorpe, who taught pathology at MMC. The fourth and the last edition was compiled and edited by a team consisting of Branfoot, John Maitland (Surgeon), and John Smyth (Physician), academics at MMC and concurrently, full surgeons at the Madras General Hospital. This Manual, which might have served similar to either a study guide or a handbook, impresses as a unique effort in enabling and empowering the MB&CM and LM&S students at MMC at that time. The book was intended for the use of medical students of MMC only. No book of similar kind existed for students in medical colleges in other Indian presidencies. Here, we briefly examine the contents of the available 1883 (the second) and 1897 (the fourth) editions of the MMC Manual. The fourth (1897) edition strongly resembles James Finlayson's 'Clinical Manual for the Study of Medical Cases' (1891) in contents and design. The 'Clinical Manual for India' impresses as a powerful and useful teaching – learning tool, especially of diagnostic medicine, since it includes most of the relevant medical information, in spite of a few weaknesses. Notably it cites some of the then newly published medical journal articles and books.


The link between cancer growth and angiogenesis has led to the development of new techniques for cancer imaging and therapy. Ultrasound molecular imaging permits the visualization of angiogenesis by use of novel targeted ultrasound contrast agents, (tUCA), consisting of ligand-bearing microbubbles designed to specifically bind molecular angiogenic expressions. Discrimination between bound and free microbubbles is crucial to quantify angiogenesis. Currently, the degree of binding is assessed by the differential targeted enhancement, requiring the application of a destructive burst in the late phase (usually 5-10 min after injection) to isolate the signal from bound microbubbles. Recently, we proposed a novel method for quantitative assessment of binding by modeling the microbubble binding kinetics during the tUCA first pass, reducing the acquisition time to 1 min with no need for a destructive burst. The feasibility of the method for angiogenesis imaging was shown in prostate tumor-bearing rats. In this work, we evaluate the proposed method for monitoring the response to angiogenic treatment in human colon cancer xenograft-bearing mice.


In this paper, we introduce the notion of generalized weakly contractive mapping of quadratic type and we prove fixed point results for this type of mapping. We justify our result by suitable examples and show that this mapping satisfies properties P and Q. Among other things, as corollaries we recover Banach and Kannan fixed point theorems.


Introduction: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (pancreatic cancer), is the 4th leading cause of cancer deaths. This "silent killer" is characterized by metastases occurring often before the primary tumor can be detected, resulting in a five-year survival rate of only 4%, underscoring the need for new alternative therapies. Listeria monocytogenes-based cancer therapy could be such an alternative. Our laboratory discovered that attenuated Listeria exhibits novel pathways that are particularly useful against metastatic cancer. We found that Listeria infects metastases and primary tumors, and kills tumor cells through high levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and that myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC) deliver Listeria selectively to the tumor site(s) through chemo/cytokines produced by the tumor cells, and by protecting them, after infection, from immune clearance through their immune suppressive character. Based on these results we now use Listeria as a platform for the delivery of anticancer agents to the tumor microenvironment (TME). One novel application is the delivery of radioisotopes, which emit cytocidal radiation such as beta-particles coupled to Listeria, selectively into the tumor cells. This leads to the synergistic destruction of tumor cells by ionizing radiation, through beta-particles and through ROS generation by Listeria. We were the first to demonstrate that in a highly aggressive model of pancreatic cancer (Panc-02), therapeutic treatment with Listeria reduced the number of metastases by 50%, and when coupled to radioisotope 188-Rhenium (188Re) by 90%. This correlated with a selective accumulation of radioactivity in the metastases without significant side effects. Experimental procedures: Most recently, we explored a completely new method to RL generation using 32Phosphorus (32P), by incorporating 32P into the cell wall of Listeria (Listeria-32P) during culturing of Listeria. Panc-02 mice received 12 doses of Listeria-32P over a period of 28 days. Results: Treatment with Listeria-32P completely eliminated the metastatic cancer in 90% of the mice (visible by eye), while survival studies demonstrated that 43% of the mice were still alive and free of cancer (confirmed by histological examination) 3 months after the last treatment. Untreated mice die within 30-35 days. Most importantly, the incorporation of 32P delivered through Listeria into normal tissues including bone marrow (BM) was hardly detectable, in contrast to 32P alone, which strongly incorporated into the BM. In conclusion: We have developed a novel non-toxic strategy that is highly effective against pancreatic cancer in a preclinical model Panc-02, with a goal to treat patients with pancreatic cancer in the near future. Currently, we are testing Listeria-32P in KPC transgenic mice (conditionally express endogenous Kras-G12D and p53-R172H mutant alleles), which is a humanized model of spontaneous pancreatic cancer. Citation Format: Dinesh Chandra, Ziqiang Yuan, Steven K. Libutti, Ekaterina Dadachova, Claudia Gravekamp. Listeria-32P, a new approach to treat pancreatic cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR Inaugural International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival; September 16-19, 2015; New York, NY. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Immunol Res 2016;4(1 Suppl):Abstract nr A184.


The Saudi Arabian Red Sea coast is characterized by a strong environmental gradient from north (28.5°N) to south (16.5°N) with challenging conditions for coral growth particularly in the south (high temperature and nutrient input). We investigated whether assemblies of reef-building corals and the distribution of functional groups follow a latitudinal pattern in the Red Sea, and whether these changes affect the assembly structure of coral associated organisms (e.g. fishes). Functional groups were defined based on life-history traits and functional role. 13 reefs along the north-south gradient, including 5 potentially polluted reefs were investigated. Results showed a substantially weaker latitudinal shift in the assembly structure of coral communities than of fishes communities and of other benthic reef taxa. Competitive fast growing branching and tabular species (mainly Acropora), as well as rather stresstolerant slow growing bulky species (e.g. Porites, Goniastrea, Favites, Favia) were fairly evenly distributed along the north-south axis despite strong changes of environmental conditions. This seems on the one hand attributable to the high species richness within a given functional group (functional redundancy) and on the other hand to a high acclimatization / adaptation potential of some Red Sea coral species. The prime ecosystem service of the coral community, the provision of a habitat complex, is thereby maintained throughout the gradient. In contrast to the coral community, the assembly of the fish community shifts along the environmental gradient with higher abundances of small wrasses and butterfly fishes in the north, and overall higher abundance of fishes including large fishes in the south. This shift seems linked to higher food availability in the south. Altered assembly structures of coral communities were found in reefs close to a source of pollution with either an increased relative abundance of stresstolerant species or a general decrease of coral abundance, latter case accompanied by a substantial reduction in fish abundance.


Since it was first mentioned in 2002, Gamification has grown in popularity. Gamification is a term for the use of game-design elements in a non-gaming context.
The consulting company Capgemini has set up a rudimentary Gamification platform called Level Up. One of the goals of Level Up is to help motivating the people
volunteering to organize meetings, courses and do other extra work for the company in their own spare time. In order to reward people for their extra work, they can
request badges. Badges are virtual representations of achievements, depicted using an image of a shield. When an employee organizes or goes to such activities, he or she can request such a badge. A set of other employees, known as the Badgers decide whether or not the badge is granted. In the current state of the art, it is not clear whether people in a social structure exert influence on each other, with regards to achieving these badges and doing extra work. Information on influence can be interesting for companies in order to determine if they want to implement a Gamification platform and social media service. From a sociological point of view the information on influence is interesting to see how people react on each other, in a 'gamified' environment (an environment to which Gamification techniques are applied). To research if influence is actually exerted, Level Up is connected to an existing company social media service. The social media service used is known as Yammer, which is a private, enterprise social network. Statistical analysis on both the social graph and the Gamification data shows if there is a correlation between the social structure and the quantity of badges or types of badges one has. It is, however, not determined whether a causality relation exists between the social structure and the quantity of badges or types of badges, or whether a third factor is responsible for the effect. In the analysis the main focus is on authoritativeness of people. Authoritativeness is a measure to determine how important a person in a social network is. The conclusions drawn show that a correlation between the quantity of badges or types of badges does exist. The result makes it more visible and founded why one should implement a Gamification system and how important the social structure in the sense of social media is for the value of it.


By choosing appropriate annealing temperature and annealing time, diffusion couples made of aluminum bronze and tool materials were prepared to simulate the diffusion and phase formation during the actual machining. These results were compared to those obtained from turning experiments. In agreement with results obtained from diffusion couple experiments, all turning experiments showed that major elements in both tool materials and workpiece diffused into their counterparts. The diffusion of C away from the tool will reduce the tool strength. It is helpful to use diffusion couple results to comprehend the diffusion effect in the actual turning process.


We see reversible computing as a generalisation of sequential computation obtained by revoking the law of the excluded miracle. Our execution language includes naked guarded commands and non-deterministic choice. Choices which lead to miraculous continuations invoke reverse computation, and non-deterministic choice plays the rôle of provisional choice within a backtracking context. We require probabilistic choice for symmetry breaking and sampling large search spaces, but must formulate it differently from previous approaches to obtain the required interactions between probabilistic choice and non-deterministic choice and between probabilistic choice and feasibility. Our formulation allows us to derive the post-distributions which characterise a program, and we use these to construct a relational model. We consider refinement as containment of convex closures within distribution space, qualified with additional conditions to avoid over-refinement. We link the non-probabilistic and probabilistic versions of the model with a Galois connection and show that classical designs are a retract of our probabilistic designs. We consider the interaction between probabilistic and non-deterministic choice and find the same initially counter-intuitive results that have been noted by other investigators. We provide an alternative formulation, within the same model, of oblivious non-determinism, which allows all non-deterministic choices to be moved to the start of a computation. We consider the interaction between probabilistic choice and feasibility that is required to match an operational interpretation in which infeasible commands provoke reverse execution, and we present a small case study to show how the interaction between probabilistic choice and feasibility can be exploited in a practical program. All programming structures described here are supported by our implementation platform, the Reversible Virtual Machine, whose development has accompanied our theoretical investigations. This technical report is a working document. A peer reviewed version of this work has been accepted for publication in the Formal Aspects of Computing Special Issue on Unifying Theories of Programming.


Getting used to the new technologies influences the intellectual forming in the following directions, like this:
- Stimulating the interest towards the new - when a computer is operated, the interest and involvement is uninterrupted. The almost complete openness that computers offer eliminates the risk that the activity to become a routine.
- Stimulating the imagination - usually, the contact with the computer world it is realized through games. The variety of the subjects approached by those stimulates the imagination of the players, all the more that this software is specially designed to develop one's fantasy, inventiveness, decision making skills and reflexes.
- Developing logical thinking - The thinking wins in depth and speed. Knowing what to ask from the computer imposes a higher structuring of the thinking.
- On the screen phenomena and processes can be simulated, especially the experiments that are hard to be replicated in real life.
- The performance can be optimized by presenting on the computer a large variety of examples or associated models of a sequence. This leads to stimulating inventiveness, applicability, participation and anticipation of the one that learns.
- The training of the young generation will be done in the spirit of self education.
- Learning happens on a personal rhythm, without emotions or perturbations of the behaviors determined by the environmental factors.
- The results and progresses made have an objective appreciation.
The proposed objectives are referring to: identifying the opportunities in the market; creating an offer of products - educational software - according to the needs and requirements of the consumers; identifying the best resources of financing for activity development; using the balance sheet for informing, analyzing and forecasting the activities through calculating the main economical and financial indicators;
At these, we add: communication, dedicated software use and applying the proper techniques skills.


In order to reveal endogenous beta-adrenomimetic in the blood the authors proposed the biological testing of the serum and plasma on the isolated myometrium of the rat. For this purpose obsidan was used as a beta-adrenoblocker. It was shown that endogenous beta-adrenomimetic different from adrenaline was present in the blood of males, nonpregnant and pregnant females and parturients. Besides, its concentration increased in pregnancy and remained high early in labor.


: Intrathoracic goiter (more than 80% of tissue in the thoracic cavity) represents very rare clinical entity (less than 1% of total number of thyroid gland surgical procedures). Cancer incidence in these goiter is 0-5%. The aim of this article is to present a case report of intrathoracic thyroid papillary carcinoma with multiple compressive syndrome and review of compressive intrathoracic syndrome of thyroid etiology. In our patient we have found: tracheal and oesophageal deviation and compression, superior vena cava syndrome, downhill varices, chylothorax, pericardial effusion, compress of the left a. subclavia, unilateral lesion of recurrent and phrenic nerve, and brachial plexopathy. This was a unique case with multiple compressive syndrome between 3000 patients surgically treated for all kinds of thyroid diseases. Intrathoracic goiter can cause all the known symptoms and syndromes of intrathoracic compression with possibility of rapid deterioration and fatal end.


The Cu-based friction materials with nano-AlN (n-AlN) and nano-graphite (n-C) were prepared by powder metallurgy technology, respectively. The microstructures and friction performance were studied through scanning electron microscope (SEM) and friction tester rig, respectively. The results indicate that the n-AlN and n-C particles can enhance the properties of Cu-based friction materials remarkably. Compared with the friction materials without any nanometer materials, the wear resistance of the friction materials with n-AlN and n-C has been improved by 25 % and 11 %, respectively. The heat resistance of the materials with n-AlN and n-C has been improved 18 % and 25 %, respectively. The n-AlN and n-C particles can reduce the abrasive wear and enhance the wear resistance of the Cu-based friction materials.


ISO 26262 requires for each item the creation of a safety case. Such creation is extremely time-consuming. Currently, no satisfying approach is at disposal to speed up such creation. OSLC (Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration) is a standard for tool interoperability, which, if enabled, permits effective documentation management, needed for efficient safety case creation. OSLC defines a set of extensible core specifications (domains), each of which focuses on a single phase of the life-cycle. In our previous work, we provided ISO 26262-compliant domain extensions. In this paper, we use such extensions to pioneer the creation of OSLC-based safety cases. In particular, we show how information exposed via such extensions can be queried to "produce" compositional pieces of safety case-fragments, arguing about requirements traceability and satisfiability. We illustrate the production of such fragments for an Electronic Control Unitmodule in use at Scania. We then discuss our findings.


Veterinary antibiotics (VAs) administered to livestock are introduced to agroecosystems via land application of manure, posing a potential human and environmental health risk. Recent evidence suggests that agroforestry and grass vegetative filter strips (VFS) may act to mitigate VA transport or enhance VA degradation; however, VAs may adversely affect soil microbial communities within VFS and thus alter the primary functioning of the VFS. The objectives of this research were to investigate potential changes in microbial community structure and function and to quantify the development of antibiotic resistance in VFS and no-till soils exposed to various VA classes and concentrations. Laboratory mesocosms were established using soils collected from no-till cropland and two VFS (grass and agroforestry). Soils were treated with oxytetracycline or lincomycin (5–200 mg kg⁻¹ soil). Individual mesocosms underwent destructive sampling at nine time points during 63 d, and the soils were tested for soil microbial function (C-utilization, dehydrogenase, and fluorescein diacetate hydrolysis assays), community structure (phospholipid fatty acid analysis), and antibiotic resistance. Functional assays associated with all VA treatments showed an initial inhibitory effect, but this trend was generally reversed by the seventh day. Shifts in microbial community structure and increased antibiotic resistance were not observed, suggesting that the soil microbial communities were robust to the effects of oxytetracycline and lincomycin at test concentrations. This work indicates that using VFS to mitigate VA loss from agroecosystems will not diminish important primary functions associated with VFS use in agriculture.


With recent advancements in prognostics methodologies there has been a significant interest in maturing Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) to increase its technology readiness level for onboard deployments. Active research is underway both in industry and academia to address shortcomings in availability of run-to-failure data, accelerated aging environments, real-time prognostics algorithms, uncertainty representation and management (URM) techniques, prognostics performance evaluation, etc., to name a few. At this juncture it is highly desirable to close the loop by connecting the high level customer requirements for mission planning and execution to performance specifications for prognostics methodologies at the lower technical level. This calls for integrating the pragmatics of safety, reliability, cost, and real-time viability into the prognostics methodologies to establish a connection between top-down and bottom-up approaches currently pursued in the PHM community. In this paper we identify key areas that must be addressed to bridge these gaps and provide an overview of how these areas have been addressed in part at various levels. We also discuss on how these issues can be further developed into a comprehensive and more coherent portfolio of technologies that will ultimately lead to specifying guidelines for prognostics performance.


TPIT is a highly cell-restricted transcription factor that is required for the expression of the propiomelanocortin (POMC) gene and for terminal differentiation of the pituitary corticotroph lineage. Its exclusive expression in pituitary POMC-expressing cells has suggested that its mutation may cause isolated deficiency of pituitary ACTH. We present a neonate with the diagnosis of congenital early onset isolated ACTH deficiency (IAD) associated with a loss of POMC function as a result of a missense mutation in the TPIT gene. A 5 day-old male infant was admitted for hypoglycemia, limpness and conjugated hyperbilirubinemia. Laboratory investigations indicated low plasma cortisol concentration (0.1 microg/dl) accompanying a very low ACTH (<5 pg/ml) concentration. An increase in plasma cortisol concentration following stimulation with low dose exogenous ACTH was observed. On replacement therapy with hydrocortisone (15 mg/m2/day orally), cholestatic jaundice and hypoglycemia resolved and subsequent normal growth (weight, height and head circumference, 25th, 10th and 50th percentile, respectively) and development was achieved without recurrence of hypoglycemic episodes.


The German Microwave Conference - GeMiC 2005 - will be held at the University of Ulm from April 5 to 7, 2005. It is a new start to present a national and international forum for microwave researchers
and engineers in Germany. The conference is supported by the IEEE MTT Society, the German IEEE MTT/AP Chapter, and the Expert Groups "Microwave Techniques" and "Antennas" of the German VDE/ITG. It is organized by the German Institute for Microwave and Antenna Technology, a scientific, non-profit organization with the intention to promote R&D activities at universities, research centers and companies in the fields of microwaves, antennas and optoelectronics.
The GeMiC 2005 will be a three-days conference with 2 plenary and 12 normal sessions, including 5 invited and 60 contributed presentations from both German and international authors. It will provide ample room
for scientific exchange of information about latest achievements in the field of technologies, circuits and systems. In order to get together and get to know each other, there will be a reception at the end of the first day.
Parallel to the conference, an exhibition will be organized by GEROTRON, where major suppliers and representatives of RF & microwave equipment will present their products. Furthermore, on Wednesday,
April 6, an IEEE membership meeting will take place after the sessions. At the end of the conference on April 7, presentations and visits will be organized at the University of Ulm ("Electronic Devices and Circuits" and "Microwave Techniques" departments) and at local companies.
The conference and the exhibition will be held in the building of the Engineering Faculty of the University of Ulm situated in the western part of the University campus on the "Eselsberg". The city of Ulm itself is well known for its old city including the Fisherman's Quarter and the "Ulmer M¨unster" with the highest church spire of the world. Also the most famous German scientist, Albert Einstein, was born in Ulm.

Wolfgang Menzel
Conference Chairman


Background Many patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) complain of pain in the small muscles of the hand and most develop atrophy of these muscles, but little is known about potential causes. Objectives Investigate relationships between computer aided 3T DCE-MRI perfusion parameters in the small muscles of the hand and computer aided perfusion measures of inflammation in wrist and MCP joints derived from DCE-MRI data using Dynamika® in patients with RA and normal controls. Methods 35 RA patients and 5 healthy volunteers had a 3T MRI of the dominant hand. Imaging protocol: coronal STIR, T1 pre- and post- contrast as well as sequential coronal T1-DCE-MRI (18 slices in 9sec, with 30 repetitions) covering the hand, started at the time of iv contrast injection (0.1mmol/kg). DCE-MRI data were corrected for movement and parametric mapping algorithms were applied using Dynamika. In RA the slice with most enhancement was selected, and regions of interests (ROIs) were drawn around the wrist and MCP joint in images from RA patients. In all participants, additional ROI's were drawn around the anatomical boundaries of the most enhancing small muscle complex between the metacarpal bones. The computed output data in the wrist, MCP and muscle ROIs comprised the mean of: initial rate of enhancement (IRE), maximum enhancement (ME), number of enhancing voxels with plateau and washout enhancement (Np and Nw) and their combinations Np+Nw, ME*Np+Nw and IRE*Np+Nw. RAMRIS scores of synovitis and bone marrow oedema (BME) in the wrist and MCP joints were also performed. RAMRIS for synovitis and bone marrow oedema (BME) was performed. Relationships between DCE-MRI and RAMRIS were assessed by Spearman's test and controls and RA patients were assessed with T-test. Level of significance: 0.05. Results Distribution of RAMRIS scores median (Range) in the wrist were: Synovitis 5 (2-9), BME 6 (0-42), and in MCP joints: Synovitis 3 (0-9), BME 0 (0-17). There was a highly significant difference between the number of enhancing voxels Np+Nw, the composite scores of ME*Np+Nw and IRE* Np+Nw (p<0.001) in the small muscles of the hand between RA patients and controls, but no difference between the mean ME and the mean IRE. Table 1 shows the correlations between muscle perfusion and the inflammatory scores of the MCP joints. N=35 MCP MCP MCP MCP MCP MCP MCP RAMRIS Synovitis RAMRIS BME IRE ME Np+ Nw ME* Np+ Nw IRE* Np+ Nw M IRE 0.43* 0.46** 0.53** 0.50** 0.48** 0.50** 0.55** M ME NS 0.37* 0.58** 0.48** 0.51** 0.52** 0.57** M IRE* Np+ Nw 0.44** 0.44** 0.61** 0.61** 0.58** 0.62** 0.66** Spearman rho *<0.05, **p<0.001, NS = not significant, M = muscle. No correlation was found between any inflammatory scores in the wrist and muscle perfusion. Conclusions Healthy controls have low baseline perfusion in the small muscles of the hand with significantly fewer enhancing voxels and lower scores of ME*Np+Nw and IRE* Np+Nw compared to RA patients. In RA, the perfusion of small muscles of the hand correlates to inflammatory activity in the MCP but not the wrist joint. This observation may be directly linked to the inflammatory load seen in RA with MCP joint involvement. Disclosure of Interest M. Boesen Consultant for: IIndependant non paid consultant to Image Analysis, A. Rastogi: None Declared, O. Kubassova Shareholder of: Image Analysis, P. Taylor: None Declared, R. Bouert: None Declared, M. Cimmino: None Declared, B. Danneskiold-Samsoe: None Declared, S. Amris: None Declared, H. Bliddal: None Declared