Objective To develop and user test a patient decision aid for people with subacromial pain syndrome that presents evidence-based information on the benefits and harms of subacromial decompression surgery and rotator cuff repair surgery. Design Mixed-methods study outlining the development of a patient decision aid. Setting We assembled a multidisciplinary steering group, and used existing decision aids and decision science to draft the decision aid. Participants were recruited through social media (not restricted by country nor setting), local hospitals and the authors' collaboration network. Participants People with shoulder pain and health professionals who manage people with shoulder pain. Primary and secondary outcomes We interviewed participants to gather feedback on the decision aid, assessed useability and acceptability (using qualitative and quantitative methods) and performed iterative cycles of redrafting the decision aid and reinterviewing participants as necessary. Interview data were analysed using thematic analysis. Quantitative data were summarised descriptively. Results We interviewed 26 health professionals (11 physiotherapists, 7 orthopaedic surgeons, 4 general practitioners, 3 chiropractors and 1 osteopath) and 14 people with shoulder pain. Most health professionals and people with shoulder pain rated all aspects of decision aid acceptability as adequate-to-excellent (eg, length, presentation, comprehensibility). Interviews highlighted agreement among health professionals and people with shoulder pain on most aspects of the decision aid (eg, treatment options, summary of benefits, harms and practical issues, questions to ask a health professional, graphics, formatting). However, some aspects of the decision aid elicited divergent views among health professionals (eg, causes and symptoms of shoulder pain, evidence on benefits and harms). Conclusion This decision aid could be an acceptable and valuable tool for helping people with subacromial pain syndrome make informed treatment choices. A randomised controlled trial evaluating whether this decision aid reduces people's intentions to undergo shoulder surgery and facilitates informed treatment choices is underway. Trial registration number ACTRN12621000992808


Unlike the attachment of soft epithelial skin tissue to penetrating solid natural structures like fingernails and teeth, sealing around percutaneous/permucosal devices such as dental implants is hindered by inflammation and epidermal down growth. Here, we employed a dual keratinocyte-adhesive peptide and anti-inflammatory biomolecule coating on titanium to promote oral epithelial tissue attachment. For minimizing inflammation-triggered epidermal down growth, we coated pristine and oxygen plasma pre-treated polished titanium (pTi) with conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). Further, in order to aid in soft tissue attachment via the formation of hemidesmosomes, adhesive structures by oral keratinocytes, we coated the anionic linoleic acid (LA) adsorbed titanium with cationic cell adhesive peptides (CAP), LamLG3, a peptide derived from Laminin 332, the major extracellular matrix component of the basement membrane in skin tissue and Net1, derived from Netrin-1, a neural chemoattractant capable of epithelial cell attachment via α6β4 integrins. The dual CLA-CAP coatings on pTi were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and dynamic water contact angle measurements. The proliferation of human oral keratinocytes (TERT-2/OKF6) was accelerated on the peptide coated titanium while also promoting the expression of Col XVII and β-4 integrin, two markers for hemidesmosomes. Simultaneously, CLA coating suppressed the production of inducible nitric oxide synthase (anti-iNOS); a pro-inflammatory M1 marker expressed in lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulated murine macrophages (RAW 264.7) and elevated expression of anti-CD206, associated to an anti-inflammatory M2 macrophage phenotype. Taken together, the dual keratinocyte-adhesive peptide and anti-inflammatory biomolecule coating on titanium can help reduce inflammation and promote permucosal/peri-implant soft tissue sealing.


This paper presents the analysis of energy management and financial planning that is carried out in the design and implementation of photovoltaic systems in urban areas of the city of Barranquilla, Colombia. A questionnaire with a Likert scale and 36 items was designed, which was answered by subjects with managerial functions of the 16 companies dedicated to the implementation of photovoltaic (PV) projects in Barranquilla. The instrument was validated by expert judgment with a reliability of 0.84 with Cronbach's Alpha. For the analysis of results, techniques of central tendency and variability were used. The results show that energy management in the implementation of PV projects is moderate, indicating that there is no predominant presence of indicators of improvement and energy performance in these projects. Financial planning has a moderate significance, indicating that the financial analysis methods that are being used in these PV systems projects have a basic analysis.


Motor vehicles are composed of a large number of parts, and planning the maintenance activities of different parts is a crucial decision that affects system reliability, operation costs, and capacity requirements of service providers. We propose a systematic method to determine the critical parts that should be handled with extra preventive maintenance (PM) and prepare alternative PM plans with different levels of cost and capacity usage. Our method uses a multicriteria decision-making approach to determine the critical parts and conducts statistical reliability analysis with failure data and expert knowledge to create the maintenance plans. We use the proposed method in a case study to determine optional PM packages that would support regular PM practices in the after-sales service of a large motor vehicle manufacturer. The main aim of the case study is to increase the satisfaction of customers who are more sensitive to failures, such as carriers of food and medical supplies. The results show that the optional PM packages can decrease the cost of failures while obeying the capacity limitation of the company.


Background and Objective: Inflammatory pseudotumor is a lesion composed of proliferating spindle cells with mixed inflammatory infiltrates. Some authors have proposed the name inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor as a proper descriptive term rather than the vague inflammatory pseudotumor. The aim of this study was to verify the myofibroblastic origin of spindle cells in idiopathic orbital inflammatory pseudotumor by immunohistochemical staining. Materials and Methods: We reviewed a series of 32 inflammatory pseudotumors arising in orbit for expression of smooth muscle actin, vimentin, desmin and anaplastic lymphoma kinase using immunohistochemical staining. Results: There were 21 females and 11 males aged 3 to 64 years with a mean age of 31. Immu-nohistochemically, spindle cells of 51.75%, 79.3%, and 17.2% of lesions expressed smooth muscle actin (15/29), vimentin (23/29) and desmin (5/29). All lesions (32/32) were negative for anaplastic lymphoma kinase Conclusion: In this study, reactivity for smooth muscle actin in spindle cells can be demonstrated as myofibroblastic differentiation. The absence of anaplastic lymphoma expression in all cases of orbital inflammatory pseudotumor in this study strongly suggests that these lesions, albeit histologically similar, are biologically distinct from their soft tissue counterparts or those inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor that negative for anaplastic lymphoma immunoreactivity may be characterized by one or more chromosomal aberration involving regions other than 2p23 is as yet unknown.


Pattern matching or pattern recognition is one of the elemental components that constitute the very complicated recalling and remembering process in human's brain. To realize this neuromorphic pattern matching, we fabricated and tested a 3 × 3 memristor synaptic array with the winner-take-all method in this research. In the measurement, first, the 3 × 3 Ta2O5 memristor array is programmed to store [LLL], [LHH], and [HLH], where L is a low-resistance state and H is a high-resistance state, at the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd columns, respectively. After the programming, three input patterns, [111], [100], and [010], are applied to the memristor synaptic array. From the measurement results, we confirm that all three input patterns can be recognized well by using a twin memristor crossbar with synaptic arrays. This measurement can be thought of as the first real verification of the twin memristor crossbar with memristive synaptic arrays for neuromorphic pattern recognition.


Paragangliomas most commonly occur in the carotid body, jugulotympanic area, and vagus nerve but have also been reported in other areas of the head and neck. These tumors are highly vascular and characteristically have early blood vessel and neural involvement, making their treatment particularly challenging. Surgery has traditionally been the preferred method of treatment, especially in light of recent advances in technique. However, compared to radiation therapy, it can result in a higher incidence of cranial nerve dysfunction. Radiation therapy has the advantage of avoiding the increased morbidity of surgery while offering an equal possibility of cure. Part 1 of this two-part article focuses on techniques for diagnosing paraganglioma and the indications for and use of surgery as primary treatment. The complications commonly associated with surgery are reviewed, and strategies for rehabilitation of affected patients are presented.


This paper presents the design of a Distribution Static Compensator (DSTATCOM), interfacing the grid with an inductor-capacitor-inductor (LCL) filter, controlled by using dq0 current controller and sinusoidal pulse-width modulation (SPWM). A four-wire two-level voltage source converter (VSC) to operate as the DSTAT-COM was connected at the point of common coupling (PCC) via the LCL-filter for neutral current compensation/load balancing, reactive power compensation, and harmonics elimination. The design of the LCL-filter for high switching ripple attenuation was introduced by incorporating two resonance damping techniques, namely, active damping (AD) and passive damping (PD). Besides, the design of the dq0 current controller was presented in detail. Load balancing, harmonic elimination, and reactive power compensation were performed using a simulation model of the DSTATCOM system. The dq0 current controller was implemented in the synchronous reference frame (SRF) rotating at the fundamental frequency and was composed of harmonic compensation (HC) regulators—realized by the sum of sinusoidal signal integrators (SSI)—connected in parallel to the proportional-integral (PI) regulators. Neutral current compensation was also carried out to address unbalanced loads using a 0-axis controller. Lastly, the effects of the AD and PD methods on the efficiency and dynamic performance of the system were provided.


Adolf Harnack's Das Wesen des Christentums (1900) sold more than 100.000 copies. The first English edition What is Christianity? appeared already in 1902. In the preface, the church historian and liberal theologian Harnack (1851-1930) characterized the book as a 'short and plain statement of the Gospel and its history'. The present article explores Harnack's career, the defining historical approach (historicism), his characterisation of the essence of Christianity ('God and the human soul, the soul and its God'), and the reception of Das Wesen des Christentums (Alfred Loisy, Leo Baeck). Finally, its strengths (a contextualised, thick description of the Christian faith) and weaknesses (its hegemonial liberal stance) are outlined.


Background We developed Cell Distance Mapping (CDM) to study tubulointerstitial inflammation in human lupus nephritis biopsies. Using CDM, we were able to translate proximal distance measurements of T:B cell pairs to their functional state in human tissue. One criticism of our work was that it could be considered descriptive. To address this, we utilise an animal model, wherein the antigen specificity of cells can be controlled. Using this, we wanted to expand CDM to the study of innate and adaptive immune responses, chief among which are T cell:Dendritic cell (DC) interactions. We also wanted to incorporate measures of cell shape parameters to improve our ability to distinguish cognate from non-cognate interactions. Materials and methods An adoptive triple transfer mouse model was utilised, with each population labelled with fluorescent cell trackers: pigeon cytochrome C-pulsed and LPS-activated dendritic cells (DCs), antigen-specific T cells, and wild type T cells. After transfer, cervical lymph nodes were subjected to two-photon excitation microscopy (TPEM) analysis, frozen at −80 °C, and further subjected to CDM analysis. A total of 79 images from the lymph nodes of 5 animals was used. The results were analysed with respect to global cell shape, as visualised by freely diffusible cell trackers for T cells. This was superimposed on CDM data for interactions between respective T cell subsets and dendritic cells. Results Analysis of 512×512 pixel images, representing 640 ×magnification views, revealed significant differences at <0.27 μm (8.70 vs 3.22%, p = 0.028), <1 μm (11.7 vs 3.70%, p = 0.01), and <2 μm (13.1 vs 5.26%, p = 0.031) distance cutoffs comparing antigen specific T cell:DC interactions versus WT T cell:DC interactions. Our results compared favourably with arrest coefficient calculation performed on TPEM data (mean of 0.06 vs 0.26, respectively; p < 0.01). Global cell shape analysis did not reveal any additional statistically significant differences. Increasing acquisition resolution to 1024×1024 pixels revealed the following measurements that distinguished between the two T cell subsets: area (p < 0.0001), circularity (p < 0.0001), perimeter to area ratio (p < 0.0001), aspect ratio to area ratio (p < 0.0001). Each variables\ was controlled for area to ensure that observed findings were not due to global differences between the two respective T cell subsets or influenced by variances in wavelengths, utilised to visualise individual cell trackers. Conclusions Our data shows that CDM is able to reliably identify cognate interactions on par with TPEM, using distance as the main measurement. The addition of global cell shape parameter measurements helped to further distinguish cognate from non-cognate interactions at the same distance measurements. Acknowledgements Vladimir Liarski is supported by NIH NIAMS K08 AR068421. Marcus Clark is supported by NIH grants U19 AI082724 and AR55646.


On any one day over 75,000 children are looked after by local authorities in the UK. Numerically the most important form of provision for these looked after children is foster care. This caters for about 60% of those looked after at any one point in time. This review is about its outcomes.

The Oxford English Dictionary gives one meaning of outcome as 'a visible or practical product, effect or result'. This definition emphasises causality and efficacy. So we are primarily concerned with outcomes which foster care can bring about: changes that are desired (or not) and that would not have occurred without it. That said, it is often difficult to know whether these changes should be seen as the effects of foster care or would have occurred in any case. In what follows we first describe what happens to foster children. We then turn to the more complicated question of how far what happens can be seen as an effect of foster care itself.

 Against this background we consider five broad issues.

• Methodology – how do we decide whether an apparent outcome is in fact produced by foster care and not simply a state that follows it?
• The background to outcome research in foster care. What are the basic characteristics of fostered children? Why are they fostered? How do they do? What is foster care meant to do for them? Against what criteria should its outcomes be assessed?
• The overall impact of foster care. Judged against these criteria do children on average do 'better' if they are fostered than would have been the case if they were not?
• Differences within foster care. Given that a child is fostered what makes a difference to whether he or she has a good or less good outcome?
• Implications. In the light of this evidence what might be done by way of organisation, training and so on to ensure that the outcomes of foster care are as good as possible?


People in remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory have greater morbidity and mortality than other Australians, but face considerable barriers when accessing hospital-based specialist services. The Specialist Outreach Service, which began in 1997, was a novel policy initiative to improve access by providing a regular multidisciplinary visiting specialist services to remote communities. It led to two interesting juxtapositions: that of "state of the art" specialist services alongside under-resourced primary care in remote and relatively traditional Aboriginal communities; and that of attempts to develop an evidence base for the effectiveness of outreach, while meeting the short-term evaluative requirements of policy-makers. In this essay, first we describe the development of the service in the Northern Territory and its initial process evaluation. Through a Cochrane systematic review we then summarise the published research on the effectiveness of specialist outreach in improving access to tertiary and hospital-based care. Finally we describe the findings of an observational population-based study of the use of specialist services and the impact of outreach to three remote communities over 11 years. Specialist outreach improves access to specialist care and may lessen the demand for both outpatient and inpatient hospital care. Specialist outreach is, however, dependent on well-functioning primary care. According to the way in which outreach is conducted and the service is organised, it can either support primary care or it can hinder primary care and, as a result, reduce its own effectiveness.


Cystic thyroid nodules are considered to be one of the major causes of nondiagnostic and false-negative results on conventional fine-needle aspiration biopsy, thus limiting the potential of this method for the evaluation of complex (solid-cystic) thyroid nodules. Although ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration biopsy has emerged as a highly effective diagnostic method for the assessment of nonpalpable and difficult to palpate nodules, its role in complex nodules has not yet been carefully evaluated. In this study, we report the efficacy of ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration biopsy in 124 complex nodules in 113 patients. This method proved to be highly effective, yielding a satisfactory specimen for cytological evaluation in 94% of the nodules, suggesting that it is an excellent modality for the evaluation of complex nodules and also for the reevaluation of those nodules with a nondiagnostic result on conventional fine-needle aspiration biopsy.


A hospital is a very complex environment and its management is a hard task. The point we explore in this thesis is the management of the patient flow for the Emergency Department. The main contribution of the thesis is twofold: on the one hand, we design a model of the Emergency Department as close as possible to the real environment; on the other hand, we design a genetic algorithm for finding the optimal schedule of patients' care. The choice of this approach is due to both the dynamic nature of the environment and the tight constraints on computational time, which favour the use of an any-time algorithm. We show through simulation that the model is sound and that the genetic algorithm is effective for the scheduling problem and could be easily applied to a real Emergency Department


A prealbumin detection reagent kit, the kit body of the reagent kit comprises two reagents inside: reagent R1: buffer solution, polyethylene glycol, sodium azide, sodium ethylene diamine tetracetate, and bovine serum albumin; reagent R2: buffer solution, latex particles bound with prealbumin monoclonal antibody, Tween-20, sodium azide, sodium ethylene diamine tetracetate, and bovine serum albumin. Mixing a sample with the reagents in a specific volumetric ratio to conduct a series of reactions, placing the reactant under a semi/full automatic biochemical analyzer, and detecting the change speed of light absorbance at the position of 340nm dominant wavelength, thus the concentration of prealbumin can be figured out. The reagent kit has the advantages of accuracy, stability and convenience.


Human lungs are composed of more than 40 cell types. The lung is classified as a "conditionally renewing" tissue and is able of a quick response to cellular damage thanks to the presence of multiple stem/progenitor cells. Embryonic and fetal progenitors actively proliferate determining lung size, shape and cellular composition and could be of paramount importance in understanding lung development and mechanisms of congenital diseases. Furthermore, developmental molecular pathways may be chronically or aberrantly activated in tumorigenesis or in lung diseases later in life. Lungs have a mixed endodermal and mesodermal origin. Endoderm progenitors are early marked by TTF1. Other reported markers of endodermal respiratory progenitors are Sox2, Sox9 and Id2. Proximal versus distal differentiation is guided by the expression of Fgf10. Little is known about mesodermal stem/progenitor cells in the developing lung. A signaling interplay among endoderm, mesoderm and mesothelium plays a role in the signaling network. Our preliminary data stress the importance of the interaction of the endodermal component, giving rise to tubular structures, and the mesodermal component, that showed the tendency to acquire a concentric onion-like or solid or nests arrangement. Subpleural niches appeared in strict contact with the thin pleural mesothelium and were formed by a complex array of cell types. At immunohistochemistry, nuclear reactivity for TTF1 was found in the interior layer of the epithelial tips, while the endodermal component of the developing lung showed positivity for SOX-2, and CD34 revealed the newly formed vascular structures inside the lung mesenchyme. In conclusion, the complexity of the histological picture of the developing human lung is emphasized by the multiple stem/progenitor cells. The endodermal and mesodermal ones, through complex processes of differentiation, act together in order to give rise to a huge number of cell types. Proceedings of the 2 nd International Course on Perinatal Pathology (part of the 11 th International Workshop on Neonatology · October 26 th -31 st , 2015) · Cagliari (Italy) · October 31 st , 2015 · Stem cells: present and future Guest Editors: Gavino Faa, Vassilios Fanos, Antonio Giordano


Born January 1, 1993, after it split with Slovakia, the Czech Republic is one of the youngest members of the European Union. Despite its youth as a nation, this land and the areas just outside its modern borders boasts an ancient and intricate past. With "A History of the Czech Lands", editors Jaroslav Panek and Oldrich Tuma - along with several scholars from the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and Charles University Prague - provide one of the most complete historical accounts of this region to date. Panek and Tuma's history begins in the Neolithic era and follows the development of the state as it transformed into the Kingdom of Bohemia during the ninth century, into Czechoslovakia after World War I, and finally into the Czech Republic. Such a tumultuous political past arises in part from a fascinating native people, and "A History of the Czech Lands" profiles the Czechs in great detail, delving into past and present traditions and explaining how generation after generation adapted to a perpetually changing government and economy. In addition, the contributors examine the many minorities that now call these lands home - Jews, Slovaks, Poles, Germans, Ukrainians, and others - and how each group's migration to the region has contributed to life in the Czech Republic today. The first study in English with this scope and ambition, "A History of the Czech Lands" is essential for scholars of Slavic, Central, and East European studies and a must-read for those who trace their ancestry to these lands.


Substrate bias is continuously controlled from -1.5 V (backward bias) to 0.5 V (forward bias) to compensate for fabrication fluctuation, supply voltage variation, and operating temperature variation. A speed-adaptive threshold-voltage (SA-Vt) CMOS with forward bias is used in a 4.3M transistor microprocessor. The SA-Vt CMOS with forward bias occupies 320/spl times/400 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ and consumes 4 mA. The processor provides 400 VAX MIPS at 1.5 to 1.8 V with 320 to 380mW dissipation. It achieves >1000-MIPS/W performance.


Flathead catfish, Py10dictus olivaris (Rafinesque), were studied in approximat~ly 83.7 km of unchannelized and 67.6 km miles of channelized Missouri River. Growth rates were slower in the unchannelized section than they were in the channelized section. The oldest fish in the unchannelized section was 25 years old, while in the channelized study area the oldest was 10 years. In the pectoral spines of progressively older fish from both sections, enlargement of the lumen obliterated early annuli. Much of the annual increment of growth was accomplished during June, July and August. Males became sexually mature at 3 to 4 years of age and 350 to 425 mm, while females matured between 3 and 5 years and 350 to 500 mm with most mature females measuring at least 450 mm. Approximately 1,500 eggs per pound of body weight were produced. Three orders of insects (Ephemeroptera, Trichoptera and Diptera) dominated the food habits of young-of-the-year flathead catfish in both study areas; however, there were some generic differences. Yearlings and adults consumed primarily fish and crayfish, with crayfish being more intensively utilized in the unchannelized study area. Fish 200 mm and longer were marked in order to estimate movements and population sizes. Between the two study areas there was little difference in movement patterns. Based on fishermen's reports, 25 percent of the recaptured fish were within 1.6 km from the point of tagging. Mean upstream and downstream distances moved were identical (40.2 km) but 57 percent of the fish were reported downstream of the point of release. Our recapturing of marked fish indicated less movement (86 percent were within 1.6 km) than did recapturing by fishermen because we did not attempt to collect marked fish outside of the two study areas. Marked fish avoided crossing the main channel. Population estimates for fish 200 mm and longer were 17 fish per linear km and 9 per linear km in unchannelized and channelized study areas respectively. Estimated standing crops were 130 grams per hectare in the unchannelized study area and 149 grams per hectare in the channelized study area.


Today Internet has existed as a mass medium during more than ten years and has become an important part of everyday life for a lot of people. What are the effects of this introduction of a new medium in the world of traditional media? What have happened to newspapers, television and radio? It is not only a matter of time; people are spending minutes and hours online instead of reading, listening or viewing. It is also about content; information, news, music and film exist on Internet and to make it even more complicated even newspapers, radio and television exist online. And the content is usually free. So what have happened to traditional media? At first sight it looks like Internet has become a strong competitor, severely affecting the use of newspapers and television. But a more thorough analysis shows that in Sweden Internet has become more of a complement and the use of traditional media go on as before at the same time as the use of the Internet develops and increases.


Supervising a student can be compared to teaching someone to drive a car. The student is in the driver's seat while the supervisor provides structure and guidance, and can intervene in risky and unsafe situations. It is a learning process in which the student gradually gains experience and sufficient skill to obtain a driving license, and to drive without an instructor. Similarly, a student attending the MSc project course at the technical faculty of Lund University is to "develop and demonstrate knowledge and ability required to autonomously work as an engineer" (from MSc course plan). But what factors affect a MSc project, and how can we as supervisors support students in their learning process towards independence? We performed a case study of two completed MSc projects where we interviewed the student, the supervisor and the examiner for each case. In this article we present the main conclusions drawn from the cross-case analysis of this study. Details on the studied cases and the results on which these conclusions are based can be found in our previous publication of this study.


The acute effects of reperfusion on myocardium reversibly damaged by 15 minutes of severe ischemia in vivo, were studied. Changes in the adenine nudeotide pool, cell volume regulation, myocardial calcium, and ultrastructure were studied at the end of 15 minutes of ischemia and after 0.5, 3.0, and 20 minutes of reflow. Before reperfusion, adenosine triphosphate and the adenylate pool decreased by 63% and 44% of control, respectively, and the adenylate charge was reduced to 0.65. After 3 minutes of reperfusion, the adenylate charge was restored to control by the rephosphorylation of adenosine mono- and diphosphate, but adenosine triphosphate was still reduced by 45%. Mild tissue edema was detected after 0.5 minute of reflow and persisted throughout 20 minutes of reperfusion. The increased tissue water was accompanied by a slight increase in sodium and a marked increase in tissue potassium. Although massive calcium accumulation develops when irreversibly injured tissue is reperfused, no calcium overload was detected during early reperfusion of reversibly injured myocytes. Reperfusion for 3 minutes exaggerated the mitochondrial swelling induced by 15 minutes of ischemia but after 20 minutes of reperfusion, myocardial ultrastructure was essentially normal except for rare swollen, or disrupted, mitochondria. Thus, the cellular abnormalities associated with brief periods of ischemia persist for variable periods of time after reperfusion of reversibly injured myocytes. First: although adenine nudeotide repletion occurs very slowly, the adenylate charge was restored after 3 minutes, indicating rapid resumption of mitochondrial adenosine triphosphate production. Second: caldum overload was not detected, but myocardial edema and increased potassium persisted throughout the 20 minutes of reperfusion. Third: the ultrastructural consequences of ischemia were nearly reversed after 20 minutes of reperfusion.


It is an honour to be asked to write a paper for this volume marking the life and work of Katarina Tomasevski. Among the many facets of her career was an abiding active interest in education, whether as professor, UN Special Rapporteur, researcher or human rights advocate and practitioner. Human rights education attracted her attention: in 2003, she undertook a site visit to China in her role as UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education. Her resultant report was controversial within China. Nevertheless she accepted the opportunity to return to China from 2005–2006 as Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (RWI) Visiting Professor in Human Rights at the Peking University Law School, a position she unfortunately was unable to take up (though she guest lectured to masters students on the right to education). It is thus perhaps appropriate that this contribution is jointly authored by Professor Bai Guimei, Executive Director of the Research Centre for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and head of its Human Rights Master Programme, and Professor Rhona Smith, the fifth and final RWI Visiting Professor in Human Rights at Peking University Law School.


Acne vulgaris is a common skin disease characterized by comedones, inflammatory lesions, secondary dispigmentation and scarring with a large impact on quality of life. There has been much debate as to whether liver function tests and lipids should be monitored while on therapy. The objective of the study is to evaluate the lipid profile changes in patients with moderate to severe acne on oral intermittent low dose isotretinoin therapy. Setting: Dermatology outpatient clinics, MIMS, Mandya. We included the 50 patients diagnosed with moderate to severe acne. All patients were treated with low dose isotretinoin and followed up in our outpatient clinics for 20 weeks. Patients were subjected to an interview questionnaire which included data on age, gender, previous treatment and liver enzymes. Blood analysis were repeated in the follow-up visits baseline, 4, 8,12,16, 20 weeks. Total cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL, LDL of 50 patients aged 15-40 years receiving isotretinoin for moderate to severe acne were monitored before, during and every month interval for 4 months. There was a statistically significant increase in the levels of total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL with the decrease in the HDL level when compared with the baseline. The results in the study showed that the use of oral isotretinoin for the treatment of acne resulted in altered total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL and HDL but the increase in the parameters is mild so as to not interrupt the treatment. Our study show that intermittent isotretinoin therapy has not much effect on the lipid profile and the adverse effects can be treated without interrupting the treatment.


This paper reviews the existing evidence on workplace training in Europe in different data sources - the CVTS, OECD data and the European Community Household Panel. We outline the differences in training incidence and relate these differences to the private costs and benefits of training, and to institutional factors such as unions, employment protection and product market competition. We ask whether there is a case for under-provision of training in Europe and examine alternative policies aiming both at raising training incidence and at reducing inequalities in the provision of skills.


With the evolution of the Internet, current routers need to support a variety of emerging network applications while the high packet processing rate is still guaranteed. As a result, the network processor has become a promising solution for network devices due to its computation capability and programming flexibility. However, developing the network applications on network processors is not easy. How to efficiently program multiple processing elements and utilize various memory modules as well as the hardware resources on network processors are always challenges. In this paper, we investigate several optimization issues and programming techniques that should be considered by the developers to achieve higher packet processing rate on network processors. We use an existing packet classification scheme called hierarchical binary prefix search (HBPS) [1] as the benchmark to test and evaluate these optimization techniques. The experiments conducted on Intel IXP2400 network processor show that the overall performance of HBPS can be improved about 42% while these techniques are adopted.


6 Neuropilin-1 is a receptor for vascular endothelial grow factor 165 isoform (VEGF 165 ) and plays roles in vasculogenesis and angiogenesis. Neuropilin-1 also binds to semaphorin III which is an inhibitor to axon guidance signal. To seek evidence that neuropilin-1 may play roles in ischemic brain, we examined the temporal and spatial profiles of its expression after focal cerebral ischemia. Male Wistar Rats (n=42) were subjected to 1h to 28 days of embolic middle cerebral artery (MCA) occlusion. Expression of neuropilin-1 was measured by Northern blot, in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry. Upregulation of neuropilin-1 mRNA was detected in the ischemic hemisphere on Northern blots at 2h and persisted at least 28 days after ischemia. In situ hybridization revealed increased mRNA in the ischemic injury neurons around the boundary of the ischemic lesion at 4h to 48h after ischemia. Seven to twenty-eight days after ischemia, neuropilin-1 mRNA was localized to vessels within the ischemic lesion. Immunostaining for neuropilin-1 showed that some of the ischemic neurons were neuropilin-1 immunoreactive at 2h to 4h after ischemia, and cerebral blood vessels within the ischemic lesion were neuropilin-1 immunoreactive at 2 days to 28 days after ischemia. In addition, hypertrophic astrocytes around the boundary of the ischemic lesion were neuropilin-1 immunoreactive at 1 day to 28 days after ischemia. Double immunofluorescent staining for neuropilin-1 and VEGF showed that neuropilin-1 immunoreactive vessels and astrocytes exhibited VEGF immunoreactivity. Thus our data suggest that upregulation of neuropilin-1 may play a role in angiogenesis in ischemic brain.


: Fifty patients with myocardial infarction (MI) were given streptodecase intravenously (the main group). Depending on the time elapsed from the appearance of the disease symptoms and the onset of streptodecase injection, the main group was distributed into 2 subgroups (less than or equal to 4 h and 4 to 8 h). The size of myocardial injury was judged from the activity CPK and ECG mapping in 35 thoracic leads. The Size of MI in the main group was significantly less than in the control group. At the same time the 2 subgroups of the patients demonstrated no significant difference in myocardial injury. This is accounted for by the fact that the majority of the patients (75%) were given the thrombolytic between the 120th and 360th minute since the disease onset. In view of the fact that streptodecase was discovered to exert a lasting beneficial effect (10 to 14 days) on hemostasis, hemorheology and microcirculation, it is suggested that the drug be used at later times of MI to prevent and treat complications consequent on microcirculatory disorders.


The most common neurologic disorder is migraines. Migraine is defined as throbbing headaches that can be associated with auras. The headaches are episodic and can be debilitating in quality. Migraines can be triggered by emotional stress, lack of sleep, bright lights, loud noise, certain foods, and other environmental factors. The most effective way of preventing migraines is to avoid these triggers. A migraine can begin with prodromes or warning signs such as loss of vision, loss of motor reflexes or sensation. In this review, the types of migraine, signs and symptoms, pathways leading up to auras, and detailed pathophysiology will be discussed. The pathophysiology of a migraine consists of three different mechanisms: 1) cortical spreading depression, 2) the trigemino vascular system, and 3) sensitization. Three different treatment methods for a migraine will be discussed: 1) pharmacological, 2) non-pharmacological and 3) lifestyle modifications. Lifestyle modifications include eating a healthy diet, exercising, and maintaining proper sleep hygiene. Pharmacological treatments can be preventative or abortive. The latest migraine treatment of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) antagonist use will be discussed in this review and compared to other treatments such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), anticonvulsants, and Triptans. Future research methods to prevent and better treat migraine headaches are considered a hot topic in medicine and these novel methods will be discussed.


This paper describes the automation experience of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs Library. It particularly describes how the library used the small computer resources that it had to be able to start somewhere. Although the hardware resource could not take on a fully‐fledged automation plan, the library succeeded in embarking on a computer literacy programme for the staff; indexing books and serials published by the Institute; producing catalogue cards; and instigating an offline circulation system. The future plans of the library to acquire a bigger system are also highlighted.


Abstract The purpose of this paper is to follow "Climate change, risks and Natural Resources" in the curriculum of Geography of Bulgaria and the world in 9th and 10th grade and to interpret some didactic aspects. Analysis of key themes, concepts and categories related to the environment, events and approaches to environmental protection and the environmentally sound development of sectors of the economy is didikticheski targeted. Considering the emergence and development of geo-ecological issues, their scope and their importance to the environment, systematize some species and some approaches to solving them. Geography education in grade 9 and 10 involves acquiring knowledge, developing skills and composing behaviors of objective perception and assessment of the reality of globed, regional and local aspect. The emerging consumer and individualistic culture snowballing globalization, are increasingly occurring global warming, declining biodiversity form new realities which education must respond appropriately. The objective, consistency, accessibility and relevance in real terms are meaningful, logical accents. Whether and how reproduced in the study of Geography of Bulgaria and the world is the subject of research study in this report. Geoecological structuring of topics, concepts and categories can be done in different signs. In terms of their scope are local, national or regional, and global. Matter and interdisciplinary approach, which is to reveal the unity of the "man-society-nature" to clarify the complexity of their character with a view to forming a harmonious personality with high Geoecological consciousness and culture, and the activities carried out in their study.


We analyze test design and certification standards when an uninformed seller has the option to generate and disclose costly information regarding asset quality. We characterize equilibria by a minimum principle: the test and disclosure policy are chosen to minimize the asset's value conditional on nondisclosure. Thus, when sellers choose the information provided, simple pass/fail certification tests are likely to dominate the market. A social planner could raise informational and allocative efficiency, and lower deadweight testing costs, by raising the certification standard. Monopolist certifiers also satisfy the minimum principle but set a higher standard and reduce testing rates to maximize revenue. (JEL D42, D83, L12, L15)


Inhibiting class I histone deacetylases (HDACs) increases energy expenditure, reduces adiposity and improves insulin sensitivity in obese mice. However, the precise mechanism is poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that HDAC1 is a negative regulator of brown adipocyte thermogenic program. HDAC1 level is lower in mouse brown fat (BAT) than white fat, is suppressed in mouse BAT during cold exposure or β3-adrenergic stimulation, and is down-regulated during brown adipocyte differentiation. Remarkably, overexpressing HDAC1 profoundly blocks, whereas deleting HDAC1 significantly enhances β-adrenergic activation-induced BAT-specific gene expression in brown adipocytes. β-adrenergic activation in brown adipocytes results in a dissociation of HDAC1 from promoters of BAT-specific genes, including uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1) and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ co-activator 1α (PGC1α), leading to increased acetylation of histone H3 lysine 27 (H3K27), an epigenetic mark of gene activation. This is followed by dissociation of the polycomb repressive complexes, including the H3K27 methyltransferase enhancer of zeste homologue (EZH2), suppressor of zeste 12 (SUZ12), and ring finger protein 2 (RNF2) from, and concomitant recruitment of H3K27 demethylase ubiquitously transcribed tetratricopeptide repeat on chromosome X (UTX) to UCP1 and PGC1α promoters, leading to decreased H3K27 trimethylation, a histone transcriptional repression mark. Thus, HDAC1 negatively regulates brown adipocyte thermogenic program, and inhibiting HDAC1 promotes BAT-specific gene expression through a coordinated control of increased acetylation and decreased methylation of http://www.jbc.org/cgi/doi/10.1074/jbc.M115.677930 The latest version is at JBC Papers in Press. Published on January 5, 2016 as Manuscript M115.677930 Copyright 2016 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc. at G E O R G IA ST A T E U N IV on Sptem er 6, 2016 hp://w w w .jb.org/ D ow nladed from H3K27, thereby switching transcriptional repressive state to active state at the promoters of UCP1 and PGC1α. Targeting HDAC1 may be beneficial in prevention and treatment of obesity by enhancing BAT thermogenesis.


In this study, we quantified surface runoff and soil loss along a toposequence considering four land use systems and three topographic segment positions in Rwizi catchment, Lake Victoria Basin (LVB). The land use systems were grassland dominated by a local species known as "Omugugu" (Cyperus spp.), tree plantation of pine (Pinus sabiniana) and eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globus), mulched banana (Musa Paradisiaca), and unmulched banana, topographically located on the foot slope, midslope, and summit. Runoff and soil loss magnitude and trends under varied rainfall regimes were measured using closed runoff plots measuring 2 × 20 m (40 m2). A split plot experimental design was adopted for the study. In total, 36 runoff plots were installed considering the land use and topographic factors with three replications. Observed monthly rainfall values varied from 9.3 to 167 mm (75 ± 54 mm). Annually, the registered rainfall depth was 680 mm. The annual rainfall depth was below the long-term annual mean for the area. Nearly all rainfall events with a depth greater than 10 mm contributed relatively heavy runoff, while rainfall events less than 10 mm in general caused minor surface runoff at the sites. Annual runoff within the catchment at the studied sites varied from 42 to 411 m3 ha−1 y−1. The average observed cross-site annual runoff was 151 ± 95 m3 ha−1 y−1. Results show that annual runoff was in the order of tree plantation > unmulched banana sites > grassland = mulched banana. Soil losses were greatest (1.5 t ha−1 y−1) and lowest (0.8 t ha−1 y−1) on unmulched banana and mulched banana sites, respectively. Annual soil loss showed an increase with topographic slope segment position. Average annual soil loss on the upper slope position facets (1.7 t ha−1 y−1) were 2.4 folds higher than those observed on the footslope position facets (0.7 t ha−1 y−1), giving a percentage difference of 83%. We did not detect a statistical difference in runoff (p > 0.05) due to either land use system or toposequence position. However, statistical differences were observed in soil loss (p < 0.05) for land use system and toposequence position. While the observed annual soil loss magnitude is within the tolerable thresholds, a sustained maintenance of best land use practices is still critical in maintaining the delicate balance on the fragile hillslopes in the study area.


Remotely Operated underwater Vehicles (ROVs) are getting more and more advanced withevery new model. As new functionality is added, the price increases. This thesis is one partof a larger project, where the goal is to develop a low-budget ROV. The ROV should later bemade autonomous and entered into a competition.This thesis have focused on the modeling and stabilizing control of an ROV that was designedby mechanical engineering students at Linkoping University. The only sensor used was anInertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and the ROV has a torpedo-like design. The modeling wasdone using identification in Matlab with the grey box and black box methods. Water trialsand simulations show that the model is estimated sufficiently good to be used as the basis ofdifferent model based controllers.Two different control strategies were implemented; a linear quadratic controller (LQ) and amodel predictive controller (MPC). Both controllers worked desirably in simulations. Onlythe LQ controller was evaluated in real world tests. Due to problems with the implementationenvironment chosen for the MPC, the MPC could not be tested.The thesis also uses decision matrices as a mean to motivate the important decisions thathave been made.


BACKGROUND
Transmembrane protease serine 6 (TMPRSS6) regulates iron homeostasis by inhibiting the expression of hepcidin. Multiple common variants in TMPRSS6 were significantly associated with serum iron in recent genome-wide association studies, but their effects in the Chinese remain to be elucidated.

OBJECTIVE
The objective was to determine whether the TMPRSS6 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) rs855791(V736A) and rs4820268(D521D) were associated with blood hemoglobin and plasma ferritin concentrations and risk of type 2 diabetes in Chinese individuals.

DESIGN
The SNPs rs855791(V736A) and rs4820268(D521D) in the TMPRSS6 gene were genotyped and tested for their associations with plasma iron and type 2 diabetes risk in 1574 unrelated Chinese Hans from Beijing.

RESULTS
The 2 TMPRSS6 SNPs rs855791(V736A) and rs4820268(D521D) were both significantly associated with plasma ferritin (P ≤ 0.0058), hemoglobin (P ≤ 0.0013), iron overload risk (P ≤ 0.0068), and type 2 diabetes risk (P ≤ 0.0314). None of the associations with hemoglobin or plasma ferritin remained significant (P ≥ 0.1229) when the 2 variants were both included in one linear regression model. A haplotype carrying both iron-lowering alleles from the 2 TMPRSS SNPs showed significant associations with lower hemoglobin (P = 0.0014), lower plasma ferritin (P = 0.0027), and a reduced risk of iron overload (P = 0.0017) and of type 2 diabetes (P = 0.0277).

CONCLUSIONS
These findings suggest that TMPRSS6 variants were significantly associated with plasma ferritin, hemoglobin, risk of iron overload, and type 2 diabetes in Chinese Hans. The type 2 diabetes risk conferred by the TMPRSS6 SNPs is possibly mediated by plasma ferritin.


Metal nanostructures (such as plasmonic antennas) have been widely demonstrated to be excellent devices for beaming and sorting the fluorescence emission. These effects rely on the constructive scattering or diffraction from different elements (such as metal corrugations or nanorings) of the nanostructures. However, subwavelength-size nanoholes, without nearby nanoscale features, results in an angularly dispersed emission from the distal surface. Herein, we demonstrate for the first time the emission redirection capabilities of a single isolated nanoaperture milled in a thick silver film deposited on a dielectric multilayer. Specifically, we show that a dye dissolved in ethanol filling in the nanoaperture can couple with Tamm plasmon polariton (TPP) modes of the structure. Because of the small in-plane wavevectors of the TPPs, the fluorescence from Tamm-coupled dyes within the nanoaperture is emitted normally to the sample surface, with a minimum angular width of about 12.54°. This kind of fluorescence manipulation has proven to be effective with various nanoaperture shapes, such as circles, squares, and triangles. Our work is also the first experimental demonstration of lateral coupling of fluorophores with TPPs in nanoholes, with potential applications in bioanalysis and biosciences.


Purpose: The article aims to present the issue of health literacy in shaping relational communication with patients. The specific goal was to review the literature on health competencies and the doctor-patient relationship. Design/Methodology/Approach: The article bases on a literature study in healthcare, management, and health economics. The study of literature and concepts was carried out based on the desk research method, using professional, scientific databases. The article's author contributed to the development of management and quality sciences by researching the role of health literacy in doctor-patient relational communication. The area of health competencies about the behavior of patients in contact with medical professionals requires further analysis. Findings: Health literacy enables doctors to better communicate with patients and provide them with relevant information to manage and improve their health. Health skills allow patients to control their wellbeing by making informed and wise health care choices and strengthening their relationship with their doctors. Practical Implications: Raising health awareness should become the primary goal of many health systems to protect patients from harm. Health skills should enable the individual to extract knowledge, derive meaning from different sources, and apply new information to changing circumstances. Through health competencies, using a wide range of skills, it is necessary to improve people's ability to act on the data obtained to lead a healthier life. Originality/Value: The presented approach to the topic organizes the information on health literacy and expands doctor-patient communication issues. Health literacy is an important concept that increasingly recognizes the basic skills needed worldwide to maintain good health and access the local health system. This publication can help promote health awareness, shape a proper doctor-patient relationship, and inspire other authors to deepen their health competencies.


Water entry and exit, green water on deck, sloshing in tanks and capsizing in intact and damaged conditions are examples on violent fluid motion. The combination of model tests, theoretical analysis and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods is emphasized in treating these problems. Because mixing of air and liquid may occur, the interaction between the flow in the air and in the liquid ought to be considered in numerical simulations. Further, the mixing of air and liquid represents a scaling problem of model tests.In order to make a rational step in improving the analysis of nonlinear wave-induced ship motions and loads, it is necessary to base a solution on the Navier-Stokes equations, i.e. a CFD method has to be used. The Constrained Interpolation Profile (CIP) method described in this thesis is used as a CFD method for exterior water-body interaction studies. Because it is a rather new method, careful validation and verification are needed. This includes linear flow cases and sub-problems associated with large amplitude water entry and exit. In this method, the solid body and free surface interaction is treated as a multiphase problem, which includes liquid (water), gas (air) and solid (rectangular cylinder, circular cylinder, bow flare section, V-shaped section, etc.) phases. The flow is represented by one set of governing equations, which are solved numerically on a non-uniform, staggered Cartesian grid by a finite difference method. The free surface as well as the body boundary is immersed in the computational domain.First of all, linear and weakly nonlinear wave-body interaction problems are investigated by using a CIP-based finite difference method. The numerical wave tank (NWT) encounters difficulties in handling the long time simulation of large amplitude motions. Therefore, the wave-body interaction problem is isolated into water entry and water exit sub-problems.This thesis describes the fully nonlinear free-surface deformations of initially calm water caused by water-entry and water-exit of a horizontal circular cylinder with both forced and free vertical motions. This has relevance for marine operations as well as for the ability to predict large amplitude motions of floating sea structures. The numerical results of the water entry and exit force, the free surface deformation and the vertical motion of the cylinder are compared with experimental results, and favorable agreement is obtained.The CIP method is also applied to 2D water entry of vertical and heeled bow flare and Vshaped sections. The results for the bow flare section have relevance for slamming loads on a ship in bow sea with large roll oscillations and relative vertical motions. The results for the heeled V-shaped section can be combined with a 2D+t numerical method to study how the steady heel moment on a prismatic planing hull on a straight course in calm water depends on the Froude number (Faltinsen, 2005). A generally satisfactory agreement with experimental drop test results of vertical water entry velocity, vertical and horizontal hydrodynamic forces as a function of time is demonstrated. This includes the effect of flow separation from the knuckles. The experimental results have bias errors due to eigenfrequency oscillations of the test rig and the use of elastic ropes to stop the models. The occurrence of ventilation of the leeward hull side is examined.An example on 3D calculations by means of the CIP method is presented. Green water on the deck of a Wigley hull at Froude number 0.25 in head sea is studied. Our studies are a step towards developing rational CFD methods for predicting strongly nonlinear wave-induced motions and loads on a ship.


This paper discusses the realization of the cascade of two stage rotary coder. It is aimed to establish a coordinate system to apply in the continuous and precision measurement of the displacement and rotary angle in a large scale. This coordinate system can be used for any industrial control process in which there are particular demands for the measurement of the displacement and rotary angle. It has characteristics of high resolution, large scale and non-volatile.


Study Design. A matched cohort comparison of adult idiopathic scoliosis (AdIS) patients treated with all pedicle screw constructs compared to hook/hybrid constructs. Objective. To compare clinical and radiographic results of AdIS treatment using all pedicle screw constructs versus hook/hybrid constructs. Summary of Background Data. Pedicle screw instrumentation has demonstrated excellent clinical efficacy in the treatment of pediatric spinal deformity. No prior reports have compared the outcomes of pedicle screw only constructs to hook/hybrid constructs in the treatment of AdIS. Methods. We analyzed 34 consecutive patients undergoing posterior-only correction for AdIS, using pedicle screw instrumentation at minimum 2-year follow-up. Thirty-four matching patients (11 with anterior releases) were selected from a cohort of 58 patients treated with hook/hybrid constructs based on similar age, curve type, magnitude, and fusion levels. Results. Significantly greater curve correction was seen in the pedicle screw compared to the hook/hybrid group (56 vs. 40%, P < 0.01). Coronal and sagittal imbalance were equivalent between the groups (P = 0.91 and 0.23, respectively). Thoracic kyphosis (T5–T12) was maintained in the pedicle screw patients but significantly increased in the hybrid/hook patients over time (P < 0.05). Scoliosis Research Society outcome scores significantly improved in both groups. Blood loss was equivalent but operative time was longer in the hook/hybrid patients. No pedicle screw patients were revised for instrumentation complications with 1 lumbosacral nonunion revised at 5 years postoperative (3% revision rate). Eight of 58 patients among the hook/hybrid cohort underwent 9 revisions for instrumentation failure (n = 3) or nonunion (n = 6) (14% revision rate; P = 0.04). Conclusion. Pedicle screw correction of AdIS is safe and effective. Compared to hook/hybrid constructs, these patients displayed significantly improved correction of the major curve (even in the absence of anterior releases), maintenance of thoracic kyphosis, and a lower revision rate. Similar SRS scores and blood loss were noted. The hook/hybrid patients had significantly longer operative times. The use of BMP-2 in 7 patients and TLIF/ALIF also in 7 of the pedicle screw patients may have decreased the need for revision surgery up to the latest follow-up.


This paper describes the accuracy of various algorithms for classification of text on the basis of gender identification. We examined the knowledge extracted from corpus of twitter's online social media in term of gender identity. By comparing algorithms on different feature sets, we established a feature set of 20 distinct arguments which increase the correctness of gender identification on all over the twitter. We reported accuracies of three algorithms obtained by using two approaches applied on two classes of gender i.e. male and female; a model where a lot of features are reduced using powerset transformation.


The presence of malnutrition in chronic kidney disease (CKD) is well-known. The discovery in the last 15 years of pathophysiological mechanisms that lead to this process, such as anorexia, the increase of protein catabolism and inflammation, has created the need for a new name by the International Society of Renal Nutrition and Metabolism (ISRNM): protein-energy wasting syndrome (PEW). This document's objectives are to propose the use of the term "desgaste proteico energetico" (DPE) as a more accurate translation of the English term and to update the pathogenic mechanisms involved that are inherent to DPE (PEW). We simultaneously review the latest epidemiological evidence that highlight the relevance of malnutrition and its impact both on mortality and morbidity in CKD. Finally, we point out the need to redefine DPE (PEW) diagnostic criteria so that they are applicable to the Spanish population with CKD. We do not think that the criteria established by the ISRNM can be extrapolated to different populations, as is the case, for example, with interracial anthropometric differences.


Significance Applying an increasing normal load on microscale graphite mesas, we observe two dynamic phenomena. First, the loaded mesa suddenly and laterally ejects a thin flake; second, a flake repeatedly pops out of the mesa and retracts back. The measured ejection speeds are extraordinarily high (maximum of 294 m/s), corresponding to ultrahigh accelerations (maximum of 1.1 × 1010 m/s2). These phenomena are a consequence of structural superlubricity, a state of nearly zero friction between two solid surfaces, and may motivate inventions of many superlubric devices, that was first proposed 17 years ago. The structural superlubricity (SSL), a state of near-zero friction between two contacted solid surfaces, has been attracting rapidly increasing research interest since it was realized in microscale graphite in 2012. An obvious question concerns the implications of SSL for micro- and nanoscale devices such as actuators. The simplest actuators are based on the application of a normal load; here we show that this leads to remarkable dynamical phenomena in microscale graphite mesas. Under an increasing normal load, we observe mechanical instabilities leading to dynamical states, the first where the loaded mesa suddenly ejects a thin flake and the second characterized by peculiar oscillations, during which a flake repeatedly pops out of the mesa and retracts back. The measured ejection speeds are extraordinarily high (maximum of 294 m/s), and correspond to ultrahigh accelerations (maximum of 1.1×1010 m/s2). These observations are rationalized using a simple model, which takes into account SSL of graphite contacts and sample microstructure and considers a competition between the elastic and interfacial energies that defines the dynamical phase diagram of the system. Analyzing the observed flake ejection and oscillations, we conclude that our system exhibits a high speed in SSL, a low friction coefficient of 3.6×10−6, and a high quality factor of 1.3×107 compared with what has been reported in literature. Our experimental discoveries and theoretical findings suggest a route for development of SSL-based devices such as high-frequency oscillators with ultrahigh quality factors and optomechanical switches, where retractable or oscillating mirrors are required.


This review assesses the academic literature of recent years on the financing issues faced by technology-based small firms (TBSFs). It was produced as part of the latest report on these firms by the Bank's Domestic Finance Division, published last month. This report finds that, while there may still be market weaknesses in the provision of relatively small amounts of risk capital to TBSFs at the start-up and early stages, these appear to be less than four or five years ago, and to impact on TBSFs less than was the case then. Peter Brierley, Head of Domestic Finance Division, explains why the literature suggests that market imperfections in the provision of finance to small companies may apply with particular force to the start-up and early-stage financing of TBSFs, but concludes that there is little compelling evidence of a major market failure.


Landscape ecology (and its application to rivers and streams: riverine landscapes or riverscapes) provides an expansive depiction of patterns of physical and biological phenomena, yet mechanisms driving those patterns are rarely identified. Behavioral ecology aims to elucidate mechanisms of organisms' response to their environment, but often lacks the context of natural conditions and the surrounding landscape or riverscape. Bringing together the relative strengths of these two fields—context in the case of riverscapes and mechanism in the case of behavioral ecology—can provide fisheries managers and conservation biologists with improved predictions of fish response to anthropogenic impacts such as habitat degradation, landscape fragmentation, and climate change. Existing research on fish behavior incorporating a riverscape perspective includes the study of fish migration and dispersal, habitat selection, and reproduction and life history strategies. The merging of these disciplines is termed 'behaviorscapes' and a program of research would adhere to four principles: (1) study fish populations or communities in a natural setting, (2) account for landscape and riverscape context, (3) incorporate a refined understanding of fish behavior, and (4) forge linkages between individual behavior and population or community demographics. Several potential directions for future research exist, including developing or improving technologies to map internal heterogeneity of rivers; making explicit links between that heterogeneity and fish behavior through observations or experiments; and employing an iterative approach to using ecological knowledge, a priori hypotheses, and precise spatial analysis to bridge the pattern‐process divide. WIREs Water 2014, 1:385–400. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1033


In this paper, we investigate the requirements for linkbase access on the Web. The recent advancements of Web technologies (XML, XLink, and XPointer) have brought us one step closer to the vision of using the Web as an Open Hypermedia System (OHS). However, some of the pieces to make this work are still missing, and this paper discusses which they are and the status of the current work in these areas. Concentrating on one of these pieces, the access to linkbases, the paper than continues by describing the prerequisites and requirements of such an access mechanism, and closes with a list of requirements and design principles that we will use in a next step to specify and implement a linkbase access protocol.


The effects of milling and active surfactants on the rheological behavior of powder injection molding feedstock were discussed. The feedstock consists of traditional compositional 90W-7Ni-3Fe powder mixture and a wax based polymer binder. Before mixing feedstock, the powder mixture was milled for different times in a QM-1 high-energy ball mill. The viscosity of the feedstock was examined in a capillary rheometer. The rheological behavior was evaluated from viscosity data. The results show that the feedstock belongs to a pseudoplastic fluid, milling decreases viscosity of the feedstock and the sensitivity of viscosity to shear strain rate. The flowability, rheology and powder loading of this feedstock are improved by milling. Active surfactants such as stearic acid (SA) and di-n-octyl-o-phthalate (DOP) have great influences on the rheological properties of the feedstock. DOP improves the flowability and rheological stability of the feedstock further.


MgSiO3 perovskite is the most abundant mineral in the Earth's lower mantle. A structural phase transition in this phase to a CaIrO3-type polymorph was discovered in 2004 (Murakami et al. 2004; Oganov and Ono 2004; Tsuchiya et al. 2004). This new polymorph, the so-called post-perovskite (PPV) phase, was produced at pressures and temperatures close to those expected at the core-mantle boundary, 125 GPa and 2,500 K (Murakami et al. 2004). In the Earth, the PPV phase is the final form of MgSiO3. This surprising discovery invited a new question: what is the next polymorph of MgSiO3? MgSiO3 PPV consists of SiO3 layers intercalated by magnesium (Fig. 1⇓). Therefore, it is natural to expect still other pressure induced transitions to more isotropic close-packed looking structures. This question has acquired further importance since the discovery of terrestrial-type exoplanets: the Super-Earth planet with ~7 Earth masses, GJ876d (Rivera et al. 2005), and the Saturn-like planet with a massive dense core with ~67 Earth masses, D149026b (a dense-Saturn) (Sato et al. 2005). Many others have been found since then. Pressures and temperatures in the mantle of these planets are much higher than in the Earth. There is also a pressing need to understand and model matter in the core of the giants, particularly the solar ones, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. In GJ876d, pressure and temperature at its core-mantle boundary was roughly estimated to be ~1 TPa (10 Mbar) and ~4,000 K (Valencia et al. 2006). The gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, and the icy giants, Uranus and Neptune, have small dense cores surrounded by hydrogen/helium and ice, respectively. Pressures and temperatures at the core-envelope boundaries of these planets have been estimated to be 40 Mbar and 15,000~20,000 K in Jupiter, 10 …


Introduction When electronic patient records are used for non-randomised research, a range of different study designs, eligibility criteria and adjustment methods may be used. This study aimed to compare the apparent bias and precision of effect estimates resulting from different potential design and analysis methods. Methods Comparisons were based on the association between thiazolidinedione (TZD) therapy and heart failure in 91 872 participants with diabetes. Nested within the same dataset, we applied all feasible combinations (N=162) of: five study designs; five sets of eligibility criteria for sample selection; and eight methods of adjustment. Apparent bias was evaluated by comparison to the RR of 1.72 (1.21–2.42) from a meta-analysis of RCTs. Precision was evaluated from SEs. Results The multiple regression adjusted HR from the full sample cohort study was 1.34 (1.15–1.56). Adjusted effect estimates from the case-only study designs had low precision and were higher than the reference value, ranging up to an OR of 8.22 (4.92–13.71) for the case-crossover design. After applying restrictive eligibility criteria (including new-user, and RCT-like criteria) precision was lower and adjusted effect estimates were generally lower than the reference value. Application of new user, propensity score and confounder based exclusions gave the lowest HR of 0.43 (0.10–1.76). Choice of adjustment method had a relatively small impact on the magnitude and precision of the effect estimate. Conclusion Our results suggest that restricting eligibility criteria, or implementing case-only designs, may not always reduce bias, and may reduce precision, in comparison to a cohort study using the full sample.


Silver (Ag) nanoparticles (NPs) have been synthesized through an easy, inexpensive, and ecofriendly method. Petroselinum crispum, parsley, leaf extract was utilized as a reducing, capping, and stabilizing agent, without using any hazardous chemical materials, for producing Ag NPs. The biosynthesized Ag NPs were characterized using different characterization techniques, namely UV-Vis, FT-IR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), dynamic light scattering (DLS), zeta potential, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), transmission electron microscope (TEM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis to investigate the optical, thermal, structural, morphological, and chemical properties of the plant extract and the biosynthesized Ag NPs. After that, the biosynthesized Ag NPs were utilized in harvesting sunlight for solar thermal generation. Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) for the green synthesized Ag NPs with the dark color were adjusted at nearly 450 nm. Once the Ag NPs are excited at the SPR, a large amount of heat is released, which causes a change in the local refractive index surrounding the Ag NPs. The released heat from the Ag NPs under the solar irradiation at the precise wavelength of plasmon resonance significantly increased the temperature of the aqueous medium. Different percentages of Ag NPs were dispersed in water and then exposed to the sunlight to monitor the temperature of the suspension. It was found that the temperature of the aqueous medium reached its highest point when 0.3 wt. % of Ag NPs was utilized. This investigation is rare and unique, and it shows that utilizing a small amount of the biosynthesized Ag NPs can increase the temperature of the aqueous medium remarkably.


Despite the wide use of deep neural network for periocular verification, achieving smaller deep learning models with high performance that can be deployed on low computational powered devices remains a challenge. In term of computation cost, we present in this paper a lightweight deep learning model with only 1.1m of trainable parameters, DenseNet-20, based on DenseNet architecture. Further, we present an approach to enhance the verification performance of DenseNet-20 via knowledge distillation. With the experiments on VISPI dataset captured with two different smartphones, iPhone and Nokia, we show that introducing knowledge distillation to DenseNet-20 training phase outperforms the same model trained without knowledge distillation where the Equal Error Rate (EER) reduces from 8.36% to 4.56% EER on iPhone data, from 5.33% to 4.64% EER on Nokia data, and from 20.98% to 15.54% EER on cross-smartphone data.


My interest in chronic pain started very early in my career as a physiotherapist. Chronic pain is widespread in our community with one in five people affected under 65 and one in three over 65 (Blyth, March, Nicholas, and Cousins, 2005; Vos, et al., 2012). Chronic pain can be a significant source of suffering and distress and can have a profound impact on a person's life. People with chronic pain find their way to many different health care professionals but are considered difficult to treat by some due to the anger, distress and suffering often exhibited (Halpern, 2014). Also, many physiotherapists and other health professionals avoid contact with people who have chronic pain due to their own emotional reactions and responses (Synnott, O'Keeffe, Bunzli, Dankaerts, O'Sullivan, P., and O' Sullivan, K., 2015). This is despite the evidence showing that people with chronic pain respond to a comprehensive and relational approach, where the person with chronic pain is seen, validated and their lived experiences understood (Cohen and Quintner, 2011; Main and George, 2011; Nicholas and George, 2011). Until I did my training as a Gestalt therapist I often felt anxious or uncertain in the face of a client's suffering from chronic pain. My training provided me with clearer understanding, insight, empathy and compassion into my own and the others responses that now allows me to engage more fully with people with chronic pain. Patient outcomes are improved with a deeper engagement and this has been shown to minimise disability (Edwards, Jones, Thacker, and Swisher, 2014; Nijs, Van Wilgen, Van Oosterwijck, Van Ittersum, and Meeus, 2011). The following literature review has emerged from my experiences as a physiotherapist who works with Gestalt therapy, theory and practice to understand the meaning people with chronic pain make of their pain experiences and how my understanding supports their recovery.


This paper explores the impact of being poor on time use decisions and the similarities and differences between urban and rural areas in Gujarat, India. For this purpose, the authors develop discrete-continuous time use models for (1) mobile/immobile choices and the time allocated to travel, (2) time use for subsistence activities and (3) time use for social and leisure activities. The empirical results show that (1) while a number of similar impacts of being poor are confirmed between urban and rural areas, significant differences are also observed, possibly because of the different labor needs in urban (tertiary sector) areas versus rural (primary sector) areas, infrastructure differences (such as roads and water supply), and so on. The results provide evidence that although the meaning of "poor" from the income/expenditure perspective may not differ between urban and rural areas, it is unignorably different from the perspective of time use.


Over the years, human activity and environmental problems have impacted the Chacahua Lagoon in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico. In an attempt to gain more insight into the current environmental conditions of this lagoon, twenty-eight bottom sediment samples were collected in August 2003. Using depth, physical properties (grain-size and texture) and biological characteristics (organic matter and CaCO 3 contents) of sediments as environmental indicators, three depositional facies were identified implementing cluster analysis, each facies seems to be under the influence of different processes. In terms of environmental concern, it was determined that the central part of the lagoon presents a high potential of pollutant sorption, thus this sector should be closely monitored.


Uninterrupted generation of fly ash by the coal based thermal power plants and its dumping has lead to steady encroachment of useful land in India. The deleterious effects of fly ash on the nearby environment are inevitable due to its fine texture and presence of toxic metals. Agriculture application is one of the several options available for the disposal of fly ash, a hazardous solid waste generated from coal based thermal power plants. Fly ash contains both micro- and macro nutrients useful for plant growth. However, it also contains toxic heavy metals which can move to the plants and accumulate resulting in toxicity to plants and animals. Accumulation of metals in plant parts having secondary metabolites, which is responsible for a particular pharmacological activity. The issue of heavy metal pollution is very much concerned because of their toxicity for plant, animal and human beings and their lack of biodegradability. Excess concentrations of heavy metals have adverse effects on plant metabolic activities hence affect the food production, quantitatively and qualitatively. Heavy metal when reaches human tissues through various absorption pathways such as direct ingestion, dermal contact, diet through the soil–food chain, inhalation and oral intake may seriously affect their health. Prolonged exposure to heavy metals such as cadmium, copper, lead, nickel, and zinc can cause deleterious health effects in humans. This article attempts to highlight the use of fly ash bearing heavy metals and their problems.


From the early 1960s to 1980s, the economic structure of Taiwan shifted from one that was agriculture based to one that is industry based. Taiwan is considered a newly industrialized economy because it has successfully oriented its economy to exporting increasingly sophisticated goods and products. Taiwan's reputation as an export leader is well known: over the past 20 years Taiwan has become one of the world's most important manufacturers of high-tech products such as computers and other information technologies. In fact, the active support of export-oriented industries has made Taiwan the 16th largest trading union with a foreign exchange reserve of $262.9 billion, the third highest in the world (TEPA 2008a). However, rapid economic growth, escalating energy consumption, and rising carbon dioxide (COization. The energy supply totaled 141.92 million kiloliters (kL) of oil equivalent in 2007, of which 99.32 percent are imported (TBOE 2008). The main energy source is oil, which accounts for 51 percent of the total energy supply and is primarily imported from the Middle East. Other energy sources include coal (32 percent), liquid natural gas (LNG) (8 percent), nuclear power (8 percent), hydropower (<1 percent), and other non-hydro renewables (<1 percent). The amount of energy consumed has increased at the rate of about 5 percent each year for the past ten years (TBOE 2008). As a result of its extensive use of fossil fuels, Taiwan's per capita GHG emissions are about 13 metric tons, which is about three times the world average. Taiwan emitted GHG of 305.7MTCO 2 e in 2006, of which 265.2MTCO 2 e were from burning fossil fuels. CO share of Taiwan's GHGs at 90.9 percent, followed by nitrous oxide (N 2 O), methane (CH 4 ) and fluorocarbons (Figure 6.1). Power generation accounts for about 62 percent of emissions. If electricity use is allocated by economic sectors, the major polluter is the industrial sector, which accounts for around 53 percent of emissions, followed by the residential and commercial buildings sector at 18 percent, the transportation sector at 14 percent, and the energy sector at 7 percent (TEPA 2008a). Based on projected business-as-usual (BAU) scenario with high GDP growth, CO emissions are expected to reach 465 million tons by 2020. Since industry is responsible for the majority of emissions in Taiwan, corporate VAs can make significant contributions to emissions reductions. This indeed appears to be the direction in which Taiwan is moving. In response to increasing growth in emissions, the Executive Yuan (Taiwan's cabinet) adopted national emissions goals in its "Sustainable Energy Policy Framework" in June 2008 (Hwang 2010). For the short-term goal, emissions are set to return to 2008 levels within the 2016 to 2020 timeframe. The medium-term goal is to return emissions to 2000 levels by 2025. The long-term goal is to lower emissions to 50 percent of 2000 levels by 2050. These policy goals will be used as a reference for the National GHG Reduction Program and the Sectoral Reduction Plans that will be drafted after the GHG Reduction Bill, currently being debated in Taiwan's Legislative Yuan (Taiwan's chief law making body), comes into force. In January 2010, the Executive Yuan Steering Committee established the "Energy Saving and Carbon Reduction Promotion Commission", which later designed the "National Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction Master Program". Under this, Taiwan set up several voluntary targets including (i) reduction of at least 30% GHG volume over BAU scenario by 2020; (ii) reduction of carbon emissions to 2005 levels by 2020; (iii) at least 2 percent increase in energy efficiency annually with a minimum 20 percent reduction in energy intensity by 2015 and 50 percent reduction by 2025 as compared with 2005 levels (Chien et al. 2011). To establish a strong legal foundation for achieving the above targets, two legislations have been already formulated and two are being formulated. The "Energy Management Act" was amended in 2009 with a view to enforce high energy efficient facilities and products in industries. The "Renewable Energy Development Act" of 2009 was designed to promote low carbon energy supplies. The draft "GHG Reduction Bill" aims to establish a cap and trade system and the draft "Energy Tax Bill" of the Ministry of Finance aims to provide incentives for consumers to purchase low carbon high energy efficient facilities and products. In 2011, national departments and local governments developed as many as 230 action plans. By 2014, each local government is expected to initiate six low carbon cities or 50 low carbon communities, with the participation of both the public and private sector, schools and households within their jurisdiction. By 2020, four low carbon metropolitan areas are expected to be developed in each of the northern, central, southern and eastern parts of Taiwan. Enhancing community awareness of low carbon lifestyles is central to such efforts. The "Sustainable Energy Policy Framework" consists of an action plan that focuses on four sectors: energy, industry, commercial and residential buildings, and transportation. In the energy sector, the goals include obtaining 8 percent of energy from renewable sources and 25 percent from LNG by 2025, replacing old power plants, introducing carbon capture and storage (CCS) and letting energy prices reflect environmental externalities. In the industrial sector, the goal is to reduce per unit production carbon intensity by over 30 percent by 2025, and to create incentives for low carbon production systems and green industries. In the residential and commercial sectors, the actions include promoting urban tree planting programs, green building designs, raising appliance efficiency standards by 10 to 70 percent by 2015, and using lighting equipment with higher efficiencies. At the same time, green public transport systems and increasing efficiency in new vehicles by 25 percent in 2015 will be promoted in the transportation sector. As the future climate regime starts to take shape, both the government and business sectors share concerns that Taiwan might be subject to the next round of commitments under the UNFCCC, or to possible trade restrictions imposed through non-UNFCCC channels; these trade restrictions are arguably more likely since Taiwan is not obligated to cut emissions under the UNFCCC and may not be obligated to do so until an agreement can be reached on its participation in the United Nations. For instance, in order to maintain the competitiveness of their businesses, the electrical and electronics industries, which account for more than 50 percent of Taiwan's production value, have responded to environmental directives introduced by the European Union (EU), including Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS), and Energy Using Products (EuP) (TEEMA 2009). This example shows that potential trade restrictions, outside of international agreements, could impact Taiwanese businesses. Another example is Taiwan's aviation industry, which is very likely to be affected by a proposed EU regulation requiring airlines that land on and take off from EU territory to cap their emissions as a part of the EU emissions trading scheme. Managers from the two major airline companies in Taiwan have expressed interest in possible voluntary emission reductions while seeking assistance from the government (personal communication, 23 February 2009). The above cases show that there are strong drivers for Taiwan's industry sector to partner with the public sector and initiate VAs.


Student migration has been increasing over recent years in Nepal. The increasing numbers of students leave the country to the developed countries for their higher education with the hope of getting practical skills and knowledge and other valuable experiences to enhance their future carrier. This paper intends to explore the motivation, aspirations, and excitements among international students while flying abroad to pursue their higher education from the developed countries. In doing so, we adopted a narrative inquiry assuming that the stories of student mobility and its outcome challenge the educational and employment aspirations of youth in Nepal. The aspirations among international students encourage them to fly abroad due to the expectation of handsome earning and pursuing a foreign degree. Moreover, this paper also highlights the motivation of prospective students and their desire to fly abroad for their academic journey.


This paper addresses the problem of establishing stability of 2D mixed continuous-discrete-time systems. Traditional stability analysis for 2D systems gives a sufficient condition based on 2D version of a Lyapunov equation. Here, a linear matrix inequality (LMI) condition is proposed that extends these results by introducing complex Lyapunov functions depending polynomially on a parameter and by exploiting the Gram matrix method. It is shown that this condition is sufficient for 2D exponential stability for any chosen degree of the Lyapunov function candidate, and it is also shown that this condition is also necessary for a sufficiently large degree. Moreover, an a priori bound on the degree required for achieving necessity is given. Some numerical examples illustrate the proposed methodology.


We describe a new mechanism of decoherence in excited atoms as a result of thermal particles scattering by the atomic nucleus. It is based on the idea that a single scattering will produce a sudden displacement of the nucleus, which will be perceived by the electron in the atom as an instant shift in the electrostatic potential. This will leave the atom's wave-function partially projected into lower-energy states, which will lead to decoherence of the atomic state. The decoherence is calculated to increase with the excitation of the atom, making observation of the effect easier in Rydberg atoms. We estimate the order of the decoherence for photons and massive particles scattering, analyzing several commonly presented scenarios. Our scheme can be applied to the detection of weakly-interacting particles, like those which may be the constituents of Dark Matter, the interaction of which was calculated to have a more prominent effect that the background radiation.


ABSTRACT Many host defense cationic antimicrobial peptides (HDPs) perturb the staphylococcal cell membrane (CM) and alter transmembrane potential (ΔΨ) as key parts of their lethal mechanism. Thus, a sense-response system for detecting and mediating adaptive responses to such stresses could impact organism survival; the Staphylococcus aureus LytSR two-component regulatory system (TCRS) may serve as such a ΔΨ sensor. One well-known target of this system is the lrgAB operon, which, along with the related cidABC operon, has been shown to be a regulator in the control of programmed cell death and lysis. We used an isogenic set of S. aureus strains: (i) UAMS-1, (ii) its isogenic ΔlytS and ΔlrgAB mutants, and (iii) plasmid-complemented ΔlytSR and ΔlrgAB mutants. The ΔlytS strain displayed significantly increased in vitro susceptibilities to all HDPs tested (neutrophil-derived human neutrophil peptide 1 [hNP-1], platelet-derived thrombin-induced platelet microbicidal proteins [tPMPs], and the tPMP-mimetic peptide RP-1), as well as to calcium-daptomycin (DAP), a cationic antimicrobial peptide (CAP). In contrast, the ΔlrgAB strain exhibited no significant changes in susceptibilities to these cationic peptides, indicating that although lytSR positively regulates transcription of lrgAB, increased HDP/CAP susceptibilities in the ΔlytS mutant were lrgAB independent. Further, parental UAMS-1 (but not the ΔlytS mutant) became more resistant to hNP-1 and DAP following pretreatment with carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenylhydrazone (CCCP) (a CM-depolarizing agent). Of note, lytSR-dependent survival against CAP/HDP killing was not associated with changes in either surface positive charge, expression of mprF and dlt, or CM fluidity. The ΔlytS strain (but not the ΔlrgAB mutant) displayed a significant reduction in target tissue survival in an endocarditis model during DAP treatment. Collectively, these results suggest that the lytSR TCRS plays an important role in adaptive responses of S. aureus to CM-perturbing HDPs/CAPs, likely by functioning as a sense-response system for detecting subtle changes in ΔΨ.


Background Reductions in tumor movement allow for more precise and accurate radiotherapy with decreased dose delivery to adjacent normal tissue that is crucial in stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT). Deep inspiration breath-hold (DIBH) is an established approach to mitigate respiratory motion during radiotherapy. We assessed the feasibility of combining modern optical surface-guided radiotherapy (SGRT) and image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT) to ensure and monitor reproducibility of DIBH and to ensure accurate tumor localization for SBRT as an imaging-guided precision medicine. Methods We defined a new workflow for delivering SBRT in DIBH for lung and liver tumors incorporating SGRT and IGRT with cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) twice per treatment fraction. Daily position corrections were analyzed and for every patient two points retrospectively characterized: an anatomically stable landmark (predominately Schmorl's nodes or spinal enostosis) and a respiratory-dependent landmark (predominately surgical clips or branching vessel). The spatial distance of these points was compared for each CBCT and used as surrogate for intra- and interfractional variability. Differences between the lung and liver targets were assessed using the Welch t-test. Finally, the planning target volumes were compared to those of free-breathing plans, prepared as a precautionary measure in case of technical or patient-related problems with DIBH. Results Ten patients were treated with SBRT according this workflow (7 liver, 3 lung). Planning target volumes could be reduced significantly from an average of 148 ml in free breathing to 110 ml utilizing DIBH (p < 0.001, paired t-test). After SGRT-based patient set-up, subsequent IGRT in DIBH yielded significantly higher mean corrections for liver targets compared to lung targets (9 mm vs. 5 mm, p = 0.017). Analysis of spatial distance between the fixed and moveable landmarks confirmed higher interfractional variability (interquartile range (IQR) 6.8 mm) than intrafractional variability (IQR 2.8 mm). In contrast, lung target variability was low, indicating a better correlation of patients' surface to lung targets (intrafractional IQR 2.5 mm and interfractional IQR 1.7 mm). Conclusion SBRT in DIBH utilizing SGRT and IGRT is feasible and results in significantly lower irradiated volumes. Nevertheless, IGRT is of paramount importance given that interfractional variability was high, particularly for liver tumors.


A cytosolic cell-free system prepared from rat liver was used to study the effect of bivalent cations on the activity of the gluconeogenic enzyme phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK). Steady-state concentrations of oxaloacetate in the range 5-50 microM were generated from increasing concentrations of malate+fumarate (10:1); 2 mM ITP and 3 mM Mg2+ were added as cofactors. Micromolar concentrations of Mn2+, Fe2+ and, to a lesser extent, of Zn2+ and Co2+ were shown to stimulate PEPCK activity. Vmax. (mumol/min per g of liver) increased from 0.67 to 1.68 on addition of 5 microM Fe2+ and to 2.34 with 2 microM Mn2+, whereas no significant effect on the Km for oxaloacetate was observed. The apparent K(a) values (total) were 0.62 microM for Mn2+, 1.48 microM for Zn2+, 1.92 microM for Co2+ and 3.37 microM for Fe2+, being 2-8-fold lower than the corresponding published values. Variations of the free Mn2+ concentration were obtained (a) by increasing the Mn2+ concentration (i.e. activation curve) and (b) by simultaneous addition of Mn2+ and increasing concentrations of the chelating agent EGTA (i.e. inactivation curve). Different results were obtained for the activation and inactivation curves. The inactivation curve showed that PEPCK activity was almost unaffected by variations of the free Mn2+ concentration over the range 0.05-0.15 microM. Under comparable experimental conditions, rat liver arginase (another Mn(2+)-dependent enzyme) was completely inactivated. From kinetic evidence, the existence of two distinct molecular forms of cytosolic rat liver PEPCK with different Mn2+ affinities is postulated. Considering the high affinity of PEPCK for Mn2+ and its relative insensitivity to changes in the free Mn2+ concentration, it seems rather unlikely that changes in the free cation concentration play a major role in regulating PEPCK activity in vivo.


- Let G = (V, E) be a connected simple graph. For any non-trivial additive abelian group A , let A* = A − {0}. A function f: E (G) → A* is called a labeling of G. Any such labeling induces a map f + : V (G) → A, defined by f + (v) = ∑ f(uv), where the sum is over all uv  E(G). If there exist a labeling f whose induced map on V (G) is a constant map, we say that f is an A-magic labeling of G and that G is an A-magic graph. In this paper we obtained the group magic labeling of two or more cycles with a common vertex.


What type of law is shari'a? Does Islam require its implementation by the state? Can the shari'a be compatible with modern democracy and pluralist citizenship? Or is the law effectively human-rights-restricting with respect to women, non-Muslims, and Muslims who profess a non-conforming variety of the faith? These are among the questions addressed in the Winter 2012 issue of The Review of Faith & International Affairs, a special issue on "The Rise of Shari'a: Implications for Democracy and Human Rights."