: The competitive ligand binding assay (CLBA) first described by Chopra et al. ((1972) J. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab. 35, 565-573) is a convenient routine method for the accurate measurement of thyroxine binding globulin in large numbers of serum samples. The assay is based on the partition of a constant quantity of radiolabelled T3 between a fixed quantity of rabbit T3 antibodies and the thyroxine binding globulin of the serum, after prior removal of T3 and T4 from the serum with an anion exchange resin (Amberlite IRA 400). In euthyroid subjects serum thyroxine binding globulin was 25.5 +/- 5.0 mg/1, in hyperthyroid patients thyroxine binding globulin was significantly decreased to 13.0 +/- 4.0 mg/1 and was significantly increased in hypothyroid patients to 36.8 +/- 6.2 mg/1 as well as in pregnant women to 41.3 +/- 6.2 mg/1. No difference was found between normal subjects and young women taking contraceptive pills with low oestrogen content. There were significant negative correlations between the thyroxine binding globulin in serum on the one hand side and the free T4-and free T3-fraction on the other. The low thyroxine binding globulin estimates in hyperthyroid patients increased gradually to normal during treatment with thyroid blocking drugs, the elevated thyroxine binding globulin in hypothyroid patients decreased to normal during treatment with thyroid hormones. The competitive ligand binding assay used here seems to be convenient as a routine method for the precise and reproducible measurement of thyroxine binding globulin in serum.


Abstract Activation of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) can occur in polluted environments, either from smoking-related toxicants or from endogenous ligands. We tested whether acute or chronic exposure to the AHR agonist 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) alters the transition to reproductive senescence in female Sprague-Dawley rats. In experiment 1, rats (n = 6 per experimental group) received a single dose of 0 or 10 μg/kg of TCDD orally (p.o.) on Postnatal Day 29. Vaginal cytology was monitored for 1 wk each month until rats were killed at 1 yr of age. The single prepubertal exposure to TCDD hastened the transition to reproductive senescence in female rats and was associated with delayed puberty, abnormal cyclicity, and premature reproductive senescence. In a second experiment, rats were exposed to TCDD chronically through weekly dosing (0, 50, or 200 ng kg−1 wk−1 p.o., n = 7 each dose) beginning in utero. Lifelong exposure to these lower doses of TCDD induced a dose- and time-dependent loss of normal cyclicity and significantly hastened the onset of the transition to reproductive senescence (P < 0.05). This premature transition to reproductive senescence was associated with prolonged estrous cycles and, at the highest dose of TCDD, persistent estrus or diestrus. The number and size of ovarian follicles were not altered by TCDD. Diestrous concentrations of LH in rats exposed chronically to TCDD were similar to those in controls, whereas progesterone tended to be elevated at both doses of the dioxin (P < 0.08). Serum FSH was elevated in the group exposed to 50 ng/kg of TCDD (P < 0.02), whereas estradiol was decreased at both doses of dioxin (P < 0.01). Data thus far support endocrine disruption rather than depletion of follicular reserves as a primary mechanism of the premature transition to reproductive senescence following activation of the AHR pathway by TCDD in female rats.


The Meikle mine exploits one of the world's highest grade Carlin-type gold deposits with reserves of ca. 220 t gold at an average grade of 24.7 g/t. Locally, gold grades exceed 400 g/t. Several geologic events converged at Meikle to create these spectacular gold grades. Prior to mineralization, a Devonian hydrothermal system altered the Bootstrap limestone to Fe-rich dolomite. Subsequently the rocks were brecciated by faulting and Late Jurassic intrusive activity. The resulting permeability focused flow of late Eocene Carlin-type ore fluids and allowed them to react with the Fe-rich dolomite. Fluid inclusion data and mineral assemblages indicate that these fluids were hot (ca. 220°C),of moderate salinity ( 2 S rich. Gold-rich pyrite formed by dissolution of dolomite and sulfidation of its contained Fe. Where dissolution and replacement were complete, ore-stage pyrite and other insoluble minerals were all that remained. Locally, these minerals accumulated as internal sediments in dissolution cavities to form ore with gold grades >400 g/t. Petrographic observations, geochemical data, and stable isotope results from the Meikle mine and other deposits at the Goldstrike mine place important constraints on genetic models for Meikle and other Carlin-type gold deposits on the northern Carlin trend. The ore fluids were meteoric water ( δ D = –135‰, δ 18 O = –5‰) that interacted with sedimentary rocks at a water/rock ratio of ca. 1 and temperatures of ca. 220°C. The absence of significant silicification suggests that there was little cooling of the ore fluids during mineralization. These two observations strongly suggest that ore fluids were not derived from deep sources but instead flowed parallel to isotherms. The gold was transported by H 2 S ( δ 34 S = 9‰), which was derived from Paleozoic sedimentary rocks. The presence of auriferous sedimentary exhalative mineralization in the local stratigraphic sequence raises the possibility that preexisting concentrations of gold contributed to the Carlin-type deposits. Taken together our observations suggest that meteoric water evolved to become an ore fluid by shallow circulation through previously gold- and sulfur-enriched rocks. Carlin-type gold deposits formed where these fluids encountered permeable, reactive Fe-rich rocks.


Influenza virus (IAV) infection is a major cause of severe respiratory illness that affects almost every country in the world. IAV infections result in respiratory illness and even acute lung injury and death, but the underlying mechanisms responsible for IAV pathogenesis have not yet been fully elucidated. In this study, the basic fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) level was markedly increased in H1N1 virus-infected humans and mice. FGF2, which is predominately derived from epithelial cells, recruits and activates neutrophils via the FGFR2-PI3K-AKT-NFκB signaling pathway. FGF2 depletion or knockout exacerbated influenza-associated disease by impairing neutrophil recruitment and activation. More importantly, administration of the recombinant FGF2 protein significantly alleviated the severity of IAV-induced lung injury and promoted the survival of IAV-infected mice. Based on the results from experiments in which neutrophils were depleted and adoptively transferred, FGF2 protected mice against IAV infection by recruiting neutrophils. Thus, FGF2 plays a critical role in preventing IAV-induced lung injury, and FGF2 is a promising potential therapeutic target during IAV infection.


Making decisions in natural language processing problems often involves assigning values to sets of interdependent variables where the expressive dependency structure can influence, or even dictate what assignments are possible. This setting includes a broad range of structured prediction problems such as semantic role labeling, named entity and relation recognition, co-reference resolution, dependency parsing and semantic parsing. The setting is also appropriate for cases that may require making global decisions that involve multiple components, possibly pre-designed or pre-learned, as in summarization, paraphrasing, textual entailment and question answering. In all these cases, it is natural to formulate the decision problem as a constrained optimization problem, with an objective function that is composed of learned models, subject to domain or problem specific constraints.

Constrained Conditional Models (CCM) formulation of NLP problems (also known as: Integer Linear Programming for NLP) is a learning and inference framework that augments the learning of conditional (probabilistic or discriminative) models with declarative constraints (written, for example, using a first-order representation). The key advantage of the CCM formulation is its support for making decisions in an expressive output space while maintaining modularity and tractability of training and inference. In most applications of this framework in NLP, following [Roth & Yih, CoNLL'04], integer linear programming (ILP) has been used as the inference framework, although other algorithms can be used.

This framework has attracted much attention within the NLP community over the last few years, with multiple papers in all the recent major conferences. Formulating structured prediction as a constrained optimization problem over the output of learned models has several advantages. It allows the incorporation of problem specific global constraints using a first order language â€" thus freeing the developer from (much of the) low level feature engineering â€" and guarantees exact inference. Importantly, it provides also the freedom of decoupling model generation (learning) from the constrained inference stage, often simplifying the learning stage as well as the engineering aspect of building an NLP system, while improving the quality of the solutions. These advantages and the availability of off-the-shelf solvers have led to a large variety of NLP tasks being formulated within it, including semantic role labeling, syntactic parsing, co-reference resolution, summarization, transliteration and joint information extraction.

The goal of this tutorial is to introduce the framework of Constrained Conditional Models to the broader ACL community, motivate it as a generic framework for structured inference in global NLP decision problems, present some of the key theoretical and practical issues involved in using CCMs and survey some of the existing applications of it as a way to promote further development of the framework and additional applications. The tutorial will be useful for senior and junior researchers who are interested in structured prediction and global decision problems in NLP, providing a concise overview of recent perspectives and research results.


Abstract. We report the first time-dependent measurements of high-molecular-weight (up to 700 amu) gas-phase oxidation products from α-pinene ozonolysis in an aerosol chamber under dry and low-NO x conditions. Measurements of products having mole fractions ranging from 10 −14 to 10 −11 were carried out with a chemical ionization mass spectrometer (the Cluster CIMS). Most products that were correlated with number concentrations of the smallest particles measured (10–20 nm) had molecular weights in the 430–560 amu range. Those products are proposed to be likely responsible for the initial nuclei formation and the early growth of the freshly nucleated particles based on their high molecular weights and chemical identities, both of which suggest low-volatility compounds. Another group of oxidation products in the lower mass range of 140–380 amu was well correlated with particles larger than 20 nm. We postulate that those products contributed to the later growth of particles (i.e., larger than 20 nm in diameter). Although particle nucleation in this study was primarily due to condensation of oxidation products from α-pinene ozonolysis, the involvement of residual sulfuric acid vapor in particle nucleation cannot be totally excluded.


The UK government has for many decades assumed the role of provider for a range of public services (and the assets that underpin them) considered essential to the functioning of society. Education and healthcare in England have remained almost entirely publicly funded under the administration and management of central government departments and local authorities. The need to maintain and invest in the public service assets (PSAs) that support delivery remains, regardless of whether their ownership is public or private. The business cases for investment involve social cost benefit analysis assessed against the budgetary constraints of fiscal affordability. This thesis attempts to identify the information used, and ideally required, to make decisions to invest in building schools and hospitals. The role of procurement method is considered alongside the forms of capital work (refurbishment / new build) in recent capital programmes for schools and hospitals. Theoretical frameworks for analysis of the efficacy of capital investment are drawn from the whole life cost (WLC) literature and discourses on decision making under uncertainty, contract theory and transaction cost economics. New methodological contributions on the valuation of whole life cost returns, including those from improved outcomes in the form of educational attainment in schools, are presented in later analysis chapters. Key findings include: 1) the estimated whole life cost ratio of 1 (construction) to 0.5 (operation) to 5 (staffing) for schools over a 60 year life discounted at 3.5% and, 2) a lack of association in improved educational attainment following capital investment. Further, findings suggest that given the durable nature of PSAs, along with the long time periods over which benefits accrue, there is considerable difficulty in appraising the returns to (and value of) capital investment in PSAs. Recommendations focus on the need for better co-ordination of government data on capital programmes and projects, on-going costs of operation and the outcomes of PSA users to better inform investment appraisal and programme design.


New grid codes demand the wind turbine systems to ride through recurring grid faults. In this paper, the performance of the doubly Ffed induction generator (DFIG) wind turbine system under recurring symmetrical grid faults is analyzed. The mathematical model of the DFIG under recurring symmetrical grid faults is established. The analysis is based on the DFIG wind turbine system with the typical low-voltage ride-through strategy-with rotor-side crowbar. The stator natural flux produced by the voltage recovery after the first grid fault may be superposed on the stator natural flux produced by the second grid fault, so that the transient rotor and stator current and torque fluctuations under the second grid fault may be influenced by the characteristic of the first grid fault, including the voltage dips level and the grid fault angle, as well as the duration between two faults. The mathematical model of the DFIG under recurring grid faults is verified by simulations on a 1.5-MW DFIG wind turbine system model and experiments on a 30-kW reduced scale DFIG test system.


Abundant ribonucleoside triphosphate (rNTP) incorporation in DNA by DNA polymerases in the form of ribonucleoside monophosphates (rNMPs) is a widespread phenomenon in nature, resulting in DNA structural change and genome instability. The rNMP distribution, characteristics, hotspots, and association with DNA metabolic processes in human mitochondrial DNA (hmtDNA) remain mostly unknown. Here, we utilize the ribose-seq technique to capture embedded rNMPs in mtDNA of six different human cell types with wild-type or mutant ribonuclease (RNase) H2 genotype. The rNMPs are preferentially embedded in the DNA of the light strand in most cell types studied, but not in the liver-tissue cells, in which the rNMPs are dominant on the heavy strand of hmtDNA. We uncover common rNMP hotspots and conserved rNMP-enriched zones across the entire hmtDNA, including in the replication-control region, which may result in the suppression of mtDNA replication. We also show that longer coding sequences have a significantly higher rNMP-embedment frequency per nucleotide. While the composition of the embedded rNMPs varies among the different cell types, by studying the genomic context of embedded rNMPs, we detected common rNMP-embedment patterns in hmtDNA. The genomic contexts of rNMPs found in hmtDNA are mainly distinct from those found in yeast mtDNA, highlighting a unique signature of rNTP incorporation by hmtDNA polymerase γ.


Software protections against side-channel and physical attacks are essential to the development of secure applications. Such protections are meaningful at machine code or micro-architectural level, but they typically do not carry observable semantics at source level. This renders them susceptible to miscompilation, and security engineers embed input/output side-effects to prevent optimizing compilers from altering them. Yet these side-effects are error-prone and compiler-dependent. The current practice involves analyzing the generated machine code to make sure security or privacy properties are still enforced. These side-effects may also be too expensive in fine-grained protections such as control-flow integrity. We introduce observations of the program state that are intrinsic to the correct execution of security protections, along with means to specify and preserve observations across the compilation flow. Such observations complement the input/output semantics-preservation contract of compilers. We introduce an opacification mechanism to preserve and enforce a partial ordering of observations. This approach is compatible with a production compiler and does not incur any modification to its optimization passes. We validate the effectiveness and performance of our approach on a range of benchmarks, expressing the secure compilation of these applications in terms of observations to be made at specific program points.


Cementitious composites reinforced with multi-wall carbon nanotube (MWNT) (MWFRC) were prepared with surfactant dispersion, ultrasonication, and subsequently high-speed mixing process. Fracture mechanical performance of the cured MWFRC was characterized according to three-point bending method (ASTM 399). It is found that the addition of nanotubes significantly improve the flexural strength, the stress-intensity factor of the nanocomosites with dispersed MWNT fiber, the maximal enhancement amplitude is near to 45%, 80% with respect to the baseline, respectively. The superior fiber bridging capability of the dispersed MWNTs upon the micro-cracks contributes to the reinforcement to cement matrix.


This work presents a methodology that combines the use of artificial neural networks and fuzzy logic for alarm processing and identification of faulted components in electrical power systems. Fuzzy relations are established and form a database employed to train artificial neural networks. The artificial neural networks inputs are alarm patterns, while each output neuron is responsible for estimating the degree of membership of a specific system component into the class of faulted components. The proposed method allows good interpretation of the results, even in the presence of difficult corrupted alarm patterns. Tests are performed with a test system and with part of a real Brazilian system.


Deep neural networks (DNNs) are known vulnerable to backdoor attacks, a training time attack that injects a trigger pattern into a small proportion of training data so as to control the model's prediction at the test time. Backdoor attacks are notably dangerous since they do not affect the model's performance on clean examples, yet can fool the model to make incorrect prediction whenever the trigger pattern appears during testing. In this paper, we propose a novel defense framework Neural Attention Distillation (NAD) to erase backdoor triggers from backdoored DNNs. NAD utilizes a teacher network to guide the finetuning of the backdoored student network on a small clean subset of data such that the intermediate-layer attention of the student network aligns with that of the teacher network. The teacher network can be obtained by an independent finetuning process on the same clean subset. We empirically show, against 6 state-of-the-art backdoor attacks, NAD can effectively erase the backdoor triggers using only 5\% clean training data without causing obvious performance degradation on clean examples. Code is available in https://github.com/bboylyg/NAD.


The complicated solid-liquid flow in a grooved rotating cavity is strongly influenced by both axial and radial gaps. This paper presents a numerical study on the influences of both axial and radial gaps on the solid-liquid flow inside the grooved rear chambers, aiming to accomplish effective micro-sized sand exclusion. The commercial RANS solver CFX 14.0 is used to predict the movements of dispersed phase in six rear chambers. The simulation results show that the periphery flow has little influence on the cavity flow when the dimensionless radial gap is no more than 0.038. Although the flow near the groove is turbulent and the cavity is open, Batchelor type flow can be predicted in most parts of all of the six cavities. The dimensionless tangential velocity of slurry increases with the decrease of axial gap, which contribute to better sand discharge capacity. Experimental abrasion investigations show that the simulation results are reasonable and the service life of SMSP is dramatically improved.


In this work a recently published semiclassical spin kinetic model, generalizing those of previous authors are discussed. Some previously described properties are reviewed, and a new example illustrating the theory is presented. The generalization to a fully quantum mechanical description is discussed, and the main features of such a theory is outlined. Finally, the main conclusions are presented.


If Σ is any standard formal system adequate for recursive number theory, a formula (having a certain integer q as its Gödel number) can be constructed which expresses the proposition that the formula with Gödel number q is provable in Σ. Is this formula provable or independent in Σ? [2]. One approach to this problem is discussed by Kreisel in [4]. However, he still leaves open the question whether the formula (Ex)(x, a), with Gödel-number a, is provable or not. Here (x, y) is the number-theoretic predicate which expresses the proposition that x is the number of a formal proof of the formula with Gödel-number y. In this note we present a solution of the previous problem with respect to the system Zμ [3] pp. 289–294, and, more generally, with respect to any system whose set of theorems is closed under the rules of inference of the first order predicate calculus, and satisfies the subsequent five conditions, and in which the function (k, l) used below is definable. The notation and terminology is in the main that of [3] pp. 306–326, viz. if is a formula of Zμ containing no free variables, whose Gödel number is a, then ({}) stands for (Ex)(x, a) (read: the formula with Gödel number a is provable in Zμ); if is a formula of Zμ containing a free variable, y say, ({}) stands for (Ex)(x, g(y)}, where g(y) is a recursive function such that for an arbitrary numeral the value of g() is the Gödel number of the formula obtained from by substituting for y in throughout. We shall, however, depart trivially from [3] in writing (), where is an arbitrary numeral, for (Ex){x, ).


In this paper, we discuss the importance of gameplay as a valuable tool in citizen sensing initiatives aimed at enabling creative collaboration and civic engagement. We present a review of selected citizen science and civic technologies' projects highlighting an emerging culture of massive collaborative initiatives that make use of crowdsourcing, enabling users to voluntarily contribute their time, effort and resources towards scientific research and civic issues. Moreover, we discuss how these initiatives could benefit from the inclusion of gameplay in their interaction processes. For that matter, we present a gamified citizen sensing project we are devising for users to enter and retrieve information on commercially available food products which contain ingredients associated with an increased risk of cancer and other diseases. Through gameplay, we expect to crowdsource an open database of potentially unhealthy food products, raising awareness among consumers about the risks of certain artificial additives. Finally, we argue that the use of gamification processes can engage voluntary participation in initiatives aimed at citizenship – including those which demand complex and repetitive tasks for the collection of data – and call for a more ethical, critical, and meaningful use of these new potential technologies, and for greater awareness of our new civic responsibilities. Keywords: interaction design, gamification, citizen sensing, mobile applications, artificial food additives.


Microbes are important catalysts to regulate functional properties of terrestrial ecosystems. In this study, rhizosphere and phyllosphere bacteria were isolated from wheat and peas and examined for their plant growth promoting properties. The effects of bacterial inoculants on the growth of peas and wheat were studied in a series of pot experiments using loamy sand soil. The results showed that the colonisation of bacteria was higher in the rhizosphere as compared to the phyllosphere of both plants. Bacterial strains were identified as Pseudomonas, Bacillus, Kocuria, and Microbacterium, and Cellulomonas species. The response of wheat and peas when inoculated with bacteria was significantly positive over the control. After inoculation with effective bacterial strains, the root and shoot growth, and nodulation of peas were increased. However, the strains stimulated only the roots of wheat. Independent of the origin (rhizosphere vs. phyllosphere), bacterial strains produced indole-3 acetic acid (IAA), which most probably accounted for the overall synergistic effect on growth of peas and wheat.


Many problems considered in optimization and artificial intelligence research are static: information about the problem is known a priori, and little to no uncertainty about this information is presumed to exist. Most real problems, however, are dynamic: information about the problem is released over time, uncertain events may occur, or the requirements of the problem may change as time passes. One technique for improving optimization and learning in dynamic environments is by using information from the past. By using solutions from previous environments, it is often easier to find promising solutions in a new environment. A common way to maintain and exploit information from the past is the use of memory, where solutions are stored periodically and can be retrieved and refined when the environment changes. Memory can help search respond quickly and efficiently to changes in a dynamic problem. Despite their strengths, standard memories have many weaknesses which limit their effectiveness. This thesis explores ways to improve memory for optimization and learning in dynamic environments. The techniques presented in this thesis improve memories by incorporating probabilistic models of previous solutions into memory, storing many previous solutions in memory while keeping overhead low, building long-term models of the dynamic search space over time, allowing easy refinement of memory entries, and mapping previous solutions to the current environment for problems where solutions may become obsolete over time. To address the weaknesses and limitations of standard memory, two novel classes of memory are introduced: density-estimate memory and classifier-based memory. Density-estimate memory builds and maintains probabilistic models within memory to create density estimations of promising areas of the search space over time. Density-estimate memory allows many solutions to be stored in memory, builds long-term models of the dynamic search space, and allows memory entries to be easily refined while keeping overhead low. Density-estimate memory is applied to three dynamic problems: factory coordination, the Moving Peaks benchmark problem, and adaptive traffic signal control. For all three problems, density-estimate memory improves performance over a baseline learning or optimization algorithm as well as state-of-the-art algorithms. Classifier-based memory allows dynamic problems with shifting feasible regions to capture solutions in memory and then map these memory entries to feasible solutions in the future. By storing abstractions of solutions in the memory, information about previous solutions can be used to create solutions in a new environment, even when the old solutions are now completely obsolete or infeasible. Classifier-based memory is applied to a dynamic job shop scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup times and machine breakdowns and repairs. Classifier-based memory improves the quality of schedules and reduces the amount of search necessary to find good schedules. The techniques presented in this thesis improve the ability of memories to guide search quickly and efficiently to good solutions as the environment changes.


Experimental action potential (AP) recordings in isolated ventricular myoctes display significant temporal beat-to-beat variability in morphology and duration. Furthermore, significant cell-to-cell differences in AP also exist even for isolated cells originating from the same region of the same heart. However, current mathematical models of ventricular AP fail to replicate the temporal and cell-to-cell variability in AP observed experimentally. In this study, we propose a novel mathematical framework for the development of phenomenological AP models capable of capturing cell-to-cell and temporal variabilty in cardiac APs. A novel stochastic phenomenological model of the AP is developed, based on the deterministic Bueno-Orovio/Fentonmodel. Experimental recordings of AP are fit to the model to produce AP models of individual cells from the apex and the base of the guinea-pig ventricles. Our results show that the phenomenological model is able to capture the considerable differences in AP recorded from isolated cells originating from the location. We demonstrate the closeness of fit to the available experimental data which may be achieved using a phenomenological model, and also demonstrate the ability of the stochastic form of the model to capture the observed beat-to-beat variablity in action potential duration.


Adjustable-speed drives (ASDs) create an opportunity for better use of electric energy. When an ASD is used to control motor speed, motor performance (efficiency and losses) is affected by the switching method employed to control the ASD inverter. Performance measurements were done for a five-hp, three-phase squirrel cage induction motor-ASD set at different loading/speed combinations, and the laboratory testing results were analyzed. Separation of the motor losses was performed and analyzed. This can help determine the effects of harmonically distorted voltage and current waveforms on these losses. This type of analysis can also help derate motors in a way that takes into consideration the total harmonic distortion (THD) of the motor current waveforms. The test results and analysis gave the performance characteristics of the motor, drive, and motor-drive system at different loading/speed points. The separation of motor losses shows that stator, rotor, and core loss increase when an ASD is used to drive the motor. On the other hand, stray load loss decreases. For the tested motor, core loss decreases linearly with the decrease in the ASD`s output voltage frequency.


To the Editor: Recently the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a safety communication cautioning about the use of off-label drugs in intrathecal drug delivery systems (IDDS) or targeted drug delivery (TDD), for the treatment of chronic pain and spasticity. This action, intended to improve safety, has had andwill have a detrimental impact on many patients and on the practice of medicine in the United States. This is particularly significant in that the great majority of patients implanted with IDDS are treated with off-label drugs or drug combinationsmaking this the current standard of care in the United States (1,2). The FDA is well aware that the general use of off-label medications has been an ongoing practice standard for many years and has been a critical part of treating many medical conditions. Any communication, which impedes the ability of physicians to successfully use intrathecal therapies in clinical practice, could also have the unintended consequence of reversing the progress that has been made toward decreasing the use of high dose oral opioid medications. While we agree with the FDA's goal of improving safety and reducing risks, we also believe clarification is needed to protect patient safety and therapy access. We do agree with the FDA that the use of labeled drugs should be considered as the first choice for use in these devices, and in the United States this would include Prialt (ziconotide), Infumorph (preservative free morphine sulfate), and baclofen (1). In the vast


The initiation of partially synchronized DNA synthesis was induced by medium replacement on stationary monolayer cultures of chick embryo cells. The synthesis of DNA started at 4 hr and continued for 8 hr, and cells divided within x5 to x8 hr. The onset of DNA synthesis and subsequent cell division were inhibited by u.v.inactivated vesicular stomatitis virus if the cells were infected before the onset of DNA synthesis. In contrast, if the cells were infected during the S phase, the continuing DNA replication and subsequent cell division were not inhibited. Thus the selective inhibition of the flow of G I cells to the S phase was demonstrated in the cells infected with u.v.-inactivated vesicular stomatitis virus.


The criteria to assess the legitimacy of governments that have been developed by mainstream legal scholarship are overly simplistic and fail to address the situation of illiberal democracies. Indeed, illiberal democracies are endowed with some democratic features, as their governments have usually gone through an electoral process. They can thus claim some form of legitimacy. They cannot, however, be considered wholly legitimate given their disrespect for some of the substantive elements of democracy. In this paper, I offer a more elaborate understanding of the legitimacy of governments in order to deal with the rise of illiberal democracies. I argue that a distinction must be drawn between the legitimacy of origin and the legitimacy of exercise.


After a 12-year effort, scientists have finally captured a detailed image of the business end of the immune system's T cells, which ferret out and mark for destruction cancerous and infected cells. The La Jolla, California-based team has also caught a glimpse of how the T cell latches onto an infected cell. These results, published on (209), should eventually help drug designers tailor new compounds to promote or, in some cases, block this crucial latching-on process.


As testing for late-onset genetic conditions becomes increasingly available, concerns have been raised about the psychosocial costs of obtaining such genetic information. Anxiety and distress can result from testing that offers only probabilistic results as to whether and when the condition will develop, especially when treatment is limited or unavailable. Many have therefore urged caution regarding late-onset testing, suggesting that knowledge can sometimes be toxic. This article argues that the same circumspection does not exist with respect to prenatal testing, which has become de rigeur as a result of a complex mix of norms within the medical community, society, and the legal profession. Unfortunately, for many patients, this routinization of prenatal testing has made true choice illusive and impoverished the informed consent process. Patients often fail to consider the possibility of not undergoing testing and many are unaware of the emotional implications of such testing and are unprepared for the difficult choices they may face. The article concludes with some comments about the broader social implications of this routinization, suggesting that the diminished informed consent process has contributed to an inability to discuss the moral dimensions of reproductive technology today and in the future.


in the scale of answers meant a worst quality of life. Conclusion: The syndrome of the oral breather seems to be related to a negative impact in the quality of life, mainly for the nasal problems, with the sleep and eating. Future studies with the application of the same questionnaire have become needed for this to become as capable instrument of evaluation of the life quality from the patients in the matter.


In this paper, we investigate how the accounting measurement basis affects the capital market pricing of a firm's shares, which, in turn, affects the efficiency of the firm's investment decisions. We distinguish two broad bases for accounting measurements: input-based and output-based accounting. We argue that the structural difference in the two measurement bases leads to a systematic difference in the efficiency of the investment decisions. In particular, we show that an output-based measure has a natural advantage in aligning investment incentives because of its comprehensiveness. The (first-)best investment is achieved when the output-based measure is noiseless and manipulation free. In addition, under an output-based measure, more accounting noise/manipulation always leads to more inefficient investment choices. Therefore, if an output-based accounting measure is highly noisy and easy to manipulate in practice, the induced investment efficiency can be quite low. On the other hand, an input-based accounting measure, while not as comprehensive, may induce more efficient investment decisions than an output-based measure if some noise is unavoidable in either measure. The reason is twofold. First, input-based measures may be associated with less noise and limited manipulation in practice. Second, and more importantly, we show that under an input-based measure, a slight increase in accounting noise/manipulation may lead to more efficient investment choices. In fact, the (first-)best result is achieved when the noise/manipulability is small but positive. In other words, for an input-based measure, being less comprehensive makes small but positive accounting noise/manipulability desirable. Two extensions of the basic model are also explored.


The majority of patients with pulmonary metastases from primary soft tissue sarcomas have peripheral lesions that can be removed by wedge excision. A subset of these patients, however, present with, or develop, clinically significant endobronchial metastases. These patients require a preoperative evaluation that includes pulmonary function testing and a detailed endoscopic evaluation of the bronchial tree. We described three of these patients from the National Cancer Institute and review the clinical histories of eight additional previously reported cases.


On-Chip Inductance has become of significance in the design of high-speed interconnects. In this thesis, three techniques are applied to regenerate an RLC: interconnect in series, parallel and without regeneration. Simulations using a 0.25 om TSMC technology show that the parallel regeneration starts achieving a better speed than the non-regenerated line at wire lengths smaller than that achieved when the wire is serially regenerated. It also features 47% time delay saving and 96% Area-Delay product saving over the serial regeneration. Repeaters are now widely used to enhance the performance of long On-Chip interconnects in CMOS VLSI. For RC-modeled interconnects, parallel repeaters have proved to be superior to serial ones. In this thesis, a Variable-Segment Regeneration Technique is introduced and compared with a Variable-Driver Parallel Technique, a recently proposed transparent repeater and with other three conventional techniques. HSpice Simulations using a 0.25 om TSMC technology show that both the variable-segment and variable-driver techniques feature 62% time delay saving and 354% Area-Delay product saving over the transparent repeater, and are superior to all conventional techniques. Moreover, our new variable-segment technique is characterized by a 116% Area-Delay product saving over the variable-driver technique. Thus, making it the most performant in the field of high-performance RLC interconnect regeneration. The simulation results and an analytical model of VSRT confirm the superiority of the parallel regeneration technique over the serial ones.


Availability of and accessibility to accurate, reliable and timely data is germane to the operation of the property market, in the
field of estate surveying and valuation either for valuation/appraisal, management and agency purposes. In this study, the researcher
examines the factors militating against accessibility to such data. The study was conducted using questionnaires, administered on
practicing Estate Surveyors and Valuers, within Lagos Metropolis. 190 questionnaire was retrieved out of 300 questionnaire (i.e. 63%)
administered on the respondents selected from the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers' Directory and this was used for
the analysis. The study revealed that inaccessibility to reliable data is a major barrier to valuation consistency. The study further revealed that there is the need for members of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers, just like their counterpart in RICS,UK, to join hands together and create a strong databank comparable to that of the Investment Property Databank (IPD). The databank created as such should therefore be available and accessible to anyone that requires such information, even at a token.


BACKGROUND: Dermatophytosis is a common skin infection, having recurrent and persisting course because of topical steroid abuse, irregular treatment, and poor hygiene. The aim of this study was to assess the quality of life (QoL) of patients diagnosed with superficial dermatophytosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients (n = 100) diagnosed with superficial dermatophytosis were recruited in the study. A pretested, structured questionnaire was used for recording patient's details. The observing dermatologist simultaneously assessed the clinical severity of the disease. Data were collected by a single examiner and recorded in a case record pro forma. Clinically doubtful cases were included after examining samples with 10% KOH. Correlation analysis was performed between the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) score and the study variables. RESULTS: Out of 100 patients, 42 had DLQI scores with moderate effect (score 6–10). A total of 19 patients had a very large effect on QoL and four patients had DLQI scores bearing an extremely large effect on QoL. Both males and females had similar mean DLQI values. A moderate correlation was found between DLQI scores and the use of topical steroids (r = 0.0002), and a slight correlation was found between duration of the disease and DLQI scores (r = 0.006). CONCLUSION: A high prevalence of the disease was found in males, and prolonged disease duration with use of topical steroids was observed. A significant impact was found in the QoL of the patients. Hence, proper counseling and treatment, along with early detection, is needed.


This paper studies the design of ex ante efficient mechanisms in situations where a single item is for sale, and agents have positively interdependent values and can covertly acquire information at a cost before participating in a mechanism. I find that when interdependency is low and/or the number of agents is large, the ex post efficient mechanism is also ex ante efficient. In cases of high interdependency and/or a small number of agents, ex ante efficient mechanisms discourage agents from acquiring excessive information by introducing randomization to the ex post efficient allocation rule in areas where the information's precision increases most rapidly.


With the completion of the human and a few model organisms' genomes, and the genomes of many other organisms waiting to be sequenced, it has become increasingly important to develop faster computational tools which are capable of easily identifying the structures and extracting features from DNA sequences. One of the more important structures in a DNA sequence is repeat-related. Often they have to be masked before protein coding regions along a DNA sequence are to be identified or redundant expressed sequence tags (ESTs) are to be sequenced. Here we report a novel recurrence time based method for sequence analysis. The method can conveniently study all kinds of periodicity and exhaustively find all repeat-related features from a genomic DNA sequence. An efficient codon index is also derived from the recurrence time statistics, which has the salient features of being largely species-independent and working well on very short sequences. Efficient codon indices are key elements of successful gene finding algorithms, and are particularly useful for determining whether a suspected EST belongs to a coding or noncoding region. We illustrate the power of the method by studying the genomes of E. coli, the yeast S. cervisivae, the nematode worm C. elegans, and the human, Homo sapiens. Computationally, our method is very efficient. It allows us to carry out analysis of genomes on the whole genomic scale by a PC.


Background—Because of risk of outlet strut fracture, prophylactic replacement should be considered for Björk-Shiley convexo-concave (BScc) valve recipients. We assessed the effects of epidemiological and decision-analytic guidelines on actual BScc valve replacement. Methods and Results—We performed a retrospective cohort study including all 2263 Dutch BScc patients with a mean follow-up of 11.3 years (range, 0 to 23 years). Outcomes were outlet strut fracture, mortality, and BScc valve replacement. For the surviving patients in 1992 (n=1330), we calculated the expected differences in life expectancy (LE) with and without BScc valve replacement according to decision guidelines developed in 1992. Differences in LE were compared with actual replacements. During 8 years of follow-up, there were 494 deaths (40%), and 11 patients had suffered outlet strut fracture. Of 1330 patients, 96 (10%) had undergone BScc valve replacement, particularly in years after introduction of initial and updated guidelines. One hundred seventeen patients (9%) had an estimated gain in LE after BScc valve replacement. These patients were more likely to undergo replacement than patients with an estimated loss of LE (hazard ratio, 6.6; 95% CI, 4.4 to 10; P <0.0001). A loss in LE after reoperation was predicted for 8 of 11 patients who experienced outlet strut fracture after guidelines were available. Conclusions—Valve replacement for BScc heart valve patients was largely in concordance with guidelines in the Netherlands. Individualized guidelines that are based on high-quality epidemiological data and are updated and implemented rigorously can influence clinical practice in complex decision problems.


Background/Aim: Heat-shock proteins (HSPs) are molecular chaperones which modify the structures and interactions of other proteins. The aim of our study was to investigate HSP90AA1, HSP90AB1 and HSP90B1 gene polymorphisms in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Materials and Methods: Ninety-seven patients with NSCLC and 97 healthy controls were included in the study. Real-time polymerase chain reaction was used for genotyping. Results: The frequency of mutant CC genotype for HSP90AA1 (rs4947C/T), mutant AA genotype for HSP90AB1 (rs13296A/G) and mutant CC genotype for HSP90B1 (rs2070908 C/G) was significantly higher in the patient group than in controls (p=0.019, p=0.004 and p=0.036, respectively). The frequency of patients with homozygote mutant allele was also significantly higher than that of controls and possessing of the mutant genotype increased the risk for disease by approximately 2.9, 4.8, 1.9 for HSP90AA1, HSP90AB1 and HSP90B1, respectively. The present study appears to be the first of its kind to report data on these gene polymorphisms in patients with NSCLC in the


SCOPE
The goal of this work was to identify circulating biomarkers of habitual coffee intake using a metabolomic approach, and to investigate their associations with coffee intake in four European countries.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Untargeted mass spectrometry-based metabolic profiling was performed on serum samples from 451 participants of the European Prospective Investigation on Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) originating from France, Germany, Greece and Italy. Eleven coffee metabolites were found to be associated with self-reported habitual coffee intake, including 8 more strongly correlated (r = 0.25-0.51, P<10E-07 ). Trigonelline showed the highest correlation, followed by caffeine, two caffeine metabolites (paraxanthine and 5-Acetylamino-6-amino-3-methyluracil), quinic acid, and three compounds derived from coffee roasting [cyclo(prolyl-valyl), cyclo(isoleucyl-prolyl), cyclo(leucyl-prolyl) and pyrocatechol sulfate]. Differences in the magnitude of correlations were observed between countries, with trigonelline most highly correlated with coffee intake in France and Germany, quinic acid in Greece and cyclo(isoleucyl-prolyl) in Italy.

CONCLUSION
Several biomarkers of habitual coffee intake were identified. No unique biomarker was found to be optimal for all tested populations. Instead, optimal biomarkers were shown to depend on the population and on the type of coffee consumed. These biomarkers should help to further explore the role of coffee in disease risk. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


Global demand for agricultural and forestry products fundamentally affects regional land-use change associated with environmental impacts (EIs) such as erosion. In contrast to aggregated global metrics such as greenhouse gas (GHG) balances, local/regional EIs of different agricultural and forestry production regions need methods which enable worldwide EI comparisons. The key aspect is to control environmental heterogeneity to reveal man-made differences of EIs between production regions. Environmental heterogeneity is the variation in biotic and abiotic environmental conditions. In the present study, we used three approaches to control environmental heterogeneity: (i) environmental stratification, (ii) potential natural vegetation (PNV), and (iii) regional environmental thresholds to compare EIs of solid biomass production. We compared production regions of managed forests and plantation forests in subtropical (Satilla watershed, Southeastern US), tropical (Rufiji basin, Tanzania), and temperate (Mulde watershed, Central Germany) climates. All approaches supported the comparison of the EIs of different land-use classes between and within production regions. They also standardized the different EIs for a comparison between the EI categories. The EIs for different land-use classes within a production region decreased with increasing degree of naturalness (forest, plantation forestry, and cropland). PNV was the most reliable approach, but lacked feasibility and relevance. The PNV approach explicitly included most of the factors that drive environmental heterogeneity in contrast to the stratification and threshold approaches. The stratification approach allows consistent global application due to available data. Regional environmental thresholds only included arbitrarily selected aspects of environmental heterogeneity; they are only available for few EIs. Especially, the PNV and stratification approaches are options to compare regional EIs of biomass or crop production such as erosion, biodiversity, or water quality impacts worldwide and thereby complement existing metrics assessing global EIs such as GHG emissions.


We study various problems of synthesizing reactive programs. A reactive program is a program whose behaviors are not merely functional relationships between inputs and outputs, but sequences of actions as well as interactions between the program and its environment. The goal of program synthesis in general is to find an implementation of a program such that the behaviors of the implementation satisfy a given specification.
The reactive behaviors which we study are $\omega$-regular infinite sequences and regular finite sequences. The domain of the implementation is (finite) transition systems for closed system synthesis, and transition system modules for open system synthesis. We consider various solutions, e.g. basic, maximal, modular and exact, for any particular subclasses of the implementation language and investigate how characteristics of the program such as fairness, number of processes and composition operations, affect the synthesis algorithm. In addition to the automata-theoretic algorithms, we give a synthesis algorithm which synthesizes a program directly from the linear temporal logic ETL.


Bit-error-rate assessment of a multi-rate all-optical clock recovery (OCR) based on a narrow linewidth mode-locked quantum-dot (QD) Fabry-Perot laser is presented in this letter. OCR has been achieved without external feedback. We use a QD Fabry-Perot semiconductor laser designed for 40-GHz clock extraction. We then present OCR performance with 40-, 80-, and 160-Gb/s input data signal and demonstrate that clock recovery has been obtained thanks to subharmonic locking process. Results are presented through penalty measurement using an original characterization based on recovered clock remodulation with electrical data from the transmitter. This technique allows us to evaluate the quality of the recovered clock.


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ABSTRACT
The national traditions in fine arts, particularly the applied arts, were characterized by a special interest in the variety of colours, colour combinations and their interaction with light effects. The depiction of the interiors is characterized by a combination of contrary methods such as naturalism and stylization. An inseparable element of the inner space decoration of traditional Azerbaijan architecture was "shebeke" which is a traditional kind of stain glass. The presence of "shebeke" gives the living space not only a feeling of comfort and intimate character, but also, it saturates it with a light transformed, thus creating a sacred atmosphere. The system of decoration in the traditional architecture of Azerbaijan (both cult and domestic) was impregnated with a deep semantic sense of religious and philosophical character. The ideas of the Beauty of God, cognition of Truth, the search for Paradise and, finally, the protection from Evil – were important notions for the inhabitants of those interiors. The article deals with the theory and history of architecture and the perception of the national traditions by the current generations. The study aims to consider the Azerbaijan architecture of the Feudalism period namely, the 15th through the 19th century. The study concluded that the most important aspect of work with colour used by the Azerbaijan architects was the application of ceramic tiles, while the most important element in the enrichment of colouring of inner space was painting made by tempera on gesso ground or the wooden basis.
Keywords: Light, color, Azerbaijan architecture, ceramic tiles, decoration


The paper presents on the base of theoretical approach of time-frequency analysis and time-frequency representation optimizations, classification results of real radar signals. The results show, that applying class-dependent methodology it is possible to achieve acceptable classification level on the base of few intercepted pulses.


Glypican-3 (GPC3) is overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) but not in chronic hepatitis (CH) and liver cirrhosis (LC). We have reported the possibility of GPC3-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) serving as a marker for the early diagnosis of imaging invisible HCC. In this study, to identify new early diagnostic biomarker of imaging invisible HCC, we analyzed plasma of healthy donors and patients with CH, LC and HCC using surface-enhanced laser desorption-ionaization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF-MS). The intensities of four peaks were significantly increased in HCC patients compared with healthy donors. Two of these four peaks were significantly higher in CH and LC patients with GPC3-specific CTLs than in those without. One peak (11.7 kDa) was predicted to be beta2-microglobulin (beta2-MG) by molecular mass. There was a correlation between concentration of beta2-MG by latex agglutination immunoassay in plasma and peak intensity using SELDI-TOF-MS. The 11.7 kDa protein was fractionated by gel filtration and was identified as beta2-MG by Western blot analysis. These results suggest that the level of beta2-MG in plasma from patients with CH and LC could be a useful marker for the early diagnosis of imaging invisible HCC, however further investigation is needed.


We present an approximation algorithm for the analysis of large stochastic models. The fixed point iteration approach uses different approximate aggregations of the state space of a model. The stationary state probabilities of these aggregated models are calculated to derive refined aggregations which are used for the correction of the approximate aggregations. The presented method is then extended to benefit from components of higher level model descriptions by defining pairwise overlapping aggregations of the state space of a model. This construction of the aggregated models makes the automatic generation of appropriate aggregations possible, such that the interactions of the submodels are taken into consideration. Together with a well known aggregation formula and new and simple correction formulas the method is easy to implement. The good accuracy of the presented algorithm is shown by means of large examples and the results are compared with the results derived by simulation.


We investigate properties of oscillatory dissipative solitons (DSs) in a cubic complex Ginzburg-Landau equation stabilized by nonlinear gradient terms. As a main result we find a transition to dissipative solitons with spatiotemporal disorder as a function of the diffusion coefficient. This transition proceeds via quasiperiodicity and shows incommensurate satellites next to the fundamental frequency and its harmonics indicating a possible route to localized spatiotemporal chaos. The transition back to oscillatory DSs follows a similar scenario.


Acute rejection (AR) is an important complication that can occur after lung transplantation and constitutes a risk factor for bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome, which is characterised by a neutrophilic airway inflammation. The specific aim of this study was to investigate the role of interleukin (IL)-17, which promotes chemotaxis of neutrophils by inducing IL-8 production, in AR. Cell differentials, mRNA and protein levels were quantified in bronchoalveolar lavages (BALs) taken from patients at 28 and 90 days after lung transplantation. The patient's rejection status was assessed by transbronchial biopsy. An AR was found in nine out of the 26 patients examined, 28 days after transplantation. The number of BAL neutrophils and lymphocytes were increased in these patients. IL-17 mRNA and protein levels in the BAL were increased in patients with AR. Analysis of BAL obtained at day 90 after transplantation, demonstrated that the increase in IL-17 had disappeared, whereas the increase in neutrophils and lymphocytes persisted. These data showed that interleukin-17 is temporarily upregulated in bronchoalveolar lavage during acute rejection. The number of lymphocytes and neutrophils are increased in bronchoalveolar lavage during acute rejection and may persist up to 2 months after acute rejection. These findings suggest that interleukin-17 is important in the pathophysiology of acute lung rejection.


Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite imagery is often used to discriminate ice types and identify glacial ice hazards to marine operations. This 'data-mining' study examined 123 polarimetric SAR variables in 70 RADARSAT-2 images to assess their utility in separating ice islands (large tabular icebergs) from other ocean covers. Difference of means tests identified five SAR variables to separate each ocean cover. Further SAR variables were found using forward-selection in Redundancy Analysis (RDA). RDA also identified incidence angle, air temperature and wind speed as primary confounding factors for all assessed ocean covers. Support Vector Machine classification using five SAR variables was used to develop an ocean cover classification model. This technique competently distinguished open water, first- and multi-year ice, but could not discriminate ice islands. The selected SAR variables, many not previously investigated, warrant further study and the RDA approach showed promise to guide future development of remote sensing classifiers.


Increased proinsulin secretion, which characterizes type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance, may be due to an intrinsic, primitive defect in proinsulin processing or be secondary to increased demand on β-cells (hyperinsulinemia secondary to insulin resistance). An alternative way to investigate the relation between relative hyperproinsulinemia and increased secretory demand is to study the dynamic changes in the proinsulin-to-insulin ratio after partial pancreatectomy, a model of acute increased β-cell workload on the remaining pancreas. To pursue this aim, patients without diabetes, scheduled for partial pancreatectomy, underwent 4-h mixed-meal tests and hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamps before and after surgery. After acute β-cell mass reduction, no changes were observed in the fasting proinsulin-to-insulin ratio, whereas the fold change in the proinsulin-to-insulin ratio significantly increased over time after the meal. Further, our data demonstrate that whole-body insulin resistance is associated with underlying defects in proinsulin secretion, which become detectable only in the presence of increased insulin secretion demand.


The development objective of the Regional Potable Water Supply Systems Project for Morocco is: is to supply potable water to the rural populations of a large number of douars and villages in the province of Errachidia. In general, efforts will be made to place the pipes in public rights of way as much as possible, which requires occupation only temporarily. No involuntary displacement of the populations is anticipated and compensation will be provided for any damage caused during the work. The results of the analysis of the impacts of the project's activities confirm the absence of any critical and irreversible negative impacts. The project's impacts are considered to be minimal, localized and manageable. No mitigating measures other than compensation for any damage that occurs while the work is being performed.


Understanding a business organisation is a primary activity that is required for deriving service-oriented systems that assist in carrying out the business activities of an organisation. Business IT alignment is one of the hot topics that concerns with aligning business needs and system needs in order to keep a business organisation competitive in a market. One example in this area is the BPAOntoSOA framework that aligned business process architecture and the service-oriented model of computing. The BPAOntoSOA framework is a semantically enriched framework for deriving service oriented architecture candidate software services from a Riva-based business process architecture. The BPAOntoSOA framework was recently proposed in order to align the candidate software services to the business processes presented in a Riva business process architecture. The activities of the BPAOntoSOA framework are structured into two-semantic-based layers that are formed in a top-down manner. The top layer, the BPAOnt ontology instantiation layer, concerned with conceptualising the Riva business process architecture and the associated business process models. The bottom layer, which is the software service identification layer, concerned with the semantic identification of the service-oriented architecture candidate software services and their associated capabilities. In this layer, RPA clusters were used to describe the derived candidate software service. Ontologies were used in order to support addressing the semantic representation. However, the BPAOntoSOA framework has two limitations. First, the derived candidate software services are identified without considering the business goals. Second, the desired quality of service requirements that constrain the functionality of the software services are absent. This research is concerned with resolving these two limitations within the BPAOntoSOA framework.

In this research, the original BPAOntoSOA framework has been extended into the GQ-BPAOntoSOA framework. A new semantic-based layer has been added into the two original layers. The new layer is concerned with conceptualising the goal- and quality- oriented models in order to address their absence in the original BPAOntoSOA framework. The new layer is called the GQOnt ontology instantiation layer. This extension has highlighted the need for aligning the models within the original BPAOnt intonation layer with the ones in the new layer. This is because the BPAOnt was the base for the identification of the candidate software services and capabilities. Therefore, a novel alignment approach has been proposed in order to address this need. Also, the original service identification approach is refined in order to adapt with the integration of goals and quality requirements.

The GQ-BPAOntoSOA framework, which is a goal-based and quality-linked extended BPAOntoSOA framework, has been evaluated using the Cancer Care Registration process. This is the same case study used in the evaluation of the BPAOntoSOA framework. And this is required in order to investigate the implication of integrating goals and quality requirements into the pre-existing BPAOntoSOA framework-driven candidate software services. This has shown that: (1) the GQOnt ontology does not only contribute to the extension of the BPAOntoSOA framework, yet it also contributes to providing a semantic representation of a business strategy view for an organisation. The GQOnt ontology acts as an independent repository of knowledge in order to have an early agreement between stakeholders with regard to business goals and quality requirements. The semantic representation could be reused for different purposes with respect to the needs. (2) the alignment approach has bridged the gap between goal-oriented models and Riva-based business process architectures. (3) the Riva business process architecture modelling method and business process models have been enriched with the integration of goals and quality requirements in order to provide a rich representation of business process architecture and process models that reflect an important information for the given organisation. (4) The service identification approach used in the original BPAOntoSOA framework has been enriched with goals and quality requirements. This has affected the identification of candidate software services (clusters) and their capabilities. Also, the derived candidate software services have conformed to service-oriented architecture principles. Accordingly, This research has bridged the gap between the BPAOntoSOA framework and the business goals and quality requirements. This is anticipated to lead to highly consistent, correct and complete software service specifications.


Recently a new method, SEnsing of Phage-Triggered Ion Cascade (SEPTIC) was proposed for the rapid detection and identification of bacteria via the electrical field caused by the stochastic emission of ions during phage infection. In this Letter, we present linear network theoretical considerations about the detection limits of the method. The considerations are based on our published data of the E. coli detection experiments and on the assumption of a linear response between the number of bacteria and the measured power density spectrum of the fluctuation-signal. Some practical limits of the detectability of the present agents with possible noise measurement arrangements are discussed in this paper. The calculations indicate that the detection and identification of a single bacterium can be achieved with natural (wild) phages with reasonable efforts within a time window of 10 minutes.


Variability is a characteristic feature of young stellar objects (YSOs) and could contribute to the large scatter observed in Hertzsprung–Russell (HR) diagrams for star-forming regions. For typical YSOs, however, the long-term effects of variability are poorly constrained. Here we use archived near-infrared photometry from Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), UKIDSS and DENIS to investigate the long-term variability of high-confidence members of the four star-forming regions ρ-Oph, ONC, IC348 and NGC 1333. The total sample comprises more than 600 objects, from which ∼ 320 are considered to have a disc. The data set covers time-scales up to 8 yr. About half of the YSOs are variable on a 2σ level, with median amplitudes of 5–20 per cent. The fraction of highly variable objects with amplitudes > 0.5 mag in at least two near-infrared bands is very low – 2 per cent for the entire sample and 3 per cent for objects with discs. These sources with strong variability are mostly objects with discs and are prime targets for follow-up studies. A transition disc candidate in IC348 is found to have strong K-band variations, likely originating in the disc. The variability amplitudes are largest in NGC 1333, presumably because it is the youngest sample of YSOs. The frequency of highly variable objects also increases with the time window of the observations (from weeks to years). These results have three implications. (1) When deriving luminosities for YSOs from near-infrared magnitudes, the typical error introduced by variability is in the range of 5–20 per cent and depends on disc fraction and possibly age. (2) Variability is a negligible contribution to the scatter in HR diagrams of star-forming regions (except for a small number of extreme objects), if luminosities are derived from near-infrared magnitudes. (3) Accretion outbursts with an increase in mass accretion rate by several orders of magnitudes, as required in scenarios for episodic accretion, occur with a duty cycle of >2000–2500 yr in the Class II phase.


OBJECTIVE
To study trends in injury mortality for low- and high-risk young children.

DESIGN AND METHODS
For Tennessee children 0 to 4 years of age, we used birth certificates to obtain data on maternal education, age, and parity; these risk factors were used to classify children into low- and high-risk groups. The outcome was death from injury, as determined from linked death certificates. Between 1978 and 1995, injury mortality rates were calculated for six 3-year periods for low- and high-risk children.

RESULTS
There were 1.5 million children 0 to 4 years of age who contributed 4.9 million child-years. The high-risk group contributed 28% of all child-years. There were 673 injury deaths in the high-risk group, 48.9 deaths per 100,000 child-years, and 586 deaths in the low-risk group, 16.8 deaths per 100,000 child-years. The injury mortality rate for low-risk children decreased from 20.7 to 15.7 per 100,000 child-years between the 1978-1980 and 1981-1983 periods; thereafter it remained relatively stable. For high-risk children, the injury mortality rate decreased from 50.9 to 43.5 per 100,000 between the 1978-1980 and 1981-1983 periods, remained mostly unchanged through 1992, and then increased sharply in the 1993-1995 period to 64.1 per 100,000 child-years. The disparity between high- and low-risk children widened from 29.3 (95% confidence interval, 25.1-33.5) excess deaths per 100,000 for 1978 through 1991 to 46.9 (95% confidence interval, 35.9-57.9) in 1993 through 1995.

CONCLUSIONS
In Tennessee, maternal education, age, and parity consistently identified a population of children at increased risk of injury mortality. For these high-risk children, there has been no substantial reduction in injury mortality in high-risk young children during the last 18 years.


INTRODUCTORY Weed and McKibben1and others2have shown that the administration of hypertonic salt solutions in the cat causes a marked and prolonged fall in cerebrospinal fluid pressure. By an ingenious method they were further able to show that with this fall in pressure a considerable amount of subarachnoid fluid was dislocated into the nervous system; that the fluid "passed along the perivasculars into the substance of the nervous system, reaching the interfibrous spaces in the white matter and the pericellular spaces in the gray." The method leading to these conclusions consisted in allowing a few cubic centimeters of iron-ammonium citrate and sodium ferrocyanid to run into the subarachnoid space as the cerebrospinal fluid pressure (after intravenous injection of hypertonic salt solution) reached zero or was rapidly falling; then fixation of the central nervous system in liquor formaldehyd acidified with 5 per cent. hydrochloric acid precipitated Prussian blue (readily demonstrable


Precise control of the size, composition, and assembly process of each component is expected to play a key role in the construction of integrated functional nanostructures. Herein we report a unique sacrificial template method for the fabrication of noble metal@silica hollow microspheres with noble metal (Au, Pt, and Pd) nanoparticles uniformly immobilized on the inner surfaces of silica hollow microspheres. A polystyrene microsphere as a sacrificial template is used to play dual roles, creating a cavity inside the silica microsphere and introducing noble metal nanoparticles into the silica microsphere. Distinct from the reported sacrificial template methods, this method takes advantage of a thermodynamic effect to easily deposit the noble metal nanoparticles with different sizes and compositions onto the template microspheres. In addition, taking Au@silica hollow microspheres for example, they exhibit excellent catalytic activity and recyclability for the reduction of p-nitrophenol (4-NP) by NaBH4.


Vascular calcification is very common in end-stage renal disease, especially in hemodialysis patients. Vascular calcification is associated with poor prognosis in hemodialysis patients. The transformation of vascular smooth muscle cells into osteoblast-like cells seems to be a key element in the pathogenesis of vascular calcification. In addition to traditional risk factors including hypertension and dyslipidemia, hemodialysis patients possess a number of non-traditional cardiovascular risk factors, which may be associated with the pathogenesis of vascular calcification, such as duration of dialysis and imbalance of mineral metabolism. The severity of vascular calcification can be assessed with computed tomography (CT), but a simple technique is required as a routine practice. In an attempt to evaluate the extent of vascular calcification, we have proposed a simple non-invasive technique for estimating aortic arch calcification (AoAC) in hemodialysis patients. The present review summarizes the following aspects: (i) a method of estimating AoAC and the correlation between AoAC score estimated by chest X-ray and AoAC volume evaluated by multi-detector CT as a gold standard, (ii) relation of the presence of AoAC to the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, and (iii) Kaplan-Meier analysis in terms of cardiovascular mortality in patients with AoAC compared to those without AoAC. We suggest that screening patients undergoing dialysis for the presence of AoAC is a cost-effective, efficient way to identify those patients at the highest risk of cardiovascular events and will allow for the treatment strategies to prevent vascular calcification.


WTe2 has attracted a great deal of attention because it exhibits extremely large and nonsaturating magnetoresistance. The underlying origin of such a giant magnetoresistance is still under debate. Utilizing laser-based angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy with high energy and momentum resolutions, we reveal the complete electronic structure of WTe2. This makes it possible to determine accurately the electron and hole concentrations and their temperature dependence. We find that, with increasing the temperature, the overall electron concentration increases while the total hole concentration decreases. It indicates that the electron-hole compensation, if it exists, can only occur in a narrow temperature range, and in most of the temperature range there is an electron-hole imbalance. Our results are not consistent with the perfect electron-hole compensation picture that is commonly considered to be the cause of the unusual magnetoresistance in WTe2. We identified a flat band near the Brillouin zone center that is close to the Fermi level and exhibits a pronounced temperature dependence. Such a flat band can play an important role in dictating the transport properties of WTe2. Our results provide new insight on understanding the origin of the unusual magnetoresistance in WTe2.


Mitochondria from nitrogen-fixing soybean nodules had previously been found to display very low rates of cyanideinsensitive O2 consumption and to contain little protein immunoreactive with alternative oxidase (AOX) antibodies (A. Kearns et al. 1992, Plant Physiology 99, pp. 712‐717). Following the recent identification of novel regulatory mechanisms for AOX, we have re-investigated AOX activity in nodule mitochondria. When AOX is fully activated by adding pyruvate and a reductant, significant AOX activity can be measured in nodule mitochondria when substrates that cause the ubiquinone (Q) pool to become > 90% reduced are provided. These nodule mitochondria contain ∪10% of the immunoreactive protein observed in soybean root or cotyledon mitochondria. Furthermore, transcripts from all three members of the soybean AOX multigene family were significantly less abundant in total RNA from nodules than from other tissues. The ratio of transcripts from the three AOX genes varied between the outer cortex and the inner infected region of the nodule. Measurements of Q redox state (Qr/Qt) versus O2 consumption showed that much higher levels of Q reduction were required for AOX to be active in mitochondria from nodules than in mitochondria from roots and cotyledons, and that root and nodule mitochondria were more dependent on added pyruvate for maximum AOX activity. Kinetic modelling suggests that these differences were simply the result of differences in the relative amount of active AOX protein, rather than differences in Q content or the AOX isoform expressed, in the different tissues.


We investigate the melting transition of the solids interacting through a simple pairwise potential using conventional and Wang-Landau Monte Carlo simulation. In the simulations, the atomic displacement is discretized for describing the atomic vibration and each atom is confined within its Voronoi polyhedron. The melting point can be uniquely determined by Wang-Landau approach while the temperature hysteresis inevitably appears in the conventional method. The obtained results show typical feature of first-order transition which is the discontinuous change in the internal energy. We discuss the relation between the limit of superheated state and intrinsic instability of the system through the comparison with two results.


Nineteen
strains of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium isolated from 10 of 75 (13·3%)
tenderloin beef samples were examined for resistance to selected antibiotics, presence
of plasmids, and genetic diversity by random amplification of polymorphic DNA
analysis. All strains showed multiple resistant to the antibiotics tested. Multiple
antibiotic indexing of the vancomycin-resistant E. faecium strains showed that all (100%)
originated from high risk contamination environments where antibiotics were often
used. Plasmids ranging in size from 1·5 to 36 megadalton were detected in 15 of 19 (79%)
strains. Thus, three plasmid profiles and eight antibiotypes were observed among the
E. faecium strains. A high degree of polymorphism was obtained by combining
the results of the two primers used; with the 19 E. faecium strains being differentiated
into 19 RAPD-types. These preliminary results suggest that RAPD-PCR has
application for epidemiologic studies and that resistance patterns and plasmid profiling
could be used as an adjunct to RAPD for the typing of E. faecium in the study
area.


Aida Chehrehgosha's award-winning photography series To Mom, Dad and My Two Brothers (2008) in which the artist controversially stages the death of her abusive mother and father is examined in this essay as exemplifying a form of screen memories — a conscious psychodynamic strategy, introduced by Sigmund Freud, employed here to both expose and heal traumatic experiences. Challenging the dominant views in trauma theory and psychoanalysis regarding the role of visuality vis-à-vis narrativization, I claim that in Chehrehgosha's series the visual works both to indicate the trauma as well as to point to its overdetermined, complex nature. Moreover, the photographs are revealed to be palimpsestic and hybrid in their implicit photographic gaze, blurring the line between scientific and aesthetic uses of photography, legal and artistic discourses, fundamentally questioning the experience of being a victim and a criminal. As such, the artwork is understood as a unique and complex photographic way to represent and address painful experiences and mixed affects — a palimpsestic approach to screening trauma.


The nucleoside transport system (NTS), an integral part of the adenosine inactivation mechanism, is physiologically significant in adenosine-mediated autoregulation of cardiovascular function. Radioreceptor approaches have been employed in the characterization of nucleoside transporters as potential targets in the therapy of cardiovascular diseases. Unanswered questions that are being addressed relate to their pharmacological regulation and their involvement in the pathogenesis of disease states. A brief overview of the characterization of nucleoside transporters in the cardiovascular system is presented and discussed in terms of their relevance to cardiovascular function.


In this work, our aim is to identify whether the choice of virtualization strategy influences the performance of simulations in robotics. Performance is quantified in the error between a reference trajectory and the actual trajectory for the ball moving along the surface of a smooth plate. The two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is used to assess significance of variations in performance under the different experimental settings. Our results show that the selection of virtualization technology does have a significant effect on simulation, and moreover this effect can be amplified by the use of some operating systems. While these results are a strong cause for caution, they also provide reason for optimism for those considering 'repeatable robotics research' using virtualization.


Despite the current expansion of interest in soundscapes, the roles and application of the concept, vis-a-vis that of environmental noise management, have not been adequately articulated. Soundscapes and environmental noise management are complementary, not competing, approaches with respect to the study and management of the outdoor acoustic environment. Their complementarity is best demonstrated by focusing on fundamental distinctions between them. This paper introduces the notion of the acoustic environment as a resource to be managed for different beneficial uses and for diversity, and with a focus on sounds of human preference. It provides the opportunity for a more nuanced understanding of human response to the acoustic environment. By contrast, environmental noise management focuses on sound as a waste, and on reducing the extent and intensity of its adverse effects on people. Soundscape design, planning and management are a useful augmentation to environmental noise management approaches, potentially expanding the scope of application of the tools of acoustic specialists. The two fields require quite different approaches to measurement


Introduction: Gastrointestinal endometriosis is an uncommon form of extragenital endometriosis. The ileum and appendix are the most affected sites following the rectosigmoid region.Case Report: Clinicopathological findings, diagnostic approaches, and therapeutic outcomes of two intestinal endometriosis patients who presented with acute abdomen findings were reviewed.Conclusion: Although intestinal endometriosis is often difficult to diagnose using imaging methods, cyclic symptomatology and a history of obstetric/gynecologic surgery should alert clinicians to consider this diagnosis. Surgery seems to be the best treatment option and mainly depends on the affected site and clinical presentation


We have investigated the absorption spectra in ultra small diameter single walled boron nanotubes for parallel and perpendicular polarized light as well as unpolarized light. In this paper we have studied absorption spectra for armchair (3,3),zigzag (5,0) and chiral (4,2) boron nanotubes containing 12, 20 and 56 atoms respectively. It is observed that absorption is highest for armchair followed by zigzag and chiral nanotubes. It is also found that absorption is higher for (3,3) and (5,0) nanotubes for perpendicular polarized light as compared to parallel polarized light, whereas chiral nanotube shows higher and wide range of absorption for parallel polarized light instead of perpendicular polarized light. We have compared our results with SWCNT and SWBNNT of same chiral vectors.


All Spin Logic (ASL) employs multiple nano-magnets interacting through spin-torque using metallic interconnect. ASL gates, being magneto-metallic, can operate at ultra low terminal voltage of few millivolts, and hence can be exploited for low power computation. Since, nano-magnets can preserve their state upon withdrawal of supply voltage, ASL can be pipelined for higher performance, without insertion of extra latches. However, pipelining requires the use of clocked CMOS transistors, which significantly increase the required supply voltage. In this work we analyse the design of an 8-bit, pipelined ASL multiplier, integrated with CMOS clocking circuitry. We propose a design scheme for 3-D ASL, which involves stacking of multiple ASL layers that are clocked using the same CMOS transistors. Stacking of N ASL layers using the proposed scheme can enhance the power saving as well as area density by factor of N. The proposed design scheme for magneto-metallic computational blocks can achieve more than two order of magnitude higher density and 10x lower power consumption as compared to 15nm CMOS design.


Multiple myeloma (MM) is a clonal plasma cell malignancy that remains incurable to date. Thus, the aims of this study were to evaluate the involvement of the NF‐κB and PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathways in the cytotoxicity of stypoldione, an o‐quinone isolated from the brown algae Stypopodium zonale, in MM cells (MM1.S). The cytotoxic effect was evaluated in MM1.S cells and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) by MTT assay. The stypoldione reduced the cell viability of MM1.S cells in a concentration and time‐dependent manner (IC50 in MM.1S from 2.55 to 5.38 μM). However, it was also cytotoxic to PBMCs, but at a lower range. Additionally, no significant hemolysis was observed even at concentration up to 10 times the IC50. Apoptotic cell death was confirmed by cell morphology and Annexin V‐FITC assay. Stypoldione induced intrinsic and extrinsic apoptosis by increasing FasR expression and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, inverting the Bax/Bcl‐2 ratio, and inducing ΔΨm loss, which resulted in AIF release and caspase‐3 activation. It also increased Ki‐67 and survivin expression and inhibited the NF‐κB and PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathways. These results suggest that stypoldione is a good candidate for the development of new drugs for MM treatment.


As a new concept, cloud computing has attracted the IT enterprise attention especially the e-commerce (EC) enterprise. At present, there is a great problem of environmental costs during the enterprises apply the ecommerce, but with the coming of cloud computing, all of the problem will be solved. Therefore, this paper will introduce a proposed e-commerce application framework based on the concepts, the origins and development trend of cloud computing which copes with the problem of ecommerce and the storage of resources. A proposed framework allows enterprises to lower costs through the effective implementation of EC activities, and solves the problem of enterprises which cannot develop e-commerce activities due to lack of resources.


Clinical Image: A 57-year-old female presented to the emergency department with a two-day history of left lower quadrant abdominal pain. Vital signs and results of a complete blood count and basic metabolic panel were unremarkable. Abdominal exam was significant for localized left lower quadrant peritonitis. Computed tomography of the abdomen and pelvis showed diffuse fatty infiltration and mild peritoneal thickening in the left abdomen suggestive of omental infarct/fat necrosis (Figure 1). Patient was treated conservatively using NSAIDS with no success. Laparoscopy revealed large infarcted epiploic appendage adhered to the anterior abdominal wall along with the greater omentum (Figure 2). After the epiploic appendage was separated from the anterior abdominal wall and greater omentum, torsion of its vascular pedicle was seen (Figure 3). The vasculature was divided with laparoscopic electrocautery device and the specimen was removed from the abdomen (Figure 4). Her pain improved immediately following the surgery. She was discharged home the next day


Presentation of Dr. Grover Whitehurst, IES, U.S. Department of Education, at the Mar. 16, 2004, Science Summit in Washington, DC.


BACKGROUND
Deliberate self-poisoning is a big health problem. We wanted to study if there had been changes in drug use, morbidity and mortality in this group over the last 25 years in our hospital's catchment area.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
In this study, 924 patients admitted to our hospital after deliberate self-poisoning in 1978, 1987 and 2002 were studied prospectively.

RESULTS
From 1978 to 1987, there was a significant increase in the incidence of self-poisoning followed by a decline from 1987 to 2002 among both men and women. The age distribution remained the same. Benzodiazepines were the most commonly used drugs during the whole period (20% of patients in 1978, 39% in 1987, and 30% in 2002). There has been a significant reduction in the use of acetylsalicylic acid, tricyclic antidepressants and a significant increase in paracetamol and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor poisonings. The use of gastric lavage and activated charcoal declined. The main antidote in 1978 was physostigmine, in 1987 and 2002 n-acetyl cysteine. During the whole period, complications (usually minor) were recorded in approximately 10% of cases. In 1978, mortality was 1.3%, in 1987 0.9%; no patient died in 2002.

INTERPRETATION
The incidence of deliberate self-poisoning has fallen over the last 25 years. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors have to a large extent replaced tricyclic antidepressants and paracetamol has replaced acetylsalicylic acid.


The emergence of digital platforms shifts the locus of innovation from firms to ecosystems. This shift deprives product-developing firms of established control mechanisms and calls for new alternatives. Existing literature argues that platform owners have to empower ecosystems, while respecting the autonomy of members. This point to a contradiction; platform owners and third-party developers are interdependent, yet, at the same time, fundamentally detached. Contemporary research suggests that we may address this contradiction through the concept of boundary resources. Serving as the interface for arm's length relationships, boundary resources are shaped in the interplay between platform owners and application developer. However, we have found that they are also formed in a continuous negotiation with existing firm assets. Therefore, in this research we ask how product-developing firms transform internal resources into platform boundary resources. We conducted a case study of a digital platform initiative at Volvo Group, a global truck manufacturer. Drawing on the concept of tuning, we studied Volvo's practices in shaping boundary resources within and across multiple organizational and technological contexts. We found that resource transformation may leave firms in limbo; exposing an asset as a platform boundary resource tends to destroy its value as an internal organizational resource.


Vehicles will exchange much information in the future in order to efficiently maintain their inner model of the environment. Before they can belief received pieces of information, they must evaluate their reliability. Trust is a mechanism to estimate this reliability based on the sender. As cars often drive the same route, they meet each other again and again. They can establish friendship-like relations and thus are embedded in a social structure. A trust model depends on this social structure. For this reason, we simulate the driving pattern of a small town. Within this simulation, all cars are equipped with a trust model that continuously monitors the experiences made with others. The developed model focuses on direct experiences of the individual and not on a system-wide reputation which would depend on a central unit. It continuously evaluates the performance and reputation of other cars and includes a feedback loop to faster adapt to changes in the other's behaviour. To make a decision out of the collected data, the model uses the capacity of the binary error and erasure channel from information theory. This capacity provides a better decision criterion than the traditional expectation value. The proposed trust model is an individual-level model; nonetheless it can be connected to a system-wide reputation mechanism.


the 1st trimester. Group B – the defect was diagnosed in the 2nd trimester. Methods: Monitored period from VII/2006 to VII/2009. Group A: defect diagnosed in the 1st trimester. Due to a positive combined test or finding a structural defect the CVS of the involved foetus was offered. In case of severe choromosomal aberration or defect the transabdominal selective termination (ST) was carried out on a family request. AMC was indicated in the healthy foetus in 16th week of pregnancy. Group B: defect diagnosed in the 2nd trimester. AMC and karyotype were indicated for both foetuses and in the case of severe defect the transabdominal ST was carried out ont the family request. All procedures were performed performed in an outpatient manner. Results: Group A: In 9 cases of double pregnancies an abnormality was diagnosed in 1 foetus. 11.1% was monochorionic twins. Results of the pregnancies – see Table. Group B: In 21 cases of double pregnancies an abnormality was diagnosed in 1 foetus. 23.8% was monochorionic twins. Results of the pregnancies – see Table. Conclusions: Even though the monitored group is limited by an error of small numbers, the risk of a loss of pregnancy after the reduction in the 2nd trimester (9.5%) is in concordance with the data stated in literature. Better results have been reached if the defect was diagnosed in the 1st trimester, then the risk of a pregnancy loss after the selective foeticide has been lower, but not significantly.


We describe three different series of experiments which were undertaken to test our hypothesis that during irradiation of phosphonium-iodonium ylides (1a, 1b) an electrophilic carbene is generated. By opposing the assumed intermediate to monosubstituted alkynes, we observed in the case of electron-rich substituents at the triple bond a domination of a 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of the intermediate with the triple bond to yield furans. In the case of electron poorer substituents, the formation of phosphinolines prevails. A second series of experiments was carried out with mixed ylides in which one phenyl ring at the triarylphosphonium group was replaced by a thienyl group. In this case, we observe only an intramolecular reaction with the thienyl ring to yield the phosphinolines 21-23. In a third test, we replaced in the mixed ylides 1a, 1b the COR group by a CN substituent. This modification leads to phosphinolines only and avoids a 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition.


Introduction: Abdominal hysterectomy is the most common abdominal surgery in women after cesarean. After separating the uterus from the vagina, vaginal cuff can be closed or left open. Despite application of this technique over the years, one still cannot comment on which technique is preferred over another. Present study is the comparison of febrile complications of abdominal hysterectomy (Determined and compared with postoperative fever, wound infection and antibiotics need) in both closed and open vaginal cuff technique. Methods: This double-blind clinical trial was performed in 2005 on 93 patients at the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department in Shodada Hospital on volunteers for abdominal hysterectomy. 45 patients were placed in the control group (closed cuff) and 48 patients in the case control (open cuff). Inclusion criteria included no fever; no immunosuppressive drugs, active cervicitis and vaginitis symptoms. Surgery techniques were similar in the two groups studied except for vaginal cuff repair. After surgery in both groups, variables such as: fever, wound infection, wound dehiscence, need for antibiotics, urinary tract infection, hemoglobin after surgery, need to accommodate injection and bowel obstruction were measured and compared using t-test, Leuven, Chi-square and Fisher's exact test. Results: Two groups were not significantly different for age, diabetes history, preoperative hemoglobin, prophylactic antibiotics administration, type of anesthesia, incision type, duration and extent of surgery (p>0.05). Most of surgery-related causes were abnormal uterine bleeding (37.8) and myoma (33.3), respectively. There was no significant difference in febrile morbidity in two groups. Postoperative pain and need for parenteral analgesics in the control group was significantly lower than the case group (p<0.006). Febrile morbidity was similar in both groups showed no significant difference (p =0.525). Conclusion: Vaginal cuff not healing has no affect on febrile complications, the need for antibiotics and wound complications. Closing the vaginal cuff has shorter duration of surgery and less pain after surgery.