Three new isomeric dipyridoannulenes were synthesized and characterized. These molecules possess differing conjugation pathways between the substituent alkoxy donating groups and the pyridyl acceptor groups. Optical absorption and emission properties of the dipyridoannulenes and their corresponding acyclic precursors were measured and correlated to structural differences and used to evaluate conjugation effectiveness and charge-transfer pathways. Optical properties of protonated dipyridoannulenes were also measured and found to be somewhat insensitive to the degree of protonation. Density functional studies of these systems at the B3LYP/6-31G* level provided insight into their stabilities, polarities, and quinoidal character. An analysis of the HOMO and LUMO molecular orbitals provided further information regarding charge-transfer behavior. These systems are good metal binding candidates, as the pyridine moiety can act as both an electron-acceptor and a site for metal coordination.


Aguzzi, Jacopo... et. al.-- European Multidisciplinary Seafloor Observatory Conference Ocean Observatories Challenges and Progress (EMSO Conference OOCP), Scientific ideas, early results and infrastructure development, 13-15 November 2013, Rome.-- 1 page


Modern dialogue in the semantic context of educational sciences plays an extremely important role as a tool for making science-based decisions as a means of assessing the efficiency of innovations proposed by various authors. However, the practice of modern scientific discussions in pedagogy reveals a lot of problems. Analysis of the research topic literature shows that the core of this problem is the failure to observe the rules of logically correct discourse by the dialogue participants. In the pedagogical dialogues, in particular, there is a simplified application of the logical law of the excluded middle introduced by Aristotle, which does not reflect the rich assortment of the educational field. It has a solid methodological basis in mathematics, in the humanities though (and in pedagogy, in particular), it is often used to analyze phenomena, objects, and scientific facts that go beyond the area of its adequate applicability. It is often used: a) for vague classification forms; b) for insufficiently and accurately defined objects; c) for pairs of events that are not opposite (in terms of probability theory) and mutually exclusive. It results in dialogues participants: a) solving the problems of choosing conceptual foundations and practical decisions for implementation in education incorrectly; b) coming to rigid, rigorous conclusions; c) unjustifiably abandoning many educational traditions, replacing them with insufficiently verified innovations. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the participants in pedagogical dialogues lack mastery of stylistic resources, the use of which allows the inceptors of pedagogical ideas to achieve an adequate understanding of their inferences and conclusions made by other participants. These circumstances, supported by the provisions of the European researchers of education, determine the relevance of the chosen topic. The purpose of this article is: a) to find ways to conduct a logically correct pedagogical dialogue that actively uses the Aristotelian law of the excluded middle (both in a constructive format and in terms of prohibition criteria); b) to find stylistic resources of such a dialogue, combining the scientific rigor of the humanitarian logical form and stylistic aesthetic appeal. The results of the conducted research are the conclusions that an effective pedagogical dialogue using the law of the excluded middle is conditioned by: a) replacement of dichotomous, rigid forms in the logic "either – or" with a concomitant format of combination of "both the one and the other at the same time; but neither one nor the other separately"; b) appropriate stylistic tools, including: stylistic gradation, metaphor, oxymoron, and emphatic transposition. As negativity that must be overcome in every possible way, there are the "traps" of pedagogical dialogues that require constructive and prohibiting formats of the excluded middle principle: a) incorrect "play" on a high degree of uncertainty of the original defended premise; b) deliberate scientifically dishonest methods of substantiating their own conclusions, forcing opponents to recognize the correctness and validity of the dichotomous form applied to the phenomena to which it cannot be applied.


Recently, ferromagnetic nanostructures have been prepared by well-controlled methods using self-organization at surfaces. Their magnetic and electronic properties are experimentally in situ studied with newly developed methods. In this article, results on the nanowires along the step edges on vicinal surfaces of nonmagnetic metals and on the regular arrays of nanodots on strain relief surface nanopatterns are reviewed. Both nanowires and nanodots show magnetic hysteresis loops as measured macroscopically by magnetooptical Kerr eŠect. When the magnetic nanostructure is isolated, the hysteresis is caused by the blocking of superparamagnetism at low temperatures. In the case of regular arrays of nanowires and nanodots, a long range magnetic order is established by both the percolation mechanism and the magnetic coupling among them. The microscopic interaction and the magnetic nanodomains have been clariˆed by spin-resolved scanning tunneling microscopy.


ACh and KCl stimulate vasomotor responses that spread rapidly and bidirectionally along arteriole walls, most likely via spread of electric current or Ca2+ through gap junctions. We examined these possibilities with isolated, cannulated, and perfused hamster cheek pouch arterioles (50- to 80-microm resting diameter). After intraluminal loading of 2 microM fluo 3 to measure Ca2+ or 1 microM di-8-ANEPPS to measure membrane potential, photometric techniques were used to selectively measure changes in intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) or membrane potential in endothelial cells. Activation of the endothelium by micropipette application of ACh (10-4 M, 1.0-s pulse) to a short segment of arteriole (100-200 microm) increased endothelial cell [Ca2+]i and caused hyperpolarization at the site of stimulation. This response was followed rapidly by vasodilation of the entire arteriole ( approximately 2-mm length). Change in membrane potential always preceded dilation, both at the site of stimulation and at distant sites along the arteriole. In contrast, an increase in endothelial cell [Ca2+]i was observed only at the application site. Micropipette application of KCl, which can depolarize both smooth muscle and endothelial cells (250 mM, 2.5-s pulse), also caused a rapid, spreading response consisting of depolarization followed by vasoconstriction. With KCl stimulation, in addition to changes in membrane potential, increases in endothelial cell [Ca2+]i were observed at distant sites not directly exposed to KCl. The rapid longitudinal spread of both hyperpolarizing and depolarizing responses support electrical coupling as the mode of signal transmission along the arteriolar length. In addition, the relatively short distance between heterologous cell types enables the superimposed radial Ca2+ signaling between smooth muscle and endothelial cells to modulate vasomotor responses.


Infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis (IHPS) has an incidence of 1–8 per 1000 live births and is inherited as a complex sex-modified multifactorial trait with a striking male preponderance. Syndromic


When searching for land mines using vehicular-mounted sensors, it is important that the ground locations of the detected mines be accurately determined. This is useful for data association when one has multiple looks at a mine by a single sensor or if one uses multiple sensors. It is of ultimate importance for the primary mission, which is to neutralize the detected mines or mark them for avoidance. This paper addresses the use of surveyed landmarks, i.e., fiducials, as well as unsurveyed but visible landmarks within the sensor field of view for improving the geolocation accuracy. Preliminary results show that in fact geolocation accuracy can be improved significantly by using these tools. The method is primarily applicable to combat situations where a road is to be cleared for advancing troops and equipment. This is in contrast to humanitarian demining where one has more time and can approach suspected landmines from different viewpoints.


According to privatization and deregulation of power system, accurate electric load forecasting has come into prominence recently. The new energy market and the smart grid paradigm ask for both better demand side management policies and for more reliable forecasts from single end-users, up to system scale. However, it is complex to predict the electric demand owing to the influencing factors such as climate factors, social activities, and seasonal factors. The methods developed for load forecasting are broadly analyzed in two categories, namely analytical techniques and artificial intelligence techniques. In the literature, commonly used analytical methods are linear regression method, Box-Jenkins method, and nonparametric regression method. The analytical methods work well under normal daily circumstances, but they can't give contenting results while dealing with meteorological, sociological or economical changes, hence they are not updated depending on time. Therefore, artificial intelligence techniques have gained importance in reducing estimation errors. Artificial neural network, support vector machine, and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system are among these artificial intelligence techniques. In this paper, a state-of-the-art review of three artificial intelligence techniques for short-term electric load forecasting is comprehensively presented.


Background: Attention, the processing of one source of information to the exclusion of others, is important for most cognitive processes, including language. Evidence suggests not only that dysfunctional attention mechanisms contribute to language deficits after stroke, but also that orienting attention to a patient's ipsilesional hemispace recruits attention mechanisms in the intact hemisphere and improves language functions in some persons with aphasia. Vonetta M. Dotson is now at the National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD; USA.This research was supported in part by grants from the Brooks Health Foundation, Jacksonville, FL; the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (DC03888); Department of Veterans Affairs Rehabilitation Research and Development Center of Excellence Grant (F2182C); and Department of Veterans Affairs Rehabilitation Research and Development Research Career Scientist Award to BC (B3470S). Aims: The aim of the current research was to offer proof of concept for the strategy of improving picture‐naming performance in fluent aphasia by moving stimuli into the left hemispace. It was hypothesised that repeated orientation of attention to the ipsilesional hemispace during picture naming would lead to improved naming accuracy for participants with fluent aphasia. Methods & Procedures: Three participants with stable fluent aphasia received daily treatment sessions that consisted of naming simple line drawings presented 45 degrees to the left of body midline on a computer monitor. Naming probes were administered before initiation of the treatment protocol to establish a baseline, and before each treatment session to measure change during treatment. The C statistic was used to establish the stability of baseline performance and to determine whether the slope of the treatment phases differed significantly from the slope of the baseline. Outcomes & Results: Two of the three participants showed significant improvement over baseline performance in the percent correct of naming probes. One participant showed no improvement over baseline accuracy. Conclusions: Results suggest that engaging right‐hemisphere attention mechanisms may improve naming accuracy in some people with fluent aphasia. Findings justify further investigation of this treatment in a larger controlled study.


Platelet concentrates are produced in order to treat bleeding disorders. They can be provided by apheresis machines or by pooling of buffy coats from four blood donations. During their manufacturing and storage, morphological alterations of platelets occur which can be demonstrated by transmission electron microscopy. Alterations range from slight and reversible changes, such as formation of small cell protrusions and swelling of the surface-connected open canalicular system, to severe structural changes, where platelets undergo transitions from discoid to ameboid shapes as a consequence of platelet activation. These alterations end in delivery of the contents of platelet granules as well as platelet involution caused by apoptosis and necrosis processes denoted as the platelet release reaction. Hereby, the involvement of the network of the open canalicular system, helping to deliver the contents of platelet granules into the surrounding milieu via pores, is distinctly shown by electron tomography. As a consequence of platelet activation, a delivery of differently sized microparticles takes place which is thought to play an important role in the adverse reactions in some recipients of platelet concentrates. In this article, the formation and delivery of platelet microparticles is illustrated by electron tomography. Above all, the ultrastructural features of platelets and megakaryocytes are discussed in the context of the molecular characteristics of the plasma membrane and organelles including the different granules and the expression of receptors engaged in signaling during platelet activation. Starting from the knowledge of the ultrastructure of resting and activated platelets, a score classification is presented, allowing the evaluation of different activation stages in a reproducible manner. Examples of evaluations of platelet concentrates using electron microscopy are briefly reviewed. In the last part, experiments showing the interaction of platelets with bacteria are presented. Using the tracer ruthenium red, for staining of the plasma membrane and the open canalicular system of platelets as well as the bacterial wall, the ability of platelets to adhere and sequestrate bacteria by formation of small aggregates, but also to incorporate them into compartments of the open canalicular system which are separated from the surrounding milieu, was shown. In conclusion, electron micro‐ scopy is an appropriate tool for the investigation of the quality of platelet concentrates. It can efficiently support results on the functional state of platelets obtained by other methods such as flow cytometry and aggregometry.


Background: Secondary prevention strategies after acute coronary syndrome (ACS) presentation with the use of drug combinations are essential to reduce the recurrence of cardiovascular events. However, lack of drug adherence is known to be common in this population and to be related to treatment failure. To improve drug adherence, we developed the "Mon Coeur, Mon BASIC" video. This online video has been specifically designed to inform patients about their disease and their current medications. Interactivity has been used to increase patient attention, and the video can also be viewed on smartphones and tablets. Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the long-term impact of an informative web-based video on drug adherence in patients admitted for an ACS. Methods: This randomized study was conducted with consecutive patients admitted to University Hospital of Lausanne for ACS. We randomized patients to an intervention group, which had access to the web-based video and a short interview with the pharmacist, and a control group receiving usual care. The primary outcome was the difference in drug adherence, assessed with the Adherence to Refills and Medication Scale (ARMS; 9 multiple-choice questions, scores ranging from 12 for perfect adherence to 48 for lack of adherence), between groups at 1, 3, and 6 months. We assessed the difference in ARMS score between both groups with the Wilcoxon rank sum test. Secondary outcomes were differences in knowledge, readmissions, and emergency room visits between groups and patients' satisfaction with the video. Results: Sixty patients were included at baseline. The median age of the participants was 59 years (IQR 49-69), and 85% (51/60) were male. At 1 month, 51 patients participated in the follow-up, 50 patients participated at 3 months, and 47 patients participated at 6 months. The mean ARMS scores at 1 and 6 months did not differ between the intervention and control groups (13.24 vs 13.15, 13.52 vs 13.68, respectively). At 3 months, this score was significantly lower in the intervention group than in the control group (12.54 vs 13.75; P=.03). We observed significant increases in knowledge from baseline to 1 and 3 months, but not to 6 months, in the intervention group. Readmissions and emergency room visits have been very rare, and the proportion was not different among groups. Patients in the intervention group were highly satisfied with the video. Conclusions: Despite a lower sample size than we expected to reach, we observed that the "Mon Coeur, Mon BASIC" web-based interactive video improved patients' knowledge and seemed to have an impact on drug adherence. These results are encouraging, and the video will be offered to all patients admitted to our hospital with ACS. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03949608; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03949608 J Med Internet Res 2021 | vol. 23 | iss. 8 | e21938 | p. 1 https://www.jmir.org/2021/8/e21938 (page number not for citation purposes) Bruggmann et al JOURNAL OF MEDICAL INTERNET RESEARCH


ABSTRACT Using multiple performance metrics, this study externally validates the Minnesota Screening Tool Assessing Recidivism Risk (MnSTARR) among a sample of 3,985 inmates released from Minnesota prisons in 2014. While the Minnesota Department of Corrections implemented a fully-automated risk assessment (MnSTARR 2.0) in 2016, the original MnSTARR was a manually-scored, gender-specific recidivism risk assessment that predicted multiple types of recidivism – felony, nonviolent, violent, and both first-time and repeat sexual offending (only for males). The results show the MnSTARR achieved adequate predictive performance. The average area under the curve (AUC) was 0.73 for males and 0.77 for females. Nonetheless, the MnSTARR would have achieved better predictive performance had it used an automated scoring process. Further, the findings showed the MnSTARR performed better for Whites than Nonwhites, and the magnitude of this difference would have been minimized using automated scoring. In sum, while the MnSTARR had adequate validity, performance is likely to be improved with automated systems.


AIM
One of the common dental procedures employed these days in patients with irreversible pulpitis is root canal therapy. In retreatment cases, it is necessary for complete removal of obturate gutta-percha (GP) from obturate root canal system. Various methods and techniques are available these days for this purpose. This study was aimed to assess the efficacy of D-RaCe files, ProTaper retreatment files, Mtwo retreatment files, and manual Hedstrom files (H-files) in removing filling materials from the root canals of the endodontically treated teeth.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The present study included comparative evaluation of efficacy of nickel-titanium (NiTi) retreatment instruments and H-files in removing GP and sealer from root canals. All the samples were randomly and broadly divided into four study groups based on the instrumentation technique for removing the root canal fillings. Evaluation of the results was done based on operating time and remaining root canal filling material. Stereomicroscopic evaluation of the samples was done at 8* magnification.

RESULTS
All the results were assessed and analyzed by Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Least quantity of filling material was left by ProTaper retreatment files. When put together in decreasing order, the efficacy of different study groups, in terms of mean time taken for retreatment, was found to be as follows: D-RaCe > ProTaper Retreatment > Mtwo Retreatment > H-file.

CONCLUSION
No single technique can completely remove obturating fillings from the root canals of endodontically treated teeth. However, rotary instruments are better in comparison with hand instruments for removing the GP from obturate root canals.

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE
ProTaper retreatment files and D-RaCe files are recommended over other instrument systems in terms of quality for managing retreatment root canal cases.


Background and Objectives: In nanotechnology, biosynthesis of nanoparticles has gained considerable attention. Development and synthesis of plant based metallic nanoparticles with improved properties and less undesirable effects have many advantages over the conventional methods. In addition to performing their intended function, these phyto-antioxidant functionalized nanoparticles can protect against oxidative damage. Pergularia daemia is a therapeutic plant that has been explored and identified with excellent pharmacological activity, but less reported. In this study, Zinc Oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles were manufactured from Pergularia daemia aqueous extract; the main objective was to evaluate their anticancer and antioxidant effects on the A549 cancer cell line. Materials and Methods: Aqueous leaf extract of Pergularia daemia was prepared, inspired with the nanoparticle and their properties were evaluated by FTIR and SEM. The cell viability and cytotoxicity of ZnO nanoparticles, at various doses, was confirmed by Trypan blue and MTT assay. The antioxidant property of ZnO nanoparticles was investigated by estimating the Reactive Oxygen Species, Lipid Peroxidase and Nitric Oxide estimation and BAX and PARP gene expression by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Results: A decreasing cell viability and increasing cytotoxicity was observed in green synthesized ZnO nanoparticles with increasing dose. Our data confirmed that ZnO nanoparticles enhances the antioxidant activity by scavenging the free radicals. Elevated apoptotic protein BAX with down regulated PARP was observed in green synthesize ZnO nanoparticles treated cells. Conclusion: Based on the above findings green synthesized ZnO nanoparticles with Pergularia daemia are effective against A549 cancer cell lines proving their anti-cancer and antioxidant activity.


Continuous velocity logs may be approximated by a series of zones in which the velocity is a linear function of the depth. The reflection response of a series of transition layers may be calculated from an iterative type formula, developed in this paper, which is well suited to digital computer use. This solution takes into account multiple reflections between layers. The reflection output for any input wave shape may be calculated. In this paper a Gram Charlier series pulse having a spectrum peaked at 40 cps is used throughout to facilitate comparison of results. The dependence of the reflection response of single and double layers on frequency and the reflections for the standard input pulse are illustrated. It is shown that 1. Symmetrical double transition layers give an appreciable reflection output even for a base thickness as low as 10 ft. 2. The upper layers of a multilayer group may influence considerably the reflection character from the lower layers.


Objectives: Mesh reinforcement of anterior colporrhaphy (AC) for cystocele repair has become popular in recent years, with some evidence of reduced recurrence rates. In this case control series, we aim to compare the effect of mesh use on anatomical and functional outcomes, including imaging assessment of prolapse recurrence after AC with and without transobturator mesh augmentation. Methods: Outcomes of 183 patients after anterior vaginal prolapse repair between Jan 1998 and Oct 2008 were analysed. 83 patients had AC, 100 patients AC with transobturator mesh. Patients were assessed post-surgically with a standardised interview, ICS POP-Q clinical examination and 4D translabial ultrasound using GE Kretz Voluson 730 expert and Voluson I system. Results: Potential predictors of recurrence such as age, BMI, vaginal parity and recurrence of prolapse as defined as POPQ ≥ Stage 2 were tested. Only length of follow-up and avulsion injury were significant predictors. Consequently, to match both groups for these two parameters, 49 datasets were removed in a blinded fashion, leaving a total of 67 patients in each group for analysis. Recurrent cystocele ≥ Stage 2 was observed in 31% of mesh patients and 55% in the non-mesh group (OR 0.37 [CI 0.18–0.75] P = 0.005). The rate of recurrence was significantly higher amongst patients with levator avulsion, 36% in the mesh group compared to 78% in the non-mesh group (OR 0.16 [CI 0.04–0.59] P = 0.004). Conclusions: At 4 years follow-up, mesh augmentation was associated with less recurrence of cystocele. This effect was mainly due to reduced recurrence in women with levator avulsion.


Abstract Ablative surgery of mandible often necessitates combined reconstruction of the mandible and the temporomandibular joint. Fibula-free flaps with gap arthroplasty or osseochondral grafts are common procedures in the authors' practice. In search for a better reconstructive option free fibula flap is used together with a metatarsal bone flap for the vascular reconstruction of the mandibular body and the condyle at the same time. The 2 osseous-free flaps have been fused and used as a combined flow through double-free flap. The literature has been reviewed for other reconstructive options, but no alternatives providing autologous reconstruction of both the mandible and the condyle with vascular tissue have been found. This is a preliminary report of this new technique which the authors humbly think is very promising.


Polylactic acid is one of the most used materials in Additive Manufacturing technologies, especially in Fused Filament Fabrication. Although its tensile strength is relatively good in comparison with other materials in the same price category, it is possible to increase it after printing by annealing. One of the most important parameters for annealing is the annealing temperature. This article deals with experimental testing of the influence of annealing temperature on tensile strength and change of dimensions of polylactic acid samples produced by Fused Filament Fabrication. Three different variations of polylactic acid material were used for testing. The samples were annealed at 60, 80, 100, 120, 140 and 160 °C for 30 minutes and then after gradual cooling in air, they were remeasured to determine their deformation. All the annealed samples and a set of nonannealed samples were subjected to a tensile test. Compared to the nonannealed samples, all annealed ones changed their tensile strength depending on the annealed temperature. Also, a dependence of the annealing temperature on the dimension change was found.


The current clinical approach for treating autoimmune diseases is to blunt all immune responses as a means of preventing autoimmune pathology. A major side effect of this strategy is depressed beneficial immunity, and increased rates of infections and tumors. Here we report the novel application of etoposide, a topoisomerase inhibitor, to treat experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), a model for human multiple sclerosis. The moderate and temporally-limited use of etoposide results in significant reduction and severity of EAE while sparing beneficial naïve and memory immunity. Our approach of eliminating activated encephalogenic effector T cells reduces clinical scores, pathogenic cytokine production, and overall pathology, while dramatically limiting the off-target effects on naïve and memory adaptive immunity. Etoposide-treated mice exhibited ameliorated or no EAE pathology and reduced antigenic spread, yet had normal T cell and T-dependent B cell responses to de novo antigenic challenges, as well as unimpaired memory T cells responses to viral rechallenge. Thus, dosage limiting etoposide therapy can selectively ablate effector T cells and limit pathology in an animal model of autoimmunity, while sparing protective immune responses. This strategy could lead to a broad new paradigm for the treatment of autoimmune diseases with both enhanced efficacy and decreased treatment-associated morbidities.


In the literature concerning the etiology of pedosexual interests, the potential role of early sexual experiences in childhood and adolescence has been discussed. Several studies demonstrated a link between own sexually abusive experiences in childhood and sexual offending later in life which tends to be even stronger for pedosexual offenders. Furthermore, some findings indicate associations between other developmental factors and deviant sexual interests in adulthood. For the present study, sexual biographical data of N = 223 imprisoned men convicted of sexual offenses against children from Austria was analyzed to retrospectively examine whether own sexually abusive experiences and non-abusive forms of early sexual experiences and behaviors are linked to subsequent pedosexual interests and to sexual recidivism. Previous findings concerning the link between own sexually abusive experiences during childhood and subsequent pedosexual interests could partly be replicated. Furthermore, early masturbation behavior characteristics as well as non-abusive prepubescent sexual experiences were linked to indicators of pedosexual interests and also to sexual recidivism. Exclusively pedophilic men showed the strongest accumulation of early sexual experiences and behaviors. Implications of the findings for theory and risk assessment are discussed.


British Gas have been using polyethylene pipe and fittings for gas
distribution since 1969. The medium density, and more recently high density
polyethylene pipes are produced by a simple and well established extrusion
process. Unfortunately the production of fittings, especially large diameter
fittings is not so simple. Traditionally pipe fittings are made from either
injection moulding or by other fabrication techniques which require
subsequent cutting and welding of different parts to produce the finished
article. Recently however the methodology has been developed to facilitate
the production of fittings by rotational moulding. Incorporated into the new
methodology is the ability to produce crosslinked fittings by peroxide
inclusion. Crosslinking of the pipe fittings has a major advantage in that it
produces a substantial improvement in the mechanical properties of the
polymer. Of particular importance is the improvement in stress crack
resistance. Stress cracking is presently the primary mode of failure in
polyethylene pipelines. Cross linking should help to reduce the susceptibility
of the pipeline to failure by this method.
The purpose of this project has been to investigate the crosslinking
process in two rotational moulding grades of polyethylene. In particular a
study has been made of the relationships between various chemical and
physical properties, and of how these change upon material modification.
A series of compression moulded samples containing increasing levels
of peroxide have been produced for both polymers. Characterisation of these
samples was undertaken using such techniques as Differential Thermal
Analysis, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, Gel Permeation
Chromatography, Gel Content and Microscopy. The results have shown that
as peroxide concentration is increased gel content rises sharply before
reaching a maximum value. In contrast to the gel content, the crystallinity of
the samples was shown to decrease. Infrared analysis provided the facility to
monitor the variation in molecule end group concentration with changing
peroxide levels. It was found that increasing the level of peroxide resulted in
a decrease in the concentration of terminal vinyl unsaturation in an inverse
relationship to gel content results. Subsequent gel permeation
chromatography analysis demonstrated that the terminal vinyl groups were
being lost in a chain extension mechanism which resulted in an increase in
the molecular weight of the samples.


Abstract Indicators of oral health were recorded in a sample of 200 Formative period (1500 B.C.–A.D. 500) skeletons from archaeological sites located in the Lower Azapa Valley of northwest Chile. This period represents a major shift in subsistence strategies in the Atacama Desert, as coastal groups adopted agriculture and moved deeper into the valley. Frequencies of caries and antemortem tooth loss were compared between site locations (coast vs. valley) and by archaeological phase (early vs. late) to interpret the degree to which these incipient agriculturalists were reliant on domesticated resources. Overall, frequencies of caries (11.9 percent) and tooth loss (11.6 percent) are somewhat higher than for other prehistoric groups practicing a mixed subsistence strategy. However, residents of the interior valley exhibited significantly more dental decay and tooth loss than those along the coast. Our results identify that although the Formative period residents of the Lower Azapa Valley practiced a mixed subsistence strategy, the degree of reliance on agricultural production differed between the coast and the valley. We propose that these differential patterns in oral health are tied to local investment, adaptive cycles, and niche construction.


This paper describes an effective possibility to describe human behaviour systematically with appropriate accuracy by using Numerically Described Multidimensional Probability Distributions (NDMPD). A tool to handle the large amount of numerical data is provided. NDMPD may be used as a part of a system-wide systematical and modular risk analysis of complex technical systems with a relevant influence on human behaviour (e.g. road traffic). A framework for such analysis is presented. The modularity allows for the enhancement of the analysis on a module by module basis and supports the cooperation of different researcher's groups even from different disciplines. One of the aims of this paper is to establish such cooperation. Keywords – traffic safety, human behaviour, interdisciplinary work, using numerically described multidimensional probability distributions


In the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Kunstkamera, Saint Petersburg), there is an eight-panel screen attributed to Kyŏmjae Chŏng Sŏn (1676-1759), one of the most important artists in the history of Korean art. Chŏng Sŏn was a pioneer of so-called 'true-view' landscapes. Only a few works of the artist are in museum collections outside the Korean peninsula, one of which is the screen in question. Each landscape is signed and bears a seal with the name and pen name of the artist, based on which, presumably, the work was attributed to the artist's brush. However, the attribution of the work raises questions. Based on a comparative analysis of the screen with other correctly attributed work of the artist, this article suggests that the screen is a forgery and is incorrectly attributed to Chŏng Sŏn. Furthermore, not all eight panels of the screen depict the Kŭmgang mountains, as is indicated in the description of the screen presented in the museum.


Saturated fat (SF) intake contributes to the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality. Recently, the protective effects of fruit and vegetable (FV) intake on both CHD and all-cause mortality were documented. However, individuals consuming more FV may be displacing higher-fat foods. Therefore, we investigated the individual and combined effects of FV and SF consumption on total and CHD mortality among 501 initially healthy men in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA). Over a mean 18 y of follow-up, 7-d diet records were taken at 1-7 visits. Cause of death was ascertained from death certificates, hospital records, and autopsy data. After adjustment for age, total energy intake, BMI, smoking, alcohol use, dietary supplements, and physical activity score, FV and SF intakes were individually associated with lower all-cause and CHD mortality (P < 0.05). When both FV and SF were included in the same model, associations of each were attenuated with CHD mortality, and no longer significant for all-cause mortality. Men consuming the combination of > or =5 servings of FV/d and < or =12% energy from SF were 31% less likely to die of any cause (P < 0.05), and 76% less likely to die from CHD (P < 0.001), relative to those consuming < 5 FV and >12% SF. Men consuming either low SF or high FV, but not both, did not have a significantly lower risk of total mortality; but did have 64-67% lower risk of CHD mortality (P < 0.05) relative to those doing neither. These results confirm the protective effects of low SF and high FV intake against CHD mortality. In addition, they extend these findings by demonstrating that the combination of both behaviors is more protective than either alone, suggesting that their beneficial effects are mediated by different mechanisms.


On-chip bus implementations must be bug-free and secure to provide the functionality and performance required by modern system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs. Regardless of the specific topology and protocol, bus behavior is never fully specified, meaning there exist cycles/conditions where some bus signals are irrelevant, and ignored by the verification effort. We highlight the susceptibility of current bus implementations to Hardware Trojans hiding in this partially specified behavior, and present a model for creating a covert Trojan communication channel between SoC components for any bus topology and protocol. By only altering existing bus signals during the period where their behaviors are unspecified, the Trojan channel is very difficult to detect. We give Trojan channel circuitry specifics for AMBA AXI4 and advanced peripheral bus (APB), then create a simple system comprised of several master and slave units connected by an AXI4-Lite interconnect to quantify the overhead of the Trojan channel and illustrate the ability of our Trojans to evade a suite of protocol compliance checking assertions from ARM. We also create an SoC design running a multiuser Linux OS to demonstrate how a Trojan communication channel can allow an unprivileged user access to root-user data. We then outline several detection strategies for this class of Hardware Trojan.


The majority of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients acquire chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa lung infection, resulting in increased mortality and morbidity. The chronic P. aeruginosa lung infection is characterized by bacteria growing in biofilm surrounded by polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs). However, the infection is not eradicated and the inflammatory response leads to gradual degradation of the lung tissue. In CF patients, a Th2‐dominated adaptive immune response with a pronounced antibody response is correlated with poorer outcome. Dendritic cells (DCs) are crucial in bridging the innate immune system with the adaptive immune response. Once activated, the DCs deliver a set of signals to uncommitted T cells that induce development, such as expansion of regulatory T cells and polarization of Th1, Th2 or Th17 subsets. In this study, we characterized DCs in lungs and regional lymph nodes in BALB/c mice infected using intratracheal installation of P. aeruginosa embedded in seaweed alginate in the lungs. A significantly elevated concentration of DCs was detected earlier in the lungs than in the regional lymph nodes. To evaluate whether the chronic P. aeruginosa lung infection leads to activation of DCs, costimulatory molecules CD80 and CD86 were analyzed. During infection, the DCs showed significant elevation of CD80 and CD86 expression in both the lungs and the regional lymph nodes. Interestingly, the percentage of CD86‐positive cells was significantly higher than the percentage of CD80‐positive cells in the lymph nodes. In addition, cytokine production from Lipopolysaccharides (LPS)‐stimulated DCs was analyzed demonstrating elevated production of IL‐6, IL‐10 and IL‐12. However, production of IL‐12 was suppressed earlier than IL‐6 and IL‐10. These results support that DCs are involved in skewing of the Th1/Th2 balance in CF and may be a possible treatment target.


As various aspects of cyber-related policies become a priority for national and international stability, an increasing number of actors attempt to shape this policy area. With the EU expanding its international role in foreign and security policy globally – and gradually becoming a target of malicious cyber operations – it becomes critical to consider whether the European Union can play a more active role in shaping global cyber-related policies to effectively protect its citizens in the digital domain. As this article argues, the answer to this question depends on the concurrence of two major elements: the rapid evolution of the international digital environment and associated modes of global governance; and the institutional and policy processes within the European Union that help to deal with the complexity. This article aims to better understand factors influencing the EU's position within the existing cyber-related regimes and mechanisms deployed by the EU and its member states to shape the policy debates in those venues. It concludes that the EU's role as a global cyber-player is better understood through the prism of the global cyber regime complex and the strategies that the EU pursues within this complex, rather than by merely examining the effectiveness of its actions within individual regimes (e.g. cybercrime, stability, human rights).


Background : Spermatogenesis is a complex and highly organized process of proliferation and differentiation of spermatogonial stem cells. Spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) as a unique stem cell have the potential to self-renewal, differentiation and transmit ge-netic information to the next generation and play a vital role in maintaining fertility. Sertoli cells as the only somatic cells within the seminiferous epithelium play central roles in the formation of niche and balance between self-renewal and differentiation by secrete many growth factors. Given the importance and widespread use of SSCs, par-ticularly in the treatment of infertility, the aim of this study was to create an optimal environment for the proliferation of SSCs. So we decided to study of undifferentiated (ID4) and differentiated (c-Kit) gene expression in SSCs followed by co-culture with Sertoli cells for a one-month. Methods : This experimental study was conducted from November 2013 to December 2014 in Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, on immature NMRI mouse (6-3 days old). Initially, Sertoli cells and SSCs were isolated from neonates mouse testes during the two-step enzymatic digestion characteristics Sertoli cells with vimentin marker and SSCs with promyelocytic leukemia zinc-finger (PLZF) marker were confirmed. Then SSCs were cultured in two groups: co-culture with Sertoli and without co-culture (control). Undifferentiated (ID4) and differentiation (c-Kit) gene expression were evaluated by Real-time PCR tech-nique. Results : Spermatogonial stem cells purity was obtained 66.91% by flow cytometry. The relative expression levels of gene ID4 in co-culture group at the end of each week, compared to the control group showed a significant increase (P<0.05). While the expression of this gene significantly decreased in each group over time (P<0.05). The results of the comparison of the relative expression of c-Kit gene in co-culture group are indicated significant decrease than the control group at the end of each week (P<0.05). In addition, this gene expression was showed significant increase in each group indi-vidually over time (P<0.05) ID4 gene expression showed a significant (P<0.05) increase toward the control group, while in the expression of c-Kit was observed a significant (P<0.05) decrease compared with the control group at the end of each week. Conclusion: According to the results of this study, co-culture with Sertoli cells main-tains SSCs in the prolifration stage for long-term, so can be used to optimize the culture medium at the clinic. Abstract oaded f r t u


Remote diagnosis can be realized using communication network. We have been developed a master-slave type remote medical system for the diagnosis of the shoulder disease such as dialysis related amyloid arthropathy (DRAA) by ultrasonographic images. Proper position, orientation, and contact force between the ultrasound probe and the affected part of the patient should be required to acquire proper diagnostic images in the diagnosis. Safety and manipulability are also required to construct the remote medical system through the communication network. Then, it has impedance control capability for the master and slave manipulators' positions to display contact force and enhance manipulability. And it has Continuous Path control capability for the slave manipulator's orientation to realize the smooth and accurate motion of the ultrasound probe even if it is difficult to transmit control data at high sampling rate through the communication network. The results of the remote diagnostic experiments demonstrated that the healthcare professionals could perform the diagnosis for the real patients through the communication network using the constructed system.


Karstification is a common phenomenon in different parts of Iraq, where large areas are involved, causing severe damages to infrastructures and occasionally life losses. The main Karstified rocks are limestone and gypsum. The latt er is restricted to the Fatha Formation, which covers considerable parts of Iraq, especially in the Al-Jazira vicinity. Whereas, the former is exposed in different formations that are exposed almost every where. Among the involved formations are Euphrates, Anah, Dammam, Ratgah, Pilaspi, Aqra - Bekhme, Qamchuqa… etc. Among Quaternary deposits, the gypcrete is another potential deposits that are highly karstified after being in contact, short ly, by water. The gypcrete also covers considerable parts in Iraq. Beside the economic lost caused due to karstificati on, some death causalities are also recorded. Moreover, in the Western Desert, karstifi cation plays big role in miss leading the stratigraphic position of different horizons within different Jurassic and Cretaceous formations, making them in very complex situation, although they are in horizontal (not folded) position.


This ambitious multi-authored text approaches sleep disorders in medicine from a very practical perspective. The text is divided into three parts, basic aspects of sleep, technical considerations and the third and largest section, clinical aspects of sleep medicine. Part one provides an overview of sleep, including basic mechanisms and neurotransmitters underlying control of sleep. Although REM sleep generators and mechanisms of effector cell activation are well described, the generation of slow wave sleep is relatively neglected in this section and not discussed in detail until chapter 20. All of the chapters in this first section are well illustrated including a section on neural control of breathing. Part two, or the technical section was impressive in that it described and illustrated all of the common abnormalities or technical problems encountered in routine polysomnography and multiple sleep latency studies, including cardiac abnormalities, movement disorders, nocturnal penile tumescence and scoring controversies. This portion of the text would in particular be of assistance to technologists recently introduced to polysomnography. Chapter 11 on the other hand dealt exclusively with ambulatory recording for insomnia and describes in detail the Medilog 9000 series cassette ambulatory monitoring system which the author finds helpful in ruling out periodic movements and apnea in sleep.


Web traffic is growing, and the need for accurate traces of HTTP traffic is therefore also rising, both for operators and researchers, as accurate HTTP traffic traces allow to analyse and characterize the traffic and the clients, and to analyse the performance of the network and the perceived quality of service for the final users. Since most ICN proposals also advocate for pervasive caching, it's imperative to measure the cacheability of traffic to assess the impact and/or the potential benefits of such solutions. This demonstration will show a both a tool to collect HTTP traces that is both fast and accurate and that overcomes the limitations of existing tools, and a set of important statistics that can be computed in post processing, like aggregate/demultiplexed cacheability figures.


Mating success not only depends on genetic quality, but also equally on environmental factors, most prominently food availability. We investigated the interactive effects of nutritional state and body size on mating success and copula duration in yellow dung fly males (Scathophaga stercoraria; Diptera: Scathophagidae) of three body size selection lines in the laboratory in both non-competitive (single) and competitive (group) situations. Adults require protein and lipids from prey to reproduce, as well as sugars as an energy source for reproductive activity. We expected mating success to decrease with time because of sperm depletion (sugar treatment) and ⁄ or energy shortage (water treatment) relative to the control, prey plus sugar treatment. Based on physiological scaling, we also expected large-line males to become depleted either sooner because of their higher energy and sperm demands, or later because of their more efficient energy use. Average mating success indeed declined over a period of 5–7 d (or 5–15 potential copulations per male), but equally for all food treatments and body size classes. Surprisingly, water-fed and small-line males had the highest mating probability in the non-competitive setting, while in the competitive setting large-line males had the highest success. Energy-depleted males showed apparent terminal investment. Small males acquired females more readily but eventually lost them to larger males in the competitive situation. As shown before, copula duration was inversely related to body size and increased with copulation number, independent of food treatment. We conclude that sugar or prey shortage has little effect on mating success in the short term, and does not differentially affect males of different sizes.


In 2006, Yamanaka and co-workers announced a milestone finding that somatic cells can be reprogrammed into a pluripotent, embryonic-like state. These "artificial" pluripotent cells, called "induced pluripotent stem cells" (iPSCs), have a tremendous impact on the stem cell biology field, revolutionizing our view about cellular plasticity and regenerative medicine practice. Human iPSCs hold the potential of solving most of the issues concerning hESCs, especially because embryos are no longer needed and autologous transplantation could overcome the immune barrier. Therefore in the last few years an intensive research activity focused on the characterization of iPSCs in comparison to their natural ESCs counterparts at the functional, morphological and molecular levels. The most significant findings on the molecular characterization of iPSCs are reviewed in chapter 2. A detailed overview is provided for iPSCs analyses at the genomic, epigenomic, transcriptomic and, with particular emphasis, proteomic level. In the context of MS-based proteomics technology, its potential spectrum of applications to further characterize iPSCs and to decipher the reprogramming process are also considered. Indeed, although all these efforts have allowed to reach a general agreement that iPSCs are very similar to ESCs, the reprogramming process is still rather enigmatic. A better understanding of the mechanisms governing reprogramming would ultimately improve its efficiency and clarify the molecular basis of cellular plasticity. An in-depth molecular investigation of the reprogramming process of mouse embryonic fibroblasts (mEFs) into miPSCs is the focus of chapter 3, 4 and 5. In chapter 3, a multi-omics approach to characterize reprogramming at different molecular level is presented. This includes the profiling of mRNA, miRNA, lincRNA, histone marks, 5-methyl cytosine and protein levels. The integration of the proteomics data with all the other molecular layers, such as mRNA and lincRNA is discussed in detail. A comprehensive description of proteome adaptation during reprogramming is provided in chapter 4, where state of the art quantitative MS-based analysis is used to perform an in-depth time course protein profiling of such process. The main results deriving from all these analyses indicate that multiple routes can lead the reprogramming cell to a pluripotent state exist. The main features of these reprogramming cell populations are a marked divergence at the proteome level and the persistence of fibroblast epigenetic memory. One of the best known epigenetic mechanism that cells use to control gene expression and chromatin status is represented by the ensemble of post-translational modification that decorate histones. Further investigations concerning the MS-based study of the epigenetic state in reprogramming cells are provided in chapter 5, which is focused on the quantitative time course profiling of histone H4 PTM states.


SUMMARY: The process of regeneration of Fusarium culmorum protoplasts, obtained by means of strepzyme RA, has been followed. Protoplast regeneration started with the formation of cellular aggregates originating a mass of globular forms which later gave rise to the formation of a pseudomycelial form. Regeneration of protoplasts was formed in three different ways: (a) by means of a chain of yeast-like forms and later originating a germ tube; (b) by direct formation of the germ tube from the protoplast; (c) through a complicated process with the formation of various globular forms and giving rise to the formation of the germ tube at the end. Maximum regeneration, about 80 % of the protoplasts, was found in the presence of 2% (w/v) sucrose (or 1% (w/v) glucose + 1% (w/v) fructose) + 10% (w/v) sorbose + 0·2% agar + the mineral salts of the Czapek medium. No other sugars were able to substitute for sucrose and sorbose. Agar was the best substance for regeneration; gelatin produced an inhibition. Regeneration was greater under acid conditions, alkaline pH values interfering with the phenomenon. The number of nuclei/protoplast varied from 1 to 4, the lack of them in some spherical forms perhaps being the cause of failure to regenerate. No differences were found in the regenerative process as between protoplasts obtained by the use of snail or by microbial lytic enzymes.


Modular multiplication is an important operation in several public key cryptosystems. This paper brings a novel idea based on the idea in the exponentiation computation. In this paper a new algorithm for modular multiplication for public key cryptosystem is presented. This proposed method is based on the following two ideas.(i) The remainder in regard to n can be constructed from the remainder with modulus (2n+1) and the remainder with modulus (2n+2). (ii) It often happens that 2n+1 and 2n+2 can easily be factorized, even if n is a prime number or difficult to be factorized into prime factors. The performance of new algorithm using estimation of the computational complexity is observed, and it is shown that the procedure is much faster than the previous algorithms.


Background: This study was designed to measure the prevalence of chronic gingivitis among 16- year-old public high school students in Khartoum State.Methods: A total of 385 high school students of 16 years of age, from public schools in different geographical locations representing different socioeconomic classes in Khartoum were randomly selected and examined. The variables of the present study had been collected by one examiner using a direct interview questionnaire and all the present teeth were examined at four sites (Mesiobuccal, distobuccal, mesiolingual, distolingual) for the presence of plaque, using the Plaque Index (Loe and Sillness) and Gingival Index (Sillness and Loe).Results: Prevalence of gingivitis was 96.9%, of which 68.6% were of mild form (majority), 27.5% of moderate condition and only 0.8% was of severe grade. The most common form of gingivitis was the generalized form that accounted for 94.5%. The relationship between oral hygiene and degree of gingivitis was assessed after collecting data on study area, gender, socio-economic status, tooth brushing tool used, frequency of brushing per day, direction of tooth-brushing and regularity of dental visits. The adjusted relationship was still significant at the 99% confidence level (p-value 0.000), with a correlation coefficient of 0.704.Conclusions: The study showed significantly higher prevalence of chronic gingivitis among 16-year-old public high school students in Khartoum State. The degree of gingivitis showed statistical significance when correlated with oral hygiene status, socioeconomic status, frequency and horizontal direction of tooth brushing, while it showed insignificance when correlated with gender. Med Phoenix. Vol. 3, Issue. 1, 2018, Page : 1-5


The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility of using synthetic serum substitute (SSS) instead of fetal calf serum (FCS) in maturation medium to stimulate in vitro maturation (IVM), fertilization (IVF) and subsequent development of bovine oocytes. Ovaries were obtained from a local slaughterhouse. Selected oocytes were matured in tissue culture medium 199 (M-199) supplemented with 2 mM glutamine + 0.25 mM Na-pyruvate + 0.5 µg/ml of FSH + 5 µg/ml of LH + 25 µg/ml of gentamycin and 10% FCS or 10% SSS (FCS and SSS groups, respectively) for 22 h. Matured oocytes were fertilized in vitro using frozen bull sperm. Fertilization day was taken as day 0 in the present study. Forty-eight h after IVF, the numbers of 2-4-cell stage embryos were recorded and they were transferred into CR1aa culture medium for in vitro culture until day 8. In addition, blastocyst numbers were recorded on day 8. A total of 255 and 250 oocytes were used for the FCS and SSS groups, respectively. The cleavage rate of the FCS group (73.7%; 188/255) was significantly higher (P < 0.001) than that of the SSS group (30.0%; 75/250). While the blastocyst formation rate of the FCS group was 16.1% (41/255), no blastocyst development was observed in the SSS group. The difference between the groups in terms of blastocyst formation was also significant (P < 0.001). These results show that serum supplementation of the IVM medium is necessary to obtain a higher cleavage rate and development rate to the blastocyst stage of immature bovine oocytes recovered from ovaries obtained from slaughterhouses. In conclusion, further studies are required to replace FCS with SSS in the maturation medium, and supplementation with growth factors might improve cleavage and development rates in maturation medium supplemented with SSS.


Field Ion Microscopy (FIM) and Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) have found a wide application in nanotechnology. These microscopes use a metallic nanotip for image acquisition. Resolution of FIM and STM images depends largely on the radius of nanotip apex; the smaller the radius the higher the resolution. In this research, for tungsten nanotip fabrication, electrochemical etching of tungsten wire was used in which a 0.3 mm diameter tungsten wire, a graphite tube, and KOH solution in deionized water was applied as anode, cathode, and electrolyte respectively. The most important parameters that govern the nanotip fabrication process are the time delay in turning off the voltage at the end of tip fabrication process, electrolyte concentration, immersion length of the tungsten wire, inner diameter of the cathode tube, and the process voltage. In this research, the effects of these parameters on the radius of nanotip apex were investigated by using Taguchi method. It was found that the process parameters can be ranked in terms of their impact on the radius of nanotip apex as process voltage, electrolyte concentration, wire immersion length, and inner diameter of the cathode tube, respectively. By setting the process parameters on the optimum level, the radius of the nanotip apex was decreased by 5 times in comparison to the mean value of the experimental results. The radius of the nanotip apex was improved down to about 10 nm under the optimum conditions.


This research project aims to prove the viability of a digital marketplace application where locals can create and sell self-guided routes for tourists. The research will operate under the assumption that a route will need to be sufficiently 'valuable' by metrics that can be defined after an extensive review of literature. My hypothesis is that route creators can design a 'valuable' route in about fifteen minutes. In terms of methodology, I will begin by creating a template for locals to create a route. I will have a group of locals in Toronto create routes and time them in order to test the route creation process.
The results disprove that a route with 'value' can be created in fifteen minutes, instead hosts' time needs can vary. Finally, a functioning prototype of the application is made based on user input and feedback.


In recent years, calls for a safer online shopping environment are growing louder. Empirical studies on consumers' expectations of ethical e-commerce practices have found that the top concerns among e-shoppers revolved around security of transactions, privacy protection of personal data, deception and reliability issues. Consumer generally desire richer and truthful information to make purchase decisions. By addressing the information needs of consumers, transparency presents itself as a promising concept for firms to leverage towards strategizing its role in ethical practices. This paper revisits the consumer-perceived ethical issues in ecommerce literature, presents the disclosure paradox faced by e-seller firms, reviews the various conceptualizations of transparency in multidisciplinary literature and suggests extending the transparency strategy to map to consumers' informational needs and concerns.


The paper analyzes changes in job opportunities of older workers in Russia in the period 2005—2017. The study uses the data from the Russian Labor Force Survey conducted by Rosstat. Changes in the occupational and industrial composition of elderly workers follow the trends pursued by other age groups: employment shifts from low- to high-skilled occupations, from physical to intellectual labor, and from material production to the service sector. We find a stronger polarization among older workers as their occupational structure is biased in favor of, on the one hand, the most and, on the other hand, the least qualified types of jobs. Employment of the elderly has fallen sharply in agriculture and manufacturing with a significant increase in trade, education, and health. Although the employment structure of older workers is generally more "traditionalist", recent decades have witnessed its transformation in "progressive" directions, similarly to other age groups. These findings suggest that the legislated increase in the state retirement age is not likely to give rise to sizeable unemployment among the elderly. Most of them will be able to work in the occupations and industries previously dominated by young and prime-age workers.


Noncompliance--not following through on a treatment plan--is explained by the traditional acceptance of therapists that many psychiatric patients are not motivated for offered therapy. Despite the twenty-year availability, methodologies to facilitate a successful continuum of care have not been widely implemented. Instead, the patient has been blamed for his lack of motivation. The importance of the therapist's behavior, the context, the setting, and the environment of the treatment continuum are discussed. Long-standing but nontraditional program goals and concepts that facilitate a successful continuum of care are presented.


Motor imagery (MI) is the mental practice of an action without any physical movement or without any muscle activation. It has been shown that imagination leads to the activation of the brain areas as motor learning. This preliminary study tested a hypothesis whether motor planning and execution change by different brain regions and a reaching-and-grasping MI task for both dominant and nondominant side upper limbs. Results show that for both sides, brain regions' activations change similarly, before and after movement on-site with statistically significant differences occur throughout the motor strip (left and right) and around the visual cortex. This suggests that for people who have not MI trained before, brain activation is similar regardless of the dominant side of the limb.


With clinical information it is frequently difficult or impossible to make objective measurements to prove that a particular finding is correct. In these circumstances, the agreement of experienced clinicians is the best guide to the accuracy of clinical findings. However, studies of clinical judgement usually show a distressingly high level of disagreement among clinicians. We examine why such disagreement is so common, how clinical disagreement can be measured and how clinicians can be trained so that they are able to agree on important findings.


The proliferation of multimedia-capable mobile devices, such as laptops, personal digital assistants (PDA), and cellular telephones, has lend to an explosive increase of multimedia contents. With the increasing capacities of disk storage, this trend has encouraged users to create ever-larger personal digital libraries of audios, pictures, and videos. The prevalence of small and mobile devices such as sensors and RFID tags is expected to create an ubiquitous computing environment. This ubiquitous environment can provide us pervasive locationing and identification services, and further can create sensor data streams encoding object's location and identity which are the context of media capture. The concurrence of these two trends enable a new set of multimedia systems that we refer to as Pervasive Multimedia Systems. Pervasive multimedia systems enable users to create, access and navigate large volumes of multimedia content on a variety of personal mobile devices.
Designing these pervasive multimedia systems face three major challenges: (i) achieving energy efficiency for the battery-powered mobile devices; (ii) searching and retrieving media content in a fast and human-friendly manner; and (iii) identifying and locating in scalable and maintainable fashions. In this thesis, We propose techniques that provide system support for pervasive multimedia systems to address these challenges.
Due to the power constraints, battery-powered mobile devices impose requirements of energy efficiency. On the other hand, the real-time nature of multimedia applications makes it challenging to trade off application's performance with energy savings. To achieve energy efficiency without sacrificing application's quality-of-service (QoS), We have developed power management techniques using application domain-specific knowledge and time-series-based models. Our approaches can reduce the power consumption of mobile devices significantly, while at the same time still meet the QoS requirements of applications. Searching and retrieving media content is greatly enhanced by the textual annotations of the context of media capture---when, where, and who/what. Many mechanisms have been developed to generate these context manually or semi-automatically. These mechanisms are error prone and have high computational requirements. To automate the generation of highly accurate context, We have designed and implemented sensor-enhanced video annotation (SEVA), a context-aware multimedia recording system. SEVA exploits sensor technology to automatically annotate the media with identities and locations of objects. SEVA can greatly enhance user's ability in searching and retrieving media content.
Locationing and identification system is a critical component in pervasive multimedia systems. Its accuracy, deployability, and cost are crucial for the success of pervasive multimedia systems. The currently available locationing systems have higher cost due to the use of expensive and battery-powered tracking sensors. To address the issues of scalability and maintainability of locationing systems, We propose Ferret, a pervasive locationing system incorporating passive RFID technology. Ferret is cost-effective, easily maintainable and deployable compared to current locationing systems.


Master planning has undergone a revival in recent years. However, significant demographic and social changes are also occuring amid constraints resulting from the current economic stagnation, reduced public spending and the drive to respond to environmental imperatives. These conditions challenge the feasibility of applying master planning practices as they were conceived of in the past. The traditional view was that master planning was a design-led activity concerned with the architectural form of buildings, spaces and infrastructures. This is outdated and inadequate for coordinating the plural processes of developing sustainable places that satisfy social, functional, economic and environmental requirements as well as realising visually pleasing townscapes. Master planning requires both a business planning component, without which there is no delivery, and a governance component, without which the physical strategy has no legitimacy. A more adaptive master planning approach is required. The paper propos...


Abstract Exposure surfaces represent an integral part of Asbian-Brigantian cyclothemic platform carbonates in England and Wales. These are characterized by the association of clay palaeosols, calcrete and palaeokarst and in most instances would appear to have been polygenetic. Alternating calcrete-karst stratigraphies associated with individual exposure surfaces indicate that the climate changed from semi-arid to humid to semi-arid conditions during each sea-level fall/rise cycle. Lowstand intervals were humid and resulted in karstification of the cyclothem-top sediments and the formation of a mineral soil. In contrast, regressive/transgressive phases were semi-arid and resulted in calcretization of the emergent platform carbonates. The influence that climatic cyclicity had upon exposure surface development was modulated by variations in platform bathymetry, subsidence and spatial climatic variation, and platforms exhibit their own individual record of what was essentially an idealized sequence of events. As with the sea-level oscillations responsible for cyclothemic sedimentation, the climatic cyclicity is thought to be the product of orbital forcing and probably reflects either eccentricity-driven shifts in the locus of monsoonal precipitation, or precession-driven variations in monsoonal intensity. If precessional in origin, exposure surface development represents a single minimum to minimum excursion, some 20 ka in duration, whereas if eccentricity-driven this may have been appreciably longer. Nevertheless, the immature nature of the exposure surfaces suggests that emergence was probably only of the order of a few tens of thousands of years.


Abstract Background: With the accelerated pace of life, the problems of residence, diet, and environment have occurred frequently in recent years. External factors are easily to cause endocrine disorders and hormone sensitivity of breast tissue, which can lead to mammary hyperplasia. The incidence rate of hyperplasia of mammary glands is increasing year by year, and the age of onset is also getting lower and lower. If not treated in time, there is a crisis of breast cancer. Clinical studies have found that massage is widely used in clinical treatment of mammary hyperplasia recently, but the efficacy of massage in the treatment of mammary hyperplasia has not been systematically reviewed. The purpose of this study is to explore the efficacy, safety and effectiveness of massage in the treatment of hyperplasia of mammary glands. Methods: We will search PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of controlled trials (central), ScienceNet, EMBASE, CBM, CNKI, VIP and Wanfang databases. The retrieval date was October 20, 2020. RevMan 5.3 software was used to evaluate the quality and risk of included studies. The efficacy, recurrence rate, and symptom score of breast hyperplasia were analyzed, and the results were observed and measured. Results: This study will be from the clinical efficiency, improvement rate, pain symptoms disappear rate, tumor size improvement rate and other aspects of the existing evidence for a high quality synthesis, as well as massage adverse events. Conclusion: the conclusion of this review will provide the basis for judging whether massage is safe and effective in the treatment of hyperplasia of mammary glands. Ethics and dissemination: This systematic will evaluate the effectiveness and safety of massage in the treatment of hyperplasia of mammary glands. As all data used in this systematic review and meta-analysis have been published, ethical approval is not required for this review. Protocol registration number: INPLASY2020100066


A constitutive equation for a typical SnPb eutectic or near-eutectic solder joint is developed, based on empirical data in shear and generalized to three dimensions. Three strain components are considered: elastic, time independent plastic, and steady-state creep. A continuum mechanics rather than a metallurgical approach is taken with emphasis on the formulation of an equation useful for predicting solder behavior under a variety of conditions. Solutions of the constitutive equation predict the experimental hysteresis data for the loading histories available. Solutions of the equation for the test conditions of three independent sets of solder fatigue data show that the equation, together with the matrix creep failure indicator, can give an estimate of fatigue life. >


In disentangling the heterogeneity observed in psychopathology, personality of the patients is considered crucial. While it has been demonstrated that personality traits are reflected in the language used by a patient, we hypothesize that this enables automatic inference of the personality type directly from speech utterances, potentially more accurately than through a traditional questionnaire-based approach explicitly designed for personality classification. To validate this hypothesis, we adopt natural language processing (NLP) and standard machine learning tools for classification. We test this on a dataset of recorded clinical diagnostic interviews (CDI) on a sample of 79 patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) -- a condition for which differentiated treatment based on personality styles has been advocated -- and classified into anaclitic and introjective personality styles. We start by analyzing the interviews to see which linguistic features are associated with each style, in order to gain a better understanding of the styles. Then, we develop automatic classifiers based on (a) standardized questionnaire responses; (b) basic text features, i.e., TF-IDF scores of words and word sequences; (c) more advanced text features, using LIWC (linguistic inquiry and word count) and context-aware features using BERT (bidirectional encoder representations from transformers); (d) audio features. We find that automated classification with language-derived features (i.e., based on LIWC) significantly outperforms questionnaire-based classification models. Furthermore, the best performance is achieved by combining LIWC with the questionnaire features. This suggests that more work should be put into developing linguistically based automated techniques for characterizing personality, however questionnaires still to some extent complement such methods.


Lee Maracle's (Sto:lō) "Yin Chin" and SKY Lee's Disappearing Moon Cafe have inaugurated a literary tradition of acknowledging and restoring Asian-Indigenous relations in the field of Asian Canadian studies.  This study extends their intertextual conversation on the impact of racism and colonialism on Asian-Indigenous relations to consider the ways in which contemporary Asian Canadian settler citizens, migrants, and refugees may inherit not only the legacies of white supremacy, global capital, and settler colonialism but also the historical and ongoing relations of Sino-Indigenous indebtedness.  Presenting an allegorical reading of Asian-Indigenous relations through scenes of settler/migrant/refugee indebtedness and gratitude represented in several Chinese Canadian literary texts, as well as Kim Thuy's Ru , I argue that the literary tradition of Sino-Indigenous indebtedness has the capacity to generate a sense of mutuality and self-critique amongst all Asian Canadians to consider their role and responsibilities within the structures of settler colonialism, particularly within Asian migrant and refugee communities shaped by an enduring sense of gratitude towards the state for being granted a new life on colonized lands.


Prostaglandin E2 (PGE2)-mediated monocyte (M phi) suppressor activity and inadequate T-helper cell function represent the mechanistic keystones of trauma-induced impairment of cell-mediated immunity (CMI). In a prospective randomized trial, the immunorestorative potential of a combined therapy with the thymomimetic substance Thymopentin (TP-5; Timunox, Cilag GMBH, Sulzbach, FRG) and the cyclooxygenase inhibitor indomethacin (Indo) in 60 patients (mean age, 63 +/- 2 years) undergoing open heart surgery was studied. Perioperative immunologic screening was carried out on days -2, 3, 1, 5, and 7 and included the in vivo delayed type hypersensitivity (DTH) skin response, phenotyping for peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC)-specific and nonspecific induction of lymphoproliferative responses, in vitro interleukin-2 (IL-2) synthesis, as well as the serum concentration of D-erythro-Neopterin (NPT) and of gamma interferon (gamma-IFN). The study protocol comprised three groups (n = 20): PA (Indo 150 mg administered intravenously on days 0 to 5), PB (TP-5 administered subcutaneously on days 0, 2, 4, and Indo), and PC (control). In contrast to PC, significant immunorestoration could be demonstrated in PB, as DTH scores on day 7, as well as proliferative responses in cell cultures were not depressed after operation (p less than 0.05). Cell-surface receptor expression for the CD3+, CD4+, and IL-2 receptor-positive (IL-2R+) lymphocyte subpopulations following surgery was reduced to 75% of baseline values in PC, while in PB, receptor protection for CD4+ and IL-2R+ subpopulations (more than 15% above baseline) was observed. Interleukin-2 synthesis (average baseline value, 0.7 + 0.08 U/mL) in cell cultures of PC was massively suppressed, with lymphokine concentrations in the supernatants never more than 0.27 +/- 0.05 U/mL. In PA cultures, IL-2 synthesis was impaired as well but not as precipitously as in PC. In contrast, in PB cultures, the average IL-2 production on consecutive postoperative days was never below baseline values. This study clearly demonstrates that the combined Indo/TP-5 therapy is superior to single Indo administration and can adequately preserve and/or restore intact M phi T-cell interaction and thus appears to be a feasible approach to maintain normal host defense activity in traumatized individuals.


A membrane feeding assay in which the effects of the antimalarial drugs quinine and artesunate are tested on Anopheles gambiae Giles sensu stricto is described. In the present study, 87% of female A. gambiae are shown to feed on whole defibrinated bovine blood alone, whereas only 47% and 43.5% feed on saline and on saline + bovine serum albumin (BSA) solutions, respectively, suggesting that additional components in the blood stimulate mosquito feeding. The addition of 1 mm quinine or artesunate to the BSA solution results in a significant reduction in percentage engorgement to 16.2% and 14.1%, respectively. However, the feeding rate is higher when 1 mm artesunate and quinine are mixed in the blood because 67.8% and 78.4% of females engorge on these solutions respectively. Artesunate (10 mm) in the blood reduces percentage engorgement to 20%. Because circulating doses of quinine and artesunate affecting Plasmodium in humans are much lower than those affecting feeding by A. gambiae in the in vitro assay, these two antimalarial drugs should have no effect, or only a minor effect, on the infection rate of mosquitoes feeding on treated patients. Because only the stylets penetrate the membrane and not the labellar lobes, the results of the present study suggest that both blood phagostimulants and feeding deterrents are detected by internal gustatory organs in A. gambiae, namely sensory cells in the apical and subapical labral pegs, in sensilla on the inner face of the labellar lobes, or by cibarial receptor cells. The neuroanatomy of gustatory sensilla on the apical and subapical labral pegs and on the inner face of the labellar lobes of female A. gambiae is described in the present study.


Vela X is a prototypical example of a pulsar wind nebula whose morphology and detailed structure have been affected by interaction with the reverse shock of its host supernova remnant. The resulting complex of filamentary structure and mixed-in ejecta embedded in a nebula that is offset from the pulsar provides the best example we have of this middle-age state that characterizes a significant fraction of composite supernova remnants (SNRs), and perhaps all of the large-diameter pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) seen as TeV sources. Here, we report on an XMM-Newton (hereafter XMM) Large Project study of Vela X, supplemented by additional Chandra observations. Through broad spectral modeling, as well as detailed spectral investigations of discrete emission regions, we confirm previous studies that report evidence for ejecta material within Vela X, and show that equivalent-width variations of O vii and O viii are consistent with temperature maps within the PWN that show low-temperature regions where the projected SNR emission appears to dominate emission from the ejecta. We identify spectral variations in the nonthermal emission, with hard emission being concentrated near the pulsar. We carry out investigations of the Vela X "cocoon" structure, and with hydrodynamical simulations, show that its overall properties are consistent with structures formed in the late-phase evolution of a composite SNR expanding into a surrounding medium with a density gradient, with ejecta material being swept beyond the pulsar and compressed into an elongated structure in the direction opposite the high external density.


Currently, researchers are working to contribute to the emerging fields of cloud computing, edge computing, and distributed systems. The major area of interest is to examine and understand their performance. The major globally leading companies, such as Google, Amazon, ONLIVE, Giaki, and eBay, are truly concerned about the impact of energy consumption. These cloud computing companies use huge data centers, consisting of virtual computers that are positioned worldwide and necessitate exceptionally high-power costs to preserve. The increased requirement for energy consumption in IT firms has posed many challenges for cloud computing companies pertinent to power expenses. Energy utilization is reliant upon numerous aspects, for example, the service level agreement, techniques for choosing the virtual machine, the applied optimization strategies and policies, and kinds of workload. The present paper tries to provide an answer to challenges related to energy-saving through the assistance of both dynamic voltage and frequency scaling techniques for gaming data centers. Also, to evaluate both the dynamic voltage and frequency scaling techniques compared to non-power-aware and static threshold detection techniques. The findings will facilitate service suppliers in how to encounter the quality of service and experience limitations by fulfilling the service level agreements. For this purpose, the CloudSim platform is applied for the application of a situation in which game traces are employed as a workload for analyzing the procedure. The findings evidenced that an assortment of good quality techniques can benefit gaming servers to conserve energy expenditures and sustain the best quality of service for consumers located universally. The originality of this research presents a prospect to examine which procedure performs good (for example, dynamic, static, or non-power aware). The findings validate that less energy is utilized by applying a dynamic voltage and frequency method along with fewer service level agreement violations, and better quality of service and experience, in contrast with static threshold consolidation or non-power aware technique.


The molecular basis for formation of lymphoid follicle and its homeostasis in the secondary lymphoid organs remains unclear. Signal regulatory protein α (SIRPα), an Ig superfamily protein that is predominantly expressed in dendritic cells or macrophages, mediates cell–cell signaling by interacting with CD47, another Ig superfamily protein. In this study, we show that the size of the T cell zone as well as the number of CD4+ T cells were markedly reduced in the spleen of mice bearing a mutant (MT) SIRPα that lacks the cytoplasmic region compared with those of wild-type mice. In addition, the expression of CCL19 and CCL21, as well as of IL-7, which are thought to be important for development or homeostasis of the T cell zone, was markedly decreased in the spleen of SIRPα MT mice. By the use of bone marrow chimera, we found that hematopoietic SIRPα is important for development of the T cell zone as well as the expression of CCL19 and CCL21 in the spleen. The expression of lymphotoxin and its receptor, lymphotoxin β receptor, as well as the in vivo response to lymphotoxin β receptor stimulation were also decreased in the spleen of SIRPα MT mice. CD47-deficient mice also manifested phenotypes similar to SIRPα MT mice. These data suggest that SIRPα as well as its ligand CD47 are thus essential for steady-state homeostasis of T cells in the spleen.


Perinatal inflammatory stress is strongly associated with adverse pulmonary outcomes after preterm birth. Antenatal infections are an essential perinatal stress factor and contribute to preterm delivery, induction of lung inflammation and injury, pre-disposing preterm infants to bronchopulmonary dysplasia. Considering the polymicrobial nature of antenatal infection, which was reported to result in diverse effects and outcomes in preterm lungs, the aim was to examine the consequences of sequential inflammatory stimuli on endogenous epithelial stem/progenitor cells and vascular maturation, which are crucial drivers of lung development. Therefore, a translational ovine model of antenatal infection/inflammation with consecutive exposures to chronic and acute stimuli was used. Ovine fetuses were exposed intra-amniotically to Ureaplasma parvum 42 days (chronic stimulus) and/or to lipopolysaccharide 2 or 7 days (acute stimulus) prior to preterm delivery at 125 days of gestation. Pulmonary inflammation, endogenous epithelial stem cell populations, vascular modulators and morphology were investigated in preterm lungs. Pre-exposure to UP attenuated neutrophil infiltration in 7d LPS-exposed lungs and prevented reduction of SOX-9 expression and increased SP-B expression, which could indicate protective responses induced by re-exposure. Sequential exposures did not markedly impact stem/progenitors of the proximal airways (P63+ basal cells) compared to single exposure to LPS. In contrast, the alveolar size was increased solely in the UP+7d LPS group. In line, the most pronounced reduction of AEC2 and proliferating cells (Ki67+) was detected in these sequentially UP + 7d LPS-exposed lambs. A similar sensitization effect of UP pre-exposure was reflected by the vessel density and expression of vascular markers VEGFR-2 and Ang-1 that were significantly reduced after UP exposure prior to 2d LPS, when compared to UP and LPS exposure alone. Strikingly, while morphological changes of alveoli and vessels were seen after sequential microbial exposure, improved lung function was observed in UP, 7d LPS, and UP+7d LPS-exposed lambs. In conclusion, although sequential exposures did not markedly further impact epithelial stem/progenitor cell populations, re-exposure to an inflammatory stimulus resulted in disturbed alveolarization and abnormal pulmonary vascular development. Whether these negative effects on lung development can be rescued by the potentially protective responses observed, should be examined at later time points.


The Navier–Stokes transport coefficients of multicomponent granular suspensions at moderate densities are obtained in the context of the (inelastic) Enskog kinetic theory. The suspension is modeled as an ensemble of solid particles where the influence of the interstitial gas on grains is via a viscous drag force plus a stochastic Langevin-like term defined in terms of a background temperature. In the absence of spatial gradients, it is shown first that the system reaches a homogeneous steady state where the energy lost by inelastic collisions and viscous friction is compensated for by the energy injected by the stochastic force. Once the homogeneous steady state is characterized, a normal solution to the set of Enskog equations is obtained by means of the Chapman–Enskog expansion around the local version of the homogeneous state. To first-order in spatial gradients, the Chapman–Enskog solution allows us to identify the Navier–Stokes transport coefficients associated with the mass, momentum, and heat fluxes. In addition, the first-order contributions to the partial temperatures and the cooling rate are also calculated. Explicit forms for the diffusion coefficients, the shear and bulk viscosities, and the first-order contributions to the partial temperatures and the cooling rate are obtained in steady state conditions by retaining the leading terms in a Sonine polynomial expansion. The results show that the dependence of the transport coefficients on inelasticity is clearly different from that found in its granular counterpart (no gas phase). The present work extends previous theoretical results for dilute multicomponent granular suspensions [Khalil and Garzó, Phys. Rev. E 88, 052201 (2013)] to higher densities.


This paper concerns the design and optimization of a rotary actuator of which the rotor is attached to a linear actuator inside a two-degree-of-freedom zφ-module, which is part of a pick-and-place robot. The rotary actuator provides ±180° rotation while the linear actuator offers a z-motion of ±5 mm. In this paper, the optimal combinations of magnet poles and coils are determined for this slotless actuator with concentrated windings. Based on this analysis, the rotary actuator is optimized using a multiphysical framework, which contains coupled electromagnetic, mechanical, and thermal models. Because the rotation angle is limited, both a moving-coil design with a double mechanical clearance and a moving-magnet design with a single mechanical clearance have been investigated and compared. Additionally, the influence of the edge effects of the magnets on the performance of the rotary actuator has been investigated with both 3-D finite-element modeling simulations and measurements.


This article presents a paradigm example of confused
 language in an ancient Near Eastern literary text, the Egyptian tale of "The
 Shipwrecked Sailor." It explains the pertinent passage as a clever literary
 device in which confused and irregular syntax is utilized to portray the
 confusion that characterized the moment of the shipwreck. It then proceeds to
 treat seven biblical passages where similarly confused language is invoked to
 portray confusion, excitement, or bewilderment. Two of these passages have been
 treated previously in the secondary literature: 1 Sam 9:12-13 and Ruth 2:7. The
 five new treatments concern Gen 37:28, Gen 37:30, Judg 18:14-20, 1 Sam 14:21,
 and 1 Sam 17:38.


We present MINESTRONE, a novel architecture that integrates static analysis, dynamic confinement, and code diversification techniques to enable the identification, mitigation and containment of a large class of software vulnerabilities in third-party software. Our initial focus is on software written in C and C++; however, many of our techniques are equally applicable to binary-only environments (but are not always as efficient or as effective) and for vulnerabilities that are not specific to these languages. Our system seeks to enable the immediate deployment of new software (e.g., a new release of an open-source project) and the protection of already deployed (legacy) software by transparently inserting extensive security instrumentation, while leveraging concurrent program analysis, potentially aided by runtime data gleaned from profiling actual use of the software, to gradually reduce the performance cost of the instrumentation by allowing selective removal or refinement. Artificial diversification techniques are used both as confinement mechanisms and for fault-tolerance purposes. To minimize the performance impact, we are leveraging multicore hardware or (when unavailable) remote servers that enable quick identification of likely compromise. To cover the widest possible range of systems, we require no specific hardware or operating system features, although we intend to take advantage of such features where available to improve both runtime performance and vulnerability coverage.


A DNAzyme-based colorimetric aptasensor has been fabricated for fast readout and facile detection of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The sensor consists of an ATP-specific aptamer flanked with cytosine-rich arms at both ends (5′ & 3′) and a peroxidase mimicking DNAzyme which were complexed together to form a functional triple-helix molecular switch (THMS). The DNAzyme strand serves as a signal transduction probe (STP) in the molecular switch. In the presence of ATP, the aptamer binds to it and the THMS complex disassembles. Subsequently the released DNAzyme sequence can form a catalytic G-quadruplex DNAzyme leading to obvious color change. This sensor provides an efficient and stable diagnostic system whilst conserving the inherent catalytic activity of the DNAzyme and the selectivity of the aptamer. The aptasensor response was linear for ATP concentration between 5 and 230 nM (R2 = 0.9854) with a detection limit of 2.4 nM (S/N = 3). Besides, ATP can be detected in human serum samples with satisfactory results, which demonstrates the potential applications for real analysis.


Using the newly developed airflow control unit (ACU), chamber performance was examined through measuring the air velocity (va) near the specimen surface and mass transfer coefficient (MTC). va and its distribution depending on fan revolutions were examined over nine points at a distance of 10mm from the specimen surface. MTC was investigated by tests with using filter papers and water vapor in the chamber installed with ACU. For MTC tests, seven conditions of fan revolution were set at less than 700rpm, and loading factor 0.11 m/m was adopted to avoid saturating of humidity in the chamber instead of 2.2m/m of usual emission test. As the results, va distributions were even and in a small deviation. When va ranges from 0.10 to 0.27 m/s, tested MTC were in 17.4 to 22.0m/h, while the values of JIS and previous studies in much lower levels. Chamber-tested MTCs should be much lower than those of theoretical calculation, because the given Q/A would make the potential of mass transfer decreased at the chamber test but theoretical calculation have the assumption of infinite Q. There, theoretical MTC depending on va were recalculated using the properties of dry and wet air. CFD simulations provided that steady state appeared at over L=0.44 m/m at va = 0.1m/s and the MCT was 15.3m/h, which was close to the result of the chamber test at 300 rpm (much less than 0.1m/s), because the limited ventilation rate in the chamber test restrained the vapor transfer and consequently MTC. It was cleared that tested MTC always showed the higher values than JIS and theoretical ones, and could become close to other ones by compensation considering the velocity boundary layer and the loading factor.


Boid inclusion body disease (BIBD) is an often fatal disease affecting mainly constrictor snakes. BIBD has been associated with infection, and more recently with coinfection, by various reptarenavirus species (family Arenaviridae). Thus far BIBD has only been reported in captive snakes, and neither the incubation period nor the route of transmission are known. Herein we provide strong evidence that co-infecting reptarenavirus species can be vertically transmitted in Boa constrictor. In total we examined five B. constrictor clutches with offspring ranging in age from embryos over perinatal abortions to juveniles. The mother and/or father of each clutch were initially diagnosed with BIBD and/or reptarenavirus infection by detection of the pathognomonic inclusion bodies (IB) and/or reptarenaviral RNA. By applying next-generation sequencing and de novo sequence assembly we determined the "reptarenavirome" of each clutch, yielding several nearly complete L and S segments of multiple reptarenaviruses. We further confirmed vertical transmission of the co-infecting reptarenaviruses by species-specific RT-PCR from samples of parental animals and offspring. Curiously, not all offspring obtained the full parental "reptarenavirome". We extended our findings by an in vitro approach; cell cultures derived from embryonal samples rapidly developed IB and promoted replication of some or all parental viruses. In the tissues of embryos and perinatal abortions, viral antigen was sometimes detected, but IB were consistently seen only in the juvenile snakes from the age of 2 mo onwards. In addition to demonstrating vertical transmission of multiple species, our results also indicate that reptarenavirus infection induces BIBD over time in the offspring.