OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the polymerase chain reaction in the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis in children. PATIENTS AND METHODS: 135 samples (68 sputum and 67 gastric aspirates) of 72 patients under 15 years old with suspected tuberculosis and a negative acid-fast stain were included in the study. In all the samples an acid-fast stain and culture in Lowestein-Jensen with and without piruvate were performed. Also, a specific detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MT) was made by PCR (Amplicor-MT-Roche Diagnostic). Tuberculosis was certainly diagnosed when M. tuberculosis was isolated or clinical evidence of tuberculosis in positive-PCR cases with negative culture was achieved. RESULTS: Ten samples of six patients were positive culture. Four of these samples were positive PCR. In addition, two samples of two patients with negative culture were positive PCR. Both patients had a clinical diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis with effective anti-tuberculosis treatment, one of them had also another positive PCR and culture sample. The results of sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value by patient according to the reference methodology were 57.1, 100, 100 and 95.4%, respectively, and by sample 66.6%, 100, 100 and 96.8%, respectively. Other 15 patients presented pulmonary tuberculosis with negative PCR and culture; so the sensitivity of the culture and the PCR regarding a clinical diagnosis were 27.3% (6/22) and 18% (4/22) respectively. CONCLUSION: Due to the diagnosis by culture takes a long time and the low percentage of samples of pediatric patients with positive acid-fast rain stain, the PCR would be useful in order to achieve quickly and specific diagnosis of tuberculosis in a high-prevalence population.


An abrupt seasonal change in cloud features around the East Asian cloud band (EA-band) was found in the middle of May or late May in all the years of 1982 to 1987 by using two indexes derived from GMS infrared data, middle- and high-level cloud amount (MHc-amount) and the appearance frequency of the high-level cloud region (Hc-frequency) for a 10- or 15-day period. The change occurred over a short period, less than 5 days (transition period: TP), nearly simultaneously with the onset of the Southeast Asian summer monsoon about one month before the onset of the Indian monsoon. The main results are as follows: 1) The MHc-amount and Hc-frequency increase considerably in the coastal region of South China after the TP. The greater part of the Hc-frequency are associated with the deep convective clouds. This change is associated with the enhancement of the low-level southwesterly wind, an decrease in thickness of baroclinic layer below the 500 mb level and an increase in specific humidity there and in the region to the south of the EA-band. 2) MHc-amount and Hc-frequency in the EA-band also increase to the east of 130°E after the TP, accompanied by the enhancement of the southwesterly wind in its southern part and the southward shift of a subtropical high pressure area west of 150°E. 3) As for the year-to-year variation, the distribution of the area with large MHc-amount in the EA-band before the TP seems to be greatly influenced by the amount of confluence between the southwesterly wind in the north of the subtropical high pressure area and westerly wind north of the EA-band. 4) MHc-amount over Central China after the TP is about 60% in the year of stronger baroclinicity there, but is about 20% in the year of weaker baroclinicity. 5) Only in 1987, the EA-band and a subtropical high pressure area east of 130°E shifted northward after the TP, which are the opposite characteristics to all the other years


Sonography is an ideal real-time imaging technique for the evaluation of muscles and tendons of the extremities, and this book is a useful reference for both the technique of examination and normal ultrasound anatomy. The first part considers technical aspects of the examination such as sonographic equipment, water-path systems, and dynamic maneuvers. The basic sonographic patterns of normal muscles, tendons, and other components of the extremities are then presented. Emphasis has been placed on pitfalls and artifacts. The other available imaging techniques for muscles and tendons are also discussed. The second part comprises an atlas of normal ultrasound scans of shoulder, arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, hand, thigh, knee, leg, ankle, and foot, with accompanying explanatory line drawings.


To entice females to mate, male bowerbirds build elaborate displays (bowers). Among species, bowers range in complexity from simple arenas decorated with leaves to complex twig or grass structures decorated with myriad colored objects. To investigate the neural underpinnings of bower building, we examined the contribution of variation in volume estimates of whole brain (WB), telencephalon minus hippocampus (TH), hippocampus (Hp) and cerebellum (Cb) to explain differences in complexity of bowers among 5 species. Using independent contrasts, we found a significant relationship between bower complexity and Cb size. We did not find support for correlated evolution between bower complexity and WB, TH, or Hp volume. These results suggest that skills supported by the cerebellum (e.g., procedural learning, motor planning) contribute to explaining the variation in bower complexity across species. Given that male mating success is in part determined by female choice for bower design, our data are consistent with the hypothesis that sexual selection has driven enlargement of the cerebellum in bowerbirds.


As digital libraries expand in their proliferation, and as researchers, students, and consumers increasingly depend on them for their information needs, developers are keen to learn more about the design, use, and usability of these systems. "The Handbook of Research on Digital Libraries: Design, Development, and Impact" is the single academic reference work to provide comprehensive coverage of digital libraries. Through predictions of future trends, examinations of techniques and technologies, and focuses on users, interactions, and experiences, this in-depth collection provides developers and scholars with an extensive collection of research articles from the expanding field of digital libraries. It features: 56 authoritative contributions by over 130 of the world's leading experts on digital libraries from 25 countries; comprehensive coverage of each specific topic, highlighting recent trends and describing the latest advances in the field; more than 1,300 references to existing literature and research on digital libraries; and a compendium of over 370 key terms with detailed definitions. It is organized by topic and indexed, making it a convenient method of reference for all IT/IS scholars and professionals. It also features cross-referencing of key terms, figures, and information pertinent to digital libraries.


Fire safety aspect is the important element in every building. The aspect of fire in every building is different. This research is about a survey on the fire safety awareness in residential collegues in UITM Shah Alam. Some of the students that stay at residential Collegues did not aware about the fire safety equipment in the building. The research carries out through the distribution of the questionnaire and the interview sessions with the respondent that responsible for the facilities management for every building in UITM Shah Alam. Most of them have the basic knowledge of the fire safety equipment. But, they did not know the function of the fire safety aspect except as a fire protection. The study carries out at Kolej Mawar, Kolej Melati and Kolej Anggerik. Through the observation, the selection of the fire equipment that provided in the building is based on the environment of the building. Since the building is a residential colleagues the sprinkler is not provided in the building. All of these residential collegues has almost the same fire equipment. The result of the study is to recommend the best practice to improve awareness among students in the residential collegues.


As founder of Brinkworth, a London-based design consultancy, I am writing this thesis from a creative practitioner's perspective. The main research question is: How has the role and the activity of an interior designer for apparel retail environments evolved since the intervention of digital platforms, including social media and online shopping? Pertaining to this lead research question are the following two questions: How have customer behaviour patterns changed due to the intervention of digital and social media platforms? And how has brand engagement and communication with their customer community evolved with respect to the development of digital technologies?

The title of this PhD by public works, Integration, describes the key approach to my new model, which delivers appropriate physical retail spaces through a four-way system of integration: brand, space, location and community. A donor building is designed so as to successfully host the brand and facilitate the fusing of its customer community within the building's own local culture. It theorises that the physical branded retail space is at the heart of a brand's external facing retail activity. It is primarily the place that gives an invaluable opportunity for the development of a personal relationship between the customer community and the brand. This space is also the nucleus in which platforms of digital immersion, product fusion and narrative are integrated within a central, physical hub. This concept of integration seeks to replace the convention of outmoded, repetitive, traditional retail rollout methods.

This thesis of public works outlines new models of thinking taken from Brinkworth's portfolio. Utilising the research methodology of reflexivity, it contributes new knowledge to the field of professional practice and academic research in apparel retail design, both in terms of the design work carried out and the reflection on that work. The thesis starts by examining the academic context through an analysis of the limited published practitioners' literature that it seeks to succeed. The research extends into broader and relevant academic areas of study. The specifics of apparel retail design will then be discussed, providing a blueprint by which Brinkworth implements its strategies and demonstrating why the process is significant. An assessment of how to structure and approach interior design for retail, as well as evidence and project planning information will be included within the thesis, something that has not been previously documented in this field of study. A recently formulated Model of Integration is theorised, demonstrated and disseminated through the case studies selected in order to exemplify each retail environment typology.

This dynamic Model of Integration, driven by the evolving relationship between the brand and its customer community, is reflected in the communicative relationship between online and physical retail environments. This, in turn, drives the creation of a new type of outcome. In support of this, the resulting physical retail spaces produced are named Activation Retail Environments. These multipurpose retail environments host activities broader than retail, and include hospitality, brand/product education and events, where the customer is an active participant in a spatial and personal relationship with the brand.

Following the Academic Context, a chapter entitled Typologies and Strategies seeks to identify the key individual types of physical retail stores. It also demonstrates the optimum approach to tackling each category of store. My Model of Integration is illustrated through examples from Brinkworth's portfolio in the following chapter, and the thesis evidences the discussed retail typologies through a broad selection of completed projects.


There is a diversity of ways to determine a user's location in a pervasive environment today. On a large-scale, this diversity often results in variability of location tracking conditions throughout the environment. For an important class of pervasive applications, which often rely on the ubiquitous availability of location tracking – location-based pervasive applications, the consistency of their behaviour under this variability cannot be guaranteed. This type of limitation raises a need for the adaptation of the application's behaviour that would reflect this variability. We investigated empirically how visualising different aspects of uncertainty about location and of the behaviour of localisation systems affects users' impressions about a location-based application. The two components – an ontology that models properties of localisation systems and a set of mapping rules that define how these properties should be visualised in a user interface – are at the core of our approach to providing awareness. The results of the investigation show that the additional visual demand, intended for raising users' awareness of uncertainty about their location tracking conditions, is perceived to be beneficial by users. We reveal also that different characteristics of this awareness are of different importance to users. Furthermore, we conclude that the particular importance depends on users' personal profiles (e.g., their eyesight level), on the distance between the users (e.g., knowing about someone else's state is less important if they are far), and on the quality of tracking (the importance increases in problematic areas). Based on the obtained results and observations, we suggest a set of guidelines and visualisations which could be used in designing pervasive applications that require location tracking.


We relate Berry's topological phase to the polarization rotation of linearly polarized light in helicoidal single-mode ideal fibers where the pitch length and coil radius are allowed to change adiabatically. First we present an alternative derivation for this phase using the Serret-Frenet coordinate system and show that this phase can be derived and interpreted in terms of both solid and planar angles. The results obtained are then applied to various helicoidal fiber structures, and from this we show that the total change in the polarization rotation angle can be tailored through a judicious choice of the fiber geometry. Finally, we propose that certain helicoidal fiber configurations can be used as fiber sensors.


Field evidence shows that emplacement of Devonian granites in northern England overlaps in space and time with the end of the supposed Acadian deformation in their country rocks. The age of this Acadian event in England and Wales is in need of review because of revised Rb-Sr and K-Ar decay constants and recently acquired radiometric ages on the granites. Published K-Ar and Ar-Ar cleavage ages recalculated to the new decay constants range from 404 to 394 Ma (Emsian, Early Devonian). Emplacement of the Skiddaw and Weardale granites at 398.8 ± 0.4 and 399.3 ± 0.7 Ma respectively is indicated by U-Pb zircon ages, and is compatible with the field evidence. However, emplacement of the Shap Granite at a Re-Os molybdenite age of 405.2 ± 1.8 Ma and at the youngest U-Pb zircon age of 403 ± 8 Ma matches the field evidence less well. The apparent paradox in these ages is resolved if the K-Ar ages record only the end of millions of years of cleavage formation. An earlier cluster of K-Ar and Ar-Ar cleavage ages at 426–420 Ma (Ludlow to Přidoli, late Silurian) dates a pre-Acadian resetting event soon after Iapetus closure, an event of uncertain significance. Ion microprobe U-Pb zircon ages for the Shap Granite have a mean of 415.6 ± 1.4 Ma but a range of 428–403 Ma, compatible with a long magmatic history. Thermal considerations suggest that this history was not at the upper crustal emplacement site but in a mid-crustal mush zone, now preserved at about 10 km depth as a component of the Lake District and North Pennine batholiths.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy of ethyl-eicosapentaenoic acid (E-EPA) and placebo in the treatment of female subjects with borderline personality disorder.

METHOD
The authors conducted an 8-week, placebo-controlled, double-blind study of E-EPA in 30 female subjects meeting Revised Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines and DSM-IV criteria for borderline personality disorder.

RESULTS
Twenty subjects were randomly assigned to 1 g of E-EPA; 10 subjects were given placebo. Ninety percent of those in both groups completed all 8 weeks of the trial. Analyses that used random-effects regression modeling and controlled for baseline severity showed E-EPA to be superior to placebo in diminishing aggression as well as the severity of depressive symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study suggest that E-EPA may be a safe and effective form of monotherapy for women with moderately severe borderline personality disorder.


We exhibit optimal control strategies for a simple toy problem in which the underlying dynamics depend on a parameter that is initially unknown and must be learned. We consider a cost function posed over a finite time interval, in contrast to much previous work that considers asymptotics as the time horizon tends to infinity. We study several different versions of the problem, including Bayesian control, in which we assume a prior distribution on the unknown parameter; and "agnostic" control, in which we assume nothing about the unknown parameter. For the agnostic problems, we compare our performance with that of an opponent who knows the value of the parameter. This comparison gives rise to several notions of "regret," and we obtain strategies that minimize the "worst-case regret" arising from the most unfavorable choice of the unknown parameter. In every case, the optimal strategy turns out to be a Bayesian strategy or a limit of Bayesian strategies.


In the present work a numerical analysis of the slug flow in inclined pipelines is performed with an aim to improve the understanding of slug flow characteristics over hilly-terrain section. The solution is obtained with the two-fluid model on its one-dimensional form. It consists of two sets of conservation equations of mass and linear momentum for the liquid and gas phases. The slug capturing methodology involves the numerical solution of the equations using a finite volume formulation, which is capable of naturally predicting the onset of slugging from a stratified flow regime, as well as the growth and collapse of the slugs. Flows of an oil–gas mixture in slightly inclined pipe configurations are investigated. Three types of pipelines were considered: horizontal, descending and a V-section pipeline. The influence of the gravity effect in average slug parameters, such as frequency, velocity and length is addressed. Qualitative comparisons with experimental observations in the literature show that the methodology seems to be able to correctly predict the effect of pipe inclination on the occurrence (or not) of the slug regime, as well as different overall slugging behaviour in V-section pipes if different inlet gas and liquid superficial velocities are imposed.


The adjuvant effects of mycobacteria can be replaced by more chemically defined isolates of the cell walls including a water soluble fraction (WSA) and by the synthetic analog N-acetyl-muramyl-L-alanyl-D-isoglutamine (MDP), which is the minimal structure required for adjuvanticity. These compounds can directly activate macrophages as determined by an increase in spreading and adherence and by an elevated synthesis of the enzyme collagenase. Moreover, this increase in collagenase production is modulated by enhanced production of prostaglandins that influences intracellular levels of cyclic AMP. In addition, both MDP and WSA induced macrophages to produce a biologically active mediator that triggers quiescent fibroblasts into active proliferation. It thus appears that a mechanism for mycobacterial adjuvant action as determined with MDP and WSA is via activation of macrophages, which may then precipitate a multiplicity of other reactions resulting in enhanced immune phenomena. Furthermore, the granulomatous and fibrotic reactions associated with mycobacterial infection may be a consequence of this direct activation of macrophages.


Experiments were conducted on an Al-0.2wt.%Sc alloy to evaluate the effect of equalchannel angular pressing (ECAP) on its creep behaviour. ECAP was conducted at room temperature with a die that had an internal angle of 90° between the two parts of the channel. The subsequent extrusion passes were performed by route BC up to 8 ECAP passes. Creep tests in tension were performed on the as-pressed samples at 473 K under an applied stress range between 10 to 50 MPa. For comparison purposes, some creep tests were performed also on the unpressed alloy. Following ECAP and creep testing, samples were prepared for examination by means of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with an electron back scattering diffraction (EBSD) unit. The observation of the surface of the ECAPed samples after creep exposure showed the occurrence of mesoscopic shear bands. The EBSD data reveal that these bands are separated by high angle grain boundaries. The creep resistance of an alloy is a little decreased after one ECAP pass. However, successive ECAP pressing lead to a noticeable decrease of the creep properties. Thus, the Al-0.2wt.%Sc alloy processed by 8 ECAP passes exhibited faster creep rate by about two and/or three orders of magnitude than the unpressed alloy when creep testing at 473 K and at the same applied stress. The detrimental effect of ECAP on the creep resistance is probably a consequence of a synergetic effect of mesoscopic sliding of groups of grains along shear bands, more intensive grain boundary sliding and creep cavitation in creep of the ultrafine-grained material.


Self-determination theory (SDT) suggests that people strive to fulfill three basic needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness. In teacher education research, fulfilling those needs is connected to positive skill development and increased wellbeing of preservice teachers and their students. Teacher education programs for special education preservice teachers (SEPT) include a professional experience in various school settings with neurodiverse students. This professional experience gives rise to specific needs for these SEPT. In-depth interviews were conducted with 12 SEPT, studying at various stages of two teacher education programs. The findings were analyzed qualitatively. Results revealed developing and changing needs throughout the educational program, reflecting different settings and phases of the professional experience. SDT was found to be useful framework to interpret the findings. Implications for designing teacher education programs are discussed.


1. Slowly hydrolysable analogues of GTP were introduced into hepatocytes by incubating the cells in the absence of Mg2+ and in the presence of ATP4-. Experiments using guanosine 5'-[gamma-[35S]thio]triphosphate (GTP[35S])indicated that about 50% of the GTP[S] loaded into the cells was subsequently hydrolysed. 2. In cells loaded with GTP[S] and incubated in the absence of added extracellular Ca2+ (Ca2+o), the rate of activation of glycogen phosphorylase observed after addition of 1.3 mM-Ca2+o was 250% greater than the rate observed in unloaded cells. Smaller effects (130%) were observed in cells loaded with either guanyl-5'-yl imidodiphosphate or guanosine 5-[beta-thio]diphosphate (GDP[S]). Cells loaded with adenosine 5'-[gamma-thio]triphosphate showed no increase in glycogen phosphorylase activity on addition of Ca2+o. 3. The effect of a submaximal concentration of GTP[S] on the Ca2+-induced activation of glycogen phosphorylase was additive with that of a half-maximally effective concentration of vasopressin. GTP[S] did not increase the effect of a maximally effective concentration of the hormone. 4. Cells loaded with GTP[S] exhibited an increased initial rate of 45Ca2+ exchange measured at 1.3 mM-Ca2+o. 5. GTP[S] did not affect the amount of 45Ca2+ exchanged by cells incubated at 0.1 mM-Ca2+o or the ability of vasopressin to release 45Ca2+ from these cells. 6. It is concluded that the introduction of slowly hydrolysable analogues of GTP to the liver cell cytoplasmic space stimulates the inflow of Ca2+ across the plasma membrane through a channel similar to that activated by vasopressin.


Many emerging applications, from domains such as healthcare and oil & gas, require several data processing systems for complex analytics. This demo paper showcasesRheem, a framework that provides multi-platform task execution for such applications. It features a three-layer data processing abstraction and a new query optimization approach for multi-platform settings. We will demonstrate the strengths of Rheem by using real-world scenarios from three di↵erent applications, namely, machine learning, data cleaning, and data fusion.


Purpose The purpose of this study was to develop a model, based on initial optic nerve head (ONH) characteristics, predictive of long-term rapid retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thinning in patients with open-angle glaucoma (OAG). Methods This study evaluated 712 eyes with OAG that had been followed up for >5 years with annual evaluation of RNFL thickness. Baseline ophthalmic features were incorporated into the machine learning models for prediction of faster RNFL thinning. The model was trained and tested using a random forest (RF) method, and was interpreted using Shapley additive explanations. Factors associated with faster rate of RNFL thinning were statistically evaluated using a decision tree. Results The RF model showed that greater lamina cribrosa (LC) curvature, higher intraocular pressure (IOP), visual field mean deviation converging towards −5 dB, and thinner peripapillary choroid at baseline were the four most significant features predicting faster RNFL thinning. Partial interaction between the features showed that larger LC curvature was a strong factor for faster RNFL thinning when it exceeded approximately 12.0. When the LC curvature was ≤12, higher initial IOP and thinner peripapillary choroid played a role in the rapid RNFL thinning. Based on the decision tree, higher IOP (>26.5 mm Hg), greater laminar curvature (>13.95), and thinner peripapillary choroid (≤117.5 µm) were the 3 most important determinants affecting the rate of RNFL thinning. Conclusions Baseline ophthalmic data and ONH characteristics of patients with OAG were predictive of eyes at risk of faster progression. Combinations of important characteristics, such as IOP, LC curvature, and choroidal thickness, could stratify eyes into groups with different rates of RNFL thinning. Translational Relevance This work lays the foundations for developing prediction models to estimate glaucoma prognosis based on initial ONH characteristics.


SUMMARY: A suspension of isolated cells of Mycobacterium tuberculosis was mixed with melted, watery agar and used to prepare thin films of agar gel suspended in 3/8 in. diameter wire loops. These films were incubated in culture media and at intervals of time sample films were transferred to glass slides, fixed, stained and 'the mean count per colony' determined. Some batches of agar inhibited growth, but this inhibition was reduced by extracting the powdered agar with methanol, and was abolished by adding serum, egg or charcoal to the medium. Strain H37Rv and 5 freshly isolated strains growing in a good medium all showed lag periods of 14–17 hr. and generation times of 13–18 hr. In unfavourable media the lag extended to 10–15 days.


Oil field A, situated in Bohai Bay, was discovered in 1999 and has been developed as one of the most productive oil assets in China. It continues to hold significant growth potential for the future. Though the field contains a large amount of resources remaining to be developed, seismic imaging has been challenging in area 5, resulting in structural uncertainty for reservoir interpretation and well planning. In the past three decades, several 2D and 3D seismic surveys have been acquired, processed, and reprocessed in this area. However, due to the existence of complicated gas clouds, which are shallow, multilayered, and extensive, obscured sub-gas-cloud images appear in all legacy seismic results, making fault interpretation under the gas clouds almost impossible. To improve the sub-gas-cloud image and overall structural interpretability, a narrow-azimuth full-field ocean-bottom cable (OBC) acquisition was conducted in field A during 2018 and 2019, and later, a compressive seismic imaging (CSI)-based full-azimuth and large-offset OBC infill survey was acquired in area 5, covering the widest gas cloud. Through high-fidelity signal processing, full-waveform inversion (FWI)-driven velocity model building, and imaging using both Kirchhoff migration and reverse time migration (RTM), the seismic image quality beneath complicated gas clouds is improved significantly. It is the first time that sub-gas-cloud faults and the Base of Guantao event have been imaged by seismic without significant dim zones. CSI acquisition, FWI, and RTM are the key elements to resolve gas-cloud-related challenges in area 5.


This study is an attempt to characterize a group of people who volunteered to complete 7-day food record forms. The group was an age- and sex-stratified random sample, comprising 4807 men and women, born in 1922, 1932, 1942 and 1952, drawn from the Civil Registration System. They all received an invitation to the Glostrup Population Studies in 1982-1984. A total of 49.2% completed a 7-day record form. The percentage of respondents was highest in the older age groups. Women were more willing to participate. There was no difference between the groups regarding body mass index. Marital status had some influence, but school education and vocational training had minor importance. A higher percentage of participants, who had never smoked or had quit smoking, completed the records. The male respondents had a lower weekly consumption of beer. No significant differences could be found between the dietary values of the respondents' and non-respondents' food consumption according to a food frequency questionnaire.


In recent years, significant emphasis has been placed on combination chemotherapy in cancer using cytotoxic agents and plant derived-bioactive substances that are capable of selectively arresting cell growth and inducing apoptosis in tumour cells. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the possibility that the combination of curcumin and cyclophosphamide could show synergistic anti-proliferative effects towards CMT-U27 and CMT-U309 canine mammary cancer cells and, if so, to clarify the mechanism involved. The anti-proliferative activities of curcumin, cyclophosphamide and a combined treatment on CMT cells were determined using the MTT and LDH assays. The concentration of drug required for 50% inhibition of cell viability (IC50) and combination index (CI) values were calculated from log dose-response curves of fixed-combinations of curcumin and cyclophosphamide generated from MTT assays. Apoptosis was detected using a DNA fragmentation assay and Annexin-V/propidium iodide staining followed by flow cytometry. Cell cycle analyses were also performed using flow cytometry. The expression of the apoptosis-related proteins Bax and Bcl-2 was determined by immunocytochemical staining. MTT and LDH assays showed that curcumin and cyclophosphamide induced a doseand a time-dependent decrease in cell viability. Isobole analysis revealed that the substances exhibited a synergistic interaction when IC50 and 1/2 IC50 concentrations of curcumin and cyclophosphamide were added concurrently to the cultures. This synergy was characterised by a significant increase in the percentage of early and late apoptotic CMT-U27 and CMT-U309 cells. However, internucleosomal fragmentation of DNA was not observed in the DNA fragmentation assay. Cells treated with curcumin and cyclophosphamide arrested at the G2/M and S phases of the cell cycle, respectively. In combined treatments cells were arrested in both phases of the cell cycle. Furthermore, immunocytochemical stainings demonstrated that the curcumin induced apoptosis in CMT cells by the modulation of Bcl-2/Bax protein expression, as the expression of Bcl-2 was decreased and that of Bax increased. This effect was more pronounced in combination treatments. In conclusion, our study shows that a combination of curcumin and cyclophosphamide shows synergistic growth inhibitory activity on CMT cells via induction of apoptosis and cell cycle arrest accompanied by modulation of Bcl-2/Bax protein expression. This finding provides a molecular basis for the development of natural compounds as novel anticancer agents and will allow lowering the dose of cytotoxic agents, which will in turn lead to more specific and less toxic therapies for mammary cancer in dogs.


Inverse rendering of an object under entirely unknown capture conditions is a fundamental challenge in computer vision and graphics. Neural approaches such as NeRF have achieved photorealistic results on novel view synthesis, but they require known camera poses. Solving this problem with unknown camera poses is highly challenging as it requires joint optimization over shape, radiance, and pose. This problem is exacerbated when the input images are captured in the wild with varying backgrounds and illuminations. Standard pose estimation techniques fail in such image collections in the wild due to very few estimated correspondences across images. Furthermore, NeRF cannot relight a scene under any illumination, as it operates on radiance (the product of reflectance and illumination). We propose a joint optimization framework to estimate the shape, BRDF, and per-image camera pose and illumination. Our method works on in-the-wild online image collections of an object and produces relightable 3D assets for several use-cases such as AR/VR. To our knowledge, our method is the first to tackle this severely unconstrained task with minimal user interaction. Project page: https://markboss.me/publication/2022-samurai/ Video: https://youtu.be/LlYuGDjXp-8


As the world is undergoing the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), the fusing of physical, digital, and biological worlds with the new technologies, we experience a profound impact of this revolution on the labor markets and subsequent career planning of students. The new economic reality created by 4IR calls for immediate action in the world of higher education. The purpose of this paper is to advocate for new key competencies that university students will need to thrive in the new economy. These competencies include human literacy, digital fluency, hyper-learning, and systems and design thinking. Together, they are presented as the 'W- shaped 4IR Competency Model'. This model combines previously published opinions about the topic from various educational futurists who have tackled the issue. This paper includes a call to action for universities to address the skills gap challenge of college graduates and rethink their value propositions. As honors programs are the breeding ground for innovation, universities might consider starting to test the robot-proof, twenty-first-century curricula with the smaller honors cohorts and then consider the curricular transfer to the mainstream educational programs. We urge honors educators and administrators around the world to adopt curricula that will make their graduates 'robot-proof' and able to thrive in the new economy for decades to come.


Introduction Rates of smoking in the US population have decreased overall, but rates in some groups, including alcoholic smokers, remain high. Many newly sober alcoholics are concerned about their smoking and some attempt to quit. However, quit rates in this population are low. Prior studies suggest risk for relapse in this population may be genetically influenced and that genetic factors may moderate response to treatment. Methods In this exploratory study, we had two specific aims: (1) to investigate associations between genetic risk and outcome; (2) to investigate whether genetic risk moderates the efficacy of a medication intervention. Data are from a subsample of 90 participants from a clinical trial of smoking cessation treatment for smokers with between 2 and 12 months of alcohol abstinence. Subjects were randomly assigned to bupropion or placebo. All subjects received counseling and nicotine patches. To examine the possibility that bupropion may have been efficacious in participants with a specific genetic profile (ie, a pharmacogenetic approach), an aggregate genetic risk score was created by combining risk genotypes previously identified in bupropion treatment studies. Results Although medication efficacy was not moderated by the aggregate genetic risk score, there was an interaction between nicotine dependence and genetic risk in predicting smoking abstinence rates at the end of treatment (10 weeks). Conclusions Results suggest an aggregate genetic risk score approach may have utility in treatment trials of alcoholics who smoke. Additionally, these findings suggest a strategy for understanding and interpreting conflicting results for single genetic markers examined as moderators of smoking cessation treatment.


In this paper, we propose an efficient routing algorithm for large scale cluster-based wireless sensor networks. The technique uses two routing levels. In the first level (intra-cluster), cluster members send data directly to their cluster head. In the second level (inter-cluster), the cluster heads use ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm, which is a biologically inspired paradigm for optimization approach, to find a route to the base station. As only cluster heads participate in the inter-cluster routing operation, the method can provide a smooth operation more effectively. The delay of the algorithm is minimized by using the ant colony optimization algorithm along with clustering. To assess the efficiency of the proposed algorithm, we compare the method with some previous routing algorithms. The results show lower power consumption and more load balancing.


T-bet is a master regulator for IFN-γ production and Th1 differentiation. We evaluated the roles of T-bet and IFN-γ in T cell responses in acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and found that T-bet−/− T cells induced significantly less GVHD compared with wild-type or IFN-γ−/− counterparts in both MHC-mismatched and MHC-matched but minor histocompatibility Ag–mismatched models driven by CD4 T cells. T-bet−/−, but not IFN-γ−/−, CD4 T cells had a markedly reduced ability to cause tissue damage in liver and gut. This distinct outcome is reflected by the differential gene expression on donor CD4 T cells deficient for T-bet or IFN-γ. At mRNA and protein levels, we defined several T-bet–dependent molecules that may account for the impaired ability of T-bet−/− T cells to migrate into target organs and to produce Th1-related cytokines. Moreover, these molecules were independent of either endogenous IFN-γ, such as CXCR3 and programmed death-1, or systematic IFN-γ, such as NKG2D, I-Ab, and granzyme B. Although both T-bet−/− and IFN-γ−/− CD4 T cells are prone to differentiate into Th17 cells, polarized Th17 cells deficient for T-bet but not for IFN-γ had a significantly reduced ability to cause GVHD. Finally, T-bet−/− T cells had a compromised graft-versus-leukemia effect, which could be essentially reversed by neutralization of IL-17 in the recipients. We conclude that T-bet is required for Th1 differentiation and migration, as well as for optimal function of Th17 cells. Thus, targeting T-bet or regulating its downstream effectors independent of IFN-γ may be a promising strategy to control GVHD in the clinic.


Results from univariate outbred F2 interval mapping and sib-pair analyses of 12 growth and 28 carcass traits to identify QTL on SSC 2, 6, 13, and 18 were compared. Phenotypic and genetic data were recorded on a three-generation resource population including 832 F2 pigs from a cross between three Berkshire sires and 18 Duroc dams. Thirty markers with an average spacing of approximately 16 cM were genotyped across the four chromosomes. The outbred F2 mixed model included the effects of sex, birth month, and year, one-QTL additive, dominance and imprinting coefficients calculated every 1 cM using interval mapping, and a random family effect. The general sib-pair model used to describe the phenotypic differences between sib-pairs included the same systematic and random effects and a one-QTL additive coefficient calculated every 1 cM. The outbred F2 analysis found significant evidence of QTL on SSC 2 associated with 105-d weight, backfat thicknesses, LM area, fat percent, shear force, juiciness, marbling, and tenderness. In addition, QTL were identified on SSC 6 relating to 42-d weight and LM area, and on SSC 18 for fat and moisture percents. In most instances, the outbred F2 approach offered greater power to detect QTL; however, the sib-pair analysis offered greater power in several instances. The trait-specific superiority could be due to the relative advantage of each model within a trait data set. The two approaches provided complementary evidence for QTL segregating between the Berkshire and Duroc breeds used in the study that may be used to aid marker-assisted introgression and selection and candidate gene studies to improve swine growth and meat quality characteristics.


Objective: To evaluate the effects of recombinant LH (rLH) supplementation on embryo quality in IVF/ICSI cycles with GnRH antagonist. Study design: Prospective, randomized controlled study. Thirty women were enrolled, 15 in the study (FSH + rLH) group and 15 in the control (rFSH only) group. On the day GnRH antagonist was started, the study group patients received 75 IU of rLH in addition to rFSH. The main outcome measures were embryo quality, number of oocytes retrieved, and fertilization rate. Results: The rLH group had significantly more top-quality embryos (36/43, 84%) compared to the control group (40/68, 59%; p = 0.006). Fertilization rates and number of oocytes retrieved were similar between groups. Progesterone and estradiol (E2) concentrations in follicular fluid were higher in the study group compared to controls (16.5 ± 2.5 µg/ml vs. 11.4 ± 3.6 µg/ml progesterone, P = 0.07; and 687 ± 112 pg/ml vs. 471 ± 65 pg/ml E2, p = 0.08). Conclusion: Adding rLH to ovarian stimulation with GnRH antagonist can yield higher quality embryos.


In England in the sixteenth century a new genre of writing emerged, that of collected travel, reflective of the nation's interests in, and determination to share, the rich natural resources and trading opportunities that overseas exploration and colonial encounter could provide for Europeans. Excluded from new territories 'beyond the line' by the Pope's reservation in 1493 of the unknown world for Spain and Portugal, the English response was both to scrap and plunder and to announce their aspirations for territory and trade through textual activities. Richard Hakluyt's massive collection of accounts of travel and exploration The Principal Navigations (1589, 2nd expanded edition 1598-1600) is key to understanding the development of England's ambitions for commercial and colonial expansion in the period. These volumes changed the geopolitical landscape through their advocacy of English exploits in a world of increasingly global competition. The practice of travel for early moderns was undertaken by only a small percentage of the population, because of its expense, and the strict requirements governing the purpose of travel. Yet, by the turn of the seventeenth century, people and goods were in motion across lands and seas to distances and on scales hardly imaginable just a century before. As a result, accounts of travel and voyaging at home and abroad, such as Hakluyt's collection, and works of literature engaging with, and critiquing them, became the most popular and easily accessible sources of information about this newly envisage-able wider world for a nation of armchair travellers. The essay concludes with a brief overview of the ways exploration and cultural encounter emerged as key themes in late sixteenth-century literature, including plays.


The community of researchers supporting instruction on design thinking has a significant body of materials to help students understand and master the process of creative problem solving in design. Missing, we argue are materials and processes which directly support the design of inclusive technologies for persons with disabilities. We present 'Inclusion by Design', an interactive and participative crash course designed to introduce students to techniques that may be useful in an inclusive design process. In a single 75-minute session, students explore the inclusive design of a transportation technology for a visually impaired persona. We report on our findings from a single pilot of the crash course involving six diverse students within a graduate course on Inclusive Design. Our findings suggest that the course may be effective in introducing techniques like storyboarding, scenario creation, and low fidelity prototyping to students using an approach that may be effective for various learning styles.


A new feed-forward control technique for a DC-DC step-up converter based on the asymmetric Multistage Stacked Boost Architecture (MSBA) is presented in this paper. The proposed closed loop control scheme can provide improved accuracy in the steady-state operation and high dynamic performance. The asymmetric MSBA converter is a single output high-voltage DC-DC step-up converter that comprises several in-series connected capacitors with active voltage balancing circuits. The converter can attain high voltage ratios and thus, it is a suitable solution for the high voltage transmission requirements of the large photovoltaic (PV) plants. Selective simulation and experimental results are presented in order to validate the effectiveness and the operational improvements of the proposed control system.


Abstract Cupulocrinus angustatus (Meek and Worthen, 1870) is common and widely distributed in the Maquoketa Formation of the northern midcontinent of the United States, and specimens are known from the Isotelus and Vogdesia Zones of the Elgin, the Clermont, Fort Atkinson, and Brainard Members. Cluster significance tests indicate that crinoids from all stratigraphic horizons are conspecific. The most numerous primibrachs are located in the A and B rays, whereas the C ray exhibits the fewest plates. The largest and smallest numbers of secundibrachs occur in the B and C rays, respectively. The number of brachs is independent of stratigraphic position and the size of the crinoids. Correlation coefficients for the numbers of brachs demonstrate that the arms are divided into two overlapping and covarying levels: the proximal arms from the primibrachs to tertibrachs, and distal arms ranging from the tertibrachs to quintibrachs. Growth of the aboral cup is generally isometric or roughly so. Conversely, the width:height ratios of brachs typically increase in progressively larger individuals. Similarly, most deposition of calcite on the columnals affects their width rather than height. The correlations for the aboral cup and its plates generally exceed those of brachs and stem plates. The contrasts in allometry and integration and coordination between the aboral cup versus the brachs and column are attributed to differences in basic geometry and developmental constraints. Similar patterns are seen in other Paleozoic and perhaps all or most crinoids.


Abstract

The academic environment has recently recognized the importance and benefits that an extensive research on the translation of advertising can have for translation studies. Despite the growing interest and increasing research activity in the field it is still difficult to speak about a theory of advertising translation in general. There is a need for further study encompassing different languages and both heterogeneous and homogenous cultures that will give the possibility to receive a more complete map of what the translation of advertising is and should be. Previous studies have been concentrated, for the most part, on Western European language pairs. This study is a research into perfume and cosmetics print advertisements translated from English into Russian where both visual and verbal elements are considered. Three broad translation approaches have been identified in what concerns the verbal message: Translated message, parallel translation, recreated adverts, and three approaches in dealing with the image: similar images, modified images, completely different images. The thesis shows that where Russian advertisements for perfume products tend to have a message, or create one, this is often lacking in the English copy. The article ends by suggesting that perfume advertisements favor the standardization approach when entering Russian market. The attempts to localize the advert have also been noticed although they are obviously less numerous in perfume adverts and are rather instances of adaptation - a mix between the localization and standardization approaches since they keep drawing on the same globally accepted universals about female beauty and concern for 'woman's identity' (we focused our analysis on products designed for female consumers). This study, complementing previous studies, aims to be a contribution to the description of laws and strategies that guide the translation of advertising texts into Russian.


Surface modification of materials for sliding motion is very important to reduce friction as well as out-gassing for clean and smooth operation in a vacuum. We, therefore, tried to develop the advanced modifications for smooth motion in a vacuum by controlling surface roughness on a sub-micron scale. Friction measurement was carried out on type 304 austenitic stainless steel sheets known as typical vacuum material. They were surface-treated by chemical polishing or electrochemical buffing after mechanical polishing. A probe for friction measurement was a mechanically polished stainless steel ball of 3.18 mm in diameter. The probe was slided under the load of 0.49 N on surface of stainless steel sheets with surface roughness from 40 nm to 1550 nm. Friction measurement in an atmospheric pressure showed little change in friction coefficients of sheets treated either by chemical polishing or by electrochemical buffing. This shows that friction coefficients were almost independent of surface roughness in an atmospheric pressure. Friction measurement at the pressure of 10-6 Pa showed that friction coefficients of sheets increased largely except sheets with surface roughness about 100 nm treated by chemical polishing or by electrochemical buffing. Stainless steel sheets with surface roughness about 100 nm can only keep low friction coefficient of 0.1 both in an atmospheric pressure and in a high vacuum. It is therefore concluded that the surface roughness about 100 nm will help smooth sliding motion under any pressure from atmospheric pressure down to high vacuum.


Structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques are often used for detecting damage and diagnosing the structural conditions. There are many issues related to installation and constructability of SHM systems and in-situ installation of fibre optic sensors (FOS) on rebars in reinforced concrete (RC) elements. Here, a solution is provided for installation of a FOS strain sensor by mounting it on a supplementary bar a priori and then attaching it to the main reinforcing bar of interest at the construction site prior to concrete pouring. Such innovative deployment system for FOS is particularly advantageous for developing a practical SHM system for infrastructure. However, the performance of such systems under various loading and climatic conditions is not very well known. The objective of this research is to assess the performance of the said system used in concrete beams reinforced with FRP (fibrereinforced polymer) bars, under normal and adverse environmental conditions such as, immersion and cyclic immersion in alkaline solution. The results show that the proposed FOS system is efficient and useful in capturing the real strain in control, and wet and dry conditions. Electric strain gauges were found to perform poorly in adverse conditions. Record of the entire response of the structure to external loads of a structure makes it possible to identify and analyze periodic events. It helps a better evaluation of the acquired data. The data collected over a period of time provides valuable information and helps forecasting future structural behavior and estimating risk. In general structures are observed objectively only a continuous monitoring of structural loads and stress cycles can reflect actual structural characteristics. doi: 10.12783/SHM2015/129


This study critically examines two Chinese newspapers' representation of China as a "nation" and "culture." Prior studies have deeply and broadly explored various ways through which China, Chinese culture, and nationalism were constructed in popular media forums. What has been missing is a continued exploration of these constructions offered by the Chinese media sources that are published outside the dominant Chinese cultural, national, and political contexts. Using World Journal and Sing Tao Daily, two major Chinese immigrant newspapers, as the texts for analysis, this study produces important findings that demonstrate how China is constructed as a contested, multi-layered, powerful, and divided culture and nation. Based on the study's result, future inquiries can continue to analyze the representation of China across multiple media and linguistic platforms.


Purpose: Community-based participatory research methods were utilized to culturally tailor an educational cancer clinical trials DVD for Black women. The DVD, "Clinical Trials: Are they right for you?" provides answers to common questions and discusses concerns about cancer clinical trials. Focus groups with Black women were conducted to obtain knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions about the cultural relevance of the words, people and stories of DVD. Learner verification techniques were employed to identify participant9s viewpoints on the appearance, self-efficacy enhancement, acceptability, and persuasiveness of the educational DVD. A community advisory panel (CAP) was used to review results and develop recommendations for future media products. Methods: The study took place in two phases. In the first phase, four focus groups (n=32) were held with Black women without a personal cancer diagnosis in the area of Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties. The focus groups questions were based on learner verification techniques which assessed the user-friendliness, perceived intention, and visual attractiveness of the educational DVD. The duration of the focus groups was 90 minutes. All focus groups were audio taped and transcribed verbatim. Thematic coding, using a crystallized-immersion framework was conducted by the research team. A combination of hand-coding and Atlas TI software were employed using the learner verification content as a priori codes. The frequency and nature of the emergent themes were compared across the groups with concentration on potential differences between participants who had prior experience as a caregiver and those who had not. In the second phase, de-indentified focus group findings were presented to the CAP to obtain recommendations for improvement of the cancer clinical trials DVD and future educational efforts aimed at the Black community. Results: Preliminary findings from the focus groups included differences between caregiver and non-caregiver with prior caregiver participants providing more detailed recommendations due to exposure to some cancer clinical trials educational materials and personal experience with events and/or instructions received while caring for a loved one. Both groups felt the representation of Black women should be increased on the DVD. Findings from both the focus groups and the recommendations from the study9s CAP will be utilized to develop more culturally relevant educational materials in regard to cancer clinical trials in the future. Additionally, future research will continue collaborations with the CAP to ensure that educational materials are centered on the concerns of the community as to readily engage the Black community. In light of low rates of participation among Black women in cancer clinical trials, working collaboratively with the Black community to ascertain their perspectives on cancer clinical trials is integral to developing culturally relevant educational materials that may improve understanding of clinical trials and lead to informed decision making. Citation Information: Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2011;20(10 Suppl):A29.


This paper describes the compilation of the Global Debt Database (GDD), a cutting-edge dataset covering private and public debt for virtually the entire world (190 countries) dating back to the 1950s. The GDD is the result of a multiyear investigative process that started with the October 2016 Fiscal Monitor, which pioneered the expansion of private debt series to a global sample. It differs from existing datasets in three major ways. First, it takes a fundamentally new approach to compiling historical data. Where most debt datasets either provide long series with a narrow and changing definition of debt or comprehensive debt concepts over a short period, the GDD adopts a multidimensional approach by offering multiple debt series with different coverages, thus ensuring consistency across time. Second, it more than doubles the cross-sectional dimension of existing private debt datasets. Finally, the integrity of the data has been checked through bilateral consultations with officials and IMF country desks of all countries in the sample, setting a higher data quality standard.


Francis Edward "Ab" Abernethy served as the Secretary-Editor of the Texas Folklore Society for over three decades, managing the organization's daily operations and helping it grow. He edited two dozen volumes of the PTFS series and wrote the three volumes of the Society's history. This Publication of the Texas Folklore Society celebrates Ab Abernethy's years of leadership in collecting, preserving, and presenting the folklore of Texas and the Southwest. The prefaces to some of the more memorable edited volumes are included, along with articles he wrote on music, teaching, anecdotes about historical figures and events, and "cultural" examinations of the things we hold dear. In all, these pieces tell us what was important to Ab. In part, these topics are also what was—and still is—important to the Texas Folklore Society. The contents include: Beginnings: the why and the how -- The way things were -- I'll sing you a song -- Reflections.


Energy efficiency has become an increasingly important concern in data centers because of issues associated with energy consumption, such as capital costs, operating expenses, and environmental impact. While energy loss due to suboptimal use of facilities and non-IT equipment has largely been reduced through the use of best-practice technologies, addressing energy wastage in IT equipment still requires the design and implementation of energy-aware resource management systems. This thesis focuses on the development of resource allocation methods to improve energy efficiency in data centers. The thesis employs three approaches to improve efficiency for optimized power and performance: scaling virtual machine (VM) and server processing capabilities to reduce energy consumption; improving resource usage through workload consolidation; and exploiting resource heterogeneity. To achieve these goals, the first part of the thesis proposes models, algorithms, and techniques that reduce energy usage through the use of VM scaling, VM sizing for CPU and memory, CPU frequency adaptation, as well as hardware power capping for server-level resource allocation. The proposed online performance and power models capture system behavior while adapting to changes in the underlying infrastructure. Based on these models, the thesis proposes controllers that dynamically determine power-efficient resource allocations while minimizing performance penalty. These methods are then extended to support resource overbooking and workload consolidation to improve resource utilization and energy efficiency across the cluster or data center. In order to cater for different performance requirements among collocated applications, such as latency-sensitive services and batch jobs, the controllers apply service differentiation among prioritized VMs and performance isolation techniques, including CPU pinning, quota enforcement, and online resource tuning. This thesis also considers resource heterogeneity and proposes heterogeneousaware scheduling techniques to improve energy efficiency by integrating hardware accelerators (in this case FPGAs) and exploiting differences in energy footprint of different servers. In addition, the thesis provides a comprehensive study of the overheads associated with a number of virtualization platforms in order to understand the trade-offs provided by the latest technological advances and to make the best resource allocation decisions accordingly. The proposed methods in this thesis are evaluated by implementing prototypes on real testbeds and conducting experiments using real workload data taken from production systems and synthetic workload data that we generated. Our evaluation results demonstrate that the proposed approaches provide improved energy management of resources in virtualized data centers.


Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains to be one of the most common malignancies worldwide. Various studies have demonstrated that microRNAs (miRs) play a critical role in regulating cancer progression and sensitivity to chemoradiotherapy. miR-1 was found to be aberrantly expressed in CRC. However, it has not been fully elucidated whether miR-1 regulated CRC cell radioresistance. Methods: The expression of miR-1 was detected using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction in CRC tissues and cell lines. Colony survival and proliferation were determined using colony formation assay and MTT assay, respectively. Apoptosis and levels of related proteins, Bax and Bcl-2, were detected using flow cytometer assay and western blotting analysis. Migration and invasion were measured using wound healing assay and transwell invasion assay. The levels of invasion-associated proteins, E-cadherin, MMP2 and MMP9, were detected using western blotting analysis. Results: miR-1 was found to be downregulated in CRC tissues and cell lines compared with adjacent normal tissues. In vitro, miR-1 overexpression significantly suppressed colony survival and proliferation, and induced cell apoptosis under irradiation, but no apoptosis was detected without irradiation. Furthermore, miR-1 mimics promoted the expression of Bax and E-cadherin and decreased the expression of Bcl-2, MMP2 and MMP9, and apparently impaired the invasion and migration of CRC cells in synergy with radiotherapy. Conclusion: miR-1 enhanced the radiosensitivity of CRC cells by inducing cell apoptosis and the synergic inhibition of aggressive phenotypes, which may serve as a promising therapeutic target for CRC patients.


The fertility in sweet cherry is determined by a gametophytic self-incompatibility system, controlled by a multi-allelic S-locus who prevents self-pollination. The fertilization is determined by the interaction of an S-allele specific ribonuclease (S-RNase) in the style with a pollen S specific F-box protein gene (SFB). Knowledge about the S genotype of sweet cherries is very important for cherry growers and breeders. In the last years molecular markers have been developed to distinguish the S- alleles in sweet cherries. A total of 60 incompatibility groups in 1203 sweet cherries have been defined up to October 2017. 25 sweet cherries have a unique combination of S-alleles and were described as universal donors and placed in the incompatibility group 0. Additionally, there exist 72 self-compatible sweet cherries, called group SC.

The goal of this work is to summaries all known data of the S-alleles in cultivated sweet cherries. In Table 1 the S-genotypes of all studied sweet cherries are described. Furthermore it includes information about the parentage if they are known.
Table 2 gives an overview about all the detected incompatibility groups. The groups are sorted according to the group numbers and the S-allele numbers, respectively.
In Table 3 all genotypes of the incompatibility group 0 with a unique S-genotype are listed.
Table 4 includes all known self-compatible sweet cherries.
All references to the information of the S-genotypes are listed in a file named 'References'.

The present overview needs to be further improved with all new S-alleles data of sweet cherries. In addition, all new information about the parentage is very important for the breeding research. Please send all new or corrected data to the S-alleles and the parentage of sweet cherries to email@example.com. An update of the S-allele overview will take place every year.


The introduction of the Australian Government's Clean Energy Future Legislation 2011 coupled with community expectation is placing pressure on councils liable under the carbon pricing mechanism (such as the City of Darwin) to reduce its carbon footprint. One carbon mitigation option is to replace fossil-fuel powered passenger fleet vehicles with battery electric vehicles. This thesis makes a contribution to understanding the challenges associated with implementing this activity in the City of Darwin's fleet, and does so from a triple bottom line (financial, environmental and social) perspective. A possible implementation scenario is outlined which includes a three phase program, where the initial phase includes the purchase of a Mitsubishi i-MiEV as an additional fleet vehicle. The second phase suggests procuring three electric vehicles (Nissan Leaf x two and Renault Fluence Z.E.) as a trial. The third phase is a gradual battery electric vehicle roll-out across the passenger fleet. The research reported in this thesis applies three complementary program planning tools (program logic models, the Cynefin Framework and community-based social marketing theory) to the implementation scenario. It is shown that they are methodologically complementary and in combination, could be used to increase the likelihood of success of the implementation scenario. This thesis shows replacing existing fleet passenger vehicles with battery electric vehicles will reduce City of Darwin's carbon footprint while using program planning tools will increase the likelihood of success of vehicle replacement, both from a planning, management and staff behaviour change perspective.


ABSTRACT The formation of stylolite seams occurs title to the plastic nature of calcareous sediments and during the early period of their consolidation. Stylolitic development has no part in the process of removing petroleum products from calcareous source beds. The disconnected contraction cavities formed along stylolite seams may entrap petroleum in much the same manner as disconnected contraction cavities in dolomitic limestone as described specifically in connection with the Little Falls, N.Y. dolomite. When the contraction cavities are sufficiently large, numerous, and connected in the source beds, most of the petroleum may be expected to escape, under the right conditions. On the other hand, if such cavernous beds are structurally suitable they may hold the original oil or they may recei e and retain migrating oil in large quantities especially if access channels exist.


Using the Yin and Yang Model of Leadership, this research engaged in embedded action research by studying feedback from 2,277 leaders in Canada and France who experienced the Yin and Yang Model in the context of leadership programs between 2008 and 2015. Leadership theories have continued to abound since the early 20th century and leadership scholars have increasingly called for integrative strategies and multilevel models that can address leadership development from an individual level as well as from a relational level. Three complementary studies of 52 individual and collective leadership development interventions, using the multilevel Yin and Yang Model of Leadership, with appreciative (yin) and its intentional (yang) principles as the underlying framework, were conducted by the author. The results from all three studies strongly support: (a) the model's multilevel accessibility for leadership development at the individual, dyad, group and organization levels; (b) the use of appreciation and intentionality as two complementary and integrative leadership factors; and (c) the easy application and re-application of the model by participants from all walks of life. These results call for more research on each of the two principles as generative leadership attitudes, their interrelated dynamic as a guiding model for self-mastery and self-leadership, the applications to groups and collective leadership development, and the model's general accessibility.


Why do a SWOT analysis on retail technology? The intention was to consider the full constellation of technology strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, as well as "tech effects"--those intended and surprise consequences of IT. From that we distilled the points that seemed, to knowledgeable observers, to be the most salient. All of this has relevance for creating effective customer sales and service process. The connections you'll see here might seem tangential, but to many of our sources they are quite real. In a distributed computer environment, "the hip bone's connected to the ear lobe." That is, IP networks, open source platforms, high-capacity or clustered servers, easier-to-scale and manage databases, and other back-office systems, tools, and techniques are increasingly relevant to what the employee touches and what the customer sees within an application. Said differently, if the back-office can be optimized via simplified code writing and deployment, and the business objectives easily weaved into operations (in the form of rules and other consistent workflows), then the bank can run better. Requirements such as customer onboarding, issuing retention tactics, messaging, or cross-selling can be standardized by a process and IT design that evokes semi-automated tasks as repeatable, perfectible, and consistent. Take "on-boarding," biz speak for the process of introducing a new customer to your bank, including application processing and initial sales outreach. Wouldn't it be terrific if all business units conducted sales and compliance functions with a uniformity, whenever possible, allowing for the appropriate custom workflows? This simple but profound concept of better front-to-back or straight-through-processing linkages and uniformity (which should touch every channel, each line of business) has big-picture operations implications. Among them: the need for data quality; the need for channel integration, and the opportunity for better coordination among departments as they hand off work or, say, fine tune product features such as pricing and distribution. And so, we gave free reign to the opinions of CIOs and those with similar responsibilities in their identification of the issues. Also on the hook were analysts, consultants, and professional thinkers. Sure, the thought of yet another reengineering project might be painful. Yet this new wave of IT--including service oriented architecture (SOA)--will make your institution more agile and responsive, experts say. So forget about yesterday's news citing problematic channel-specific or enterprise customer relationship management projects. Set aside, too, sweeping claims of customer-facing applications that don't quite capitalize on the relationship. It's not that these issues have magically dried up as much as become yesterday's lessons at many banks, spurring new experiments in workflow and related technologies. Strengths What IT strengths can be attributed to retail banking sector? Today, most business bank executives function with interdisciplinary aims and with multiple departments in mind as they plan IT projects. No single bank has this down to a perfect science. Yet deliberate progress is being made, as evidenced by new "org" charts, and enterprise managers, which have the job to "by God get things done," as Seinfeld's Kramer was once told by the Post Master General. Whether the czar in question is there to address payments, customer service, or risk management, key objectives on his or her project list relate directly to giving customers meaningful value, efficiency, and safety. This is more than a theoretical connection, experts say. Business process can be better thought out when you keep customer-facing objectives in mind as you design all systems. If done correctly, this awareness filters down to the most routine capabilities. …


Th e two corpses of police dogs, of Labrador retriever breed used for fi nding narcotics, were sent to the Scientifi c Veterinary Institute "Novi Sad", and examined post-mortem, in order to determine the cause of death. Post-mortem examination revealed the presence of neoplastic changes in the mandibular region, pulmonary parenchyma and axillary region. Th e samples of neoplastic changes were sent to the Laboratory of Patohistology within the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Belgrade, in order to specify the diagnosis. Histopathology examination revealed an adenocarcinoma in lungs and haemangioendothelioma in axillary region. Is there any role of drug sniffi ng on the occurrence of neoplasia in Labrador retriever breed is still unknown, but it could be an important factor in the development of neoplasia in these dogs.


Background. Cholangiocytes perform an essential role in important pathophysiologic functions in the liver. Establishment of a human cholangiocyte line facilitates advances in cholangiocyte research and clinical applications for cell therapies. Here, we describe the immortalization of human cholangiocytes using serial transfection of simian virus 40 large T (SV40T) followed by human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT). Methods. SV40T-transduced human liver OUMS-21 cells were superinfected with a retroviral vector SSR#197 encoding hTERT and green fluorescent protein (GFP) cDNAs. Resulting cell lines were evaluated for gene expression, functional cholangiogenic characteristics in vitro and in vivo, and response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Results. One of the SV40T- and hTERT-immortalized cholangiocyte clones, MMNK-1, was established. MMNK-1 expressed cholangiocyte markers, including cytokeratin (CK)-7 and -19 and exhibited cholangiogenic tubule formation in a Matrigel assay. When transplanted into the immunodeficient mice, MMNK-1 cells developed bile duct-like structures in the spleen. After LPS treatment, MMNK-1 cells produced interleukin-6 and failed to form well-developed tubular structures in Matrigel. Conclusion. We have established an immortalized cholangiocyte cell line, MMNK-1, using SV40T and hTERT transduction.


: In patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, we used nevibolol, a lipophilic high-selective beta 1-blocker. It has been found out that the drug, while augmenting the synthesis of nitrogen oxide, improves antioxidant properties. Therefore, it can be recommended for use in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus concurrent with arterial hypertension to achieve normalization of arterial pressure and accomplish a correction of endothelial dysfunction.


In her films, Paromita Vohra is the trickster, the bahurupiya who entertains, unsettles, and ultimately encourages the spectator to think, reflect, and reconsider. Always penetrating in her analysis, Vohra is interested in the ways power is exercised through history and discourse. Her films are aesthetically distinct in the context of the formal histories of social documentary in India, which emerged at a moment of political crisis and subsequently came to be associated with instrumental use in education, advocacy, and public address. For Vohra, the textual stability of documentary address, representational regimes, and cinematic and verbal language are important areas of political interrogation. Each film is a complex construction in which the "real" is only one element in an affective and reflexive architecture of performance, fiction, poetry, and the intuitive. In this interview, Vohra and the author discuss the filmmaker's discomfort with the historical conventions of social documentary and how she reworks documentary's aesthetic terms through the prisms of the personal.


Global oil prices have subsided relative to the peak reached in mid-2008, but compared to historical levels they remain elevated and volatile as economic uncertainties continue to unfold. The likelihood of these prices rising again soon cannot be ruled out. High oil prices can adversely affect growth, employment, external accounts, and fiscal positions of governments. An overwhelming response across Asia as international oil prices spiked in 2008 was to shield domestic consumers more than before through oil subsidies, which are inequitable, economically inefficient, and environmentally unfriendly. These subsidies add directly to the fiscal deficit and public debt, but are generally hidden, making their measurement difficult. Additionally, in combination with lower growth rates, higher spending to rev up demand across Asia is also worsening the fiscal positions of governments. This paper computes the transmission of recent global oil price movements to domestic markets and estimates oil price subsidies in a diverse group of 32 Asian economies. Using data for 18 of these countries and applying a forward-looking methodology for debt dynamics, the paper then examines the potential impact of responses to macroeconomic shocks and a possible rise in oil prices on public debt and estimates the fiscal correction needed to sustain debt at a steady-state level. Based on the findings from the empirical analysis, the paper extracts some guiding principles for fiscal policy responses to the economic shocks depending on country-specific circumstances.


In the last few years, biomedical research has been boosted by the technological development of analytical instrumentation generating a large volume of data. Such information has increased in complexity from basic (i.e., blood samples) to extensive sets encompassing many aspects of a subject phenotype, and now rapidly extending into genetic and, more recently, radiomic information. Radiogenomics integrates both aspects, investigating the relationship between imaging features and gene expression. From a methodological point of view, radiogenomics takes advantage of non-conventional data analysis techniques that reveal meaningful information for decision-support in cancer diagnosis and treatment. This survey is aimed to review the state-of-the-art techniques employed in radiomics and genomics with special focus on analysis methods based on molecular and multimodal probes. The impact of single and combined techniques will be discussed in light of their suitability in correlation and predictive studies of specific oncologic diseases.


Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) poses a serious threat to swine worldwide as evidenced by its recent introduction into the USA and the devastating economic impact it caused to the USA swine industry. Commercial vaccines against PEDV are available but their efficacies are inadequate. Therefore, vaccines with improved efficacy are needed to effectively control PEDV infections. We previously determined the immunogenicity of a novel dendritic cell (DC)-targeted PEDV S1 protein-based subunit vaccine in weaned piglets in which the PEDV antigen was targeted to DCs through a porcine Langerin-specific antibody. In this study, we evaluated the protective efficacy of this DC-targeting vaccine by immunizing sows at 5 and 2 weeks prior to farrowing and by challenging the 5-day-old piglets with PEDV. The results showed that immunization of sow with DC-targeted PEDV vaccine did not eliminate faecal virus shedding in piglets but significantly reduced faecal viral RNA levels in the early days after virus challenge. The vaccine also reduced the amount of PEDV antigen in intestinal tissues presented with intestinal villi regrowth. However, the DC-targeted vaccine neither mitigated PEDV clinical signs nor affected viral RNA loads in intestinal tissues of piglets. In the vaccinated sow, DC-targeted PEDV vaccine enhanced T helper 1-like cluster of differentiation (CD)4 T cell responses and induced IgG but not IgA-specific immune responses. The suckling piglets in the DC-targeted vaccine group showed increased gross pathological lesions in the small intestine. Results in this study provide insights into the effects of sow cellular immune responses to PEDV infection in suckling piglets.


The selection of the number of past observations to be included in a linear predictor (the order of the predictor) should be done with minimum variability, since this latter is not taken into account in the inference stage. For finite time series, there is a trade-off between variability and optimality (in the sense of mean squared prediction error). The widely used Akaike criteria, FPE and AIC, lead to highly variable estimated orders, whereas consistent criteria are downward biased when the optimal order increases with the sample size. We introduce a new automatic test procedure based on the FPE criterion which decreases the variability without biasing the selection by much.


This paper considers hybrid classification architectures for gender and ethnic classification of human faces and shows their feasibility using a collection of 3006 face images corresponding to 1009 subjects from the FERET database. The hybrid approach consists of an ensemble of RBF networks and inductive decision trees (DT). Experimental cross validation (CV) results yield an average accuracy rate of (a) 96% on the gender classification task and (b) 94% on the ethnic classification task. The benefits of our hybrid architecture include: (i) robustness via query by consensus provided by the ensembles of RBF networks, and (ii) flexible and adaptive thresholds as opposed to ad hoc and hard thresholds provided by using only DT.


Biochemical and immunocytochemical investigations have shown that myelin-associated glycoprotein (MAG) is exclusively related to myelin and myelin-forming cells in mammals. In the present study it was found that dorsal root ganglia in young chickens display MAG-immunoreactive material in most small sensory neurons. The presence of MAG at the surface of small sensory neurons raises the question of whether this glycoprotein acts as a cell adhesion molecule in lower vertebrates.


Knowledge of RNA structure is critical to understanding both the important functional roles of RNA in biology and the engineering of RNA to control biological systems. This article contains a protocol for selective 2′‐hydroxyl acylation analyzed by primer extension and sequencing (SHAPE‐Seq) that, through a combination of structure‐dependent chemical probing and next‐generation sequencing technologies, achieves structural characterization of hundreds of RNAs in a single experiment. This protocol is applicable in a variety of conditions, and represents an important tool for understanding RNA biology. The protocol includes methods for the design and synthesis of RNA mixtures for study, and the construction and analysis of structure‐dependent sequencing libraries that reveal structural information of the RNAs in the mixtures. The methods are generally applicable to studying RNA structure and interactions in vitro in a variety of conditions, and allows for the rapid characterization of RNA structures in a high‐throughput manner. Curr. Protoc. Chem. Biol. 4:275‐297 © 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


Liberalism and its Practice brings together leading authorities who provide an excellent insight into the meaning and practice of liberalism. This book explores current debates surrounding liberalism at the end of the twentieth century and what it has to offer in practice. Its focus is two of liberalism's greatest emerging challenges: multiculturalism and states struggling with the transition to democracy. It considers considers the significant tensions that these pressures bring to liberal frameworks and asks what the viable alternatives are.


This paper presents a methodology based on multivariate data analysis for characterizing potential source contributions of emerging contaminants (ECs) detected in 26 river water samples across multi-scape regions during dry and wet seasons. Based on this methodology, we unveil an approach toward potential source contributions of ECs, a concept we refer to as the "Pharmaco-signature." Exploratory analysis of data points has been carried out by unsupervised pattern recognition (hierarchical cluster analysis, HCA) and receptor model (principal component analysis-multiple linear regression, PCA-MLR) in an attempt to demonstrate significant source contributions of ECs in different land-use zone. Robust cluster solutions grouped the database according to different EC profiles. PCA-MLR identified that 58.9% of the mean summed ECs were contributed by domestic impact, 9.7% by antibiotics application, and 31.4% by drug abuse. Diclofenac, ibuprofen, codeine, ampicillin, tetracycline, and erythromycin-H2O have significant pollution risk quotients (RQ>1), indicating potentially high risk to aquatic organisms in Taiwan.


Evolutionary governance theory (EGT) provides a basis for holistically analyzing the shifting contexts and dynamics of poli‐ cymaking in settings with functional differentiation and complex subsystems. Policy assemblages, as mixes of policy tools and goals, are an appropriate unit of analysis for EGT because they embody the theory's emphasis on co‐evolving elements within policy systems. In rational practice, policymakers design policies within assemblages by establishing objectives, col‐ lecting information, comparing options, strategizing implementation, and selecting instruments. However, as EGT implies, this logical progression does not always materialize so tidily—some policies emerge from carefully considered blueprints while others evolve from muddled processes, laissez faire happenstance, or happy accident. Products of the latter often include loosely steered, unmoored, and 'non‐designed' path dependencies that confound linear logic and are understud‐ ied in the policy literature. There exists the need for a more intricate analytical vocabulary to describe this underexplored 'chaotic' end of the policy design spectrum, as conjuring images of 'muddles' or 'messes' has exhausted its usefulness. This article introduces a novel metaphor for non‐design—the bird nest—to bring studies of policy design and non‐design into lexical harmony.


There has been little empirical investigation of a relationship between website usage (Web Metrics) and website content. The overall aim of the study reported in this article to build on empirical evidence about a relationship, by achieving new insights from New Zealand business culture. The key purpose of the present paper is to learn whether metrics measures are related to website functionalities attributes. An online survey was used to gather data from businesses that have an e-Commerce website. The results from this study indicate such relation exists with each metric is related to specific functions. For example, website stickiness is a measure of time spent by customers on the website, the findings pointed out that as a result of advertising promotions, visitors stay longer whenever there are new promotions. These indications prompt the seller to carefully monitor their website traffic for a possible downturn and remedy the situation prior to its occurrence. Keywords: e-Commerce, Websites, e-Metrics, Performance


Determining semantic textual similarity is a core research subject in natural language processing. Since vector-based models for sentence representation often use shallow information, capturing accurate semantics is difficult. By contrast, logical semantic representations capture deeper levels of sentence semantics, but their symbolic nature does not offer graded notions of textual similarity. We propose a method for determining semantic textual similarity by combining shallow features with features extracted from natural deduction proofs of bidirectional entailment relations between sentence pairs. For the natural deduction proofs, we use ccg2lambda, a higher-order automatic inference system, which converts Combinatory Categorial Grammar (CCG) derivation trees into semantic representations and conducts natural deduction proofs. Experiments show that our system was able to outperform other logic-based systems and that features derived from the proofs are effective for learning textual similarity.


This volume by the prehistorian Professor John Waddell explores 'instances where prehistoric archaeology and ancient myth appear to converge'. The study has been considerably influenced by the setting of medieval Irish tales at major prehistoric sites, including Tara, Navan and Rathrcoghan. The mythological themes are largely derived from the four cycles of Irish tales, though other Irish literature is referred to, with only very occasional references to medieval Welsh tales such as the Mabinogion. The use of the term 'Celtic' in the title of the book is problematic: while acknowledging the problems associated with the term, the author justifies its use because of the existence of a common Celtic language, though Sims-Williams called its use in relation to literature as 'anachronistic'. An example of this is the concept of the otherworld, a supernatural place occupied by peoples with magical properties; relations between this world and the 'otherworld' are examined in some detail by Waddell, but the crucial differences between the 'otherworld' as portrayed in Irish and Welsh literature are not fully recognised. A strong case is made for the existence of solar imagery and its representation as a vessel carrying the sun across the heavens as portrayed on prehistoric metalwork. The links are relatively tenuous, and the author has to work hard to identify them. This is a brave book to write, given the difficulties faced, but Waddell has achieved a very readable volume full of themes and ideas, which provides a very useful review of the evidence.


Welsh's monograph is an attempt to provide a new synthesis and analysis of Classic period burials from the Maya Lowlands. Published and unpublished data from 16 sites are included: Mountain Cow, Baking Pot, Barton Ramie, Benque Viejo, San Jose, Holmul, Uaxactun, Tikal, Altun Ha, Dzibilchaltun, Altar de Sacrificios, Seibal, Copan, Piedras Negras, Palenque, and Tonina. The study begins with a review of literature on Maya grave typologies and establishes a standardized classification consisting of "simple," "chultun," "cist," "crypt," "tomb," and "unclassifiable" or "unknown" graves; each of these types is further subdivided. Subsequent chapters in the volume include consideration of: the locational and structural context of burials, methods of disposal, head orientation, urn and pot-skull burials, skeletal mutilation, grave type and context, and associated grave goods. Detailed tables following the various chapters correlate the features considered within the text with data for each site. Chapter 10 examines the social implications of Maya burial data and reevaluates Rathje's (World Archaeology 1:359-374) seminal treatment of Lowland Maya mortuary practices, questioning his statistics, dating, and interpretations. Final chapters review the evidence for human sacrifice and ancestor worship and provide a general discussion of Maya burial customs and possible regional ritual patterns. This is not a theoretical book; its strength lies in the extensive data tabulations that form a most useful starting point for further analyses. Discussions do not include current archaeological literature relevant to mortuary analysis, specifically that dealing with status differentiation. Nevertheless, the data and discussions in this monograph should once and for all put to rest Rathje's consideration of Lowland Maya burials.


The transitional siliceous rocks from the Belchatow lignite deposit belong to the deposits with heterogeneous petrographic composition. The research allows us to identify among others, opoka-rocks and gaizes. The mineralogical-chemical analysis proves that the main ingredients of the studied rocks commonly used as building material are minerals of the SiO2 group. Laboratory tests show that the nature of siliceous mineral phases has several effects on the geomechanical parameters of the studied transitional rocks. They are a reduction in water content and rock porosity, which leads to the transition of opal type A to opal type crystobalit and trydymit and then to quartz or microquartz. Their density and strength parameters are increased.


Aminoguanidine (AG) is a potential therapeutic agent for preventing the generation of advanced glycation end products in diabetes mellitus. In this study, the effect of AG on insulin secretion was investigated in in vitro rat pancreatic islets. The islets were aseptically isolated and cultured in tissue culture medium 199 for 48 h with or without AG. After the culture, batches of 10 islets were incubated in Krebs-Ringer bicarbonate buffer containing 3.3 mM or 16.7 mM glucose. Islets previously exposed to 0.18 mM AG or 0.45 mM AG showed similar insulin release to control islets at a 16.7 mM glucose concentration, but high glucose-stimulated insulin release was inhibited in the islets exposed to 1.8 mM. In the perifusion experiment, insulin release caused by 16.7 mM glucose from the islets previously exposed to 1.8 mM AG was not significantly different from that of the control islets. However, culture of the islets with higher AG concentrations, 4.55 mM and 9.1 mM, significantly inhibited glucose-stimulated insulin release (< 0.02 and 0.002, respectively). These results suggest that AG at high concentrations impairs pancreatic B-cell response to a high concentration of glucose.


Down syndrome (DS), the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability, results from the partial or complete triplication of chromosome 21. Individuals with DS are impaired at using a high-resolution, allocentric spatial representation to learn and remember discrete locations in a controlled environment. Here, we assessed the capacity of individuals with DS to perform low-resolution spatial learning, depending on two competing memory systems: (1) the place learning system, which depends on the hippocampus and creates flexible relational representations of the environment; and (2) the response learning system, which depends on the striatum and creates fixed stimulus–response representations of behavioral actions. Individuals with DS exhibited a preservation of the low-resolution spatial learning capacities subserved by these two systems. In place learning, although the average performance of individuals with DS was lower than that of typically developing (TD) mental age (MA)-matched children and TD young adults, the number of individuals with DS performing above chance level did not differ from TD children. In response learning, the average performance of individuals with DS was lower than that of TD adults, but it did not differ from that of TD children. Moreover, the number of individuals with DS performing above chance level did not differ from TD adults, and was higher than that of TD children. In sum, whereas low-resolution place learning appears relatively preserved in individuals with DS, response learning appears facilitated. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the neural pathways supporting low-resolution place learning and response learning are relatively preserved in DS.


Background Preoperative identification of locally advanced colon cancer is of importance in order to properly plan treatment. Purpose To study high resolution T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) versus computed tomography (CT) for preoperative staging of colon cancer with surgery and histopathology as reference standard. Material and Methods Twenty-eight patients with a total of 29 tumors were included. Patients were examined on a 1.5 T MR unit using a phased array body coil. T2 turbo spin-echo high resolution sequences were obtained in a coronal, transverse, and perpendicular plane to the long axis of the colon at the site of the tumor. Contrast-enhanced CT was performed using a protocol for metastasis staging. The examinations were independently evaluated by two gastrointestinal radiologists using criteria adapted to imaging for prediction of T-stage, N-stage, and extramural venous invasion. Based on the T-stage, tumors were divided in to locally advanced (T3cd-T4) and not locally advanced (T1-T3ab). Surgical and histopathological findings served as reference standard. Results Using MRI, T-stage, N-stage, and extramural venous invasion were correctly predicted for each observer in 90% and 93%, 72% and 69%, and 82% and 78% of cases, respectively. With CT the corresponding results were 79% and 76%, 72% and 72%, 78% and 67%. For MRI inter-observer agreements (Kappa statistics) were 0.79, 0.10, and 0.76. For CT the corresponding results were 0.64, 0.66, and 0.22. Conclusion Patients with locally advanced colon cancer, defined as tumor stage T3cd-T4, can be identified by both high resolution MRI and CT, even when CT is performed with a metastasis staging protocol. MRI may have an advantage, due to its high soft tissue discrimination, to identify certain prognostic factors such as T-stage and extramural venous invasion.