Introduction: Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related death in men in the Western world. In more than 90% of cases the cancer is localized, and radical prostatectomy represent one of the main treatment options. The aim of this case report is to present possible complication of radical prostatectomy. Case Presentation: A 62-year-old man presented to our Department with pain during urination with elevated prostate specific antigen (21, 71 ng/mL). His previous medical history included transrectal prostate puncture due to inflammation in 1986. Five years ago, the PSA was 14.9 ng / mL , periodically taking tamsulosin , and was not regularly controlled . He does not take other medications. Suspicion of prostate neoplasm on digital rectal examination was confirmed by transrectal biopsy. Transrectal biopsy demonstrated prostate adenocarcinoma of right lobe gland (GS 7 of 3/10 needle cores). Skeletal scintigraphy was unremarkable, without signs of metastases. Open retropubic radical prostatectomy was performed with routine perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis with 400mg of intravenous ciprofloxacin. Surgery lasted for two hours without intraoperative complications. Blood loss during surgery was 680 ml, without marked drop in red blood cells count (RBC: Er 4.2 Hb 121 , Hct 0.35). During first postoperative day patient's diuresis was 1200 ml with serum creatinine levels of 212 mmol/L. On second postoperative day decrease of diuresis was noted (800ml) with slight elevation of serum creatinine levels (296 mmol/L), but later during the same day patient became anuric despite the continued stimulation of furosemide, hypotensive, subfebrile (37.3°C) with elevation of inflammatory markers levels (CRP 312.6 mg/L and leukocytes 14.23×109/L) and serum creatinine levels (450mm/L). Further, patient developed paralytic ileus with abdominal distension, edemas of scrotum and legs and became dyspneic with tachycardia. The antibiotic therapy with meropenem and hemodialysis were started with other supportive procedures. The computed tomography of abdomen and chest showed bilateral pleural, intraperitoneal and retroperitoneal effusions. The urine cultures and hemocultures were negative. After the second hemodialysis on third postoperative day the patient began to urinate. During next few days patient showed the gradual clinical improvement with decrease of inflammatory markers. The surgery wound healed primarily, the catheter was removed on 13th day of hospitalization. Pathogistological examination of surgically removed prostate revealed adenocarcinoma of the prostate (GS 7 , pT3N0Mx) with chronic prostatitis and focal comedonecrosis. Discussion: Our case demonstrates very rare but possible complication of radical prostatectomy. Sepsis with acute renal failure with paralytic ileus and polyserositis probably was caused by dissemination of infective agent (bacteria) resistant to ciprofloxacine during bladder neck dissection.


In case of building structure plan, analyzing of earthquake effect is important. Especially for building which located in big earthquake zones. Indonesian isles are situated on major earthquake zones. That's why the good planning are needed to manage earthquake risk to avoid big accident.  On this final paper, the building are planned with Sway Special Design System. That based on SNI 03-2847-2002 and SNI 1726-2010 .  "Strong Column Weak Beam" concept is used for t he building . The planning of structure are consist of 14 levels and 2 basements which located in 3 rd earthquake zone.  We expected that Sway Special Design System can be good applicated and useful for all of people on building plan which located in major earthquake zone.


The document, which includes blank pages, was not presented at the conference and therefore was not made available for publication as part of the conference proceedings.


The newly emerging SARS-CoV-2 Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant first identified in South Africa in November 2021 is characterized by an unusual number of amino acid mutations in its spike that renders existing vaccines and therapeutic monoclonal antibodies dramatically less effective. The in vivo pathogenicity, transmissibility, and fitness of this new Variant of Concerns are unknown. We investigated these virological attributes of the Omicron variant in comparison with those of the currently dominant Delta (B.1.617.2) variant in the golden Syrian hamster COVID-19 model. Omicron-infected hamsters developed significantly less body weight losses, clinical scores, respiratory tract viral burdens, cytokine/chemokine dysregulation, and tissue damages than Delta-infected hamsters. The Omicron and Delta variant were both highly transmissible (100% vs 100%) via contact transmission. Importantly, the Omicron variant consistently demonstrated about 10-20% higher transmissibility than the already-highly transmissible Delta variant in repeated non-contact transmission studies (overall: 30/36 vs 24/36, 83.3% vs 66.7%). The Delta variant displayed higher fitness advantage than the Omicron variant without selection pressure in both in vitro and in vivo competition models. However, this scenario drastically changed once immune selection pressure with neutralizing antibodies active against the Delta variant but poorly active against the Omicron variant were introduced, with the Omicron variant significantly outcompeting the Delta variant. Taken together, our findings demonstrated that while the Omicron variant is less pathogenic than the Delta variant, it is highly transmissible and can outcompete the Delta variant under immune selection pressure. Next-generation vaccines and antivirals effective against this new VOC are urgently needed. One Sentence Summary The novel SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, though less pathogenic, is highly transmissible and outcompetes the Delta variant under immune selection pressure in the golden Syrian hamster COVID-19 model.


One outcome of increased life expectancy is that older adults are leading active lives in their third age as they seize opportunities to learn new skills, pursue new interests and hobbies to challenge themselves. However, there are many misconceptions about older adults' capabilities and aspirations, especially their attitudes towards technology. They are often misunderstood and seen to lack interest and motivation in the use of technology. Thus, this article examines interest-driven curriculums in order to achieve digital inclusion for older adults. Investigation methodology into this dilemma was best served with a mixed methods approach because, to date, there has been very little research about how technology could support older adults' interests. The majority of the existing studies consulted were focused on school children in a classroom setting. Older adults can differ greatly in their general background and level of technical experience and knowledge. Consequently, it would be very difficult to conduct quantitative research with control groups to investigate single variables. In compensation, 131 older adults, five staff members and eight teachers participated in this study. Qualitative methods such as observations and interviews (one-on-one and focus group) provided a deeper insight into teachers' experiences and teaching. Older adults were not always able to articulate their attitudes and problems with technology and consequently, observations were often a more effective means of data gathering. Finally, an Action Research approach was taken to trialling the concepts developed in the course of the investigation. This research comprised of four studies looked at expanding and extending on The Four-Phase Model of Interest Development by Hidi and Renninger (2006). The results show that when older adults are taught according to requests based on their pre-existing interests, it encourages long-term engagement of technology and ability to integrate technology into their everyday lives, thereby achieving digital inclusion amongst older adults.


The study analyzes economics of soybeans marketing in Billiri local government area of Gombe State. The rationale behind it were to; describe the socio-economic characteristics of the soybeans marketers in Billiri; determine the profitability of soybeans marketing; determine the marketing efficiency of soybeans; describe the constraints associated with soybeans marketing in Billiri and to determine the relationship between the marketing variables. Data were elicited from 97 respondents spread across six prominent soybeans markets in the area with the aid of structured interview schedule. Respondents were selected using purposive and simple random sampling techniques. The data obtained were subjected to analysis using multiple regression and gross margin analysis. Majority of the marketers were aged between 21 and 60 years (89.7%), and were male (70.10%). 61.9% of the respondents were married, 84.51% had at least 10 years of marketing experience in the area, with a ME = 74.19% . more than half of the respondents (52.6%) had attended secondary school. Soybeans marketing in the area were profitable, which was evident from the gross margin of ₦ 4,123.88 per marketer on average every week. Major constraints encountered by the soybeans marketers include; lack of capital, scarcity and high price of soybeans at lean period, high cost of transportation, risk of buying low quality soybeans, poor packaging material, and high Interest rate charged on loans which narrow their profit.


High-resolution infrared spectra of comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy were acquired with NIRSPEC at the W. M. Keck Observatory on two post-perihelion dates (UT 2015 February 2 and 3). H2O was measured simultaneously with CO, CH3OH, H2CO, CH4, C2H6, C2H4, C2H2, HCN, and NH3 on both dates, and rotational temperatures, production rates, relative abundances, H2O ortho-to-para ratios, and spatial distributions in the coma were determined. The first detection of C2H4 in a comet from ground-based observations is reported. Abundances relative to H2O for all species were found to be in the typical range compared with values for other comets in the overall population to date. There is evidence of variability in rotational temperatures and production rates on timescales that are small compared with the rotational period of the comet. Spatial distributions of volatiles in the coma suggest complex outgassing behavior. CH3OH, HCN, C2H6, and CH4 spatial distributions in the coma are consistent with direct release from associated ices in the nucleus and are peaked in a more sunward direction compared with co-measured dust. H2O spatial profiles are clearly distinct from these other four species, likely due to a sizable coma contribution from icy grain sublimation. Spatial distributions for C2H2, H2CO, and NH3 suggest substantial contributions from extended coma sources, providing further evidence for distinct origins and associations for these species in comets. CO shows a different spatial distribution compared with other volatiles, consistent with jet activity from discrete nucleus ice sources.


Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) is one of the most promising techniques to provide intelligent services under strict privacy protection regulations for multiple clients. By applying DAI, training on raw data is carried out locally. At the same time, the trained outputs, e.g., model parameters from multiple local clients, are sent back to a central server for aggregation. DAI is recently studied in conjunction with wireless communication networks to achieve better practicality, incorporating various random effects brought by wireless channels. However, because of wireless channels' complex and case-dependent nature, a generic simulator for applying DAI in wireless communication networks is still lacking. To accelerate the development of DAI in wireless communication networks, we propose a generic system design in this paper and an associated simulator that can be set according to wireless channels and system-level configurations. Details of the system design and analysis of the impacts of wireless environments are provided to facilitate further implementations and updates. We employ a series of experiments to verify the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed system design and reveal its superior scalability.


The assumed minimum walking speed at pedestrian crossings is 1.2 m/s. In this prospective cohort study, usual walking speed was measured over a 4 m course in 926 community-dwelling, ambulatory patients with stable COPD. Mean (SD) walking speed was 0.91 (0.24) m/s with only 10.7% walking at a speed equal or greater than 1.2 m/s. In order for 95% of this cohort to safely negotiate a pedestrian cross, traffic lights would have to assume a minimum walking speed of 0.50 m/s (2.4 times longer than current times). The current assumed normal walking speed for pedestrian crossings is inappropriate for patients with COPD. The studies were registered on clinicaltrials.gov and these data relate to the pre-results stage: NCT01649193, NCT01515709 and NCT01507415.


The basic direct torque control algorithm gives large ripples in torque, flux and current in steady state, which results in acoustical noise and incorrect speed estimations. The conventional SVPWM algorithm gives good performance for control of induction motor drive, but it produces more acoustical noise resulting in increased total harmonics distortion. The random pulse width modulation (RPWM) techniques have become an established means for mitigation of undesirable side effects in adjustable speed ac drives in particular. Hence, to minimize these anomalies of the drive, this paper presents a random zero vector distribution (RZVDPWM) algorithm for direct torque controlled induction motor drive. The proposed random zero vector distribution PWM (RZVDPWM) algorithm distributes the zero state time between the two zero voltage vectors. To validate the proposed PWM algorithm, simulation studies have been carried out and results are presented and compared. From the results, it can be observed that the proposed RZVDPWM algorithm gives reduced acoustical noise when


Hepatic blood flow can be estimated from the area under the blood or plasma concentration-time curve of a drug following an intravenous dose and either an oral or intraperitoneal dose. The validity of the method depends on several factors which alter the area under the curve, that is, hemodynamic interactions due to the drug or its metabolites, the use of plasma concentration as opposed to blood concentration data, incomplete absorption on oral or intraperitoneal administration, enterohepatic recycling of the drug or its metabolite, and the presence of extrahepatic metabolism. The validity of the method was tested in rats with tracer doses of acetaminophen. After the simultaneous administration of an iv dose of 14C-acetaminophen and an intraportal dose of 3H-acetaminophen to rats, the availability after the first-pass hepatic extraction of acetaminophen in rats was 0.56 +/- 0.05. Hepatic blood flow estimated by the area under the curve for the respective routes of administration was 78.1 +/- 16.1 ml/min/kg. However, after the simultaneous administration of an iv tracer dose of 14C-acetaminophen and an ip dose of 3H-acetaminophen, the apparent availabilities calculated from the areas under the curve were highly variable and tended to be greater (0.73 +/- 0.11). Thus the estimates of the hepatic blood flow also tended to be higher (159 +/- 65 ml/min/kg).


Upper extremity amputations are rated in the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides), Sixth Edition, Section 15.6, Amputation Impairment, where text, tables, and figures guide evaluators in combining proximal diagnosis-based impairments (DBIs) and proximal range-of-motion impairments. The AMA Guides provides impairment grids for lower and upper extremity amputations, which are divided into five impairment classes (0 through 4), and each impairment class is further divided (except class 0) into five grades (A through E), each with its respective impairment rating that is expressed as a percentage of the extremity. Determining impairment class, and thus the default value of impairment, is straightforward if the amputation occurred directly at one of the points in the relevant grid; if the amputation occurred at another point, the evaluator should consult the appropriate figure to assess how the specific level of amputation corresponds with impairment percentages. An individual's proximal problems may lead to an increase in the impairment value because of the application of grade modifiers. Except in rare instances of bilateral upper extremity amputation or when the patient is unable to wear a prosthesis for a lower extremity amputation, the evaluator usually uses the default rating value within the selected impairment class as the final percentage rating. Evaluators are advised to re-read the amputation section in the AMA Guides before conducting an amputation evaluation.


Diatoms play an essential role in marine biogeochemical cycles by their large contribution to primary production and particle export. Under nutrient limitation, diatom biomass often exhibits large deviations from the Redfield ratio. Here a biogeochemical ocean general circulation model is applied to investigate the influence of variations in diatom stoichiometry. The ecosystem model allows for variable Chl:C:N:Si stoichiometry in phytoplankton biomass regulated by light and availability of macronutrients (nitrate, silicic acid) and iron. Two size classes of phytoplankton are considered with the larger representing diatoms. After 5 years of simulation, the surface distributions of both phytoplankton groups are in a reasonable cyclostationary state. Compared to the 'steady' state, a sensitivity simulation with fixed diatom stoichiometry for Si:N of 1.2:1 showed a slight shift from small phytoplankton to diatoms leading to a shift in primary production between two groups. Total primary and export production were conservative, indicating a tendency for compensation. In the Southern Ocean, less opal production and decreased particle export ratio of Si:N resulted in raising silicic acid to the south of Subantarctic Front elucidating the importance of decoupling of different elemental cycles.


In the past 20 years the importance of creativity as part of young people's education has increasingly been recognised. The stimulus for the growing emphasis on creativity has come from diverse sources including drives for greater national economic prosperity and enlightenment visions of young people's education. One facet of creativity in education has been its place in the national curriculum texts of nation states. The research reported in this paper aimed to investigate the place of creativity in the national curricula of the 27 member states of the EU (EU 27) and in the UK. A content analysis of all statutory national curriculum texts for the EU27 was undertaken and implications compared to the answers of 7659 teachers to a survey. The findings showed that creativity was a recurring element of curricula but its incidence varied widely. It was also found that creativity was represented in arts subjects more than other subjects and that it was relatively neglected in reading and writing as part of the language group of subjects. The countries of the UK in general had maintained their historic attention to creativity but there was evidence of a shift from emphasis in primary settings to secondary settings. It is concluded that there is a need for much greater coherence between general aims for education and the representation of creativity in curriculum texts.


BACKGROUND Advanced maternal age is associated with reduced fertility and adverse pregnancy outcomes. This review details recent developments in our understanding of the biology and mechanisms underlying reproductive ageing in women and the implications for fertility and pregnancy. METHODS Sociological online libraries (IBSS, SocINDEX), PubMed and Google Scholar were searched for relevant demographic, epidemiological, clinical and biological studies, using key words and hierarchical MeSH terms. From this, we identified and focused on key topics where it was judged that there had been clinically relevant advances in the understanding of ovarian and uterine ageing with implications for improved diagnostics and novel interventions. RESULTS Mapping of the ovarian reserve, follicular dynamics and associated biomarkers, across the reproductive lifespan has recently been performed. This now allows an assessment of the effects of environmental, lifestyle and prenatal exposures on follicular dynamics and the identification of their impact during periods of germ cell vulnerability and may also facilitate early identification of individuals with shorter reproductive lifespans. If women choose to time their family based on their ovarian reserve this would redefine the meaning of family planning. Despite recent reports of the potential existence of stem cells which may be used to restore the primordial follicle and thereby the oocyte pool, therapeutic interventions in female reproductive ageing at present remain limited. Maternal ageing has detrimental effects on decidual and placental development, which may be related to repeated exposure to sex steroids and underlie the association of ageing with adverse perinatal outcomes. CONCLUSIONS Ageing has incontrovertible detrimental effects on the ovary and the uterus. Our enhanced understanding of ovarian ageing will facilitate early identification of individuals at greatest risk, and novel therapeutic interventions. Changes in both ovary and uterus are in addition to age-related co-morbidities, which together have synergistic effects on reducing the probability of a successful pregnancy outcome.


Quantum light sources are key building blocks of photonic quantum technologies. For many applications, it is of interest to control the arrival time of single photons emitted by such quantum devices, or even to store single photons in quantum memories. In situ electron beam lithography is applied to realize InGaAs quantum dot (QD)‐based single‐photon sources, which are interfaced with cesium (Cs) vapor to control the time delay of emitted photons. Via numerical simulations of the light–matter interaction in realistic QD‐Cs‐vapor configurations, the influence of the vapor temperature and spectral QD‐atom detuning is explored to maximize the achievable delay in experimental studies. As a result, this hybrid quantum system allows to trigger the emission of single photons with a linewidth as low as 1.54 GHz even under non‐resonant optical excitation and to delay the emission pulses by up to (15.71 ± 0.01) ns for an effective cell length of 150 mm. This work can pave the way for scalable quantum systems relying on a well‐controlled delay of single photons on a time scale of up to a few tens of nanoseconds.


This paper is the review of the Consensus Document on Intermittent Claudication of the Central European Vascular Forum (CEVF), published in 2008, and and shared with the North Africa and Middle East Chapter of International Union of Angiology and the Mediterranean League of Angiology and Vascular Surgery. The Document presents suggestions for general practitioners and vascular specialists for more precise and appropriate management of PAD, particularly of intermittent claudication, and underlines the investigations that should be required by GPs and what the GP should expect from the vascular specialist (angiologist, vascular surgeon). The idea of the Faculty is to produce a short document, which is an easy reference in daily clinical practice, both for the GPs and vascular specialists.


Participation by students in multinational engineering design projects is an activity that has been implemented at academic institutions with the objective of exposing the students to globalization. Such collaborations are becoming a very important practice that prepare students to be aware of the various aspects that are faced whenever work is performed in a global environment. There have been several approaches for the implementation of these activities in the curriculum, and the one presented here is an engineering design project conducted with the participation of students from six different countries. As an assessment of the students' experience, three specific open-ended questions were asked at the end of their participation. These questions cover the basic information of like-dislike-recommendation regarding the collaborative experience. Proper interpretation of responses to open-ended questions is not an easy task, and several approaches have been reported. In this manuscript, the data analytics technique of topic modelling is utilized in order to get a more objective assessment. Based on the responses by participants to the three basic questions, together with the corresponding demographic information, the feedback is evaluated and some conclusions are drawn regarding the effect of factors like geographic location and gender. These conclusions will be utilized to improve the offering of a multinational collaboration by students in an engineering design project.


A compact multiband planar antenna is designed for mobile phone applications in this paper. A planar monopole antenna into distributed radiating elements has designed to obtain good antenna performance. The proposed antenna is combined of a chopped circular radiator with a meander line and an L-strip coupled element which is an extension of the ground plane. A chopped circular patch and L-shaped coupling strip generates lower band and separate radiator and meander lines generates upper band. A planar structure has dimensions as 17.6 × 56 mm. Such a planar structure has printed on circuit board. Antenna covers wireless communication bands as LTE 750, GSM 850, GSM 900, DCS 1700, UMTS-2110, and UWB 3100. The designed antenna performance has checked with the help of IE3D simulation software. The proposed antenna has designed and tested practically. General Terms Microstrip patch antenna, Mobile communication, Multiband antenna.


Objectives: To explore the utility of intrapulmonary Doppler in predicting severe neonatal pulmonary hypertension in fetuses with congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) treated with fetoscopic tracheal occlusion (FETO). Methods: A cohort of 51 left-sided CDH fetuses with liver herniation and an observed/expected lung to head ratio (LHR) below 45%, treated with FETO between 26 to 33 weeks of gestation. Intrapulmonary Doppler Pulsatility Index (PI) and the peak early diastolic reversed flow (PEDRF) were evaluated 1 day before FETO, and their isolated and combined value to predict the risk of severe neonatal pulmonary hypertension was evaluated by decision tree analysis and multiple logistic regression adjusted by gestational age at birth. Results: Cases with severe pulmonary hypertension had significantly lower LHR values (25.8 vs. 29.9, P = 0.03) and higher intrapulmonary Doppler PI (5.3 vs. 4.4, P < 0.01). Decision tree analysis identified the intrapulmonary Doppler as the best predictor of severe neonatal pulmonary hypertension. Cases with increased PI (> 95th centile) showed a significantly higher risk (71.4% vs. 25.0%, P = 0.001) than those with normal PI. In the group with normal PI, increased PEDRF (above 2 z-scores) identified a subgroup with significantly higher risk (44.4% vs. 0%, P < 0.05). Similarly, among the 26 fetuses who survived, those with increased PI showed a significant higher frequency of severe pulmonary hypertension (42.9% vs. 8.3%, P < 0.05). All survivors with severe pulmonary hypertension showed either abnormal intrapulmonary PI or increased PEDRF values prenatally. Conclusions: Fetal intrapulmonary Doppler evaluation predicts the risk of severe neonatal pulmonary hypertension in CDH fetuses treated with FETO. OC15.06 ˆProbability of neonatal outcomes in isolated congenital diaphragmatic hernia by evaluating fetal pulmonary vasculature


With the increased penetration of wind energy into the power grid, it has become increasingly important to be able to predict the expected power production for larger wind farms. Deep learning (DL) models can learn complex patterns in the data and have found wide success in predicting wake losses and expected power production. This paper proposes a modular framework for attention-based graph neural networks (GNN), where attention can be applied to any desired component of a graph block. The results show that the model significantly outperforms a multilayer perceptron (MLP) and a bidirectional LSTM (BLSTM) model, while delivering performance on-par with a vanilla GNN model. Moreover, we argue that the proposed graph attention architecture can easily adapt to different applications by offering flexibility into the desired attention operations to be used, which might depend on the specific application. Through analysis of the attention weights, it was showed that employing attention-based GNNs can provide insights into what the models learn. In particular, the attention networks seemed to realise turbine dependencies that aligned with some physical intuition about wake losses.


This thesis presents an analysis of lesbianism within a twofold perspective - the sociology of deviance (lesbianism as a 'counteridentity') and the sociology of female sexuality (lesbianism as it relates to the role of women in society). Throughout the text, I draw from both perspectives in order to present a contemporary view of lesbianism as a complex, social phenomenon.
Traditionally, academics and others who were concerned with this area have advocated an individual or 'non-problematic' approach, or both. A major contention of this thesis is that prior theories have obscured important, it not necessary, social factors which are relevant to a full understanding of lesbianism.
The methodology i. clearly outlined in terms of data collection (interviews, questionnaire. and participant observation), the purpose, goals and limitations of the research process.
Three key sociological concepts are put forth and affect the direction of the analysis. They are: lesbian identity, lesbian role and lesbian social organisation. These concept. are drawn from a basic
assumption of this thesis - Lesbianism, like sexuality, is a social construction.
As the research process unfolds and the findings are revealed, we are continually confronted with lesbianism as a distinct, yet complex and changing social phenomenon which is directly related to objective social factors and subjective experience. A variety of relationships, organisational roles (of a political and non-political nature) and life-styles emerge from within the contemporary 'lesbian ghetto'. We observe how and why lesbians organise their social lives.
It is hoped that a critical analysis of lesbianism will, not only challenge certain ideas about lesbianism and the lesbian role in society, but also, point out to the uninformed observer, academic and lay person alike, the complexities which are involved in the understanding of the contemporary lesbian experience, as well as the sociology of lesbianism.


Background: Among the different existing serum tumor markers (TM), none fulfills criteria for a clinical practice in screening, diagnosis, prognosis, targeted therapy and follow-up, due to a weak sensitivity and specificity. Guidelines from different national and international expert groups in cancer have been edited relating to the best use of those serums TM for a given cancer. The goal of our study was to evaluate the pattern of serum TM used in our University Hospital Center and to determine whether their prescriptions were appropriate related to those guidelines. Methods: We analyzed all the prescriptions including at least one serum TM among CEA (carcino-embryonic antigen), CA (carbohydrate antigen or cancer antigen) 125, CA15-3, CA19-9, NSE (neuron-specific enolase) and Cyfra 21-1 recorded in our biochemistry department between June 2012 and June 2013. For each prescription, we determined the clinical department, the use of the serum TM (diagnostic phase or follow-up), the serum TM and their number. Results: We analyzed 1682 serum TM among 778 prescriptions. Whatever the medical or surgical department, CEA and CA19-9 were the two most prescribed TM corresponding to 29.8% and 25.4% of all assays, respectively. However, we noticed a more targeted prescription of TM for departments with an oncology activity. We also observed that serum TM was mainly used for diagnosis in about 2/3 of cases, which isn't consistent with national and international guidelines. Conclusion: Oncologists have a targeted use of serum TM which enables a better rationalization of prescriptions while non-oncologists are less experienced resulting in multiple TM prescriptions for unrelated cancers. Discrepancies regarding the use of serum TM among national and international guidelines still exist; this requires a harmonization for a better clinical care of cancer patients with a lower medical expenditure.


Donor site morbidity in 104 cases of gracilis free tissue transfer was examined through a retrospective chart review and mail survey. Fifty‐one females and 53 males with an average age of 23 years comprised the study group. Forty‐three were under age 18. In‐hospital donor site complications occurred in 10 patients. There was excessive pain in 4, wound infections in 3, hemorrhage in 2, and temporary nerve palsy in 1. Early complications were more common in the pediatric group. Sixty‐two surveys were returned from patients detailing late complications where they graded parameters between 0 and 10 where 0 was "none" and 10 was "worst imaginable." The highest average score was 5.12 reported for noticeability of the scar. There was a significant difference between adults and children for sensitivity, tightness, noticeability, and ugliness of the scar. More than half the respondents had no complaints about their donor site scar. Fifteen percent of patients reported temporary reduction of leg strength with a mean duration of 6 months. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Intelligent Speed Adaptation systems (ISAs) have been evaluated in both simulator and field operation experiments largely in Europe, and most recently in the United States, for their efficacy in mitigating excessive speeding. In most of the simulator experiments, varying roadway scenarios have been used to mimic real-life driving conditions. In these experiments, with the introduction of ISAs in virtual driving scenarios, the deviation from reality may even be compounded. This paper will present regression models for three types of ISAs, namely, Warning, Mandatory and the Advanced Vehicle Speed Adaptation System (AVSAS), which predict driving behavior on approach to a stop-controlled intersection and a curve, are presented. On approach to the stop-sign, the stopping distance was predicted with the maximum deceleration rate, approach speed and deceleration time as the regressors. On curve approaches, the approach speed of the drivers was predicted based on the maximum deceleration rate and deceleration time. The regression models had associated R2 values ranging from 66% to 93%. These models could be used to enhance or refine the realism of the roadway designs for simulator-based ISA experiments. In addition, these models, when further validated in field operational tests, can be incorporated in the development of future ISA algorithms as predictors of driver behavior.


People often migrate in order to improve their family's standard of living. International migration is a widespread phenomenon among Egyptians and remittances can play an important role in alleviating household budget constraints. How do Egyptians invest their income received from remittances? Do remittances act as a significant tool to relax budget constraints for the household sector? Can we capture the relevant impact of the remittances on the education level in Egypt? The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of remittances on the level of educational attainment of children between ages 6-21 in Egypt. We distinguish this impact among two categories of individuals according to their age: the school-aged individuals and the university-aged persons. Two important contributions can be highlighted from our study: First, to the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that provides information on how do people invest their income received from remittances in Egypt, especially after the 25th of January revolution. Second, it measures the impact of remittances on educational attainment rather than school enrollment rates, as adopted in the previous studies. Using the latest available dataset on Egypt that includes detailed information on households' socioeconomic background and migration, the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey (ELMPS, 2012), we imply an Ordered Probit Model using an Instrumental Variable (IV) approach to estimate the impact of remittance receipt on educational attainment. Findings show that remittances relax budget constraints positively impacting the educational attainment of university-aged youth. However, empirical results do not find any impact of remittances the school-aged individuals.


In order to better understand the provenance of the sediments and environmental change associated with the Permian-Triassic (P/T) biotic crisis, a comparative clay mineralogical study of the Permian-Triassic boundary (PTB) sediments between the Meishan section (the Global Stratotype Section and Point of the PTB) and the Xiakou section, southern China, was undertaken using X-ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The results showed that clay minerals of the packstone bed 24e, in which the preludial mass extinction occurred at Meishan, consist of 56% mixed-layer illite-smectite (I-S), 39% illite, and 5% kaolinite. A dehydroxylation effect was measured at 652°C, indicating that I-S and illite of this bed contain mainly cis-vacant (cv) layers related to volcanic origin. The dehydroxylation event correlates with bed P257 at Xiakou. The white clay bed 25 also corresponding to the main extinction event at Meishan contains 95% I-S and 5% kaolinite, with a strong endothermic effect at 676°C and a weaker one at 514°C in the DSC curve. These results are attributed to dehydroxylation of cv layers in I-S clays, suggesting that I-S in the white clay bed was derived from marine alteration of volcanic ash, in agreement with the conodont-correlated clay (P258) at Xiakou. (Conodonts are tooth-like microfossils and are usually used as an indicator of age in PTB stratigraphy.) Increases in chlorite and illite contents in the black clays (bed 26) at Meishan and the conodont-correlated black clay layer (P259b) at Xiakou probably indicate stronger erosional processes under cooler and more arid conditions. Volcanic materials found in a bed which marked the prelude to the main episode of mass extinction reinforce the temporal link between volcanism and the mass extinction.


Model-scale testing of yacht sails and wings often suffers from blockage due to the physical constraints of experimental facilities. With blockage, a greater increase in flow speed occurs in the vicinity of the geometry compared to an unblocked flow as a direct consequence of the restricted cross-sectional area. This leads to artificially higher forces, making comparison and validation between tests conducted in different facilities difficult, while also flawing performance prediction if the forces are not suitably corrected. Blockage correction for streamlined bodies and bluff bodies such as flat plates normal to the flow, are well-established. However, it is not the case for lift-generating bluff bodies, or lifting body, experiencing high trailing-edge separation, such as highly cambered plates and downwind yacht sails. This study focusses on the development of a blockage correction for highly cambered plates, specifically circular arcs, comparable to horizontal sections of downwind yacht sails. Measurements are undertaken at positive incidences below deep-stall for Reynolds numbers ranging from 53,530 to 218,000 in a towing tank and a water tunnel to devise a blockage correction. The critical impact of the free surface deformation on wake blockage is evidenced. This allows to set a maximum limit to the amount of blockage a cambered plate can experience before blockage correction is no longer accurate, hence the importance of closed measurement sections to prevent free surface deformation. Furthermore, the experiments revealed that flow behaviours such as the laminar-to-turbulent transition are preserved even with high blockage. The angle of attack at which transition occurs is also preserved in pressurized wind tunnel tests. However, the effect on the forces cannot be fully corrected, and thus further work would be needed to extend the applicability of the proposed blockage correction to such facilities. These findings provide experimental insights into the effect of blockage on highly cambered plates, and it is anticipated they will support future force experiments conducted on high-camber plates and downwind sails in water tunnels.


Big data in the form of stellar spectra from the spectroscopic survey associated with the Large Sky Area Multi-object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) are important for studying properties of cataclysmic variables (CVs). By cross matching the catalogs of CVs compiled with LAMOST DR3, acquired from October 2011 to July 2015, we obtained the first spectroscopic catalog for CVs observed by LAMOST with high signal to noise ratio, above 8. By integrating line profiles, their equivalent widths (EWs) of the Hα, Hβ, Hγ and Hδ, as well as He I 5876 and 6678 Å lines, were calculated. There were 74 stellar spectra from 48 known CVs and three spectra from three new CV candidates. At the same time, we also collected their previously published EWs. Thirty-three objects had repeated spectra and 30 stars showed spectral variability in the Hα line. Moreover, we carried out photometric follow-up studies for five CVs (UU Aqr, TT Tri, PX And, BP Lyn and RW Tri). We obtained nine new light curves and revised their linear ephemerides. For RW Tri, there is a possible oscillation with an amplitude of 0.0031(2) days and a period of 47.6 ± 0.4 years, which might be caused by a third body (brown dwarf) or magnetic activity cycle.


Tissue engineering is a subject of intense research activity worldwide. Despite the high level of activity, most of this research has, so far, had a fairly low impact on surgical practice. In part, this is because of the problems associated with maintaining cell viability; for example, a potential challenge in repairing or replacing the intervertebral disc by tissue-engineered material is the difficulty of supplying nutrients and removing waste products from largely avascular tissues.1 Another reason for the limited application may be that many of the laboratorybased studies tend to focus on topics such as cell culture, design of scaffolds to support cells and development of scaffold materials rather than integrating clinical and experimental expertise to directly address specific problems. Related to this reason is that many studies do not select applications that are likely to bring benefit in the short to medium term. Selection of applications is important because it is likely that conventional synthetic materials will be preferable to tissue-engineered constructs in the foreseeable future for very many applications.2 The paper discussed here3 addresses a further problem: that surgical practice may compromise the ability of cells to make replacement tissues. These procedures may involve the use of antibiotics or local anaesthetics or wound cleansing and may also lead to infection or (temporarily) affect local temperature. The study involves undifferentiated human skeletal stem cells (also called mesenchymal stem cells) and, therefore, is directly relevant to a feasible target application of aiding bone healing. These cells have been shown to aid production of new bone in regions where there is little or poor bone; they have also been shown to aid healing of bone and various soft tissue lesions. This paper addresses the specific question of the effects of commonly used local anaesthetics on skeletal stem cells. The toxic effects of local anaesthetics on differentiated cells that occur in the skeletal system have been investigated previously but this is the first study of the undifferentiated cells that are preferred for many tissue engineering applications. The anaesthetics chosen for this study were lidocaine, levobupivacaine and bupivacaine, in concentrations that were intended to mimic what would occur at the operative site. In this study, the effects of these anaesthetics on cell viability and proliferation in culture were measured. In addition, their ability to affect the differentiation of the cells into osteoblasts was monitored by determining their ability to make alkaline phosphatase seven days after exposure to anaesthetic. All three anaesthetics had some toxic effect on the cells; they also affected the production of alkaline phosphatase. Both lidocaine and bupivacaine had a toxic effect, except at very low concentrations, which was dose dependent. This result is of concern because bupivacaine is the most widely used post-operative intra-articular local anaesthetic. Inhibition of cell proliferation persisted for seven days after exposure to lidocaine. The toxic effects of levobupivacaine were less serious and, seven days after its administration, the level of cell proliferation had enabled the number of cells to recover to the same level as if it had not been administered. At the higher concentrations used in this study, lidocaine reduced the alkaline phosphatase activity in the cell cultures. Cells were also stained to monitor alkaline phosphatase activity. Staining demonstrated a concentration dependent decrease in alkaline phosphatase expression one week after exposure to local anaesthetics, although the effect was less marked with levobupivacaine. The immediate implication of this work is that the choice of local anaesthetic is very important in any surgical procedure using skeletal stem cells. Bupivacaine, despite its frequent use, and lidocaine should be avoided because of their toxicity. Indeed, lidocaine has been shown to have similar toxic effects on differentiated cells, such as chondrocytes. Of the local anaesthetics studied, only levobupivacaine did not show appreciate toxic effects. These results are unlikely to be restricted to bone healing; it is likely that they have implications for other orthopaedic procedures using skeletal stem cells, such as cartilage regeneration. The mechanism for the toxicity of bupivacaine and lidocaine is not clear but several possible contributory factors have been identified. These include: damage to mitochondria, inhibition or activation of certain enzymes, blockage of sodium channels, damage cause by free radicals and changes in membrane fluidity. The more general implication is that development of tissue engineering applications needs to consider all aspects of procedure. This includes practical surgical procedures as well as the basic cell biology involved in tissue regeneration. The survival of cells on a tissue engineering scaffold and subsequent tissue regeneration involve many factors that are currently not investigated in most experimental studies.


Direct illumination of a thermal storage from a concentrating solar collector can be used to charge a phase change material (PCM) for the purpose of storing heat for cooking. Top illumination can be achieved by a double reflecting system to avoid any dangers of expansion from heating the storage from the bottom. An experimental investigation of the double reflecting system has been conducted at the lab of the Department of Energy and Process. The main purpose of the experiments was to be able to conduct an efficiency measurement of the system's ability to charge the heat storage. A double reflective solar concentrator with a heat storage has been instrumented and made ready for testing. Two tests of the full system with direct illumination of the heat storage by the sun have been conducted. Temperature measurements were done by thermocouples in the heat storage and on the secondary reflector, and a thermal camera was used to monitor the temperature of the top plate of the heat storage. The tests were not satisfactory in that they did not succeed to melt the phase change material (PCM) in the storage, and an efficiency measurement could not be concluded. The reflective film was as a result of these tests changed to reflective aluminium tiles for a better performance. Additional tests with a thin absorber plate of carbon steel were then conducted, since the sun was now too low on the sky to allow a complete test. The focal point on the thin absorber plate reached temperatures above 300°C, and the focusing power of the system was promising. A test procedure for tracing a laser ray from a self-adjusting laser diode to the absorber by utilizing a Computer Numerical Control machine (CNC-machine) and a digital camera for automation has been developed and tested. Post processing of images acquired has been programmed in the Matlab programming software to crate intensity plots of the focal point of the double reflector. By means of a grid paper on the absorber plate, the focal point of the primary reflector was found for the reflective film and for the reflective aluminium tiles to be 665 mm and 662 mm respectively. The secondary reflectors optimal position to be able to focus the rays on to an absorber plate placed at the base of the primary reflector has been investigated by the new test procedure, and found to be 683 mm, with a separation distance between the two foci of 21 mm. A simple analysis of the double reflector in a Ray Tracing program gave a separation distance of around 20 mm.


Folk custom sports culture is an indivisible part of Chinese culture, it reflects Chinese culture long history and era features. Nowadays, material culture is rapidly developing, protects these folk custom sports culture, let old generation culture to continue to spread, and is an inescapable mission of new generation youth. The paper researches on folk custom sports culture inheritance and development prospect. Firstly, utilize statistical Figure and mathematics curve fitting method, it makes comprehensive analysis of folk custom sports investment status and masses familiar extent with folk custom sports events. Secondly, utilize Variational method extremum principle; it studies folk custom sports events participants' amount theoretical maximum value. And then it gets conclusion: masses familiar extent on rubber band skipping, rope skipping, shuttlecock kicking, dragon-boat racing, lion dancing, kite flying and other public events are higher, while on spinning top beating, iron-hoop rolling, swinging are lower, folk custom sports investment and inheritance problems are still problems to be solved at present. On condition that people' s living standard and folk custom sports facilities construction investment permit, theoretically folk custom sports events participants amount percentage can arrive at 69.8% as the largest. To further propel to folk custom sports development, it should positive encourage masses to participate in folk custom sports events, and give masses effects into play.


Designing complex product systems across firms poses significant organizational challenges. While much research has focused on how interdependencies between system components can hamper the integration of collective efforts, the fact that complex systems consist of multiple hierarchic levels has received less attention. A basic decision that firms face, however, is how much complexity to outsource. The hierarchic nature of complex systems can guide this decision – which system levels to design in-house, and which to contract out? In this paper, we use an in-depth study of the aircraft manufacturer Airbus' A350 program to understand the organizational consequences of this decision. We find that allocating higher-level design tasks to suppliers entails a tradeoff: on the one hand, it shifts the locus of dealing with complexity and reduces the outsourcing firm's "coordination load" – its share in ensuring the alignment of actions; on the other hand, it can deteriorate cooperation within the supplier network and thus increase the firm's "cooperation load" – its burden of aligning interests. Outsourcing higher-level design tasks, we argue, can backfire by creating conditions that are toxic to dealing effectively with complexity: (a) the supply network becomes more stratified, requiring competitors to cooperate while changing bargaining positions in adverse ways; (b) suppliers have to absorb the uncertainty of unstable design requirements, which reinforces the negative implications of (a). If organizing effectively implies reconciling specialization with coordination and cooperation, this tradeoff may impose a limit to the interfirm collaboration in complex systems design.


The experience of teenagers using pornography in Semarang City has greatly increased. Many teenagers don't understand what the harm use pornography harm. The impacts that occur include difficulty concentrating, not focusing while studying, daydreaming, hallucinations, increased sexual appetite with masturbation and masturbation. Adolescents become more precocious and they had sex before marriage. This study aims to explore the experiences of adolescents who access pornography at SMA Setia Budhi Semarang City. The sampling technique used purposive sampling to determine the appropriate sample, namely adolescents who accessed pornographic media for more than 2 months. This type of research is qualitative with a descriptive phenomenology approach. Obtained data saturation in the fifth participant. Data collection through in-depth interviews (in depth interviews) and field notes (field notes). Researcher's data analysis was carried out after and during the study and the validity of the data by using member checking. This study resulted in 4 themes, namely the supporting factors for adolescents in using pornography, increasing the frequency of using pornography, the response of adolescents when using pornography, and the perceived impact of using pornography. The main reason why teenagers access pornography is due to the invitation of their friends and their own desires, so that the desire to access pornography appears continuously. This results in adolescents having difficulty concentrating, learning problems, difficulty sleeping and the desire to try and imitate seen sexual behavior.


Background and aims: The presence or absence of efficient performance assessment system is directly related to the organizations life or death. Because of Hospitals importance role in community health the need to assess the performance and efficiency improvement feels more than others and to assess health care units quantitative indicators were used. The proper techniques for comparing hospitals performance based on three indicators of bed occupancy rate, average length of stay, bed occupancy turnover, is "PABON LASSO" graphical models. The aim of this study was The Assessment of Performance and Efficiency of Tehran Public and Private Hospitals by Pabon Lasso Model in 2015. Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out in 16 public and private hospitals in Tehran in 2015.Pabon Lasso model was used and to analysis of data spss 18.0 was applied. Results: The average of bed occupancy rate, length of stay and bed turnover rate in hospitals were respectively 58.46%, 3.84 days and 64.51 per year. In this study, three hospitals in the first region, five hospitals in the second region, two hospitals in third region and six hospitals were located in the fourth region. Just two hospitals were efficient. Conclusion: Results of this study indicated that only two hospitals (12.5% from a total of 16 hospitals) had the desired performance. In conjunction with hospitals that are located in the first region, manager's serious act to analyzing the root causes of poor performance and corrective actions to optimize the use of limited resources is necessary.


Wireless sensor networks have been identified as being useful in a variety of domains to include military sensing and tracking, environment monitoring, patient monitoring and tracking smart environment, etc. When sensor networks are deployed in a hostile environment, security becomes extremely important, as they are prone to different types of malicious attacks. Due to the resource, limitations of sensor nodes, existing network security mechanisms, including those developed for Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks, are inadequate for wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we give some security mechanisms to adapt to wireless sensor networks for sensor data and network control protocols.


Water molecules bind strongly to the polar calcite surface and form a surface adsorbed layer that has properties akin to an apolar surface. This has important implications for understanding the thermodynamic driving forces underlying the adsorption of acid groups from crude oil, in particular naphthenic acid, onto calcite. Free energy calculations show that naphthenic acid binds favorably to the water mono-layer adsorbed on the calcite surface. But to bond directly to the calcite, a free energy barrier has to be overcome to expel the intervening layer of water. Further, naphthenic acids with longer alkyl chains bind with lower free energy to the calcite surface than those with shorter alkyl chains, and, for the same chain length, branching also enhances adsorption. To better understand this behavior, for a specified alkyl chain length we study adsorption at different temperatures. Consistent with experiments, we find that adsorption is enhanced at higher temperatures. Examining the enthalpic and entropic contributions to adsorption shows that adsorption of naphthenic acid is entropically favored.


In the article the main trends of education development in Ukraine at the beginning of the XXIst century have been studied. In accordance with education reformation as well as its modernization processes in all spheres the main attention has been paid to its innovative development. The importance of the study is due to the objective need to improve the effectiveness of education at all levels in line with contemporary social development in order to successfully integrate into the European space. The purpose of the study is to identify the main directions of the development of education in the context of modernization at the beginning of the XXIst century. The research is based on the use of a set of general scientific theoretical methods: analysis and synthesis, abstraction, formalization.
The scientific research has substantiated that the positions and directions of exploration of educational development pathways should be directed firstly to a radical restructuring of the educational sector, and secondly to the modernization of this process through the use of innovation. An overview and analysis of the priority directions of education modernization are presented. The implementation of them provides development at all its levels, increasing the efficiency of the educational process and obtaining qualitatively new results. The following direction are distinguished: the implementation of interdisciplinary and project approaches, globalization and internationalization of education, intensive development and widespread use of information and communication technologies, taking into account andragogical principles of training, professional mobility of a specialist in the vertical and horizontal dimensions, the insurance of possibilities for lifelong education. It has been found that a significant direction of education development, foreseen by the new educational paradigm, is the application of the type of sociocultural inheritance from the future to the modern, that means the realization of the concept of "lifelong learning", which is transformed into the idea of continuous education. It is determined that one of the priority directions of educational branch modernization is the objective necessity of innovations integration into the process of teaching staff professional training. According to the results of scientific research, it is defined that the integration of modernization processes in education causes the emergence of application of new approaches to the educational process organization of an advanced nature, which outline the future direction of the system development. The results of the study complement the information on the need for active implementation of modernization technologies in the educational process, relevant to modern social development, which is now the most important strategic priority for the sustainable development of education. The implementation of identified trends in education development in the context of modernization is aimed at radical changes that will allow to change and develop the educational process in order to achieve higher results and to formulate a qualitatively different educational practice.


A novel model reduction technique for static systems is presented. The method is developed using a goal‐oriented framework, and it extends the concept of snapshots for proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) to include (sensitivity) derivatives of the state with respect to system input parameters. The resulting reduced‐order model generates accurate approximations due to its goal‐oriented construction and the explicit 'training' of the model for parameter changes. The model is less computationally expensive to construct than typical POD approaches, since efficient multiple right‐hand side solvers can be used to compute the sensitivity derivatives. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated on a parameterized aerospace structure problem. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Adversarial patch attacks that craft the pixels in a confined region of the input images show their powerful attack effectiveness in physical environments even with noises or deformations. Existing certified defenses towards adversarial patch attacks work well on small images like MNIST and CIFAR-10 datasets, but achieve very poor certified accuracy on higher-resolution images like ImageNet. It is urgent to design both robust and effective defenses against such a practical and harmful attack in industry-level larger images. In this work, we propose the certified defense methodology that achieves high provable robustness for high-resolution images and largely improves the practicality for real adoption of the certified defense. The basic insight of our work is that the adversarial patch intends to leverage localized superficial important neurons (SIN) to manipulate the prediction results. Hence, we leverage the SIN-based DNN compression techniques to significantly improve the certified accuracy, by reducing the adversarial region searching overhead and filtering the prediction noises. Our experimental results show that the certified accuracy is increased from 36.3% (the state-of-the-art certified detection) to 60.4% on the ImageNet dataset, largely pushing the certified defenses for practical use.


This work is an examination of various aspects of twisted vertex operator representations of Kac-Moody algebras. It starts with an introduction to Kac-Moody algebras and string theories, including a discussion of the propagation of strings on orbifolds. String interactions in a subclass of such models naturally involve twisted vertex operators. The centrally extended loop algebra realization of Kac-Moody algebras is used to explain why the inequivalent gradations of basic representations of Kac-Moody algebras g(^r) associated with g are in one-to-one correspondence with the conjugacy classes of the automorphism group of the root system, aut Ф(_g).The structure of the automorphism groups of the simple Lie algebra root systems are examined. A method of classifying the conjugacy classes of the Weyl groups is explained and then extended to cover the whole automorphism group in cases where there are additional Dynkin diagram symmetries. All possible automorphisms, a, that have the property that det (1 – σ(^r)) ≠ 0, r = 1, ….. , n - 1 where n is the order of a, are determined. Such automorphisms lead to interesting orbifold models in which some of the calculations are simplified. A thorough exposition of the twisted vertex operator representation is given including a detailed explanation of the zero-mode Hilbert space and the construction of the required cocycle operators. The relation of the vacuum degeneracy to the number of fixed subspace singularities in the orbifold construction is discussed. Explicit examples of twisted vertex operators and their associated cocycles are given. Finally it is shown how the twisted and an alternative shifted vertex operator representation of the same gradation may be identified. This is used to determine the invariant subalgebras of the gradations along with the vacuum degeneracies and conformal weights of the representations. The results of calculations for inequivalent gradations of the simply laced exceptional algebras are given.


The purpose of this thesis is to analyze if it is possible to reduce the energy consumption of the Green Park Housing building through architectural and technical modifications of the existing design, without resulting in a project cost that exceeds 20,000 SEK/m2. The energy use of the building is currently 47% lower that the BBR limit, and would therefore be interesting to analyze if it is possible to reduce this further and reach the passive house standards for the architectural aspects analyzed. The methodology used to answer the research question was to carry out a comparison between the architectural features of the Green Park Housing building and the typical energy efficiency measures within architectural design typically applied in low-energy buildings. Based on this comparison, an analysis was carried out together with professionals from Sweco Architects AB, DELTAte VVS-Konsult AB and Anders Nyquist Arkitektkontor AB to evaluate possible architectural improvements that could be applied to the Green Park Housing building in order to reduce its energy consumption. It was concluded that the clearest possibilities for improvement are within the building envelope, mainly related to the insulation, the prevention of thermal bridges, the weather tightness and the choice of windows and doors. However, in order to maintain the project cost below 20,000 SEK/m2 it is necessary to be selective amongst which improvements to carry out, and also to what extent. The choice of which improvement to apply can be done by combining different decision criteria such as effectiveness of the improvement, cost, benefit and pay-back time. It can be further concluded that it is possible to reach passive house standards by investing in better insulation but this change would consume all the available money, preventing other possibilities for improvement.


Existing telemonitoring systems provide limited support in implementing personalized treatment plans. We developed a Home Automated Telemanagement (HAT) system for patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) to provide support in following individualized treatment plans as well as to monitor symptoms, weight changes, and quality of life, while educating the patient on their disease. The system was developed for both a laptop computer and a Nintendo Wii. The system is designed to be placed in the patient's home and to communicate all patient data to a central server implementing real-time clinical decision support. The system questions the patient daily on their condition, monitors their weight, and provides the patient with instant feedback on their condition in the form of a 3-zone CHF action plan. Their medication regimen and suggested actions are determined by their care management team and integrated into the system, keeping a personalized approach to disease management while taking advantage of the technology available. The systems are designed to be as simple as possible, making it usable by patients with no prior computer or videogame experience. A feasibility assessment in African American patients with CHF and without prior computer or videogame experience demonstrated high level of acceptance of the CHF HAT laptop and Wii systems.


Family plays an important role in the care provided for patients in all areas of nursing. However, relatively few studies deal with the focus of the present study: the ways that nurses experience family participation in acute psychiatric inpatient settings. Data were collected by interviewing 18 nurses who had experience working in such settings. A phenomenographical approach was used to analyse the interviews. Three descriptive categories were found: family participation as a part of the caring process, barriers to family participation, and nurses' resources in family participation. The findings show that the nurses' conceptions of family participation varied, and that the family was not always a priority in this caring context. The implementation of family participation was often only based on the nurses' own interests and insights. This could mean that family participation differed substantially, depending on which nurse a family encountered, and which unit the patient was admitted at. Finally, nurses had little professional autonomy, and organizational support and education were also lacking.


One intracerebral passage of either the parent egg seed (PES) or an attenuated variant (10t) of the Trinidad strain of Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis (VEE) virus in young adult mice produced progeny that were no longer differentiated unequivocally on the basis of plaque size. Plaques averaging about 2 mm in diameter, which was somewhat smaller than those formed by the PES virus and larger than those of the 10t strain, were formed by both strains. Seven serial passages of the PES virus in mouse brain failed to alter its virulence appreciably. In contrast, passage in mouse brain progressively changed the properties of the attenuated 10t strain. A substrain was isolated that possessed virulence similar to that of the PES virus and formed small plaques similar to those of the 10t strain. These findings showed a unique dissociation between the plaque size and virulence of the 10t strain. The new substrain differed from the PES virus and the 10t strain in its capacity for growth in mouse tissues after intraperitoneal inoculation. The substrain multiplied poorly in splenic tissue, which supports growth of the PES and 10t strains, but grew to high titers in the brain, which does not support appreciable growth of the 10t strain.


Using laboratory assays, we tested whether the secondary metabolites (furanones) on the surface of the red alga Delisea pulchra deter the settlement and growth of a range of ecologically relevant fouling organisms. D. pulchra and 4 other co-occurring seaweeds were almost exclusively fouled by other algae. Consequently, we carried out laboratory assays using propagules from 4 fouling algae (Ulva sp., Ceramium sp., Polysiphonia sp. and Ectocarpus siliculosis) representing the natural fouling community. The crude surface extract of D. pulchra at the same concentration as on the surface of the plant, the furanone fraction of this extract, and pure furnaones, deterred the settlement of fouling organisms in ecologically relevant assays. These data, coupled with knowledge of the surface concentration of furanones on D. pulchra and a mechanism by which furanones are sequestered onto the surface of the plant, provide a rigorous demonstration of chemically mediated antifouling.


This paper proposes a rate control algorithm for single and multiple objects video coding. The algorithm exploits prediction and feedback control to achieve accurate bit rate while maximizing the picture quality and simultaneously effectively handling buffer fullness. The algorithm estimates the bit budget of a frame based on its global coding complexity, and dynamically distributes the target bits for each object within a frame according to the object's coding complexity. Exploiting a novel buffer controller based on the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) technique used in automatic control systems, the algorithm effectively reduces the deviation between the current buffer fullness and the target buffer fullness, and minimizes the buffer overflow or underflow. The algorithm dynamically adjusts several parameters to further improve the system performance. A scene-change handling method is used to deal with scene changes. The combination of prediction and feedback control improves the adaptability of the rate controller under complicated environments; it also decreases the effect of random disturbance and the deviation caused by the variance between the real system and its statistical model. Overall, the proposed algorithm successfully achieves accurate target bit rate, provides promising coding quality, decreases buffer overflow/underflow and lowers the impact of a scene change.


Many neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by abnormal accumulation of proteins, including tauopathies such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). AD is the most common form of dementia that is characterized by cognitive losses and neurodegeneration. Due to the presence of genes homologous to human genes known to be involved in AD development, the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans can be used to model neurodegenerative diseases such as AD. Here I contribute to the available nematode models by creating a new multi-copy overexpression tau model, generating the tools needed to create a single-copy overexpression tau model. I made and characterized a transgenic model expressing an extra-chromosomal array of a mutant form of tau (tau-P301L) driven by the promoter for the worm homolog of tau. Like a previous tau overexpression strain, this strain demonstrated impaired locomotion and decreased egg-laying relative to wild-type controls. However, the current model shows an adult-onset rather than larval-onset of behavioral impairments. A single-copy integration of the tau mutant, for which I prepared the constructs, will help to determine if the later onset in the current model is dose or location sensitive. Adult onset of impairments is an improvement over earlier onset in that it is easier to explore neurodegeneration outside of the context of development.


Participation in the ONS Foundation-supported Breast Cancer Survivorship Quality Measures Set pilot study indicated less than optimal assessment and educational practices for lymphedema surveillance at one author's institution. This finding led staff to expand on nursing practice associated with lymphatic dysfunction and to propose a surveillance tool that is easy to use in a busy clinical setting. Based on current trends in lymphatic surveillance, arm measurements were used to assess for relative percentage differences compared to baseline. The referral threshold for lymphedema diagnosis was set at a 10% relative difference in circumferential measurements, pre- and postoperatively, as well as during the survivorship period. Enhanced education efforts, inclusive of staff and patients, will be established throughout the continuum of care. As lymphedema research and standard of care consensus become established, this surveillance model will be adapted in accordance with evidence-based practice guidelines.


ABSTRACT Background: Many refugees have experienced multiple traumatic events in their country of origin and/or during flight. Trauma-related disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or complex PTSD (CPTSD) are prevalent in this population, which highlights the need for accessible and effective treatment. Imagery Rescripting (ImRs), an imagery-based treatment that does not use formal exposure and that has received growing interest as an innovative treatment for PTSD, appears to be a promising approach. Objective: This randomized-controlled trial aims to investigate the efficacy of ImRs for refugees compared to Usual Care and Treatment Advice (UC+TA) on (C)PTSD remission and reduction in other related symptoms. Method: Subjects are 90 refugees to Germany with a diagnosis of PTSD according to DSM-5. They will be randomly allocated to receive either UC+TA (n = 45) or 10 sessions of ImRs (n = 45). Assessments will be conducted at baseline, post-intervention, three-month follow-up, and 12-month follow-up. Primary outcome is the (C)PTSD remission rate. Secondary outcomes are severity of PTSD and CPTSD symptoms, psychiatric symptoms, dissociative symptoms, quality of sleep, and treatment satisfaction. Economic analyses will investigate health-related quality of life and costs. Additional measures will assess migration and stress-related factors, predictors of dropout, therapeutic alliance and session-by-session changes in trauma-related symptoms. Results and Conclusions: Emerging evidence suggests the suitability of ImRs in the treatment of refugees with PTSD. After positive evaluation, this short and culturally adaptable treatment can contribute to close the treatment gap for refugees in high-income countries such as Germany. Trial registration: German Clinical Trials Register under trial number DRKS00019876, registered prospectively on 28 April 2020. Highlights • Many refugees have experienced traumatic events. • This trial investigates the efficacy of imagery rescripting, a short and culturally adaptable treatment that can contribute to close the treatment gap for refugees with posttraumatic stress disorder in high-income countries.


Accepted 10 May, 2013 Haloarchaea such as Halorubrum are excellent models for field and laboratory study. Almost half of the new species of Halorubrum were identified from the samples collected from China. The aim of this study is to determine whether some species reported elsewhere are distributed in China. Hypersaline environments-a special niche, are distributed all over the world. The genus Halorubrum frequently dominates the microbial communities in hypersaline environment. We collected tens of salt mine or saline soil samples from China's Yunnan, Hainan and Jiangsu provinces (China) for Halorubrum isolation. Tens of haloarchaea strains with different morphological properties were isolated. The 16S rRNA genes were amplified by using Halorubrum specific primers and cloned into the vector for sequencing. The raw classifications were based on the phylogenetic analyses, and the results showed that 29 strains were affiliated with genus Halorubrum and isolated 29 strains of haloarchaea affiliated with Halorubrum. The 16S rRNA gene sequences were amplified by Halorubrum specific primers. Additional sequences available in GenBank were downloaded. Phylogenetic analyses of 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed: 1) Nineteen lineages, of which eleven shared a low sequence similarity (less than 99%) with the validly described species and, thus, may represent new taxa; 2) new records of five known species also distributed in China; 3) at least two separated lineages may represent new species. This is the first report of such high species diversity of Halorubrum in China. Key word: Halorubrum, rRNA gene sequences, hypersaline, haloarchaea strains.


Results of researches of gas sensitive properties of zinc oxide films grown by reactive rf magnetron sputtering was shown. Process parameters, affected on the gas-sensitive ratio, response time, recovery time and the type of electrical conductivity of obtained films were identified. Optimal modes of magnetron sputtering of zinc oxide for implementing gas sensors (RF sputtering Zn target in a gas mixture of oxygen and argon at a concentration of 80% oxygen, a chamber pressure of 0.8 Pa and the magnetron power 100 W) were established. Avarage response time on NO2 gas was 5-15 sec. The obtained values of the gas-sensitivity were in the range 30-67% for NO2 concentrations from 20 to 100 ppm, CO and CO2 from 50 to 100 ppm and 81-97% for higher gas concentrations from 500 to 1000 ppm.


Various annealing conditions after film deposition have a great effect on electrical and structural properties of low-k films. In this work, we studied hydrogen atmosphere heat treatment effect on low-k films. After the room temperature deposition of a-SiOC:H low-k films following post-deposition-annealing (PDA) for 30 min. at 450°C in an N2 ambient, final annealing was performed for 30 min. at 400°C in an N2, a forming gas 1 (5% H2 + 95% N2), and a forming gas 2 (10% H2 + 90% N2) ambient. The flat band voltage was shifted toward the ideal value of 0.61V after two forming gas anneals, but it increased k values of the films. It was ascribed that hydrogen effectively substitutes defect sites or structural imperfections of low-k films and makes the film more hydrophilic. The FT-IR, XPS analyses and the contact angle measurement supported our conclusion.


Probabilistic programs use familiar notation of programming languages to specify probabilistic models. Suppose we are interested in estimating the distribution of the return expression r of a probabilistic program P. We are interested in slicing the probabilistic program P and obtaining a simpler program Sli(P) which retains only those parts of P that are relevant to estimating r, and elides those parts of P that are not relevant to estimating r. We desire that the Sli transformation be both correct and efficient. By correct, we mean that P and Sli(P) have identical estimates on r. By efficient, we mean that estimation over Sli(P) be as fast as possible. We show that the usual notion of program slicing, which traverses control and data dependencies backward from the return expression r, is unsatisfactory for probabilistic programs, since it produces incorrect slices on some programs and sub-optimal ones on others. Our key insight is that in addition to the usual notions of control dependence and data dependence that are used to slice non-probabilistic programs, a new kind of dependence called observe dependence arises naturally due to observe statements in probabilistic programs. We propose a new definition of Sli(P) which is both correct and efficient for probabilistic programs, by including observe dependence in addition to control and data dependences for computing slices. We prove correctness mathematically, and we demonstrate efficiency empirically. We show that by applying the Sli transformation as a pre-pass, we can improve the efficiency of probabilistic inference, not only in our own inference tool R2, but also in other systems for performing inference such as Church and Infer.NET.


The isoenzyme profiles of tyrosinase isolated from melanosomal and cytoplasmic fractions of hamster melanoma were investigated. The liberation of the enzyme from the melanosomal membranes was achieved by their treatment with Triton X-100 or alpha-chymotrypsin. The isoenzyme spectrum of tyrosinase liberated by use of Triton X-100 from melanosomes differing in the degree of melanization is identical to that of the cytoplasmic enzyme and gives three peaks on a densitogram. The liberation of melanosomal tyrosinase by alpha-chymotrypsin results in the appearance of an additional isoenzyme due to proteolytic degradation. The role of tyrosinase isoenzymes in the synthesis of melanin is discussed.


Analytic work with the adolescent implies the elaboration of various forms of attraction and repulsion of the originary and the infantile. The author tries to pinpoint the different stages of subjectivation. This article will emphasize the gradual establishment of the reality principle, a passage that is closely tied with the physiological quest for the sexual object. The analyst's function consists of enlisting the adolescent's own capacity for imagining and daydreaming in the service of thought.


Advances in medicine have resulted in the discovery and implementation of treatments for human disease. While these recent advances have been beneficial, procedures such as solid-organ transplants and cancer treatments have left many patients in an immunocompromised state. Furthermore, the emergence of immunocompromising diseases such as HIV/AIDS or other immunosuppressive medical conditions have opened an opportunity for fungal infections to afflict patients globally. The development of drug resistance in human-pathogenic fungi and the limited array of antifungal drugs has left us in a scenario where we need to develop new therapeutic approaches to treat fungal infections that are less prone to the development of resistance by pathogenic fungi. The significance of our work lies in utilizing a novel nanoemulsion formulation to treat topical fungal infections while minimizing risks of drug resistance development. ABSTRACT Infections triggered by pathogenic fungi cause a serious threat to the public health care system. In particular, an increase of antifungal drug-resistant fungi has resulted in difficulty in treatment. A limited variety of antifungal drugs available to treat patients has left us in a situation where we need to develop new therapeutic approaches that are less prone to development of resistance by pathogenic fungi. In this study, we demonstrate the efficacy of the nanoemulsion NB-201, which utilizes the surfactant benzalkonium chloride, against human-pathogenic fungi. We found that NB-201 exhibited in vitro activity against Candida albicans, including both planktonic growth and biofilms. Furthermore, treatments with NB-201 significantly reduced the fungal burden at the infection site and presented an enhanced healing process after subcutaneous infections by multidrug-resistant C. albicans in a murine host system. NB-201 also exhibited in vitro growth inhibition activity against other fungal pathogens, including Cryptococcus spp., Aspergillus fumigatus, and Mucorales. Due to the nature of the activity of this nanoemulsion, there is a minimized chance of drug resistance developing, presenting a novel treatment to control fungal wound or skin infections. IMPORTANCE Advances in medicine have resulted in the discovery and implementation of treatments for human disease. While these recent advances have been beneficial, procedures such as solid-organ transplants and cancer treatments have left many patients in an immunocompromised state. Furthermore, the emergence of immunocompromising diseases such as HIV/AIDS or other immunosuppressive medical conditions have opened an opportunity for fungal infections to afflict patients globally. The development of drug resistance in human-pathogenic fungi and the limited array of antifungal drugs has left us in a scenario where we need to develop new therapeutic approaches to treat fungal infections that are less prone to the development of resistance by pathogenic fungi. The significance of our work lies in utilizing a novel nanoemulsion formulation to treat topical fungal infections while minimizing risks of drug resistance development.


Objectives: Erectile dysfunction (ED) is a complex condition, which is variously influenced by physical, emotional, societal, and relationship factors. ED has serious implications for the quality of life (QoL) enjoyed by an affected male and his partner. It is very important, therefore, to understand the impact of ED on the QoL of those affected by it. Our objective was to determine if the eight-question Patient Reported Erectile Function Assessment (PREFA) could act as an independent, comprehensive disease-specific instrument in the assessment of QoL as it is impacted by ED. Methods: During the development and validation of the Erectile Function–Visual Analog Scale (EF-VAS) (14), a new ED-specific preference-based instrument, a series of questions were included at the beginning of the assessment that would act as a way to encourage respondents to focus on their own experience with ED. Upon analysis of the EF-VAS data, it became apparent that the eight-question "warm up" section might act as a stand-alone assessment. Accordingly, the eight questions were named PREFA, and a validation analysis was undertaken to determine their consistency, feasibility, reliability, validity, and responsiveness. Results: The PREFA questionnaire was found to be feasible and simple to complete, reliable, and valid, with excellent responsiveness. Overall, the PREFA has demonstrated that it can perform as a stand alone, validated assessment of the impact of ED on QoL, assessing areas of QoL not previously captured in existing instruments. Conclusions: The PREFA is suitable for use in clinical and research settings as a disease-specific QoL assessment tool.


Background: Several different techniques exist to address the pain and disability caused by isolated nerve root impingement. Failure to adequately decompress the lumbar foramen may lead to failed back surgery syndrome. However, aggressive treatment often causes spinal instability or may require fusion for satisfactory results. We describe a novel technique for decompression of the lumbar nerve root and demonstrate its effectiveness in relief of radicular symptoms.
Materials and methods: Percutaneous transforaminal endoscopic decompression was performed by removal of the herniated disc in patients with lumbar foraminal stenosis. 91 patients underwent the procedure from 2003 to 2015. Those who demonstrated neurogenic claudication without spinal instability or central canal stenosis and failed conservative management were eligible for the procedure. These patients were followed for an average of 39 months to evaluate outcomes.
Results: The results were excellent in 50 patients, good in 39, and fair in 2. There were no surgery-related complications. Lateral lumbar spine flexion–extension radiography was performed in all patients at various times ranging from 3 to 48 months after the surgery, and no evidence of postoperative spinal instability was found.
Conclusions: Percutaneous transforaminal endoscopic decompression is an effective means to decompress the lumbar nerve root foramen without causing spinal instability.


Depression is a chronic, severe and increasingly prevalent illness associated with substantial morbidity, mortality and healthcare costs. Antidepressant drugs, the cornerstone of depression treatment, are not devoid of adverse effects, including hepatotoxicity. To review the risk of liver toxicity related to major antidepressants, the authors have followed structural criteria focusing on the underlying mechanism presumably involved and the role of particular chemical structures. The clinicopathological expression goes from transient increases in liver enzymes to fulminant liver failure. Classical antidepressants such as monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) or tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) seem to have the highest potential to induce liver damage compared with the newer drugs such as selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs). The potential for severe hepatotoxicity associated with nefazodone is stressed. Guidelines for therapy and prevention of antidepressant-induced hepatotoxicity are also discussed.


Family Pteropodidae known as fruit bats which has ecological services as seed dispersers, pollinator, and plays important role in the forest regeneration. Identification of bat species frequently encountered problems, i.e.,  criptic morphology and behaviour. Therefore it is necessary to confirm its identity using DNA barcodes. Cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) mitochondrial DNA is representative of the protein coding mitochondrial DNA and has been used extensively as a means of animal species identification. This study evaluated 141 specimens consist of 42 species and 17 genera which were collected from Java, Nusa Tenggara, Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku, and Papua. Phylogenetic analysis using the neighbor-joining method, in which the genetic distance matrix calculation by Kimura-2 parameter models are implemented on the pairwise distance calculation in the program MEGA version 6:05. The results of the analysis showed variation intraspecific ranging from 0 to 7.9% (0.9 ±0.014%) and there were 4 species with very high intraspecific average sequence divergence, i.e., Penthetor lucasi (3.2%), Thoopterus nigrescens (3.7%), and Chironax melanocephalus (8.7 %). Average interspecific of genetic distance  of fruit bats in Indonesia was 20% (1.3-26.1%). These results produce a phylogeny tree construction to form a clearly different cohesive cluster, except in the genus Dobsonia ( D. moluccensis, D. viridis, and D. crenulata), Cynopterus (C. brachyotis C. minutus, and C. luzoniensis), and Macroglossus (M. minimus and M. sobrinus ), because this did not correspond with currently recognized species boundaries based on morphology.   Keywords : DNA barcoding, COI, Pteropodidae Â


Summary
The optimum conditions for infection of turnip protoplasts with turnip rosette virus (TRosV) were 0.2 to 2 × 105 protoplasts/ml, 5 to 10 µg virus/ml, 1 µg poly-l-ornithine/ml in 0.6 m-mannitol, buffered with 5 to 10 mm-tris at pH 7.0 to 8.6. Under these conditions, 70% of protoplasts became infected, as indicated by staining with fluorescent antibody. The proportion of protoplasts infected was determined by factors such as pH and buffer ions and by the concentrations of protoplasts, virus and poly-l-ornithine during inoculation. The period of pre-inoculation incubation of virus and poly-l-ornithine was also critical, but mannitol concentration and the inoculation period and temperature had little effect on percentage protoplasts infected. Time course studies showed a single step multiplication of TRosV; the virus was detected on sucrose gradients at 24 h after inoculation and at 60 h reached its maximum concentration, 3 × 106 virions per infected protoplast.


Negotiation is a fundamental mechanism in multi-agent systems. It may be a complex mechanism involving multiple agents with conflicting interests that need to reach a joint agreement. Complexity intensifies when moving from bilateral to multilateral negotiation. An important issue in such negotiation is to define a specific and effective protocol that guides the interactions between the agents. In this paper, we propose a novel, fully decentralized mechanism for multilateral negotiation, that reduces the inherent complexity of the problem. We specifically reduce the complexity of searching in the agreement search space, utilizing the divide and conquer approach. The proposed negotiation mechanism structures the negotiation by dividing a set of agents into several groups. Proposals are initially exchanged only within groups, and only later across groups. This structure is enhanced with various interaction policies. These policies include rules that determine permissible behaviors of the agents within the structure. Via structure and policies our negotiation protocol controls the negotiation time and facilitates feasible multi-lateral negotiation. We provide theoretical and experimental results showing the efficiency of our protocol.


During fiscal year 1994, this author used the Bernard J. Steigerwald Opportunity for Independent Study, sponsored by US Environmental Protection Agency`s Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (Research Triangle Park, N.C.), to develop a group of quarterly indexes for adjusting or escalating air pollution control costs from one period to another. In all, nine indexes were developed, one equipment cost index (ECI) for each of nine control device categories. For convenience to the reader, additional indexes for two other equipment categories--available as part of the Producer Price Indexes compiled by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics--are also presented here. These 11 indexes--collectively known as the Vatavuk Air Pollution Control Cost Indexes (VAPCCI)--can be used to escalate costs from the initial (base) period (first quarter 1994) forward to any quarter in the future. To date, final indexes have been calculated (and are presented at the end of this article) for the second, third, and fourth quarters of 1994, and first quarter 1995; preliminary indexes are provided for second quarter 1995. Quarterly updates of these cost indexes will be computed as soon as the required input data become available. To date, no other set of cost indexes has been developed formore » such a wide array of pollution-control devices.« less


The full-width-half-maximum (FWHM) and the optical confinement factor Gamma of optical modes in multiple-quantum-well (MQW) laser structures are calculated as a function of the well width. The calculations are preformed for TE modes. Three wavelengths (0.83, 1.3, and 1.55 mu m) are considered, and the number of wells is used as a parameter. Several corrections are included in the calculations, such as the change in the conduction and valence band energy levels due to narrow wells, energy-dependent indices of refraction, and energy-dependent effective electron and hole masses. >


Ubiquitin-dependent protein degradation impacts many cellular processes.However, the regulation of ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes (UBCs) in cancer is unknown. We find that the human CDC34 UBC protein is expressed at a 3-4 fold higher level (P < 0.001) in pediatric T cell than in pre-B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) before treatment in two independent patient sets. The level of CDC34 mRNA was similar in both types of leukemia. CDC34 expression levels in normal resting T cells, B cells and activated T lymphocytes was comparable with pre-B-cell ALL. CDC34 protein (but not mRNA) was also increased in T-cell ALL compared with pre-B-cell ALL cell lines. The difference in expression was not attributable to mutation or associated with altered CDC34 stability. Immunohistochemistry and cellular fractionation reveals a heterogeneous CDC34 expression pattern including cells containing primarily cytoplasmic or nuclear protein. Thus, a feature of pediatric T-cell ALL is posttranscriptional up-regulation and heterogeneous localization of the human CDC34 UBC.