Combustion of coal in thermal power stations is one of the major sources of anthropogenic emission of mercury. In view of increased consumption of various fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas, there is a growing concern in India on environmental degradation brought about by fuel combustion. Proper collection and estimation of mercury in flue gas is essential for assessing and monitoring the level of mercury emissions into the environment. Conventional method of drawing samples from flue gas for mercury estimation generally uses ss-probe (stainless steel probe). This can lead to the problem of sticking of mercury vapour on alloy steel surface, thereby introducing error in estimation. A new technique of using suitably designed glass probe is proposed which can minimize the problems associated with steel probe. A suitable glass probe has been designed and constructed which is provided with easily assembled and demountable parts. The newly constructed glass probe has been tested and verified by drawing Hg vapour samples from simulated Hg-laden gas stream as obtained from simple laboratory arrangements in a nebulised flame system of AAS equipment.

A comparative assessment for collection of flue gas has been carried out by inserting the probe inside the sample port of the stack, at the position of the mean velocity point. The flue gas samples are drawn maintaining an iso-kinetic condition. The collection of the gas samples had been done side by side by using a glass probe and a stainless steel probe in a 500MW-boiler unit of a coal based power plant situated at Singrauli region of India. The comparative study shows a slightly improved mercury sample, collected through glass probe as compared to the ss- probe (stainless steel probe).


In the article progress of humanities trends are considered in the conditions of development of globalization processes. The core principles of the organization of modern education must be the following: humanitarization, diferentiation, integration and disclosure. The modern pedagogics is oriented to create such a preparation system that would use newest achievements in the field of informational technologies and would allow reflect the specifics of professional activity and form the ability to adapt in professional environment.


The lessons learned from the social networking sites and the related research have produced a number of reasons for the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in the corporate environment. The users of Web 2.0 technologies such as FaceBook, YouTube and MySpace are at the same time clients and employees of organisations; therefore their expectations on the use of technology in the corporate world are changing. The evolution of technology in organisations is rapidly highlighting the potential benefits of Web 2.0 to the corporate environments. The customers are empowered to voice their opinions and help organisations to develop products and services. The communication between business could be improved by breaking the barriers of formal interactions, yet again highlighting the need for Customer Relationship Networking 2.0 (CRN 2.0) technologies. This positioning paper suggests the need for the information systems research agenda to include CRN 2.0. In particular, to discuss whether there is a place for social media in the workplace?


In this paper, we propose a class of estimators for the population mean of a sensitive variable, taking account into a generic randomization scheme, under the simple random sampling with replacement (SRSWR), when the mean of a supplementary non-sensitive variable is known. The minimum attainable variance bound of the class is obtained and the best estimator is also defined. We prove that the best estimator acts as a regression estimator which is at least as efficient as the corresponding estimator without the auxiliary variable. A new measure of privacy protection is built, and some models can be compared from the perspective of efficiency and privacy protection.


. Surface sediments from sites across the Indian margin of the Arabian Sea were analysed for their elemental and stable isotopic organic carbon (C org ) and total nitrogen compositions, grain size distributions and biochemical indices of organic matter (OM) source and/or degradation state. Site locations ranged from the estuaries of the Mandovi and Zuari rivers to depths of ∼ 2000 m on the continental slope, thus spanning nearshore muds and sands on the shelf and both the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) on the upper slope ( ∼ 200–1300 m) and the seasonal hypoxic zone that


The effects of titanium modification, which was added along with the pouring liquid in ladles, on the shrinkage porosity and cavity of cast steel ZG45 smelted in intermediate frequency induction furnace were studied. The metal liquid fluidity was measured by casting spiral samples. 0.2 wt.% titanium modification achieved the highest fluidity for steel liquid. Proper content of titanium could effectively increase the volume of concentrated shrinkage cavity, and restrain the forming of shrinkage porosity. By scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy disperse spectroscope (EDS) analysis, it was found that TiC, acting as heterogeneous nuclei, could refine the structure grains, diminish the strong dendrite, and increase the fluidity and feeding capacity of steel liquid. However, overdoes titanium modification easily caused mass oxide TiO2, which kept solid phases with high meting point in metal liquid to increase its viscosity and decrease the fluidity. Meanwhile, these solid state titanium compounds enlarged the composition supercooling, so the metal liquid changed from sequential solidification to simultaneous solidification, resulting in inadequate metal liquid feeding, less oncentrated shrinkage cavity and serious shrinkage porosity.


Monoclonal Antibodies (mAb's) are the fastest
growing segment in the biopharmaceutical industry. They are used
today as therapeutics and diagnostics for several medical
applications, including various types of cancer, rheumatoid
arthritis, psoriasis, severe asthma macular degeneration, multiple
sclerosis and more. In recent years, industry trends and market
pressure have driven pharmaceutical companies to focus efforts on
increasing operational efficiency in order to reduce the financial
burden associated with drug manufacturing. Consequentially,
Novartis Pharma Technical Operations' is currently engaging in
efforts to obtain Class "A" Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP
II). This project was chosen to analyze and address the current
Integrated Business Planning (IBP) technically and financially by
analyzing critical processes, their bottlenecks, and prioritizing
improvement opportunities. We focus on tactical planning at the
Multiproduct Process Unit at BioPharm Ops. This paper describe the
development of a Tactical Planning optimization tool, which
implements SuperPro Designerc and ScheduleProC (Intelligen Inc.,
NJ, USA) for campaign scheduling of active pharmaceutical
ingredient production based on mammalian monoclonal antibodies
(mAb's). Results have shown great potential benefits for Novartis,
including but not limited to: Creating and modifying campaign
schedules in hours (not days); increased operational efficiency;
Max Run Rate Optimization, cycle time reduction and significant
production cost savings; analytic tool to support long-term
strategic decisions with the flexibility to address real-time
adversity and automated conflict resolving.


IgG and IgM antibodies to the myelin major protein (MMP) have been measured by solid-phase enzyme immunoassay (EIA) in the blood sera of 31 patients with dilatation cardiomyopathy (DCMP), 4 ones with coronary disease (CD), and 20 normal subjects. Nonspecific binding of the native and aggregated human gamma-globulin with the MMP has been examined, as well as the correlation between the blood serum concentrations of circulating immune complexes, IgG and IgM, and the rheumatoid factor, and the titers of IgG and IgM antibodies to MMP; no correlation has been detected (p greater than 0.05). The activities of bovine and porcine MMP in EIA have been under study and found identical (p less than 0.001). No anti-MMP antibody has been detected in CD patients, whereas in DCMP IgG antibodies have been present in 55% and IgM ones in 49% of the cases, and 52% of the patients had both types of antibodies. Dynamic titration of anti-MMP antibody carried out in 9 DCMP patients has revealed a 4-fold and higher elevation of the titers in 4 patients and a reduction of these titers in other 4 patients. Comparison of the titers of IgG and IgM antibodies to MMP and the peripheral blood lymphocyte ability to spontaneous synthesis of immunoglobulins and Phytolacca mitogen-stimulated Ig synthesis by the MMP has revealed a correlation between these parameters. The findings permit a hypothesis on the involvement of the nerve fiber myelin-containing cells, possibly of the afferent system of the heart, in half the examinees with DCMP.


Article history: Received: December 2014 Received in the revised form: January 2015 Accepted: March 2015 The paper presents a new system that stabilizes a sprayer boom in the vertical plane. The presented system is protected by patent law. The article shows, inter alia, the idea and principle of operation of the stabilization system of the sprayer boom which uses the centre of gravity of the sprayer boom frame suspended on the beared axis of a sprayer. The angle of deflection of sprayer boom arms depends on the height/depth of an obstacle for tractor wheels. The stabilization system is designed for use with a field suspended sprayer and is one of the systems based on passive elements. The main design assumption was to develop a system that ensures a satisfactory level of stabilization of a boom and maintaining acceptable production costs. The presented solution is prepared for realization and for carrying out field research.


The desired concentration in the German hospital sector is accompanied by mergers and closures of hospitals. Data on hospital density and the accessibility of emergency centres show that there is still room for improvement. To this end, however, German competition law (Gesetz gegen Wettbewerbsbeschrankungen) and its interpretation by the German federal cartel authority must be adapted. When examining planned mergers, the decision should not be based on market shares derived from historic patient mobility. Rather, it should be based on whether an alternative hos-pital with basic care is available for most residents within a 30-minute drive.


In this letter, packet-by-packet vertical handover is investigated as a means to improve the performance of unlicensed spectrum access. The analysis focuses on the optimization of a channel access strategy for a cognitive multi-standard radio node that has the capability to switch between two orthogonal uplink radio interfaces, based on long-term channel state information. The radio interfaces differ for coverage and quality of service (QoS) requirements of primary users. The proposed strategy prescribes a cross-layer selection of physical-layer (transmitting powers) and medium access control layer (handover probability) parameters and is designed to maximize secondary throughput while guaranteeing the primary QoS constraints. Analysis and numerical results bring insight into the impact of network topology, measurement errors and primary QoS constraints on the optimal system design and corresponding performance.


The plane Couette flow undergoes a globally sub-critical transition to turbulence. Turbulent spots generated by localized finite-amplitude perturbations evolve differently depending on the Reynolds number R. Below Ru 312 they decay rapidly; above Rc 323 a fraction of spots turns to sustained turbulent patches and an average turbulent fraction can be defined, that slowly increases with R. Lifetime histograms of patches quenched in the range R[Ru,Rc] display a well-defined exponentially decreasing tail. This behavior is reminiscent of the discontinuous transition to spatiotemporal chaos via spatiotemporal intermittency observed in certain two-dimensional lattices of coupled map.


The early-age shrinkage cracking of concrete plays an important role to the accelerated deterioration and shortening the service life of concrete structures. Modern concretes are more sensitive to cracking immediately after setting, which is due to material characteristics (lower water/binder ratio and higher cement content) and external environmental fluctuations (humidity and temperature change). Determination of concrete free shrinkage is the basis of shrinkage cracking research. Analytical models of the autogenous shrinkage and drying shrinkage are established in this paper. The calculated results agree well with the experimental results.


Abstract Rich and well-preserved assemblages of organic walled dinoflagellate cysts in 50 samples from a 154 m thick and almost complete, Middle Eocene to ?lowermost Oligocene section from the Kysing Research Borehole in eastern Jylland, Denmark are systematically described. One genus Costacysta gen. nov., and twelve species Chiropteridium eocaenicum sp. nov., Costacysta bucina gen. et sp. nov., Distatodinium pilosum sp. nov., Echinidinium? lucidum sp. nov., Hapsocysta kysingensis sp. nov., Horologinella? pentagonalis sp. nov., Operculodinium eisenackii sp. nov., Phthanoperidinium cornutum sp. nov., Selenopemphix septum sp. nov., Svalbardella partimtabulata sp. nov., Thalassiphora gracilis sp. nov. and Thalassiphora microperforata sp. nov. are formally described. The genus Hapsocysta is emended, and is considered to be a senior synonym of Piccoladinium. The gradual change of the dinoflagellate cyst assemblages in this section demonstrates that sedimentation was almost continuous during the time span of ca. 12 Ma. The biostratigraphic resolution based on dinoflagellate cyst events is generally finer than the calcareous nannofossil NP biozonation. A comparison with published dinoflagellate cyst data from the Norwegian–Greenland Sea shows that several important events are mainly synchronous throughout the region, suggesting a general similarity of the water masses. An isolated occurrence of Svalbardella suggests a short cooling event during early Bartonian times. The palynofacies in most of the section is almost purely of pelagic type. A more proximal, mid shelf palynofacies and a distinctive episode of reworking coincide with the Upper Eocene Moesgaard Clay and indicate a brief, but rather large sea level fall during the deposition of this unit. The Eocene/Oligocene boundary is tentatively identified near the base of the Viborg Formation, and approximately coincides with increased reworking of dinoflagellate cysts and a strong increase in bisaccate pollen, indicating more proximal conditions and possibly also a climatic cooling.


Being a key step in grinding process, dressing of grinding wheel influences the whole grinding results, especially grinding quality. Because of its good dressing effect, a new dressing method assisted by ultrasonic vibration attracted researchers' attention. In this paper, on the basis of the researches on dressing with single-point diamond dresser, physical model of ultrasonic dressing of grinding wheel were established. According to the physical model and the SEM photos of grinding wheel's surface topography, the mechanism of ultrasonic dressing was brought to light. Through contrast experiments, based on roughness and micro-feature of the ground surface, the influence of ultrasonic dressing on grinding quality was researched.


Only a decade ago surgery was the preferred treatment of recurrent peptic ulcer. With the introduction of cimetidine in 1976 effective and safe medical treatment could be offered to the patient. H2-receptor antagonists are still the basic drugs in ulcer healing, but in recent years mucosa protective agents as sucralfate and colloidal bismuth have been increasingly used. Complete inhibition of acid secretion may be achieved by the new proton pump inhibitor omeprazole. In ulcer resistant to treatment with H2-receptor antagonists either a mucosa protective agent, as colloidal bismuth or a potent acid inhibitor (omeprazole) may be used. In recurrent duodenal ulcer a systematic and prolonged maintenance therapy with H2-receptor antagonists is indicated. This treatment is safe and it reduces the incidence of a relapse to one third compared with placebo. Surgery is no longer indicated in the majority of patients with uncomplicated recurrent peptic ulcer. In most patients this disease can now be controlled by effective and cheap anti-ulcer drugs. Although medical treatment of peptic ulcer has been used for centuries, surgery was still the main treatment of recurrent peptic ulcer in the nineteen seventies. Up to that time the surgical management of ulcer disease had made major progress, while medical treatment had failed to offer effective cure. Thus, as late as in 1975 the medical treatment of peptic ulcer consisted of antacids, bed rest and carbenoxolone. With the important side effects of carbenoxolone in mind, it is no wonder that medical treatment was no alternative to surgery in patients suffering from recurrent peptic ulcer.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Urban geophysics ups the ante in the world of applied geophysics, which requires innovative thinking and seemingly off-the-wall approaches, if for no other reason than the settings. Ambient-noise-tomography (ANT) can play a pivotal role in yielding subsurfa2ce information in urban areas, which is capable of dealing with challenges related to these scenarios ( e.g., human activities and low signal-to-noise ratio). In this study, the ANT was conducted to investigate the near-surface shear-velocity structure in the surrounding area of the Baotu Spring Park in downtown Jinan, Shandong Province, China. Quiet clear Rayleigh waves have been obtained by the cross-correlation, which indicates that strong human activities, such as moving vehicles and municipal engineering constructions, can produce approximately isotropic distribution of noise sources for high-frequency signals. The direct surface-wave tomographic method with period-dependent ray-tracing was used to invert all surface-wave dispersion data in the period band 0.2-1.5 s simultaneously for 3D variations of shear-velocity (Vs) structure. Our results show a good correspondence to the geological features with thinner Quaternary sediments, the geological structural characteristic of the limestone surrounded by the igneous which has the highest velocity than that of the limestone in the study area, and several concealed faults of which specific location has been detected at depth. The results demonstrate that it is possible to successfully use ANT with high-frequency signal in an urban environment provided a detailed planning and execution is implemented.


A laser-diode-array end-pumped 0.3-at.% Nd-doped GdVO/sub 4/ high-power continuous-wave (CW) laser operating at 1.34 /spl mu/m has been demonstrated. The maximum CW output power of 8.23 W was obtained at the incident pump power of 27.9 W, giving the corresponding optical conversion efficiency of 29.5% and the average slope efficiency of 30.2%. Two Nd : GdVO/sub 4/ crystals with Nd/sup 3+/ concentration of 0.5 and 1.14 at.% were also investigated for the comparison to show the advantage of lowly Nd-doped crystals applied to high-power lasers.


Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information, are provided with computers and devices on-demand. It also makes security problems more complicate and more important than before. The data breaches threat for Cloud Computing is ranking No.1 and high risk level. This research proposed to build ontology of data breaches threat for Cloud Computing based on the concepts. This paper also shows how discover the aspects items which are related with our domain "Data Breaches Threat". We collected huge data and extracted it into "concepts" using KAON tool.


The identification of proteinases of Porphyromonas gingivalis that act as virulence factors in periodontal disease has important implications in the study of host-pathogen interactions as well as in the discovery of potential therapeutic and immunoprophylactic agents. We have cloned and characterized a gene that encodes the 50-kDa cysteine proteinase gingipain or Arg-gingipain-1 (RGP-1) described previously (Chen, Z., Potempa, J., Polanowski, A., Wikstrom, M., and Travis, J. (1992) J. Biol. Chem. 267, 18896-18901). Analysis of the amino acid sequence of RGP-1 deduced from the cloned DNA sequence showed that the biosynthesis of this proteinase involves processing of a polyprotein that contains multiple adhesin molecules located at its carboxyl terminus. This finding corroborates previous evidence (Pike R., McGraw, W., Potempa, J., and Travis, J.(1994) J. Biol. Chem. 269, 406-411) that RGP-1 is closely associated with adhesin molecules, and that high molecular weight forms of the proteinase are involved in the binding of erythrocytes.


The design of a creativity workshop which helps to develop new ideas of how to support elderly people to live in their own home for as long as possible is presented. The participants of the workshops were inspired by special stimuli based on everyday experiences with the needs and problems of elderly people. The facilitation of the workshop had to introduce this inspiring information and to combine it with appropriate brainstorming questions, material to work with and technical support. For the display of and interaction with information units a 4.8 m x 1.2m interactive screen was employed. Various modes of work and collaboration were combined. The case study is concluded with lessons learned about how interaction and collaboration modes for integrating inspiring information can appropriately enhance creativity workshops.


The variables and the variation scope considered in each variable would be different for different applications of vehicle license plate recognition (VLPR). This research splits major VLPR applications into three categories: access control, traffic law enforcement, and road patrol. Each category is characterized by the variables, including plate size and illumination condition, camera viewpoint, with different scopes of variation. Applications with more variables or larger variation scopes, as in road patrol cases, require more sophisticated methods and higher computational cost than those with fewer variables or less variation scopes, as in the access control cases. It is uneconomic to apply the methods developed for road patrol to handle access control. On the contrary, a method developed for access control cannot solve most cases in road patrol. Different from most previous works without specifying applications, this paper redefines the VLPR problem using the variables and their variation scopes for the three major applications. Because no benchmark database is available for the evaluation of VLPR methods on the three major applications, a database composed of three application-oriented subsets is introduced and made available to the research community. There has not been a method commonly acknowledged as a baseline although VLPR has been an active research topic for more than a decade. A modular baseline method, whose components can be adjusted for the three applications, is proposed and benchmarked on our database. The proposed baseline is compared against a few competitive ones to highlight its value as a benchmark.


This project explored how consumers in emerging economies evaluate brand extension by using China as a case. Two separate but related studies were conducted, and university students were used as respondents in both the studies. Study one or replication study tested Aaker and Keller's brand extension model in China. Assuming similar methods to Aaker and Keller's, six well-recognised brands were chosen as parent brand and each was extended to three product categories. Totally, 469 respondents completed the survey questionnaire. As each was to evaluate six extensions, this made the cases 2814. The data was analysed using Optimal Least Square regression approach and "residual centred" approach respectively. The result confirmed most of the findings observed in developed countries. Specifically, consumer's attitude towards the extension is primarily driven by the brand affect, the fit between the two product categories, the difficulty of making the extension and moderated via the interactions between the brand affect and the fit variables. Study two refined and extended Aaker and Keller's model by adding new variables and making methodological adjustments. The same stimuli and data analysis techniques as those in the replication were employed. 252 respondents participated in the survey and each evaluated six extensions, making cases 1512. In addition to re-verifying the findings of the replication and providing cross validation to these findings, the extended study found that the image consistency between the parent brand and the extension, the competition intensity of the extension product market were important in determining the success of the extension. Further, consumer differed in evaluating durable extensions and non-durable extensions. The thesis detailed the two studies above, and discussed the findings and their implications by relating to branding literature, to the general situation of the emerging economies as well as the reality of China. It also presented the limitations of the research and the future research directions.


Gold has both private uses (depletion uses and service uses) and government uses. It can be obtained from mines with high extraction costs and quantitatively the gain in welfare and its distribution. Any policy in a class maximizes welfare from private uses. One policy involves selling all government gold immediately. Another involves lending all remaining government gold in every period and selling government gold gradually after some future time. Government uses might require gold ownership but not gold storage. If so, any loss in welfare from government uses would be much smaller under the policy involving lending and selling gradually. We construct and calibrate a model of the gold market. We prove that governments always obtain more revenue by making their gold available sooner. For a representative set of parameters, there is a gain in total welfare (discounted economic surplus) of $130 billion (1997 dollars) if governments act now instead of twenty years from now. Before any redistribution, governments gain $128 billion, and the private sector gains $2 billion. According to our measure, a large share of the gain (37%) comes from removing the production inefficiency.


Background: Availability of 4G cellular network and video cellphone handsets may allow mobile videophone assessment to be employed in prehospital stroke care. The California Brief Stroke Scale (CABSS) is a 4 item scale designed as a mobile videophone test to evaluate a prehospital telemedicine instrument to rate stroke severity. Potential uses include identifying patients who are likely harboring persisting large vessel occlusions and to characterize baseline deficits prior to enrollment in prehospital trials. Methods: One bedside and one remote CABSS score were independently obtained on 15 ischemic stroke patients with persistent neurologic deficits. The bedside examination was performed by a stroke neurologist. The remote examination was performed by a second stroke neurologist through mobile video phone. A CABSS score of 1 or higher (scale 0-7) was an index of global stroke deficit severity. Kappa coefficients were calculated for concordance between bedside and remote scores. Results: The median National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score was 6 (interquartile range IQR 4-10). On average the CABSS score evaluation took 25 seconds to perform. The median video CABSS was 2, (IQR1-3) and median bedside CABSS was 3, (IQR 1-3). Based on weighted K coefficients, cortical findings (aphasia, gaze deviation/hemineglect) displayed excellent agreement κ=1 (95% CI 1.0) and non-cortical findings (facial droop, arm drift) displayed substantial agreement κ =0.7 (95% CI 0.4-1.0). There was substantial agreement between bedside and remote methods for the total CABSS κ 0.68 (95% CI 0.44-0.92). The CABSS scores obtained by bedside and remote methods were strongly correlated (r= 0.85, P Conclusion: Our prospective study found that mobile videocell phone evaluation using CABSS is a feasible and reliable means of examining hyperacute stroke patients in the field. A physician can rapidly perform an audiovideo examination to increase the accuracy of prehospital identification of patients harboring persisting large vessel occlusions and characterize baseline deficits prior to enrollment in prehospital clinical trials to a clinically important degree.


This study search to delineate the profile of the scientific production of the undergraduate nursing programme of the University of Sao Paulo from 1993 to 1996, identifying its main lines and tendencies. In order to characterize it, the summaries of the proceedings of the Scientific Initiation Symposium of USP were analyzed (SICUSP) and of the Symposum of the University of Sao Paulo at Ribeirao Preto College of Nursing (SICEERP), through a classification in research types, themes and departments of origin. We observed a prevalence of descriptive research and an expressive number of investigations directed to the study of socio-cultural aspects among other results.


Over the past 10 years, the growth of nontraditional retail food outlets has transformed the food market landscape, increasing the variety of shopping and food options available to consumers, as well as price variation in retail food markets. This report focuses on these dynamics and how they affect food price variation across store format types. The differences in prices across store formats are especially noteworthy when compared with standard measures of food price inflation over time. Over the past 20 years, annual food price changes, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), have averaged just 3 percent per year, while food prices for similar products can vary by more than 10 percent across store formats at any one point in time. Since the current CPI for food does not fully take into account the lower price option of nontraditional retailers, a gap exists between price change as measured using scanner data versus the CPI estimate, even for the relatively low food inflation period of 1998-2003.


&NA; Creating a true continuum of medical education from admission to medical school throughout a lifetime of professional learning is easier said than done. To do so, the various components on the continuum must be explored to determine where appropriate links might be made. The author considers selected concepts and evidence from the theory and practice underlying continuing medical education (CME) and continuing professional education (CPE) insofar as CME and CPE can inform undergraduate medical curricula, including its current innovations. Five conceptual and empirical approaches from CME and CPE are discussed in detail: social learning theory, how physicians learn and change, competence in business and the professions, how professionals learn in practice, and lifelong self‐directed learning. Then the author describes the implications of these approaches for the ongoing development of undergraduate medical education. (1) The entire learning environment, and not merely discrete aspects such as curriculum content, must be examined and fully utilized to benefit learning. (2) The importance of the contexts in which learning occurs must be emphasized in several ways. (3) Learning should be centered around clinical problems. (4) The many benefits of small‐group learning and other ways of learning from colleagues should be emphasized. (5) The undergraduate curriculum should emphasize the development of students' feelings of self‐efficacy to ensure that students become physicians who are confident about their abilities. (6) CME research and CPE research reinforce the efforts in undergraduate medical education to emphasize the early development of students' process skills as well as content mastery.


The requirements demanded for pedestrian crossings, as the meeting point of pedestrian and vehicle traffic, are becoming more and more numerous and to guarantee that they are understandable, employable and feasible for all people in safe and convenient conditions, and in the most natural and autonomous manner (LEY 51, 2003). Natural stone is a highly demanded material used for covering and surface finishing of public external spaces.  However, complying with  the increasingly demanding requirements for  pedestrian crossings, makes using  natural stone much more difficult due to the inherent limitations that this material presents:  from the labour-intensive mechanical procedures required to modify its shape, (as it cannot be moulded), to the inability to change its properties by chemical addition. This situation has been the premise of this investigation, with the objective of establishing a verification model of the functionalities of the pedestrian crossing, in general, and in particular, a verification model which can be used for a pedestrian crossing built with natural stone. The result is a model that can be used for the verification of the functionalities of a pedestrian crossing. In the process of building this model, the functionalities had to be classified in order to systematize the own verification method by which this classification can be considered as a secondary result of the investigation, even though it was not the main object. After realizing this investigation it can be confirmed that the functionality of a pedestrian crossing depends on almost a hundred parameters which must be checked or measured, in turn proving that this design and construction process is indeed complex.


The performance of uplink cooperative code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems using adaptive decode-and-forward (DF) relaying is investigated over Nakagami-m fading channels. A closed-form expression for the outage probability for a multirelay system with relay selection is derived. Our method is based on the moment-generating function (MGF) for the total signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the base station where the cumulative density function (cdf) is obtained. We also examine the asymptotic performance of the system at high SNR from which we evaluate the achievable diversity gain for different system parameters. Both simulations and analytical results are presented for performance evaluation.


Measurement of densities ( rho ), viscosities (eta) and ultrasonic speeds of sound ( u ) has been carried out for binary mixtures of acetophenone with butylamine, cyclohexylamine, dipropylamine, and dibutylamine at T = (303.15, 308.15 and 313.15) K. The experimental data have been used to calculate the excess molar volumes (VE), deviation in viscosity (Deltaeta,), isentropic compressibility (Ks), deviation in speeds of sound (∆u) and deviation in isentropic compressibilities (∆Ks). These excess properties were correlated with Redlich-kister polynomial equation. Further the predictive ability of some selected viscosity models (Tamura-Kurata, Heric, McAllister (4-body)) was tested. The Speeds of sound data were also correlated using Vandel- Vangeel, and Jouyban- Acree models. The results were interpreted in terms of inter molecular interactions.


Abstract The quality of platelet aggregation and dense granule deficiency testing is important for diagnosing platelet function disorders. After a successful pilot exercise on diagnosing platelet dense granule deficiency by electron microscopy (EM), the North American Specialized Coagulation Laboratory Association (NASCOLA) has launched regular external quality assurance (EQA) for dense granule EM, as well as for the interpretation of platelet aggregation findings. EQA records were analyzed to assess performance. For EM EQA, between 2009 and 2011, there was excellent performance in distinguishing normal from dense granule-deficient samples and good (>70%) agreement on classifying most electron dense structures in platelets. For aggregation EQA, some normal variants were misclassified and overall case interpretations were more acceptable for rare disorders than for common findings. NASCOLA experiences with these EQAs indicate that there is a need to improve the quality of platelet disorder evaluations. For aggregometry interpretations, deficits in performance could be addressed by translating guideline recommendations into practice.


Alongside the continuous development of Internet technologies, traditional social
networks are running online to provide more services so as to unite the community. In
the meantime, conventional web-based information systems are trying hard to utilise
social networking elements to develop a virtual community so as to increase their
popularity. The combination of these two domains has become what people knew as
the 'online social networks'. There is much to do to reveal the knowledge behind the
screen as massive amounts of user-generated data is created every second. Many
people from different disciplines are using their tools and techniques to analyse and
build knowledge to try understanding the evolution of it. Link Prediction, with the
essence of calculating similarities of two nodes, is one of the most common
techniques to analyse an online social network. It is worth mentioning that while
using Link Prediction to explain online social network, we consider it as a graph with
nodes and edges connecting one another where nodes represent individuals and edges
represent the relations between them. Link Prediction can be utilised in many ways in
this domain, where one of the most common ways is predicting links/edges that may
appear in the future of an evolving network where links/edges represent connections.
The meaning of these connections vary under different circumstance, such as an
academia social network where they may represent co-author relationships among
researchers. Therefore, one of the most common applications of Link Prediction in an
online social network will be the recommendation system. Many works have been
done to analyse social-oriented online networks and many turns into applications with
great success such as Facebook and Twitter. However, this thesis concentrates on
investigating a particular type of online social network where there is still a large gap
waiting to be filled - the online academia social network. The objective of this thesis
is to provide a more sensible way for people to understand the evolution of this
network and develop models and algorithms that solving issues in regards to the needs
of the users in this system of finding valuable research partners. Further the object is
to building up an environment for future researchers to share knowledge and to carry
on the work as a community. To be specific, this thesis contains four main chapters,
and they are connected in some ways to develop solutions for the issues coming out
during the research processes.


A molecular dynamics model has been developed to investigate the evolution of the internal crack of nano scale during heating or compressive loading in BCC Fe. The initial configuration does not contain any pre-existing dislocations. In the case of heating, temperature shows a significant effect on crack evolution and the critical temperature at which the crack healing becomes possible is 673 K. In the case of compressive loading, the crack can be healed at 40 K at a loading rate 0.025 × 1018 Pa·m1/2/s in 6 × 10-12 s. The diffusion of Fe atoms into the crack area results in the healing process. However, dislocations and voids appear during healing and their positions change continuously.


Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether pulmonary oligometastases from colorectal cancer have greater radioresistance than that of pulmonary oligometastases from other cancers and whether good local control can be achieved by dose escalation in stereotactic body radiotherapy. Materials and Methods: This systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted according to the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses statement and methods. Studies were obtained from a database search of PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar for publications using search terms designed to identify studies on "oligometastases," "lung," "stereotactic radiotherapy," and "colorectal cancer." For meta-analysis 1, studies that showed the number of local failures after stereotactic body radiotherapy for pulmonary metastases from colorectal carcinoma and other cancers were included. For meta-analysis2, studies in which a comparison was made of local control rates of pulmonary metastases from colorectal carcinoma by stereotactic body radiotherapy with a higher dose and that with a lower dose were included. A meta-analysis was performed using Mantel-Haenszel statics with the fixed or random-effect model by Review Manager 5.3. Results: Eighteen retrospective studies with 1920 patients with pulmonary oligometastases were used in meta-analysis 1. The local control rate in patients with pulmonary oligometastases from colorectal cancer was significantly lower than that in patients with pulmonary oligometastases from other cancers (odds ratio = 3.10, P < .00001). Next, 8 retrospective studies with 478 patients were included in meta-analysis 2 for dose escalation. Better local control was achieved by a higher prescription dose than by a lower prescription dose (odds ratio = 0.16, P < .00001). Conclusion: Our meta-analysis indicated that local control of pulmonary oligometastases from colorectal cancer by stereotactic body radiotherapy was significantly worse than that of pulmonary metastases from other cancers; however, our results also indicated that good local control of pulmonary oligometastases from colorectal cancer can be achieved by dose escalation.


The potential of information and communication technologies (ICT) to change our society,
including mobility is evident. Both empirical and statistical research on the relation between ICTs
and the amount of travel and mode choice requires continuous attention because of the rapid
innovations related to both spectrums of that relation. Quantitative research that considers stateof-
the-art personal ICTs like high speed mobile Internet (4G) or smartphones and tablets in relation
to mobility is limited. In this research an attempt is made to contribute to the understanding of the
relation between personal ICTs and the amount of travel and mode choice for long-distance homework
trips with use of the first wave of the Dutch Mobility Panel. From the literature, current
knowledge on the mobility aspects, modern day ICTs and understanding of the relations that might
work between them are presented to provide context to the obtained results. Mechanisms like the
fragmentation of activities, transport as a derived demand from activity patterns and travel time
use are described because of their perceived importance in understanding the relation.
The variation in the amount of travel, calculated in the average amount of trips per day, average
travel distance per day and average distance per trip, is analyzed over groups with low, medium
and high Internet use and tele-working frequencies. For the total amount of travel, the average trips
per day and average distance per trip are significantly different over the groups with low, medium
and high Internet use with respectively 3.3, 3.1 and 2.8 trips per day and 10.92, 13.40 and 15.39
kilometers per trip. Furthermore, when analyzing the total amount of travel over profiles
considering age, work situation and Internet use the variations go in opposite directions between
different profiles. For students the number of trips is higher for the groups with higher Internet use,
while for the unemployed group of respondents the amount of travel is much lower for the group
with high Internet use. This trend is also observed when only leisure or shopping trips are
considered but with smaller variations and only with significant differences in the amount of trips
per day. Tele-working from home decreases the number of commuter trips significantly, which
makes sense. When another indicator for tele-working (working over distance via the Internet
independent of location) is used, only the average travel distance per trip varies significantly with
an increase from around 17 to 26 kilometers respectively for the groups with incidental and daily
use of the Internet for the purpose of working over distance.
Considering the relation between ICT and mode choice, the most comprehensive model in this
research is able to explain 84.6% of the variation in mode choice between car and train for long
distance home-work trips. The included ICT variables only explain 0.9% of the total variance.
Furthermore, only tablet possession and interaction terms of age and Internet use and tablet
possession and access to the Internet via 3G/4G LTE are showing significant effects. Owning a
tablet increases the chance of a person choosing the car to complete long-distance home-work trips.
Owning a tablet in combination with access to the Internet via 3G/4G increases the chance of a
person choosing the train via the chosen method in this research.
Additional time and research is required to link the observed variation to specific mechanisms like
the improved ability to use travel time efficiently or fragmentation of activities as a result of
modern ICTs. Considering the context of the relations, the interweaving of the digital and physical
world and limiting technological determinism are extremely important to consider as starting
points for any research on the complex relation of ICT and mobility. The complexity of the future
relation between personal ICTs and mobility is expected to grow exponentially.


Data on the energy usage including biomass, emissions of air pollutants (SOx, NOx, CO), and the air quality in North Korea are analyzed. The energy usage in North Korea has decreased in the 1990s and thus, the emission amount of air pollutants. Coal and biomass constitute a major fraction of energy sources since the 1990s. It is identified that the emission amount of air pollutants per unit energy consumption in North Korea is much higher than South Korea for the period data are available (since 1990) implying that the air pollutant emission management system in North Korea is inadequate. In particular, the amount of biomass burning for household cooking and heating is significant with the huge emissions of air pollutants such as CO and organic species both in the gas and aerosol phase. Furthermore, it is found that the existing energy usage and air pollutant emission data are not consistent in biomass burning related data.


Community colleges currently serve almost half of the undergraduate students in the United States and in an effort to prepare students for interactions in an increasingly globalized world many offer international education experiences. A review of the literature presents a call for higher education to engage in international education along with a strong rationale for doing so. However, despite support from national organizations and indications from employers regarding the value of a global perspective, there are barriers to internationalization for community colleges. One often cited potential solution is the utilization of consortia to assist with managing resources and cost effectiveness. This study uses a case study approach to explore the role of a state consortium in informing international education among colleges in a state system. Interviews and examination of consortium documents were used to establish perceptions regarding the foundational beliefs and roles of the consortium. Barriers to the work of the consortium are also presented.


Reproduction and pathogenicity of the five known races of Meloidogyne naasi on two selections of creeping bentgrass were compared. Toronto C-15 was a host for Races 3, 4 and 5, whereas Northmoor 9 supported reproduction of all five races. Differences in susceptibility and population increase demonstrated that the races could be separated by degree of reproduction on the two selections. Root weights generally were unaffected. Based on cumulative dipping weights, all but Race 1 were pathogenic on at least one of the selections; Race 3 stunted top growth of both. Slight differences in degree of pathogenicity, associated with final populations, were not broad enough to be useful in race separation.


A study was conducted to investigate the impact of phytase source, citric acid, and wheat middlings (WM) on growth performance, bone strength, carcass yield, and P release in broilers fed marginally-deficient P diets from d 21 to 55. The experiment consisted of 13 dietary treatments, which were replicated five times, where each replicate consisted of 20 birds and utilized the standard-curve methodology using monobasic potassium phosphate (KH2PO4) as the standard. Treatments were as follows: diets 1 to 4) corn –soybean meal (C-SBM) basal (0.13% iP) supplemented with graded levels (0, 0.04, 0.08, 0.12%) of KH2PO4; diets 5 to 8) as in diet 1 with 500 FTU/kg of phytase (E. coli (EP) or fungal (FP)) and two levels of citric acid (0 or 3 %); diet 9) as in diet 1 with 10% corn replaced by WM; and diets 10 to 13) as in diet 9 supplemented with 500 FTU/kg of phytase (EP or FP) and two levels of citric acid (0 or 3 %). Reducing dietary IP had no impact on growth performance. Phytase had the main effect of increasing weight gain in the grower and withdrawal phases (P < 0.05); weight gain was greater in broilers fed the EP diets compared to those fed the FP diets during the grower phase (P < 0.05). When all the periods were combined only broilers fed the EP diets had weight gains and feed efficiencies that were greater than broilers fed no supplemental phytase (P < 0.05). The inclusion of phytase had the main effect of increasing adjusted bone breaking strength (ABBS) and tibia ash (P < 0.05) and released at least 0.083% P. Broilers fed the FP diets had lower carcass yield, whereas broilers fed the EP diets had lower wing yield (P < 0.05). Citric acid had the main effect of increasing feed efficiency, ABBS, and tibia ash (P <0.05) when all the periods were combined. Phytase and citric acid released at least 0.100% P, whereas the inclusion of WM alone released 0.051% P using ABBS data. The combination of phytase and WM increased P release by 67% (P <0.05), whereas phytase, citric acid, and WM released at least 0.148% P.


In work on globally-scheduled real-time multiprocessor systems, analysis is lacking for supporting real-time applications developed using general processing graph models. In this paper, it is shown that bounded deadline tardiness can be ensured for such applications on a multiprocessor with no utilization loss. This result is general: it is applicable to periodic, sporadic, and rate-based directed-acyclic-graph (DAG) models and allows sophisticated notions of precedence to be supported (particularly, notions allowed by the processing graph method). This paper is the first to show that bounded tardiness can be ensured for globally-scheduled DAG-based applications without utilization loss.


Background Canine rabies causes about 59,000 human deaths each year globally but the disease can be eliminated by sustaining sufficient dog vaccination coverage over several consecutive years. A challenge to achieving high coverage is low participation of dog owners in vaccination campaigns. We explored whether and how previously identified contributory factors to low participation can be addressed through community engagement activities. Methods We engaged communities in two wards in Tanzania on dog behavior and handling, safe ways of interacting with dogs, and their perceptions of dog vaccination. We shared and elicited information from them through village meetings, video screenings, posters and leaflets and involved the leadership of one of the wards in planning and implementing a dog vaccination exercise to explore the feasibility of their participation. We assessed the impact of engagement activities with household surveys, meeting reports, observations and focus group discussions. We used a generalized linear mixed-effects model to identify predictors of knowledge and perceptions and compared knowledge amongst respondents before and after engagement activities. Qualitative data was analyzed inductively to explore perceptions of dog handling and vaccination and feasibility, opportunities and barriers to community leadership participation in organizing mass dog vaccination. Main findings Knowledge of dog behavior, dog handling, and safe ways of interacting with dogs was positively associated with age (p < 0.0001), dog ownership (p = 0.0203), training (p = 0.0010) and previous experience of a dog bite (p = 0.0002); and was negatively associated with being afraid of dogs (p = 0.0061) and participation in a recent dog vaccination campaign (p = 0.0077). Knowledge was low before and significantly improved after engagement activities. The majority (92%) of respondents believed dog vaccination has no negative effects on dogs. Respondents perceived lack of bonding with their dog as a limitation to the ability to restrain a dog for vaccination. The community performed most roles assigned to them in the dog vaccination exercise, but barriers such as lack of motivation for volunteering exist. Conclusion Engaging communities regularly on dog vaccination can improve their knowledge of dog behavior and dog handling techniques, and may help improve owner participation in dog vaccination campaigns.


The status of microminiaturization is summarized under the following three headings: 1) assembly of pretested conventional or specially designed component parts, 2) printing or vapor deposition of multicomponent assemblies on fiat insulating substrates, and 3) preparation of complete circuits from a solid block of semiconductor material. Under the first heading, assembly of parts in three-dimensional (3-D) soldered structures, in 3-D welded structures, in imitation 2-D-type structures, and in structures of disciplined geometry is briefly described. The latter structures now include not only the Micro-module but also new pelletized parts. Under the second heading, the original 2-D thin-film type of construction is briefly summarized and then the evolution of this system into experimental circuits containing all thin-film passive parts is shown. The logical next step, preparation of circuits conraining thin-film active as well as passive parts, is in even earlier stages of research. Under the third heading, new developments in integrated and functional circuits are presented. The trend of current work points to the conclusion that equipment available commercially in the next decade will probably take the form of hybrid structures comprising both individually fabricated parts, and single-process parts arrays, all mounted or processed onto an insulating substrate.


The behaviour of sanderlings, Calidris alba, was studied at Teesmouth, N. E. England. Flock sizes and within-flock spacing were related to factors such as substrate type, season, and prey distribution. Sightings of individually-identifiable colour-ringed birds showed that turnover was high. Individuals varied in their vagility and in the way in which they allocated their time between feeding sites. There was a high degree of consistency between winters in the distributions of individual birds. When individual sighting frequencies were taken into account, associations between individual sanderlings, in terms of both flock membership and of occurrences at the same sites on the same days, were non-significantly different from those expected by chance. Previously used methods for detecting non-random associations gave inadequate null models. Each individual appeared to make a decision about where to feed independently of the decisions made by any other particular individuals .A number of aspects of the dynamics of flocks were examined, including flock cohesion; how flocks built up and broke down; whether birds tended to move to the largest or smallest, the nearest or furthest flocks; the effects of disturbance on flock dynamics; and the relationship between group size and the distance flown between flocks. The responses of sanderlings to experimental disturbances tended to support the hypothesis that responses should be varied according to the costs and benefits of different courses of action rather than the hypothesis that birds should take flight as soon as a predator is sighted. Birds often break off from performing an activity in order to raise their heads (scan). Preening birds had shorter inter-scan intervals than feeding birds. Flock size and spacing explained only a small proportion of the variance in vigilance. Vigilance was greater in autumn than in winter. There was some evidence for both feeding and preening birds avoiding very short inter-scan intervals but not for the avoidance of long intervals. Sequences of inter-scan interval durations of preening birds were non-random.


Breaking down miRNAs Although much work has examined microRNA (miRNA) biogenesis, relatively little is known about miRNA decay. Elbarbary et al. now identify Tudor-SN, an endonuclease that interacts with the RNA-induced silencing complex. Tudor-SN targets miRNAs at CA and UA dinucleotides located more than five nucleotides from miRNA ends. Tudor-SN-mediated miRNA decay removes miRNAs that silence genes encoding proteins that are critical for the G1-to-S phase transition in the cell cycle. Science, this issue p. 859 An endonuclease initiates decay of microRNAs that regulate the cell cycle. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs that regulate gene expression. The pathways that mediate mature miRNA decay are less well understood than those that mediate miRNA biogenesis. We found that functional miRNAs are degraded in human cells by the endonuclease Tudor-SN (TSN). In vitro, recombinant TSN initiated the decay of both protein-free and Argonaute 2–loaded miRNAs via endonucleolytic cleavage at CA and UA dinucleotides, preferentially at scissile bonds located more than five nucleotides away from miRNA ends. Cellular targets of TSN-mediated decay defined using microRNA sequencing followed this rule. Inhibiting TSN-mediated miRNA decay by CRISPR-Cas9 knockout of TSN inhibited cell cycle progression by up-regulating a cohort of miRNAs that down-regulates mRNAs that encode proteins critical for the G1-to-S phase transition. Our study indicates that targeting TSN nuclease activity could inhibit pathological cell proliferation.


Past research has shown that an individual's feelings at any given moment reflect currently experienced stimuli as well as internal representations of similar past experiences. However, anxious individuals' affective reactions to streams of interrelated valenced information (vs. reactions to static stimuli that are arguably less ecologically valid) are rarely tracked. The present study provided a first examination of the newly developed Tracking Affect Ratings Over Time (TAROT) task to continuously assess anxious individuals' affective reactions to streams of information that systematically change valence. Undergraduate participants (N = 141) completed the TAROT task in which they listened to narratives containing positive, negative, and neutral physically- or socially-relevant events, and indicated how positive or negative they felt about the information they heard as each narrative unfolded. The present study provided preliminary evidence for the validity and reliability of the task. Within scenarios, participants higher (vs. lower) in anxiety showed many expected negative biases, reporting more negative mean ratings and overall summary ratings, changing their pattern of responding more quickly to negative events, and responding more negatively to neutral events. Furthermore, individuals higher (vs. lower) in anxiety tended to report more negative minimums during and after positive events, and less positive maximums after negative events. Together, findings indicate that positive events were less impactful for anxious individuals, whereas negative experiences had a particularly lasting impact on future affective responses. The TAROT task is able to efficiently capture a number of different cognitive biases, and may help clarify the mechanisms that underlie anxious individuals' biased negative processing.


Abstract Aims Within the TeleCheck-AF project, numerous centres in Europe used on-demand photoplethysmography (PPG) technology to remotely assess heart rate and rhythm in conjunction with teleconsultations. Based on the TeleCheck-AF investigator experiences, we aimed to develop an educational structured stepwise practical guide on how to interpret PPG signals and to introduce typical clinical scenarios how on-demand PPG was used. Methods and results During an online conference, the structured stepwise practical guide on how to interpret PPG signals was discussed and further refined during an internal review process. We provide the number of respective PPG recordings (FibriCheck®) and number of patients managed within a clinical scenario during the TeleCheck-AF project. To interpret PPG recordings, we introduce a structured stepwise practical guide and provide representative PPG recordings. In the TeleCheck-AF project, 2522 subjects collected 90 616 recordings in total. The majority of these recordings were classified by the PPG algorithm as sinus rhythm (57.6%), followed by AF (23.6%). In 9.7% of recordings, the quality was too low to interpret. The most frequent clinical scenarios where PPG technology was used in the TeleCheck-AF project was a follow-up after AF ablation (1110 patients) followed by heart rate and rhythm assessment around (tele)consultation (966 patients). Conclusion We introduce a newly developed structured stepwise practical guide on PPG signal interpretation developed based on presented experiences from TeleCheck-AF. The present clinical scenarios for the use of on-demand PPG technology derived from the TeleCheck-AF project will help to implement PPG technology in the management of AF patients.


Angiomyofibroblastoma is a rare, recently described, soft tissue tumour that occurs mainly, but not exclusively, in the vulval region of premenopausal women. We report a case arising in the vagina to draw the attention of pathologists to the fact that this rare neoplasm can occur outside the vulva. A 54 year old woman, para 4 + 0, presented with a two year history of vaginal wall prolapse. Vaginal examination revealed a polypoid lesion on the anterior wall. Surgical removal and vaginal wall repair was performed. The surgical specimen consisted of surface mucosa with an underlying well circumscribed, firm, homogenous, white coloured lesion measuring 2.5 cm in maximum diameter. Histology showed unremarkable surface squamous epithelium. Deep to this, a well circumscribed but unencapsulated lesion was present. This contained numerous randomly distributed blood vessels, most of which were thin walled and capillary-like (fig 1A), whereas others had thick muscular walls. The surrounding stroma contained spindle shaped cells, some with wavy nuclei (fig 1B), and others with a plasmacytoid or epithelioid appearance. Occasional multinucleate cells were present (fig 1B). There was little or no nuclear pleomorphism and mitotic figures were not identified. In some areas there was a tendency for concentration of the stromal cells around blood vessels, although this was not a prominent feature. The stroma contained collagen fibres and was focally oedematous with some extravasation of red blood cells. Immunohistochemical staining showed diVuse positivity of stromal cells for vimentin (Dako, Copenhagen, Denmark). There was focal strong staining for desmin (Dako) and occasional cells were weakly positive for á smooth muscle actin (Sigma, Poole, Dorset, UK). There was no staining of stromal cells for S100 protein (Diagnostic Products Ltd, Abingdon, UK), AE1/AE3 (Dako), CD34 (Serotec, Oxford, UK), or factor VIII related antigen (Signet, Ontario, Canada). Staining for á smooth muscle actin, CD34, and factor VIII highlighted the vascular channels. There was diVuse strong positivity of stromal cells for the oestrogen receptor (ER) (Dako) and progesterone receptor (PR) (Dako). Within the vulva the chief diVerential diagnosis of angiomyofibroblastoma is likely to be aggressive angiomyxoma. Angiomyofibroblastoma is distinguished from aggressive angiomyxoma by its circumscribed border and higher cellularity, by the frequent presence of plump stromal cells, and by a lesser degree of stromal myxoid change. Angiomyofibroblastoma of the vulva is almost always a benign lesion which, unlike aggressive angiomyxoma, shows little or no tendency for local recurrence. However, a single case with sarcomatous transformation has been described. Since the original description, angiomyofibroblastoma has been described outside the vulva, in the female urethra and in the male genital tract, and there have been occasional reports of this neoplasm arising in the vagina. In a report of 12 angiomyofibroblastomas, three had a vaginal location. When situated within the vagina, the main diVerential diagnoses are likely to be a leiomyoma with prominent vascularity or an angiomyoma. However, diVuse immunoreactivity with antidesmin antibodies would be expected in both these lesions, rather than the focal positivity seen in our present case. The immunophenotype of angiomyofibroblastoma is not distinct but most cases are desmin positive and á smooth muscle actin negative. However, some are negative for desmin or positive for á smooth muscle actin. In this case, there was focal strong immunoreactivity for desmin, with only occasional cells staining with anti-á smooth muscle actin. DiVuse positivity for ER and PR was present and this has been described previously in vulval angiomyofibroblastoma. Although this raises the possibility that angiomyofibroblastoma is a hormone responsive neoplasm, positivity for ER and PR might simply be a reflection of the presence of these receptors normally in the subepithelial stromal cells of the vulva and vagina. It is probable that angiomyofibroblastoma in this region is derived from mesenchymal cells in the subepithelial myxoid stromal zone, which extends from the endocervix to the vulva. However, in a recent report this lesion has also been described in the fallopian tube.


Warm compression tests of AZ31 Mg alloy were carried out at five temperatures in 30°C intervals from 210°C to 330°C. The samples of different thickness which were machined from as-cast and pre-strained AZ31 billets were compressed into thickness 1mm and then cooled in the air to room temperature. The microstructural evolution of AZ31 Mg alloy was investigated during warm compression forming. The results show that all the samples have undergone a microstructure changes to different scales in the range investigated. The twinning is the predominant deformation mechanism for magnesium alloys at moderate temperatures and its occurrence is dependent on temperature and strain. Microstructural evaluation indicates that the mean size of the recrystallised grains decreases with increasing effective strain and temperature because of sufficient dynamic recrystallization. The original grain has significant influence on microstructural evolution during warm forming.


This paper characterizes optimal noncompliance for an emissions trading policy that seeks to achieve a given aggregate emissions target at least cost. The total costs of achieving the target consist of aggregate abatement costs, monitoring costs, and the expected costs of collecting penalties from noncompliant firms. Optimal noncompliance depends in large measure on whether the marginal penalty for individual violations is increasing or constant. The primary result of this work is that any policy that achieves an aggregate emissions target with a linearly increasing marginal penalty, regardless of whether it involves perfect or imperfect compliance, is more costly than an alternative policy that induces perfect compliance with a constant marginal penalty.


With a prevalence of 5%–10% the polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is an exceptionally common disorder of premenopausal women. According to prospective studies, women with PCOS present abnormal glucose tolerance and diabetes mellitus in 31%–35% and 7.5%–10%, respectively. PCOS patients have a higher prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes and dyslipidaemia. The rate of spontaneous abortions as well as the risk to develop gestational or type 2 diabetes is increased in PCOS. Therefore, PCOS is not only a reproductive problem but a complex endocrine disease with important health implications. The role of the glucose metabolism in PCOS, the health consequences and possible interventions are reviewed in this article.


The Workshop Time Management System is a web-based application that is specially built for the third party logistics provider and workshops, with the goals to improve efficiency and shortening processing time by automating all processes and workflows involved in a central application. This project will focus more on human resources planning and efficiency such as pending job assignment, mechanic job log, task efficiency, evaluation of mechanic performance and mechanic duty shift control. By implementing the new solutions to the system, the maintenance staff will be better informed of pending jobs or faults at the workshop whereas the mechanics will be able to access the necessary information instantly to rectify the problem. A number of improvements on the existing features will also be included, such as urgent task handling, vehicle quality inspection and job activation to ensure more accurate time estimation and further improve the flexibility of the system in handling the various situations. The project will be carried out systematically with the waterfall model of Software Development Life Cycle and Structured System Analysis and Design Methodology. The business process and environment is analyzed to enable a more thorough understanding of the problems, opportunities and directives that triggered the project. Overall, this project is expected to deliver a range of mission-critical applications, including a proprietary environmental compliance database for its corporate administrative staff, and a fleet management application for its vehicle maintenance crew at the workshop.


Transuranics (TRU) breakeven and burner core designs have been studied for the Pebble-Bed Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor (PB-GCFR), which was developed under a 2-yr U.S. Department of Energy Nuclear Energy Research Initiative project. The issues of minimizing waste production, fuel cost, and burnup reactivity swing, and maximizing TRU burning have been investigated primarily from a neutronics viewpoint. For TRU breakeven cores, it was found that for the given core power [300 MW(thermal)] and power density (50 MW/m3), the lowest amount of radiotoxic TRU to be processed is obtained for a long-life (single-batch) core of 30-yr duration. Minimizing the TRU processed results in a minimization of the TRU losses that ultimately will have to be entombed in a geologic repository. The results show that the single-batch, long-life PB-GCFR could be designed to operate over a wide range of cycle lengths and fuel loadings. By modifying the TRU feed to have a higher minor actinide (MA) fraction than contained in light water reactor spent fuel, the burnup reactivity swing for the long-life core can be reduced significantly. With this approach, it is also possible to configure the long-life PB-GCFR core as a TRU burner using nonuranium fuel. A nonuranium fuel PB-GCFR with 24% plutonium and 76% MAs can operate for 17 full-power years and achieve 25% burnup with a reactivity swing of 3%Δk.


An integrated adaptive-output switching converter is presented. This converter adopts one-cycle control for fast line response and dual error correction loops for tight load regulation. A dc level shifting technique is proposed to eliminate the use of negative supply and reference voltages in the controller and make the design compatible with standard digital CMOS process. The design accommodates both continuous and discontinuous conduction operations. To further enhance the efficiency, dynamic loss control on the power transistors is proposed to minimize the sum of switching and conduction losses. The design can be extended to other dc-dc and ac-dc conversions. The prototype of the buck converter was fabricated with a standard 0.5-/spl mu/m digital CMOS process. Experimental results show that the converter is well regulated over an output range of 0.9-2.5 V, with a supply voltage of 3.3 V. The tracking speeds are 12.25 /spl mu/s/V for a 1.6-V step-up output change and 13.75 /spl mu/s/V for a 1.6-V step-down output change, respectively, which are much faster than existing counterparts. Maximum efficiency of 93.7% is achieved and high efficiency above 75% is retained over an output power ranging from 10 to 450 mW.


We propose a bi-level formulation for the joint optimization of spot-market operations and optimal dispatch of hydroelectric power generation. The outer problem maximizes the net-profit from interacting with neighbours in the wider energy spot-market, where profit is the difference between the (non-convex) revenue generated from export and the cost for generating and transmitting the exported power. The latter is the optimal solution of the inner optimization problem, a stochastic linear program that determines the minimum-cost dispatch solution that meets existing local demand and planned export, subject to uncertainty in local demand and generation from run-of-the-river dams. The outer problem is solved using stochastic approximation, where the cost function gradient is obtained using parametric programming techniques on the inner problem. Experimental results establish the efficacy of this bi-level approach. We also provide some preliminary analysis of the convergence of this method.


Abstract Objective: To analyze the occupational and demographic characteristics for workers participating in the Australian National Hazard Exposure Worker Surveillance (NHEWS) Survey, who reported the provision of various types of workplace control measures for exposure of the hands to wet-working conditions, and to identify the barriers for the provision of controls. Methods: Computer-assisted telephone interviews were conducted with 4500 workers in 2008. Workers were asked about the types of control measures provided to them in the workplace for exposure of the hands to liquids. Results: Workplace size was the strongest predictor for the provision of control measures. Compared to workplaces with fewer than five employees, workers in workplaces with 200 or more employees were more likely to report provision of gloves, barrier creams and moisturizers, labeling and warning, and ongoing training and education about skin care. Conclusion: Smaller workplaces have poorer access to control measures to mitigate exposure to wet work.


An evaluation of the prospects and potentials of rural preservation in Georgia as possible within the context of the existing legislative framework, and a development of recommendations of needs (legislative and otherwise) for the creation of a meaningful rural preservation program in Georgia. Examined are federal and state preservation legislation, federal and state preservation programs, federal and state preservation organizations and the creation of a state preservation agenda. INDEX WORDS: Georgia, Rural, Preservation, Preservation Legislation, Preservation Programs, Preservation Organizations, Preservation Agenda THE CREATION OF A MEANINGFUL RURAL PRESERVATION AGENDA IN GEORGIA


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Misconceptions are frequently treated as the chief problem to be overcome in science instruction. In this study we examine to what extent misconceptions of electrochemistry identified in interviews enter into students' reasoning during a practical on electrochemical cells. We recorded talk in eight pairs of upper secondary students, using a practical epistemology analysis to investigate how their reasoning developed. Students established relations connecting to known misconceptions on rather few occasions. In those instances, their reasoning showed a tentative character, consisting of possibilities and questions rather than of conceptions. In none of these cases did relations touching upon misconceptions constrain how they filled central gaps. On the contrary, they contributed to the students reasoning going in the right direction in some instances. We conclude than when studied in action, the role of common misconceptions can be radically different from that assumed by identifying them in interviews or written surveys. Hence, only when studied within an activity can their significance for the learning of a science content be evaluated correctly.


Purpose – To extend understanding of the rituals and practices of alcohol consumption through a focus on the consumption object (the Dirty Pint) as a central actant in the practices of extreme alcohol consumption. Design/methodology/approach – Seventeen paired and group interviews were conducted with young consumers (aged 16–18). An Actor-Network Theory (ANT)-inspired approach to data analysis was used in conjunction with Bourdieu's key concepts of habitus, field and capital to present a detailed understanding of the practices and rituals of extreme alcohol consumption. Findings – The same consumption object takes on a very different role and has different forms of agency, depending on the social space (field) in which it is embedded. The Dirty Pint acts differently within different social spaces or sub-fields of the field of adolescence, particularly when combined with individual subjects of differing habitus to produce an object+subject hybrid. Social implications – Paying attention to all the relevant actants (both human and non-human) involved in the practice of alcohol consumption could lead to more novel and relevant alcohol-harm reduction strategies or campaigns that young people can both relate to and take more seriously. Originality/value of paper – We stress the need to grant greater agency to objects in studying consumption practices and identity enactment and contribute to the literature on identity by extending Gergen's (2009) 'relational being', conceiving of the self as embedded in both inter-subjective and inter-objective interactions and relationships (Latour, 1996).


4H-SiC PiN rectifiers with implanted anode and single-zone JTE were fabricated using AlN capped anneal. The surface damage during the high temperature activation anneal is significantly reduced by using AlN capped anneal. The forward drop of the PiN rectifiers at 100A/cm2 is 3.0V while the leakage current is less than 10-7A/cm2 up to 90% breakdown voltage at room temperature. With 6μm thick and 2×1016cm-3 doped drift layer, the PiN rectifiers can achieve near ideal breakdown voltage up to 1050V. Hole impact ionization rate was extracted and compared with previously reported results.


The patterns and environmental correlates of macromolecular synthesis were investigated during 1993 in the Northeast Water Polynya, a region of variable ice cover and hydrodynamic regime on the continental shelf of northeast Greenland (77" to 81' N). Allocation of photosynthate to major macromolecular classes (protein, lipid, and polysaccharides), like phytoplankton biomass and primary production, showed strong spatio-temporal variability. Time series observations in the central part of the polynya and correlational analysis over all stations provided physiological evidence of nutrient deficiency in surface populations as nitrate and silicate were depleted. Lipid, rather than polysaccharide, synthes~s was favoured as nutrient concentrations decreased, and C/N assimilation ratios inferred from protein labelling reached very high values ( > l 5 by weight). C/N composition ratios increased in parallel but remained lower (<10) than the assimilation ratios. Lipid synthesis shifted towards neutral lipids and glycolipids, and away from phospholipids, as nutrient concentrations declined to their observed minimum. At stations with a dominance of large (mainly diatom) phytoplankton more of the lipid synthesis was directed to glycolipids and less to phospholipids and neutral lipids than at those dominated by small (mainly flagellate) phytoplankton, but relative allocation to total lipids and other macromolecular classes was not significantly different between the 2 types of stations. Although both nitrate and silicate became depleted, changes in silicate were most closely related to the physiological changes observed, consistent with a predominance of diatoms at the more productive stations.


We deal with finite-buffer queueing systems fed by a Markovian point process. This class includes the queues of type M/G/1/N, 𝑀𝑋/G/1/N, PH/G/1/N, MMPP/G/1/N, MAP/G/1/N, and BMAP/G/1/N and is commonly used in the performance evaluation of network traffic buffering processes. Typically, such queueing systems are studied in the stationary regime using matrix-analytic methods connected with M/G/1-type Markov processes. Herein, another method for finding transient and stationary characteristics of these queues is presented. The approach is based on finding a closed-form formula for the Laplace transform of the time-dependent performance measure of interest. The method can be used for finding all basic characteristics like queue size distribution, workload distribution, loss ratio, time to buffer overflow, and so forth. To demonstrate this, several examples for different combinations of arrival processes and characteristics are presented. In addition, the most complex results are illustrated via numerical calculations based on an IP traffic parameterization.


Aspirin and dipyridamole have frequently failed to control intimal hyperplasia in vascular grafts in animal and clinical trials. These trials were based on the concept that the smooth muscle mitogen, platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) released from platelets, was a major cause of intimal hyperplasia. Both endothelial and smooth muscle cells (ECs and SMCs), however, can also release PDGF-like SMC mitogens that might cause intimal hyperplasia. We therefore tested whether aspirin and dipyridamole alone or together can affect PDGF-A chain mRNA levels in cultured human saphenous vein ECs and SMCs. Cultures were exposed for 72 hours to 3 x 10(-5) mol/L aspirin and/or 5 x 10(-6) mol/L dipyridamole. Cellular RNA was then extracted, and PDGF-A chain mRNA signal levels were measured by a reverse transcription/polymerase chain reaction method. mRNA for glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase was used as a constitutively expressed control RNA species. Signal strength on Southern blots of amplified polymerase chain reaction products was measured by densitometry. Neither aspirin nor dipyridamole alone or together reduced the ratio (PDGF-A chain signal/glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase signal) below that of control cultures. PDGF-A chain expression was not a constitutive artifact of culture because dibutyryl cyclic AMP (5 x 10(-4) mol/L) reduced PDGF-A chain signal from a control index of 1.0 to 0.5 +/- 0.1 (mean +/- SE) (n = 3; p less than 0.05) in EC cultures and to 0.2 (mean) (n = 2) in SMC cultures. These data may explain why aspirin and dipyridamole fail to reduce intimal hyperplasia in some animal and clinical trials despite effective inhibition of platelet aggregation.


Sendai virus grown in fertile eggs (egg Sendai) infects L cells in which the synthesis of L Sendai (grown in L cells) occurs by the one-step mechanism. L Sendai is not infectious for L cells when tested by the tube titration method although it is infectious for chick embryos. When L cells infected with egg Sendai were dispersed by trypsin and plated on a monolayer culture of L cells, the viral agents spread to the adjacent recipient cells in which the synthesis of L Sendai occurred. The newly infected L cells became infectious for L cells again by trypsin treatment. Kinetic experiments suggested that the target of trypsin is the mature virus, of L Sendai nature, just budding from the L-cell surface. By using an immunofluorescent cell-counting technique, recovery of the infectivity of L Sendai for L cells due to a direct enzymatic action of trypsin was demonstrated. Under the optimal condition, the infectivity increased 1,000-fold for L cells and 10-fold for chick embryos, and both the titers could favorably be compared. No increasing effect of trypsin was observed on the infectivity of egg Sendai. Density centrifugation studies revealed a difference between egg Sendai and L Sendai in the density. Trypsin treatment which induced the maximal enhancement of L Sendai infectivity did not affect both the densities, showing that variations of Sendai virus in the infectivity for L cells and in the density are independent types of host-controlled modification.


A class of measure-valued processes which model multilevel multitype populations undergoing mutation, selection, genetic drift and spatial migration is considered. We investigate the qualitative behaviour of models with multilevel selection and the interaction between the different levels of selection. The basic tools in our analysis include the martingale problem formulation for measure-valued processes and a generalization of the function-valued and set-valued dual representations introduced in Dawson-Greven (2014). The dual is a powerful tool for the analysis of the ergodic behaviour of these processes and the study of evolutionary systems which model phenomena including altruism, the emergence of cooperation and more complex interactions.


Endoreduplication represents a variation on the cell cycle in which multiple rounds of DNA replication occur without subsequent chromosome separation and cytokinesis, thereby increasing the cellular DNA content. It is known that the DNA ploidy level of cells is controlled by external stimuli such as light; however, limited knowledge is available on how environmental signals regulate the endoreduplication cycle at the molecular level. Previously, we had demonstrated that the conversion from a mitotic cell cycle into an endoreduplication cycle is controlled by the atypical E2F transcription factor, DP-E2F-LIKE1 (DEL1), that represses the endocycle onset. Here, the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) DEL1 gene was identified as a transcriptional target of the classical E2Fb and E2Fc transcription factors that antagonistically control its transcript levels through competition for a single E2F cis-acting binding site. In accordance with the reported opposite effects of light on the protein levels of E2Fb and E2Fc, DEL1 transcription depended on the light regime. Strikingly, modified DEL1 expression levels uncoupled the link between light and endoreduplication in hypocotyls, implying that DEL1 acts as a regulatory connection between endocycle control and the photomorphogenic response.


Background
The 2021 Census in Australia revealed that just over 1 million dwellings were 'unoccupied' on census night. This finding was widely reported and may have given the impression of a large number of vacant dwellings ready for households to move into, potentially offering a solution to homelessness and those struggling to find suitable or affordable accommodation.
Aims
The aim of the paper is to investigate whether there really were 1 million unoccupied dwellings in Australia in 2021, to shed some conceptual and empirical light on exactly what is meant by an 'occupied' and an 'unoccupied' dwelling, and also try to understand why dwellings were unoccupied.
Data and methods
We used a variety of census, population, and dwelling data to estimate the number of private dwellings disaggregated by occupancy on both a de facto basis (whether people were present in dwelling on census night or not) and on a usual residence basis (whether people are usually resident in a dwelling or not). A comparison with the situation at the time of the 2016 Census is made.
Results
The results show that there were indeed about 1 million dwellings unoccupied on a usual residence basis in Australia in 2021. But they were not the exact same 1 million unoccupied on census night, and not all of these dwellings were available to households to live in. There was a substantial increase in the number of dwellings unoccupied by usual residents between 2016 and 2021; we suggest some possible reasons for this, including Covid-related effects.
Conclusions
Greater clarity and more detail are needed in census dwelling data. In addition, it would be useful if there were detailed annual official statistics on dwellings and households to better inform housing policy and research.


Cancer cells presented altered surface molecules to encourage their growth and metastasis. Expression of oncogeneic surface molecules also play important roles in the prediction of clinical outcome and treatment response of anti-cancer drugs. It is thus conceivable that imaging of cancer lesions while simultaneously obtaining their pathogenic information at molecular level of as many oncogenic proteins as possible is of great clinical significance. Gold nanoparticles have been used as a contrast agent for photoacoustic imaging. In addition, gold nanoparticles can be bioconjugated to probe certain molecular processes. An intriguing property of gold nanoparticles is its ability to tailor its optical properties. For example, size effects on the surface plasmon absorption of spherical gold nanoparticles have shown that the peak optical absorption red-shifts with the increasing particle size. In addition, the optical absorption spectrum of cylindrical gold nanoparticles (i.e., gold nanorods) exhibits a strong absorption band that is directly related to the aspect ratio. With these unique characteristics, selective targeting can be achieved in photoacoustic molecular imaging. Specifically, gold nanorods with different aspect ratios can be bioconjugated to different antibodies. Multiple targeting and simultaneous detection can then be achieved by using laser irradiation at the respective peak optical absorption wavelength. In this study, photoacoustic multiple targeting using gold nanorods is experimentally demonstrated. We have chosen Her2 and CXCR4 as our primary target molecule as Her2 expression is associated with growth characteristics and sensitivity to Herceptin chemotherapy. On the other hand, CXCR4 expression predict the organ-specific metastatic potential of the cancer cells for clinical intervention in advance. Monoclonal antibody (mAb) against Her2/neu was conjugated to nanorods with several different aspect ratios. The agarose gel is suitable for photoacoustic signal acquisition. A wavelength tunable Ti-Sapphire laser was used for laser irradiation and a 1 MHz ultrasound transducer was used for acoustic detection. The optical wavelength of the laser was tuned between 800 nm and 940 nm, corresponding to gold nanorods of an aspect ratio ranging from 3.7 to 5.9. The results clearly show the potential of photoacoustic molecular imaging with multiple targeting in revealing different oncogene expression levels of the cancer cells.


Abstract Light curing based resins are extensively used in modern dentistry because they offer advantages, such as the ability to bond to the tooth structure and improved aesthetic characteristics. After polymerisation, there is a significant amount of organic compound residue unbound in the cured material. Post-cure heating of composite resin materials has recently become a popular restorative technique. With indirect composite polymerisation systems, an important perspective is the possibility of using post-polymerisation mechanisms associated with heat, pressure or high light intensity. The aim of this study is to evaluate the in vitro elution of monomers (Bis-GMA, TEGDMA, UDMA, Bis-DMA and Bis-EMA) from one composite resin during two different time periods after different polymerisation methods with high performance liquid chromatography. In the current study, the polymerisation methods affected the monomer release. The Inlay System exhibited the lowest monomer release. Post-cure heat application in autoclave after polymerisation increased the amount of released monomers.


Writing one's name on a hazel branch in a manner that would be readable to the happy few – namely the beloved and her accomplices – while remaining invisible to all of the entourage of a medieval king – is a complex gesture, implying the alphabet of signs and the language of emotions. Tristan l'Amerus (Tristan the lover), the hero of Marie de France's Lai du Chèvrefeuille, seems to master both arts. The "poetics of memory" (Whalen 2008) and the "voice of pleasure" (Callahan 2001) point to what William M. Reddy would call an "emotive" (2001: 105-7): in declining his identity, the knight seeks to move the queen deeply enough to make her invest the inscribed object with an interpersonal, unique significance leading to a passionate tryst in the woods, meant to write a page of unparalleled romantic history. It is the masculine inscription of "Tristesse" (sadness) through wood carving with a dagger, but also the suggestion of a symbiosis with the feminine, as embodied by the honeysuckle vine, that create two kinds of sap (the signifier & the signified) running through the vegetal bodies drawn away from the biosphere of love, only to materialize and transcend the imminence of an intimately desirable death. Tristan's identity is hence "rooted" in his first name, but also in its violent, unnatural encoding in the syntax of wood fibers. The emotive agency of the lover's calligraphy invites Marie's readers to a medieval "navigation of feeling", sensitive to the conjugated pragmatics of passing and immortalization: a personalized version of the ancient "carpe diem" and "memento mori" is thus simultaneously provided.


Assessing the role of Polyphenols as a Vascular injury is identified during pre-clinical toxicity testing within certain pharmacological classes of drug candidates and induces degenerative and hyperplastic changes in endothelial (ECs) and vascular smooth muscle (VSMCs) cells. This drug-induced vascular injury has been shown as a side-effect caused by various classes of drugs, including, antibacterial (e.g., azithromycin), antimalarial (e.g., quinoline), anti-viral (e.g., anti-hepatitis C virus interferons) and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (e.g., ibuprofen), and affects normal cardiovascular function and can further lead to various cardiovascular conditions like arrhythmia, cardiac arrest, high blood pressure, and even heart attack. The search for agents capable of reducing vascular injury side-effects by drugs is a very active and important pharmacological field. Dietary polyphenols have been shown to protect the vasculature against drug-induced vascular injury by directly affecting both, VSMCs and ECs. We propose polyphenols like pentagalloyl glucose (PGG), punicalagin, and quercetin can be an excellent choice as a vascular protectant against the injury caused by drugs used to treat disease. Our study focuses on the a) development of an ex vivo rat aortic model under a peristaltic flow, and b) testing the vascular protective effects of different polyphenols when our model system is exposed to drugs affecting the vasculature. We will focus on three polyphenols (i.e., PGG, punicalagin, and quercetin) and two drugs (i.e., acetylcholine and phenylephrine). With acetylcholine, known to induce EC-dependent vasodilation, and phenylephrine, known to induced contraction of VSMCs. The result will show the damage caused by drugs on untreated vasculature when compared to those treated with polyphenols.


Abstract RARα, RORα and AP-1 activated the transcription of the murine laminin B1 gene promoter, which consists of three core elements. Cotransfection experiments showed that AP-1-activated transcription is further stimulated by RARα, but not by RORα. Additionally, it was demonstrated by promoter mutagenesis that all of the three core elements are required for transactivation by RARα and RORα, while any one of them is dispensable for AP-1-activated transcription. These results suggest that the modes of transactivation of the laminin B1 promoter are different among the three transactivators.


P-selectin glycoprotein ligand-1 (PSGL-1) is a cell surface glycoprotein that binds to P-, E-, and L-selectins to mediate the tethering and rolling of immune cells on the surface of the endothelium for cell migration into inflamed tissues. PSGL-1 has been identified as an interferon-γ (INF-γ)-regulated factor that restricts HIV-1 infectivity, and has recently been found to possess broad-spectrum antiviral activities. Here we report that the expression of PSGL-1 in virus-producing cells impairs the incorporation of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) glycoproteins into pseudovirions and blocks pseudovirus attachment and infection of target cells. These findings suggest that PSGL-1 may potentially inhibit coronavirus replication in PSGL-1+ cells