Though social work was slow to embrace feminism, social workers have consistently highlighted the unequal power relations that disadvantage women and undermine their competence, experience, and values. They have sought to address structural inequities that produce inequality and oppression - consistent with radical and socialist feminism - they have articulated the importance of seeing women as individuals - rather than as wives and mothers - and they have challenged gender role stereotypes. However, for the most part, feminist social work has been relegated to the status of a 'special interest group'. Similarly, the strengths perspective has been marginalised in dominant neoliberal and biomedical discourses. Yet social workers have steadfastly adopted it, seeing it as empowering, liberating, and transforming. While acknowledging the oppressive realities for many women, a strengths perspective heralds a move away from a deficits-based focus on oppression and powerlessness. It recognises that, despite structural disadvantages, women have strengths and capacities, and display resilience even in the face of hardship. Drawing on the findings from a study on mentoring with women from disadvantaged communities, this paper suggests that the strengths perspective has much to offer feminist practice in challenging poverty, unemployment, and vulnerability. Areas of overlap between the two discourses are highlighted, such as the importance of egalitarian client-worker relationships, appreciation of difference, elimination of false dichotomies, and belief that the personal is political, and the benefits and challenges of applying this approach to practice are discussed. The paper concludes with comments on the implications for practice.


Abstract The safety and efficacy of anticoagulation for venous thromboembolism (VTE) at times of severe thrombocytopenia is unclear. In this retrospective study, we evaluated patients with hematologic malignancy and either (1) acute or chronic VTE on anticoagulation before platelet count dropped below 50 × 109/L or (2) acute VTE occurring while platelets were <50 × 109/L. In 78 eligible patients, the primary outcomes of time to recurrent VTE or clinically significant bleeding within 100 d were compared by management strategy. Bleeding occurred in 27% of patients receiving anticoagulation versus 3% when anticoagulation was held (IRR 10.1, 95% CI 1.5–432.6). Recurrent VTE occurred in 2% of patients receiving anticoagulation versus 15% when anticoagulation was held (IRR 0.17, 95% CI 0.0–1.51). Most bleeding occurred before day 31(11/13), but recurrent VTE mostly occurred after day 40 (5/6). Our findings suggest that temporarily withholding anticoagulation for VTE during severe thrombocytopenia in patients with hematologic malignancies might reduce adverse outcomes.


Data from a national survey of families revealed that parents with a history of many ACEs are more likely to have children with behavioral health problems. BrightcoveDefaultPlayer10.1542/6138655490001PEDS-VA_2018-0023 Video Abstract BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) include stressful and potentially traumatic events associated with higher risk of long-term behavioral problems and chronic illnesses. Whether parents' ACE counts (an index of standard ACEs) confer intergenerational risk to their children's behavioral health is unknown. In this study, we estimate the risk of child behavioral problems as a function of parent ACE counts. METHODS: We obtained retrospective information on 9 ACEs self-reported by parents and parent reports of their children's (1) behavioral problems (using the Behavior Problems Index [BPI]), (2) attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder diagnosis, and (3) emotional disturbance diagnosis from the 2013 Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) core interview and the linked PSID Childhood Retrospective Circumstances Study and 2014 PSID Child Development Supplement. Multivariate linear and logistic regression models were used to estimate child behavioral health outcomes by parent retrospective ACE count. RESULTS: Children of parents with a history of 4 or more ACEs had on average a 2.3-point (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.3–3.2) higher score on the BPI, 2.1 times (95% CI: 1.1–3.8) higher odds of hyperactivity, and 4.2 times (95% CI: 1.7–10.8) higher odds of an emotional disturbance diagnosis than children of parents with no ACEs. Maternal ACEs revealed a stronger association with child behavior problems than paternal ACEs. Relationships between parents' 9 component ACEs individually and children's BPI scores revealed consistently positive associations. Mediation by parent emotional distress and aggravation were observed. CONCLUSIONS: Parents with greater exposure to ACEs are more likely to have children with behavioral health problems.


In Reply.— Dr Messerli's comments in his Letter to the Editor appear to contradict his own previously published statements. Here is a representative sample of quotations from his articles on obesity and hypertension: "Hypertension and obesity are two disorders that have been closely related, each occurring in greater frequency with the other than in an otherwise normal population. Although a causal relationship has not been established between the two, their coincidence carries increased risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality." 1 "The combination of obesity and hypertension burdens the heart with high preload and high afterload, thereby greatly enhancing the risk of congestive heart failure.... Obesity hypertension may be the result of an inappropriately raised cardiac output in the presence of a relatively restricted arterial capacity due to the low vascularity of adipose tissue." 2 "Since both obesity and hypertension increase cardiac workload, although by different mechanisms, their presence in the


Interest deduction limitation rules have an important function as the regulations prevent the Swedish tax base to decrease. However, the restrictions must not be at the expense of the business environment. Interest deduction limitation rules that do not work in a satisfactory manner are likely to make Sweden a less favourable country to establish in. The first Swedish rules which were aimed to restrict interest deduction threaded into force in 2009. The rules were applicable to intercompany loans related to acquisitions of part ownership rights and the aim was to reduce tax avoidance through corporate group-loans. The rules proved to be ineffective since the avoidance continued and the Swedish rules could not tackle the problem. The rules were revised and in 2013 Sweden implemented new restrictions regarding interest deduction rules that were applicable to corporate group-loans, regardless of what the loan would be used for. The new rules were strongly criticized by several consultive bodies for being unpredictable for the liable of taxation. The rules have also been criticized by the European Court of Justice for breaches EU law. A future modification of the existing interest deduction limitation rules is therefore highly likely. The present thesis presents two alternative approaches to the Swedish interest deduction limitation rules, thin capitalization rules and the tax credit method, which is a new proposal by Sven-Olof Lodin. Sweden should wait to introduce thin capitalization rules since the rules in several member states have been criticized for not being compatible with EU law. Furthermore, it is stated in the thesis that thin capitalization rules will not remove the incentive for tax planning. This is because companies can easily customize loan to not exceed the ratio of the relationship between equity and internal debt, which governs whether a company is thin capitalized or not. The advantage of the thin capitalization rules is that they could possibly increase the predictability of the rules and that the rules can be quite legally secure. Another advantage is that thin capitalization rules could contribute to an international harmonization of tax rules regarding corporate group-loans, since it is a common practice in other member states. Although, the benefits do not weigh up for the disadvantages and Sweden is therefore recommended to wait to implement the thin capitalization rules. The proposal from Lodin to introduce a tax credit system is something that Sweden is recommended examining. The advantage of the system is that it is the most effective, out of the three methods, since the system removes the incentive to tax planning. Since the rules is not a deduction method but instead a reduction method, the lending company's corporation tax is not an essential factor in raising loans. This creates tax neutrality for the corporate group. Since the rules have not been introduced in any member states, it is difficult to compare the rules with other rules as well as to get a full picture of what disadvantages such rules could result in. The thesis shows that the problem is not to develop rules that effectively prevent tax avoidance with corporate group-loans. More problematic is it for countries to develop rules that are compatible with EU law and protects an attractive business environment. Sweden is in need of a system that has a better balance between protecting the interest of an attractive business environment and at the same time protects the Swedish tax base. The thesis presents a set of advantages and disadvantages focused on different methods and it does not exist an obvious method to replace the current Swedish rules. Although, the final recommendation of the thesis is to examine Lodins methods of preventing tax avoidance more closely.


A method is described for estimating surfaces from stereo images. A single pair of stereo images can yield surface reconstruction for only a small volume of space. Since the scene may be large, images are obtained dynamically using different camera configurations through the control of focus and camera vergence. For smooth objects, this results in the reconstruction of surface patches that are contiguous and overlapping. These sequentially acquired surface maps are merged into a central. composite representation. During camera reconfiguration, unpredictable calibration errors may arise. Therefore, this method permits small changes in calibration parameter values to achieve agreement between adjacent reconstructed patches in the areas of overlap. To integrate the different sources of depth information, and to balance the effects they have on the resulting surface estimate, the surface reconstruction problem is formulated as one of optimization.<<ETX>>


In 1953, Crick and Watson published their landmark paper revealing the detailed structure of the DNA double helix. Several years earlier, von Neumann embedded a very complex configuration, a universal interpreter-copier, into a cellular array. Astoundingly, the structure of this configuration, able to realize the self-replication of any computing machine, including a universal Turing machine. shares several common traits with the structure of living cells as defined by Crick and Watson's discovery. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of von Neumann's birth, this paper presents a macroscopic analysis of self-replication in computing machines using three examples. After describing self-replication in von Neumann's universal interpreter-copier, we will revisit the famous self-replicating loop designed by Langton in 1984. In order to overcome some of the major drawbacks of Langton's loop, namely, its lack of functionality and the fact that it is ill-adapted for a realization in electronic circuits, we present a novel self-replicating loop, the Tom Thumb loop. Endowed with the same capabilities as von Neumann's interpreter-copier, i.e., the possibility of replicating computing machines of any complexity, our loop is moreover specifically designed for the implementation of self-replicating structures in programmable digital logic.


Structured prediction is the problem of learning a function from structured inputs to structured outputs with prototypical examples being part-of-speech tagging and image labeling. Inspired by the recent successes of search-based structured prediction, we introduce a new framework for structured prediction called {\em HC-Search}. Given a structured input, the framework uses a search procedure guided by a learned heuristic H to uncover high quality candidate outputs and then uses a separate learned cost function C to select a final prediction among those outputs. We can decompose the regret of the overall approach into the loss due to H not leading to high quality outputs, and the loss due to C not selecting the best among the generated outputs. Guided by this decomposition, we minimize the overall regret in a greedy stage-wise manner by first training H to quickly uncover high quality outputs via imitation learning, and then training C to correctly rank the outputs generated via H according to their true losses. Experiments on several benchmark domains show that our approach significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art methods.


Objective To investigate the mRNA expression of genes related to steroidogenesis and OHSS in granulosa cells (GCs) of patients triggered with GnRH agonist compared to patients triggered with hCG. Design Mural GCs were obtained at the time of oocyte retrieval and gene expression was analyzed using quantitative real time RT-PCR. Settings Single center, case control study. Patient(s) 24 women who were treated with GnRH agonist or hCG for triggering of ovulation. Interventions GC collection. Main Outcome Measure(s) The expression of genes related to steroidogenesis and OHSS in mural GCs Results The fertilization rate was similar in the two groups. The mRNA expression of CYP19A1 (0.50 vs 1, arbitrary unit), CYP11A1 (0.6 vs. 1) and 3 beta hydroxysteroid-dehydrogenase (0.39 vs 1) was significantly lower in the GnRH group. The expression of VEGF (0.74 vs. 1) and inhibin β B (0.38 vs 1) was lower in the GnRH analog triggered group. Conclusion Expression of genes related to steroidogenesis is lower at the time of oocyte retrieval in patients triggered with GnRH agonist. The decreased expression of VEGF and inhibin β B in the GnRH agonist group can explain the mechanism of early OHSS prevention.


The Electroencephalography (EEG) is the recording of electrical activity along the scalp. This recorded data are very complex. EEG has a big role in several applications such as in the diagnosis of human brain diseases and epilepsy. Also, we can use the EEG signals to control an external device via Brain Computer Interface (BCI) by our mind. There are many algorithms to analyse the recorded EEG data, but it still remains one of the big challenges in the world. In this article, we extended our previous proposed method. Our extended method uses Self-organizing Map (SOM) as an EEG data classifier. The proposed method we can divide in following steps: capturing EEG raw data from the sensors, applying filters on this data, we will use the frequencies in the range from 0.5~Hz to 60~Hz, smoothing the data with 15-th order of Polynomial Curve Fitting, converting filtered data into text using Turtle Graphic, Lempel-Ziv complexity for measuring similarity between two EEG data trials and Self-Organizing Map Neural Network as a final classifiers. The experiment results show that our model is able to detect up to 96% finger movements correctly.


Travellers from Glasgow to Edinburgh by the North British Railway may observe at Polmont Station a deep cutting in coarse gravel containing some large boulders; and on both sides of that station, to the north of the railway, they may see a narrow, sinuous ridge of gravel, which runs beside the line from Redding to Laurence Park. This well-defined ridge, when seen from the train, strikingly resembles some of the typical eskers or åsar (osar) of Sweden; and until I had the opportunity of visiting it, I regarded it as the most esker-like formation I had seen in the south of Scotland. There are occasional brief references to this gravel ridge in Scottish glacial literature. It is twice referred to in Sir Archibald Geikie's "Scenery of Scotland," and he calls it "an admirable example of a kame."1 Mr. Peach, in the "Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Scotland, Explanation of Sheet 31, 1879," p. 51, also refers to it as a kame. He says—"On ridge deserved special mention, from the fact that it runs as a conspicuous feature parallel with the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway from Redding to the borders of Linlithgowshire, a distance of 3 to 4 miles. This is not its whole length, however, for it passes westward from Redding by Callander Park, where it is breached, to the town of Falkirk, which is built on it, and it runs eastward across the valley of the Avon, which has cut across it. Its entire length cannot be less This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract


Background and Aims: Swapping of the endotracheal tube with laryngeal mask airway (LMA) before emergence from anaesthesia is one of the methods employed for attenuation of pressor response at extubation. We decided to compare the placement of ProSeal ™ LMA (PLMA) before endotracheal extubation versus conventional endotracheal extubation in controlled hypertensive patients scheduled for elective surgeries under general anaesthesia. Methods: Sixty consenting adult patients were randomly allocated to two groups of thirty each; Group E in whom extubation was performed using standard technique and Group P in whom PLMA was inserted before endotracheal extubation (Bailey manoeuvre). The primary outcome parameter was heart rate (HR). The secondary outcomes were systolic, diastolic and mean blood pressure (MBP), electrocardiogram, oxygen saturation and end-tidal carbon dioxide. Two-tailed paired Student's t-test was used for comparison between the two study groups. The value of P< 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: The patient characteristics, demographic data and surgical procedures were comparable in the two groups. A statistically significant decrease was observed in HR in Group P as compared to Group E. Secondary outcomes such as systolic, diastolic and MBP depicted a statistically insignificant difference. Conclusion: Bailey manoeuvre was not effective method to be completely relied upon during extubation when compared to standard extubation.


Although the Martian atmosphere is at present only about 1% as dense as the Earth's atmosphere it has been revealed as a dramatically active environment by the observations made during 1971-72 by the Mariner 9 and Soviet Mars 2 and 3 spacecrafts which arrived at the planet during a major global dust storm. Local dust storms were seen to change in intensity on a daily basis and other evidence for winds were seen in cloud patterns and in visible streaks on the planet's surface. Cloud layers composed of both CO2 and water ice have been observed. The variations in the albedos of surface markings are probably caused by the wind blow dust. At the present time the lower atmosphere is found to consist mainly of CO2 with traces of CO, O3, O2 and H2O. Geological evidence of channels and gullies suggests erosion by water at some stage of the planet's development although it is also possible that wind erosion has played a role in sculpturing these features. Periodic variations in the Martian climate may be created through variations in the planets obliquity and orbital eccentricity over time scales of 25000 years. Mars today, then, may be in a temporary ice age.


This work presents a modular, light-weight head-borne neuromodulation platform that achieves low-power wireless neuromodulation and allows real-time programmability of the stimulation parameters such as the frequency, duty cycle, and intensity. This platform is comprised of two parts: the main device and the optional intensity module. The main device is functional independently, however, the intensity control module can be introduced on demand. The stimulation is achieved through the use of energy-efficient µLEDs directly integrated in the custom-drawn fiber-based probes. Our platform can control up to 4 devices simultaneously and each device can control multiple LEDs in a given subject. Our hardware uses off-the-shelf components and has a plug and play structure, which allows for fast turn-over time and eliminates the need for complex surgeries. The rechargeable, battery-powered wireless platform uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and is capable of providing stable power and communication regardless of orientation. This presents a potential advantage over the battery-free, fully implantable systems that rely on wireless power transfer, which is typically direction-dependent, requires sophisticated implantation surgeries, and demands complex custom-built experimental apparatuses. Although the battery life is limited to several hours, this is sufficient to complete the majority of behavioral neuroscience experiments. Our platform consumes an average power of 0.5 mW, has a battery life of 12 hours.


It was recently reported that the slow transient outward K(+) current, I(to, s), that is evident in mouse left ventricular septal cells is eliminated in mice with a targeted deletion of the Kv1.4 gene (Kv1.4(-/-)). The rapidly inactivating transient outward K(+) current, I(to, f), in contrast, is selectively eliminated in ventricular myocytes isolated from transgenic mice expressing a dominant-negative Kv4 alpha subunit, Kv4.2W362F. Expression of Kv4. 2W362F results in marked prolongation of action potentials and QT intervals. In addition, a slow transient outward K(+) current, that is similar to I(to,s) in wild-type mouse left ventricular septal cells, is evident in all Kv4.2W362F-expressing (left and right) ventricular cells. To test directly the hypothesis that upregulation of Kv1.4 alpha subunit underlies the appearance of this slow transient outward K(+) current in Kv4.2W362F-expressing ventricular cells and to explore the functional consequences of elimination of I(to,f) and I(to,s), mice expressing Kv4.2W362F in the Kv1.4(-/-) background (Kv4.2W362FxKv1.4(-/-)) were generated. Histological and echocardiographic studies revealed no evidence of structural abnormalities or contractile dysfunction in Kv4.2W362FxKv1.4(-/-) mouse hearts. Electrophysiological recordings from the majority (approximately 80%) of cells isolated from the right ventricle and left ventricular apex of Kv4.2W362FxKv1.4(-/-) animals demonstrated that both I(to, f) and I(to,s) are eliminated; action potentials are prolonged significantly; and, in some cells, early afterdepolarizations were observed. In addition, in vivo telemetric ECG recordings from Kv4.2W362FxKv1.4(-/-) animals revealed marked QT prolongation, atrioventricular block, and ventricular tachycardia. These observations demonstrate that upregulation of Kv1.4 contributes to the electrical remodeling evident in the ventricles of Kv4.2W362F-expressing mice and that elimination of both I(to,f) and I(to,s) has dramatic functional consequences.


A mixed time-domain/frequency-domain method is proposed for modelling dense wave energy converter (WEC) arrays with non-linear power take-off (PTO). The model is based on a harmonic balance method which describes the system response in the frequency domain, while evaluating the non-linear PTO force and solving the system equations of motion in the time domain. The non-linear PTO force is computed with Lagrange multipliers. In order to apply the proposed method for WEC array responses in real sea states, the time series is split into time windows and the simulation is carried out individually per window. The method is demonstrated by investigating the dynamics of the Ocean Grazer WEC array (OG-WEC) with an adaptable piston pumping system. The key parameters thought to possibly influence model accuracy, including the number of harmonic components, the length of the time window and overlay, are discussed. It is shown that the proposed model can significantly reduce the computational cost with an acceptable accuracy penalty.


Environmental noise is a public health problem that arises mainly from vehicular traffic. In noise-sensitive areas, such as hospitals, the harm is even greater, as noise affects the recovery of patients and causes stress and disturbance to employees. Noise control measures are usually restricted to simulations and mathematical modeling. Given this context, the present study assesses environmental noise around a public hospital in Sorocaba city, São Paulo State, Brazil, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, benefiting from measures to restrict the circulation of vehicles and people. Measurements were performed in triplicate, on weekdays, at four points around the hospital during the day, and followed the guidelines of standard NBR 10.151/2019. The number of light and heavy vehicles was counted manually. The equipment used was the BK 2260 analyzer and a tripod with adjustable height. The circulation of light and heavy vehicles decreased significantly during the pandemic. However, this decrease was not enough for sound levels to meet the 50 dB(A) recommended for noise-sensitive areas. This fact can be due to the speed of the remaining vehicles being above the established for the surrounding streets. Vehicles are the main responsible for the high levels of noise in the area, overlapping the levels generated by the different activities in the study site.


This paper presents a new approach for generation of super-resolution stereoscopic and multi-view video from monocular video. Such multi-view video is used for instance with multi-user 3D displays or auto-stereoscopic displays with head-tracking to create a depth impression of the observed scenery. Our approach is an extension of the realistic stereo view synthesis (RSVS) approach which is based on structure from motion techniques and image-based rendering to generate the desired stereoscopic views for each point in time. The extension relies on an additional super- resolution mode which utilizes a number of frames of the original video sequence to generate a virtual stereo frame with higher resolution. The algorithm is tested on several TV broadcast videos, as well as on sequences captured with a single handheld camera and sequences from the well known BBC documentation "Planet Earth". Finally, some simulation results will show that RSVS is quite suitable for super-resolution 2D-3D conversion.


Tests of a one-dimensional sampling design methodology on measurements of bromide concentration collected during the natural gradient tracer test conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, demonstrate its efficacy for field studies of solute transport in groundwater and the utility of one-dimensional analysis. The methodology was applied to design of sparse two-dimensional networks of fully screened wells typical of those often used in engineering practice. In one-dimensional analysis, designs consist of the downstream distances to rows of wells oriented perpendicular to the groundwater flow direction and the timing of sampling to be carried out on each row. The power of a sampling design is measured by its effectiveness in simultaneously meeting objectives of model discrimination, parameter estimation, and cost minimization. One-dimensional models of solute transport, differing in processes affecting the solute and assumptions about the structure of the flow field, were considered for description of tracer cloud migration. When fitting each model using nonlinear regression, additive and multiplicative error forms were allowed for the residuals which consist of both random and model errors. The one-dimensional single-layer model of a nonreactive solute with multiplicative error was judged to be the best of those tested. Results show the efficacy of the methodology in designing sparse but powerful sampling networks. Designs that sample five rows of wells at five or fewer times in any given row performed as well for model discrimination as the full set of samples taken up to eight times in a given row from as many as 89 rows. Also, designs for parameter estimation judged to be good by the methodology were as effective in reducing the variance of parameter estimates as arbitrary designs with many more samples. Results further showed that estimates of velocity and longitudinal dispersivity in one-dimensional models based on data from only five rows of fully screened wells each sampled five or fewer times were practically equivalent to values determined from moments analysis of the complete three-dimensional set of 29,285 samples taken during 16 sampling times.


This chapter focuses on the revitalization of Romance minority languages and language education policies. After briefly defining language planning and revitalization, we analyse the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, focusing in particular on its goals concerning the implementation of measures for the valorization of minority/regional languages. We then review the educational policies of two of the countries that have not yet ratified the Charter, namely France and Italy, in order to better understand the ways in which their political and historical backgrounds may influence the decision to ratify the Charter or not. In the last section, we draw attention to the ways in which geopolitical and linguistic borders interact with the minority language education policies and measures of revitalization. The observation of local, national and supranational language education policies affords further evidence to show that the steps of revitalization are the fruit of both top-down and bottom-up processes.


Genomic selection is revolutionizing plant breeding. However, still lacking are better statistical models for ordinal phenotypes to improve the accuracy of the selection of candidate genotypes. For this reason, in this paper we explore the genomic based prediction performance of two popular machine learning methods: the Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP) and support vector machine (SVM) methods vs. the Bayesian threshold genomic best linear unbiased prediction (TGBLUP) model. We used the percentage of cases correctly classified (PCCC) as a metric to measure the prediction performance, and seven real data sets to evaluate the prediction accuracy, and found that the best predictions (in four out of the seven data sets) in terms of PCCC occurred under the TGLBUP model, while the worst occurred under the SVM method. Also, in general we found no statistical differences between using 1, 2 and 3 layers under the MLP models, which means that many times the conventional neuronal network model with only one layer is enough. However, although even that the TGBLUP model was better, we found that the predictions of MLP and SVM were very competitive with the advantage that the SVM was the most efficient in terms of the computational time required.


The problem of stability has long been a limiting factor in developing neural networks that can grow in size and complexity. Outside of particular, narrow parameter ranges, changes in activity can easily result in total loss of control. Human cognition must have reliable means of acting to stay within the stable ranges of sensitivity and activation. Learning is one such mechanism, and population dynamics are another. Here, we focus on another, often overlooked stability mechanism: cellular homeostasis through metabolism dynamics. We ran a visual change detection experiment designed to strain network stability while minimizing any learnable patterns. We fit the data using models with and without cellular energy levels as a factor, finding that the model influenced by its past history of energy use was a closer fit to the human data.


AIM
To estimate cost-effect efficacy of vasaprostan treatment of inpatients with arterial chronic obliteration (ACO) with critical ischemia of the lower limbs (Fonten stage III-IV).

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Case histories of 105 ACO patients with critical ischemia of the lower limbs (mean age 65 +/- 11.8 years) were analysed to compare efficacy and cost of the "typical practice" of hospital treatment of such patients with prognostic cost of basaprostan treatment using drug-cost modeling.

RESULTS
The cost-effect analysis comparing efficacy of "typical practice" and vasaprostan treatment showed that in "typical practice" amputations of the limb are inevitable in 41% while vasaprostan treatment reduces the percentage of the operations to 8.6-12% (according to the literature); overall cost of the "typical" treatment for 105 patients reached 3,909,222 roubles while relevant prognostic cost of vasaprostan treatment made up 4,407,162-4,570,653 roubles. Thus, vasaprostan treatment is characterized by less expense per 1 case of the limb amputation prevention vs "typical practice".

CONCLUSION
The models used demonstrated that vasaprostan treatment is more cost-effective than "typical practice".


ABSTRACT Ethyl{4-[3-(1H-imidazole-1-yl)propyl]-3-methyl-5-oxo-4,5-dihydro-1H-1,2,4-triazol-1-yl}-acetate (I) was synthesized as described in the literature and studied by proton and carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic techniques. Theoretical calculations were performed by the density functional method with 6-311G(d,p) and 6-311++G(d,p) basis sets. Structural parameters of compound I, vibrational frequencies, and chemical shift values were determined. The antimicrobial activity of compound I was tested for seven standard bacteria; Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, Yersinia enterocolitica, Listeria monocytogenes, Shigella flexneri, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and one standard fungi isolate by microdilution broth assay with Alamar Blue Dye. The in vitro results show that compound I has antimicrobial activity against to two standard bacteria, Shigella flexneri and Listeria monocytogenes. And also, the antifungal activity was not detected against selected fungi isolate, Candida tropicalis.


The main aim of this study consists of proposing a simple but effective and robust approach for PID type fuzzy controller (Fuzzy-PID) in order to improve the dynamics and stability of a magnetic ball levitation system. The design parameters of the proposed controller are optimally determined based on Cuckoo Search (CS) algorithm. During the optimization, a time domain objective function is used for minimizing the values of common step response characteristics for the optimal selection of the controller parameters. Robustness tests are performed to evaluate the performance of the proposed controller through extensive simulations under load disturbance, parametric variation and changes in references. Moreover, to show the advantage and compare the performance of the proposed controller, the PID and Fractional Order PID (FOPID) controllers tuned with CS are designed. The simulation results and comparisons with the CS based PID and FOPID controllers demonstrate that the CS based Fuzzy-PID controller has superior performance depending on small overshoot, short settling time, fast rise time and minimum steady state error. Compared with the PID and FOPID controller tuned with CS, the simulation results show that the proposed Fuzzy-PID controller tuned with CS outperforms in terms of the accuracy, robustness and the least control effort.


In this paper, an intelligent adaptive control system (IACS) for induction motor (IM) servo drive to achieve high dynamic performance is proposed. The proposed IACS comprises a recurrent functional-link- based Petri fuzzy-neural-network (RFLPFNN) controller and a robust controller so that the developed adaptive control scheme has more robustness against parameters uncertainties and approximation errors. The RFLPFNN controller is used as the main tracking controller to mimic an ideal control law while the robust controller is proposed to compensate the difference between the ideal control law and the RFLPFNN controller. The proposed RFLPFNN model uses a functional-link neural network to the consequent part of the fuzzy rules. Thus, the consequent part of the proposed RFLPFNN model is a nonlinear combination of input variables. Moreover, the online structure and parameter-learning of the RFLPFNN are performed concurrently. The structure learning is based on the partition of input space and the parameter learning is derived based on the Lyapunov stability analysis and the back propagation method to guarantee the asymptotic stability of the IACS for the IM servo drive. In addition, to relax the requirement for the bound of minimum approximation error and Taylor higher- order terms, an adaptive control law is utilized to estimate the mentioned bounds. A computer simulation is developed and an experimental system is established to validate the effectiveness of the proposed IACS. All control algorithms are implemented in a TMS320C31 DSP-based control computer. The simulation and experimental results confirm that the IACS grants robust performance and precise response regardless of load disturbances and IM parameters uncertainties. Furthermore, the superiority of the proposed IACS is indicated in comparison with the Petri fuzzy-neural-network control system and traditional PID controller.


A previously unknown type of ferromanganese wad deposit is described at the Ryedale mine situated 110 km west of Johannesburg in the northwestern province of South Africa. The wad was derived from supergene alteration of Glossopteris -bearing Permian strata of the Karoo Supergroup that fill shallow karstic depressions in Neoarchean Malmani dolomite of the Transvaal Supergroup. The depressions contain up to several million tons of friable and highly porous ferromanganese wad with an average Mn/Fe ratio of about 0.3 and high grades of between 77 and 91 wt percent Fe2O3 + MnO. A detailed mineralogical, petrographical, and geochemical study of the orebody suggests that the wad is a saprolitic residue of manganiferous blackband iron ores known to be associated with Permian coal measures of the Karoo Supergroup. The protore was deposited in shallow lakes in preexisting karstic depressions in the Malmani dolomite as finely laminated mud composed of biogenic detritus and Mn-Fe oxyhydroxide precipitates. Siliciclastic detritus is conspicuously absent, suggesting that the lakes were exclusively fed by reducing and acidic ground water that leached manganese and iron from the underlying Malmani dolomite. Anaerobic early diagenesis led to the transformation of oxide precipitates into Mn-Fe carbonates. Much later, during the African cycles of erosion and weathering, the blackband ores were exhumed, partly eroded, and altered by deep lateritic weathering to form the present ferromanganese wad.


An on-chip deterministic source generating more than 100 identical photons meets the resource requirement for quantum advantage. Photonic qubits are key enablers for quantum information processing deployable across a distributed quantum network. An on-demand and truly scalable source of indistinguishable single photons is the essential component enabling high-fidelity photonic quantum operations. A main challenge is to overcome noise and decoherence processes to reach the steep benchmarks on generation efficiency and photon indistinguishability required for scaling up the source. We report on the realization of a deterministic single-photon source featuring near-unity indistinguishability using a quantum dot in an "on-chip" planar nanophotonic waveguide circuit. The device produces long strings of >100 single photons without any observable decrease in the mutual indistinguishability between photons. A total generation rate of 122 million photons per second is achieved, corresponding to an on-chip source efficiency of 84%. These specifications of the single-photon source are benchmarked for boson sampling and found to enable scaling into the regime of quantum advantage.


Missiles always undergo non-stationary and continuously distributed load. However, only some centralized loads can be adopted in the ground for their vibration experiments. In this paper, the theoretical analysis and numerical simulation computations programs are established for the distributed and non-stationary airdynamic load being translated into several equivalent centralized loads for high-speed missile. The researches showed that, under the equivalent rule of structural modal responses, the average responses error in both domains time and frequency is within 1.5dB, so it is possible to provide a feasible method for the vibration test on the ground for missile structures.


Most existing matrix completion methods seek the matrix global structure in the real number domain and produce predictions that are inappropriate for applications retaining discrete structure, where an additional step is required to post-process prediction results with either heuristic threshold parameters or complicated mappings. Such an ad-hoc process is inefficient and impractical. In this paper, we propose a novel robust discrete matrix completion algorithm that produces the prediction from the collection of user specified discrete values by introducing a new discrete constraint to the matrix completion model. Our method achieves a high prediction accuracy, very close to the most optimal value of competitive methods with threshold values tuning. We solve the difficult integer programming problem via incorporating augmented Lagrangian method in an elegant way, which greatly accelerates the converge process of our method and provides the asymptotic convergence in theory. The proposed discrete matrix completion model is applied to solve three real-world applications, and all empirical results demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.


: Changes in 2,3-DPG level have been studied in cardiosurgical patients. It has been shown that 2,3-DPG concentration increase, as a moderately fast mechanism in a common model of tissue pO2 regulation, is observed in almost half of patients with acquired heart valve defects. An increase in 2,3-DPG level and P50 value leading to a decrease in hemoglobin affinity to oxygen has been found in one third of patients. It has been established that 2,3-DPG level and P50 value are, as a rule, normal in patients with mitral stenosis, acyanotic congenital heart valve defects and ischemic heart disease. In a number of patients with mitral stenosis an increased Hb concentration, as a slow mechanism of hypoxia compensation in the model of tissue pO2 regulation, is a prevailing mechanism of adaptation to hypoxia.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the school  strategies influencing students' discipline in public secondary schools in Kisii Central District, Kenya. It was guided by four objectives which included: To establish how the Principals' use of democratic leadership influences students' discipline in public secondary schools, to determine the extent to which the Principals' means of communication influence students' discipline in public secondary schools, to examine how the involvement of prefects' body in decision making process affects students' discipline in public secondary schools. The study is based on the collegial theory which attempts to explain all those theories that emphasized that power and decision making should be shared among some members of the organization. The researcher applied descriptive survey research design. This is because the design is useful since it would collect data from members of the population in order to determine the current status without manipulating the variables. The target population consisted of all 52 public secondary schools in Kisii Central District, 52 Principals and 1,560 teachers in the administration of the school affairs.Simple random sampling was used in selecting teachers at school level from the 16 Principals and 30 teachers per school who participated. Data was gathered by use of questionnaires and analyzed using quantitative method in frequency distribution tables, percentages and bar graphs. The validity of the questionnaires was checked by my supervisors, pilot testing in two schools and checked against the research objectives. Reliability was established through computation of Cronbach's alpha coefficient formula.The research findings on the Principals' strategies influence on students' discipline in public secondary schools in Kisii Central District, the process was carried out jointly by both Principals and teachers. The main criterion used was very frequent, frequent, often, rarely and never. Based on the findings, the study recommended that: The Principals of secondary schools should be democratic in the administration of school affairs; the Principals should establish students' councils through which the students can participate in leadership matters of the school and other affairs; there is also need for the Principals to be clearer when communicating rules and regulations to students to avoid misinterpretation; the stakeholders in education should provide appropriate resources for guidance and counseling such as special rooms. Based on suggestions for further research, the study recommended that: a similar study should be carried out in other districts for comparison purposes; The same research should be carried out to identify out other more strategies the Principals use to influence students discipline; A similar study on the head teachers' strategies influencing pupils' discipline in public primary schools in Kenya and Since the study only focused on public secondary schools, a similar study should be carried out in private secondary school for comparison purposes.


The remains of five prehistoric Neoeskimo sleds—komatiks—were located during extensive ground surveys over several hundred square kilometres on the Wollaston Peninsula, western Victoria Island, Arctic Canada. The radiocarbon dates obtained on the remains range from 790 to 300 BP (cal. 736 – 300), which places the sleds within the Thule and Intermediate Copper Eskimo Period. Structurally, these sleds are similar to historic Copper Inuit and Netsilik Inuit sleds: they have wooden runners with lashing and front trace holes, wooden slats tapered at each end with lashing notches on each side, and antler sled shoes with drilled holes to receive pegs for attaching to the runners. However, the sleds range in length from 1.38 to 1.81 m, and thus are at the smaller end of the size range of historic Inuit sleds. The size suggests either that they represent special function sleds used in addition to larger sleds, or that larger sleds may have been a late historic development, perhaps influenced by contact. The fact that no sleds attributable to Paleoeskimo culture were recorded is consistent with the generally held belief that dogs and sleds were not an important part of Paleoeskimo transportation systems.


Radiant heating generally addresses all heat emission systems that have a share of radiant heat emission greater than 50 %, compared to a convector or fan coil where the heat is transferred mainly by means of convection. Recently, so-called infrared-heating systems are increasingly discussed as a cost-effective heating system. Relative small areas with high surface temperatures of typically up to 120 °C are used. In order to investigate in detail radiant heating systems, building models able to reproduce accurately the occurring physics phenomena are required. Physics-detailed steady state and transient room models have been developed in Matlab®. The required view factors for the radiative exchange between all surfaces and between each surface and a sphere representing a person are calculated using COMSOL®. Moreover, the thermal comfort in different positions of the room has been evalu-


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Fusarium wilt of watermelon, caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. niveum, can be a limiting factor in California watermelon production. Warm weather, which favors watermelon production, also favor the disease. The fungus lives in t he soil for many years, and therefore rotation, although helpful, is not the answer to the problem. Studies were initiated in 1971 to test various watermelon cultivers for resistance to the Fusarium wilt fungus.


The majority of proposals for international antidumping reform focus almost entirely on the relevant economic factors- consumer welfare losses and gains. Therefore, almost all proposals come to the exact same conclusion; in light of the enormous welfare losses suffered by domestic consumers, international antidumping law should be repealed in its entirety, or at least replaced by some form of international competition law. However, this analysis views the issue of antidumping law through the constructivist lens, and more specifically, the embedded liberalism view of international trade law. From this perspective, economics alone does not grasp the constitutive realities at play in antidumping law; domestic perspectives of legitimacy and fairness shape the contours of international antidumping law, and these constitutive norms espouse a view that protectionism, in a variety of different shapes and forms, is as much a part of international trade law as the traditional laissez-faire liberalist approach. This paper concludes that public interest inquiries, which form part of a small number of countries' antidumping laws, embraces the constitutive realities at play in antidumping law and provide an opportunity for development of legitimate international antidumping reform. This paper examines the Canadian approach to public interest inquiry in antidumping, including recent developments. This paper concludes that the current Canadian experience demonstrates that embracing a public interest inquiry as part of antidumping reform may provide true hope for future development based on a embedded liberalism view of international trade relations.


Sometimes the only thing that can save a business is a new way to capture value. Businesses constantly innovate to create new value--but unless they also focus on how they capture value, they won't realize maximum benefit from their breakthroughs. And even avid innovators often have a blind spot when it comes to value capture. Managers need to think about value capture more imaginatively and as a matter of course. A new framework developed by IMD business school's Stefan Michel can help them do so. Michel details 15 value-capture innovations, which fall under five broad categories. Firms can profit by changing the price-setting mechanism (think of Priceline), the payer (media businesses where advertisers subsidize content consumption), the price carrier (Netflix), the timing of the exchange (commodities futures), or the segment served (grocery coupons, which "fence off" customers who prioritize savings). The practical applications of the framework are proven: In workshops at a major airline and a global professional services firm, for instance, cross-functional teams using this tool quickly devised new ways to capture value that boosted their company's profits


Background: Research in sport concussion has increased greatly over the previous decade due to increased scientific interest as well as the media and political spotlight that has been cast on this injury. However, a dearth of literature is available regarding the long-term (>1 year after concussion) effects of adolescent concussion on cognitive and motor performance of high school athletes. Purpose: To evaluate the potential for long-term effects of concussion sustained during high school on cognitive and motor performance across the lifespan. Study Design: Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods: Adults with (n = 30) and without (n = 53) a concussion history were recruited in 3 age groups: younger (18-30 years; n = 43), middle-aged (40-50 years; n = 18), and older (≥60 years; n = 22). Each participant completed a computerized neurocognitive assessment and continuous tracking and discrete temporal auditory tasks with the hand and foot. Root mean squared error and timing variability were derived from the tracking and temporal auditory tasks, respectively. Data were analyzed by regression analyses for each recorded variable. Results: The analysis revealed significant age effects on neurocognitive task, continuous tracking task, and discrete auditory timing task performance (P values < .05). No concussion history or interaction (concussion history by age) effects were found for performance on any task (P values > .05). Conclusion: While longitudinal investigations are still needed, this cross-sectional study failed to identify any observable effect of adolescent concussion history on cognition or motor performance with age.


Abstract This essay examines the crisis of solidarity affecting workers who protest labor precarity under South Korea's capitalist democracy. Once considered foundational to the struggle for national democratization, the dramatic protests of aggrieved workers are frequently depicted as out of place and out of sync. Drawing upon ethnographic research on workers' protest repertoires, this essay challenges prevailing explanations and instead argues that heightened forms of drama, ritual, and suffering in workers' protests enact a willful politics of refusal. Moving beyond resistance as an all-encompassing frame, the labor of refusal foregrounds ways of being and becoming that are not rooted in the contractual fallacies of liberal capitalist democracy, but in the spaces of solidarity produced by social movement networks and grassroots communities of care. The labor of refusal may not always generate robust solidarity, but it challenges the structures of organized abandonment that treat workers as disposable under neoliberal capitalist rule.


Ground water is one of the most useful water sources. Contamination of such water source is a big problem creating health hazards. The dyeing units at small scale levels in the glass city of U.P. are ever increasing. The effluents from dying units play a vital role in toxicating the ground water quality. In the present study, we have collected groundwater samples from different places of Firozabad district (U.P.) India. These samples have been analysed on the basis of various qualitative parameters. Estimation of physicochemical parameters was carried out. This study was aimed to assess the suitability of the ground water for the domestic and agricultural purposes. The results obtained in the present investigation show that the concentration of fluoride, electrical conductivity and total dissolved solids (TDS) were in excess where as nitrate and chloride were found in large amounts in some of the drinking water sources. In the period of present course, the fluoride amount was noticed in very high range which may cause health hazards for human being. The main aim of the present communication is to highlight the pollution load in the selected study area.


Given a ranking of actions evaluated by a set of evaluation criteria, we construct a rough approximation of the preference relation known from this ranking. The rough approximation of the preference relation is a starting point for mining " if... then" decision rules constituting a symbolic preference model. The set of rules is induced such as to be compatible with a concordance-discordance preference model used in well-known multicriteria decision aiding methods. An application of the set of decision rules to a new set of actions gives a fuzzy outranking graph. Positive and negative flows are calculated for each action in the graph, giving arguments about its strength and weakness. Aggregation of both arguments leads to a final ranking, either partial or complete. The approach can be applied to support a multicriteria choice and ranking of actions when the input information is a ranking of some reference actions.


Jewish law highly prizes human life. It strongly promotes human reproduction and the protection of human health. For these reasons, Jewish law generally opposes abortion. Governmental measures that would require Jews or Jewish organizations to assist or enable conduct that violates Jewish law, such as religiously impermissible abortions, would impinge on their religious freedom. In addition Jewish law usually encourages humankind's creative use of intellect and technology to accomplish desired objectives, such as curing and preventing physical infirmities and even more so with respect to saving human life.Jewish law authorities have manifested a much more ambivalent attitude regarding the use of modern reproductive technologies. There is a consensus that Jewish law does not require extraordinary measures be used to create human life. However, authorities are acutely sensitive to the fact that many people unable to reproduce in the traditional manner yearn to have children. Moreover, some Jewish law authorities believe that by using certain modern reproductive technologies, a person may fulfill a religious duty to procreate. Nevertheless, other authorities argue that some such technologies actually violate Jewish law. Furthermore, even if the use of particular technologies is permitted, their use, or their possible misuse, could cause considerable societal harm. This paper, which emerged from a conference held by the DePaul University Health Law Institute, examines these complicated issues in a way that makes the relevant Jewish precepts readily accessible.


SCOPE
Antibiotics in early life disrupt microbiota and increase obesity risk, whereas dietary agents such as prebiotics may reduce obesity risk. We examined how antibiotics administered with/without prebiotic oligofructose, alter metabolic and microbial outcomes in pregnant rats and their offspring.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Pregnant rats were randomized to: 1) Control [CTR], 2) Antibiotic [ABT], 3) Prebiotic [PRE], 4) Antibiotic+Prebiotic [ABT+PRE] during the 3rd week of pregnancy and lactation. Offspring were fed a high fat/high sucrose (HFS) diet from 9-17 weeks of age to unmask obesity risk. ABT dams had higher body weight, body fat and leptin during lactation than all other groups. Prebiotics attenuated these outcomes and increased cecal Bifidobacterium. ABT offspring had higher body weight, fat mass and liver triglycerides after HFS diet, with a stronger phenotype in males; prebiotics attenuated these. At weaning, male ABT offspring had lower Lactobacillus while PRE and ABT+PRE offspring had higher Bifidobacterium and Collinsella. Fecal microbiota transfer from adult offspring cecal matter could not reliably transfer the obese ABT phenotype.

CONCLUSIONS
Antibiotic use during pregnancy/lactation increases adiposity and impairs post-partum weight loss in dams. Co-administering prebiotics with antibiotics in rat dams prevented obesity risk in offspring and was associated with altered gut microbiota. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


BACKGROUND
Incident rates of ESRD are much higher among black and Hispanic patients than white patients. Access to nephrology care before progression to ESRD is associated with better clinical outcomes among patients with CKD. However, it is unknown whether black or Hispanic patients with CKD experience lower pre-ESRD nephrology consultation rates compared with their white counterparts, or whether such a disparity contributes to worse outcomes among minorities.

METHODS
We assembled a retrospective cohort of patients with CKD who received care through the Veterans Health Administration from 2003 to 2015, focusing on individuals with incident CKD stage 4 who had an initial eGFR≥60 ml/min per 1.73 m2 followed by two consecutive eGFRs<30 ml/min per 1.73 m2. We repeated analyses among individuals with incident CKD stage 3. Outcomes included nephrology provider referral, nephrology provider visit, progression to CKD stage 5, and mortality.

RESULTS
We identified 56,767 veterans with CKD stage 4 and 640,704 with CKD stage 3. In both cohorts, rates of nephrology referral and visits were significantly higher among black and Hispanic veterans than among non-Hispanic white veterans. Despite this, both black and Hispanic patients experienced faster progression to CKD stage 5 compared with white patients. Black patients with CKD stage 4 experienced slightly lower mortality than white patients, whereas black patients with CKD stage 3 had a small increased risk of death.

CONCLUSIONS
Black or Hispanic veterans with CKD are more likely than white patients to see a nephrologist, yet are also more likely to suffer disease progression. Biologic and environmental factors may play a bigger role than nephrology consultation in driving racial disparities in CKD progression.


The cytotoxic and DNA-damaging effects of a novel alkylating anthracycline, yV-(5,5-diacetoxypentyl)doxorubicin, were quantified in HL-60 human leukemia cells and in an intercalator-resistant daughter line, III60/AMSA. The new drug was cytotoxic to both lines at doses as low as 50 nM for 1 h. /V-(5,5-Diacetoxypentyl)doxorubicin produced DNA interstrand cross-linking in both lines. The cross-linking appeared to increase in both lines following drug treatment, but the increase was greater in the resistant line. This appeared to be due to an underestimation of crosslinking, particularly in sensitive HL-60, secondary to time-dependent DNA fragmentation that followed drug removal. This time-dependent DNA fragmentation was probably endonucleolytic cleavage (a feature of apoptosis) as characteristic nucleosomal ladders were produced by V(5,5-diacetoxypentyl)doxorubicin treatment in a cotemporal time-depend ent fashion. This novel anthracycline is the tirsi of a family of alkylating anthracyclines designed to be water soluble, easy to formulate, and capable of producing DNA interstrand cross-linking. Because this last characteristic has previously been associated with doxorubicin analogues of great potency and low toxicity, these newer, more readily formulated drugs may have great clinical utility.


Activated carbons (ACs) prepared from apple pulp and apple peel with phosphoric acid as an activation agent under microwave radiation were investigated. The effects of microwave radiation power and time on the adsorption capacities of the ACs were studied. The optimum AC preparation condition was identified by comparing the MB adsorption capacities of the produced ACs. The obtained results show that the microwave radiation power and time had strong effects on the adsorption capacities. Relative to conventional heating methods, microwave-prepared ACs showed higher BET surface areas and mesopore volumes after a shorter activation time due to differences in the type of heat transfer between these two methods. The N2 adsorption isotherms at −196°C and SEM and FTIR results were used to characterize the properties of the prepared ACs. The N2 adsorption results revealed BET surface areas of 1552 m2/g and 1103 m2/g for apple-peel and apple-pulp-based AC, respectively.


We have examined the spread and antitumor efficacy of an oncolytic herpes simplex virus-1–based vector (G207) in glioblastoma biopsy spheroids in vitro and in vivo after local delivery to corresponding intracranial xenografts. Spheroids from three patients were infected with increasing doses of G207 and transgene expression was quantified. Other infected spheroids were followed for 10 days to assess cytotoxic effects. For the in vivo study, spheroids were grafted intracerebrally into Rowett nude rats. The resulting highly infiltrative xenografts were injected with 3.4 × 106 plaque-forming units (penetration study) or 6.8 × 106 plaque-forming units (therapeutic study) of G207 using microprocessor-controlled stereotaxic delivery. Vector spread was tracked by histochemical staining. In the therapeutic study, tumor volumes were monitored weekly by magnetic resonance imaging, and survival data were collected. In vitro, lacZ expression was seen at the spheroid surfaces 24 h postinfection, whereas the spheroid cores were transgene positive after 96 h. Cytotoxic susceptibility varied between the patients, showing a 36% to 95% lysis 10 days postinfection. Local delivery of G207 into intracranial xenografts resulted in extensive vector spread throughout the lesions. In the therapeutic study, G207 application reduced tumor volumes compared with controls, but did not significantly improve survival of the animals. Histologic analysis revealed infection of host structures such as the ventricular and choroid plexus ependyma. In conclusion, G207 replicates in patient-derived glioblastoma multiforme xenografts and tumor volumes are reduced after intratumoral delivery; however, the survival data suggest that the therapeutic effect could be improved by repeated vector application or through combination with other treatment modalities.


Snapshot has become a fundamental requirement on midto highend storage systems. Its applications include archiving, recovery, report generation, decision making tools and remote mirroring. State-of-the-art snapshot techniques on existing storage systems typically work on a single (fault-tolerant) controller, and need to pause the applications or change the operation mode of the file systems or databases when a snapshot is taken. In a federated array of bricks (FAB), a snapshot may involve tens to thousands of independent controllers or processors, and may be taken at a high frequency, e.g., once every 30 seconds for atomic updates in remote mirroring. Therefore, an efficient distributed snapshot algorithm that can make the snapshot operations transparent to applications is needed in FAB. In this paper, we propose such an algorithm, which avoids pausing or aborting write requests by the novel use of a tentative data structure during the two phase commit of a snapshot creation. The snapshot operations are serializable with data operations (i.e., reads and writes), hence ensure consistency of the snapshots. Read-only operations on snapshots are optimized in common cases, only requiring communications to a small subset of the bricks, in particular, a single replica set or three bricks in FAB. The algorithm has been prototyped in FAB and has been tested with tracebased experiments.


The amount of publicly available geo-referenced data has seen a dramatic explosion over the past few years. Many user activities generate data that are annotated with location and contextual information. Furthermore, it has become easier to collect and combine rich and diverse location information. In the context of geoadvertising, the use of geosocial data for targeted marketing is receiving significant attention from a wide spectrum of companies and organizations. With the advent of smartphones and online social networks, a multi-billion dollar industry that utilizes geosocial data for advertising and marketing has emerged. Geotagged social-media posts, GPS traces, data from cellular antennas and WiFi access points are used widely to directly access people for advertising, recommendations, marketing, and group purchases. Exploiting this torrent of geo-referenced data provides a tremendous potential to materially improve existing recommendation services and offer novel ones, with numerous applications in many domains, including social networks, marketing, and tourism.


Abstract Metaphors constitute a relevant method for both building and making sense of theories. Semiotics is not exempt from their influence, and an important range of semiotic theories depends on metaphors to be meaningful. In this paper, we wish to examine the place of theory-constitutive metaphors considering the interaction view and the extent to which some areas of semiotics, particularly, the semiotics of culture and biosemiotics, are enriched by having metaphors dominate the way we think about them. The intention of the paper is not to document the different metaphors that have built semiotic theory, but rather to observe through a number of examples that semiotic research contains theory-building metaphors and that these are productive means of developing semiotic thinking further, with the caveat that theory change can be unexpected based on how we build metaphors for our theories.


Introduction: Chlamydia trachomatis urogenital infection is one of the leading causes of bacterial Sexually Transmitted
 Infections (STIs) and responsible for many complications. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of sexually
 transmitted pathogens in key populations in Senegal.
Materials and methods: A retrospective study from January to December 2018 was carried out at the Institute
 of Social Hygiene in 2 key populations namely Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) and Female Sex Workers
 (FSW) presented symptoms of STIs. For each patient, blood samples and urethral or vaginal sample were collected.
 Diagnostic of STIs microorganisms including Treponema pallidum, C. trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Trichomonas
 vaginalis was performed.
Results: Two hundred fourteen patients (173 FSW and 41 MSMS) with STIs symptoms were included in this study.
 STI diagnosis was confirmed in 176 participants giving an overall STIs rate of 82% (176/214). Among them, 80%
 (141/176) were FSW and 20% (35/176) were MSM. C. trachomatis was found in 55% of cases (97/176) followed
 by N. gonorrhoeae (18%; n=32/176), T. vaginalis (15%; n=26/176) and T. Pallidum (12%; n=21/176). Interestingly, C. trachomatis infection was exclusively detected in FSW with a rate of 68.8% (97/141). In addition, C. trachomatis was associated with other STIs agents in 22 cases (23%) namely T. pallidum (5.2%; n=5/97), N. gonorrhoeae (3.1%;
 n=3/97), and T. vaginalis (14.4%; n=14/97). C. trachomatis was found in all age groups, however, young people (<30
 years) seems to be more affected with 58.8% (57/97).
Conclusion: This study showed a predominance of C. trachomatis infections among FSW suggesting the importance
 to consider this STI's pathogen in the management of key populations in Senegal.


Many organizations providing products with common features wish to take advantage of that similarity in order to reduce development and maintenance efforts. Their goal is to move from a single-system development paradigm towards a product line approach. However, this transition is not trivial and requires a systematic scoping phase to decide how the product line should be defined, i.e. what products and features should be included and thus developed for reuse. Currently available product line scoping approaches require huge upfront investments in the scoping phase, consuming a lot of time and resources. Our experience has shown that small and medium enterprises require a lightweight approach to decide how the existing products are related to each other so that their potential for reuse can be estimated more easily. In this paper we present a conceptual solution and early tool support enabling companies to semi-automatically identify similarity within existing product configurations.


A framework of imitating real human gait in 3D from monocular video of an uncalibrated camera directly and automatically is proposed. It firstly combines polygon-approximation with deformable template-matching, using knowledge of human anatomy to achieve the characteristics including static and dynamic parameters of real human gait. Then, these characteristics are processed in regularization and normalization. Finally, they are imposed on a 3D human motion model with prior constrains and universal gait knowledge to realize imitating human gait. In recognition based on this human gait imitation, firstly, the dimensionality of time-sequences corresponding to motion curves is reduced by NPE. Then, we use the essential features acquired from human gait imitation as input and integrate HCRF with SVM as a whole classifier, realizing identification recognition on human gait. In associated experiment, this imitation framework is robust for the object's clothes and backpacks to a certain extent. It does not need any manual assist and any camera model information. And it is fitting for straight indoors and the viewing angle for target is between 60° and 120°. In recognition testing, this kind of integrated classifier HCRF/SVM has comparatively higher recognition rate than the sole HCRF, SVM and typical baseline method.


Intellectual property (IP) protection has been blamed as one of the main sources of the public health challenge facing society. The high prices of patented drugs causes a low rate of access to medicine in poor countries. Public health and human rights advocates propose to abandon pharmaceutical patents or impose a legal duty on pharmaceutical companies to make essential medicines accessible. This article investigates the monopoly rights and practices in the pharmaceutical field, the gravity of the public health problem and the status of patenting and medicine access in least-developed countries (LDCs) and developing countries (DLCs), and the legal and policy schemes tailored to increase medicine access. Based on the analyzes of the findings from the investigation, the article argues that a patent is a minor factor for medicine access in LDCs, and an important factor in DLCs. But compulsory licensing or other practical solutions can reduce its impact, and intellectual property and public health, as an integral part of each other or two sides of the same coin, are inseparable and mutually dependent. IPR provide necessary incentives in drug discovery and development for public health, the IP system in turn benefits from public health related drug discovery R&D and commercial activities. The relationship between the two should be perceived and constructed in a positive, forward looking and pragmatic way, rather than mutual condemnation and destruction. Scholars and practitioners in both fields should collaborate to have an in-depth understanding of the issues, objectives, schemes and practices in the two fields, and an objective assessment of the impact each has exerted, efforts to reconcile, and positive outcomes achieved.


Since 2013, Brazil has undergone various moments of political turbulence, ultimately culminating in the seizure of power by the Far Right. The lack of clarity on how this movement has been led and the role played by the military in the political arena allows us to ask if Brazil has been the target of a form of hybrid warfare—similar to the kind experienced by various other countries that have undergone sudden changes in regime (such as Ukraine and Egypt, and more recently Honduras and Paraguay). This article explores the limits and implications of applying the notion of hybrid warfare to the Brazilian case, seeking to understand how politics came to be merged with elements adopted from military strategies and tactics. Based on my own ethnographic experience with military personnel, I aim to show how, with the assistance of other state powers, they produced a high-impact psychological operation that paved the way for the 2018 elections and the seizure of power by the Far Right. Following this line of analysis, I argue that in the Brazilian case, there has been a hybrid warfare as well as an insurgency of state corporations and their networks.


This paper describes a dynamic load balancing approach to distributed server farm systems. This approach overcomes the interference caused by non-negligible very large tasks in the heavy-tailed distribution. First, a subset of tasks is allocated proportionally to the processing capability of participating servers by taking into account their remaining processing time. Later, tasks in the servers are processed in order of priority to optimise the system response time. The proposed load balancing algorithm also takes into account the information on server loads to avoid load imbalance caused by very large tasks. The experiments show that the mean waiting time and the mean slowdown time are reduced at the server farm system.


A 27-year-old female with no history of trauma, surgery, infection, or neoplastic process was evaluated for the spontaneous onset of vomiting, headache, and loss of balance. Initial studies demonstrated extensive pneumocephalus. CT revealed a lytic, expansile defect of the right petrous bone, while intrathecal contrast images demonstrated flow of CSF that implied coincidental perforation of the tympanic membrane. MR imaging demonstrated a continuity of CSF signal. The patient underwent surgery to repair the CSF leak and a dural patch was applied. No symptoms of pneumocephalus were seen after surgery and the patient's condition improved.


Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are one of the promising photovoltaic devices because of their lower manufacturing cost and higher energy conversion efficiency. Wide-gap, porous semiconducting metal oxides are generally used as electrode materials of DSSCs. Previously we utilized ZnO as DSSC electrodes and achieved a high conversion efficiency of 6.58% by improving the structure of ZnO films. However, open-circuit voltage (VOC), one of the factors to determine the performance of DSSCs, was still at a lower level (≈ 0.60 V) than that of common TiO2-based cells. We believe that the lower VOC is due mainly to the occurrence of recombination. In this work, we tried to enhance VOC by controlling the heating process of electrodes and suppressing the recombination for further development of ZnO-based DSSCs. As a result, we have achieved a higher VOC of 0.725 V, confirming that the sintering behavior (grain growth and/or necking of grains) influenced largely the characteristics of DSSCs.


The simulated data used in eye-tracking-related research has been largely generated using normative eye models with little consideration of how the variations in eye biometry found in the population may influence eye-tracking outcomes. This study investigated the influence that variations in eye model parameters have on the ability of simulated data to predict real-world eye-tracking outcomes. The real-world experiments performed by two pertinent comparative studies were replicated in a simulated environment using a high-complexity stochastic eye model that includes anatomically accurate distributions of eye biometry parameters. The outcomes showed that variations in anterior corneal asphericity significantly influence simulated eye-tracking outcomes of both interpolation and model-based gaze estimation algorithms. Other, more commonly varied parameters such as the corneal radius of curvature and foveal offset angle had little influence on simulated outcomes.


Alcohol is a major risk factor for oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), the most prevalent histological subtype of oesophageal cancer (OC) worldwide. The metabolism of alcohol is regulated by specific enzymes whose activity and expression is influenced by genetic polymorphisms. We conducted a systematic review of current epidemiological evidence of the relationship between alcohol intake and OC risk, including the role of tobacco smoking and functional polymorphisms of alcohol dehydrogenases (ADHs) and aldehyde dehydrogenases (ALDHs). Potential biological mechanisms underlying oesophageal carcinogenesis are also discussed. Frequency and intensity of alcohol intake have been consistently associated with an increased risk of OSCC in regions with low and high incidence of the disease. The highest risk was reported among tobacco smokers, whereas the association between alcohol and OSCC risk was weak in the absence of tobacco use. The ADH1B, ADH1C and ALDH2 gene polymorphisms influence the risk of OSCC through modulation of acetaldehyde metabolism and propensity to alcohol intake. These functional variants may be suitable proxies of alcohol exposure for use in Mendelian randomization studies if complemented by reported alcohol intake data. Recent epidemiological and experimental studies investigating the role of alcohol consumption in OC development have implicated the microbiome as a new promising avenue for research, which entail novel potential mechanisms of alcohol-related oesophageal carcinogenesis. Microbial communities associated with alcohol consumption might be used as biomarkers to raise the potential of intervening among susceptible individuals.


This article addresses the under-researched, but very popular activity of yoga in contemporary Britain and attempts a preliminary sociological exploration of the religious and spiritual beliefs of yoga practitioners. A sample of dedicated practitioners of the Iyengar method of yoga was chosen for a case study. It was found that the sample practitioners are engaged in a technique that attracts a significant number of people interested in a type of 'spiritual exploration' that can probably be best explained by the concept of 'mystical religion', as introduced by Ernst Troeltsch and developed by Colin Campbell. These findings provide new salience to the idea of 'mystical religion' and a starting point for considering the role that a physical practice plays in contemporary spirituality and religiosity.


3D structural electronics is a new paradigm in fabricating electronics with high design complexity. Basically, manufacturing of 3D structural electronics consists of several processes: structure building, wire creation, and pick-and-place of electrical components. In this work, a 3D structure was built in a commercial AM machine, and conductive wires were created on the 3D structure with a predetermined design of an electronic circuit. Generally, 2D wire paths are projected to a 3D surface, and a tool path for the wire is generated in advance. And a direct printing device follows the tool path to draw the conductive wires on the surface, while a direct curing device simultaneously hardens the created wires using thermal/radiation energy. This direct printing/curing device was developed by combining a micro-dispensing device and a light focusing module installed in a motorized xyz stage. Several experiments were accomplished using photocrosslinkable materials filled with carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Finally, a 3D electronics prototype was fabricated to show the compelling evidence that the suggested manufacturing methods and materials would be promising in manufacturing 3D structural electronics.Copyright © 2013 by ASME


An active double-balanced even harmonic mixer implemented in a 0.35-/spl mu/m SiGe BiCMOS process is described. The effect of local oscillator wave shape and duty cycle on conversion gain are examined. Measured data for an even harmonic mixer is compared to a conventional Gilbert cell mixer and applications to the front-end of a direct conversion receiver are described.


The article is about the way in which the organisation culture influences the knowledge management in the small and medium-sized enterprises. With the increase of the complexity of the environment in which the SMEs exist, they rely more and more on knowledge as assets and development source. Thus, the organisation culture becomes a mediator between personal knowledge and organisational knowledge, as well as one of the most important factors that condition the knowledge management in SMEs. Among the most important cultural barriers for the knowledge management are: the differences between the declarations and the actions of the managers, the use of the principle 'knowledge is power', the apathy in the dissemination of knowledge, the syndrome 'it has not been invented here', the language, the mechanistic perception of the organisation, the organisation 'amnesia', the over appreciation or under appreciation of the technologies, the attitude 'knowledge is not an advantage and does not increase for ever'.


An effort begun in the spring of 1987 by a group of executives within the healthcare industry to establish a Level 7 networking standard (HL7) is rapidly gaining momentum. This article discusses a draft Level 7 protocol which has been produced to ease the complications inherent in the multi-vendor environment of healthcare communications.


Inverted papilloma of the nose and paranasal sinuses is an unusual benign neoplasm that has the propensity for local tissue destruction and an association with malignant degeneration. The tumor represents an inverted growth of epithelium rather than outward proliferation. It most commonly arises from the lateral nasal wall with growth into the nose and paranasal sinuses and only rarely originates from the septum. Presenting symptoms are usually unilateral nasal obstruction and clear rhinorrhea. Surgical excision is the recommended treatment though the aggressiveness of the approach has varied. Transnasal local excision has been associated with a high recurrence rate. Lateral rhinotomy with removal of the lateral nasal wall and wide local excision has a low recurrence rate and has been the recommended treatment by most authors since 1980. However, the poor cosmetic results in some patients due to the visible external scar is especially undesirable in young females. We present a series of 23 patients treated over a ten-year period. Fifteen underwent a Denker rhinotomy and medial maxillectomy through a sublabial approach without an external incision. The recurrence rate in our group is 27% with a mean 4.7 year follow-up. This recurrence rate lies between that reported for lateral rhinotomy and local transnasal excision.


Technology files for the Magic layout editor have been created that facilitate the layout, design rule checking, and plotting or rubylith cutting of single-layer (crossover style) and two-metal layer (multilayer style) hybrid circuits. Details of the technology files are presented as well as a layout example. Outputs can be prepared as 10* scale pen plots, or rubylith sheets may be cut on the plotter at 10* scale to be photoreduced for circuit production. Using the procedure may save three to six hours of labor per circuit over hand cutting, depending on the complexity of the circuit. >


The effectiveness of various aging test procedures utilized in the past to evaluate aging in polymeric cables under wet conditions is examined. It is pointed out that the prime parameters affecting the aging rate and its mechanisms are those of electrical stress, frequency, water solution, temperature, mechanical strain, and testing time duration. Any valid fixed-time or time-to-breakdown test procedure that is based on the stress/frequency acceleration concept must, therefore, be carefully specified and defined in terms of these parameters. >


Duetting is a collective behavior and might have multiple functions, including joint territory defense and mate guarding. An important step toward understanding the adaptive function of bird song is to determine if and how singing behavior varies seasonally. However, seasonal patterns for duetting species are different from the pattern described for species in which only the male sings, because song function may vary according to sex, singing role (initiator vs responder) and level of duet organization (individual vs pair). We investigated whether patterns of seasonal variation in duetting depends on these factors, which would suggest different interpretations of song function. We studied social pairs of a Neotropical bird species (rufous hornero Furnarius rufus) for seven consecutive months, recording vocal and territorial behaviors. Overall, partners coordinated 61% of their songs into duets and many song traits (song initiation rate, song output and duet rate) peaked in territorial contexts. Males engaged in territorial interactions with strangers more often, initiated more songs, and answered proportionately more of their partners' songs than females. Male song initiation rate peaked during the preand post-breeding stages, whereas females initiated more songs during the non-breeding season. Both sexes answered partner songs faster and at higher rates during the pre-breeding and female fertile stages. Partners duetted at a higher rate during the preand post-breeding stages. Finally, song initiation rates and duet rate, but not song answering rates, correlated with frequency of territorial interactions with strangers. Although our findings indicate that song function may vary with sex, singing role and level of duet organization, our results suggest that in general duet functions to defend common territories and as a mutual mate guarding strategy in the rufous hornero.


: Only multimodal treatment concepts may potentially improve the persisting poor prognosis of the carcinoma of the pancreas. In specialized centres surgery has reached a high level of security with a very low level of mortality. Infiltrations of the mesenterico-portal axis are not a contraindication to a curative oncological surgery. R0 and R1 resections should be followed by adjuvant chemotherapy with gemcitabine. Currently there is no evidence of benefit for a neoadjuvant radiochemotherapy in primary resectable carcinomas of the pancreas. The survival rates of primary resectable carcinoma patients with neoadjuvant pre-treatment correspond to those of primary resectable carcinoma patients with adjuvant therapy. Due to the high perioperative morbidity, some patients do not gain access to the adjuvant therapy within a reasonable time frame. Therefore, the significance of neoadjuvant therapy for resectable tumours should be re-evaluated in prospective randomised trials. In about one third of the patients with primary irresectable carcinomas of the pancreas, a radical resection can be performed after neoadjuvant radiochemotherapy. For this patient group randomised prospective trials are urgently needed. In this context, however, only an experienced pancreatic surgeon can decide about the resectability or irresectability of a pancreatic tumour.


Introduction: Feedback is very important in education and can help quality in the training process and orient the trainees in clinical contexts. This study aimed to assess the residents' points of view about feedback in clinical education at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. Methods: The sample of this study included 170 medical residents attending medical workshops in Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. The residents filled a valid and reliable questionnaire containing 21 items on their perceptions of the feedback they got throughout the workshops. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 14. Results: The study revealed that residents, generally, have a positive perception of feedback in their training. The highest score belonged to the items such as "feedback was applicable to future work", "feedback corrected my behavior", "feedback worked as a motivation for education" and "feedback was specific in one subject". Residents who had a negative feedback experience also increased their efforts to learn. The Surgery residents acquired the highest scores while radiology residents got the lowest. The difference between these groups was statistically significant (P = 0.000). Conclusion: The highest mean score belonged to internal medicine residents. This shows that residents believe that obstetrics & gynecology ward is a ward in which the formative assessment is much more powerful in comparison to the other three major wards. The surgery ward received the lowest score for formative assessment and this shows that the feedback in surgery ward is very low. Keywords: Feedback, Medical residents, Shiraz medical school, Point of view, Clinical teaching


We are proud to welcome you to the conference On the Move. It is arranged by the Advanced Cultural Studies Institute of Sweden (ACSIS) which is a national center for interdisciplinary and international networking in cultural research. This is the fifth biannual ACSIS conference. All the conferences have had different themes connected to various aspects of cultural research. On the Move explores the "mobility turn," starting within the social sciences, and it explores the evolution in media studies, cultural studies, sociology, ethnology, anthropology, tourism studies, literature studies and several other areas of cultural research.Papers explore movement and/or immobilization across a broad spectrum and within many contexts, from the micro-movements of streptococci to the mobile, or not so mobile, lives of artists and artistic productions, cosmopolitans, refugees and tourists. They address social, cultural and political movements as well as practices embodied in sports, dance and everyday life.In addition to the exploration of the spatial mobility of humans, organisms and objects, the circulation across time and space of representations and the vehicles for movement – topics at the heart of the mobility turn – this conference also presents plenary panels and sessions dealing with the transformation of cultural and social norms. The speakers will discuss and debate the changing values with regard to gender and normativity; motion and emotion; the prerequisites and practices of critical research and teaching; the historiography of Europe; and cultural production and consumption.In the spirit of internationalization we have decided to alternate between two English, whereas all session slots have English as well as Swedish alternatives. This mixture of languages is a reality for many non-English natives and an inevitable aspect of doing cultural research – on the move – today.The conference is supported by Linkoping University's Faculty of Arts and Science, the Swedish universities which co-fund ACSIS, the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation and the city of Norrkoping. We are also enormously grateful for and impressed by the non-salaried efforts from all invited speakers, panelists, moderators, session organizers and paper presenters.We invite you to discover the conference's rich and varied content. Finally, we wish to stress that conferences are not only work; they are also a great opportunity to meet old friends and make new ones. In addition to the discussions at the sessions, there will be plenty of time to socialize at the reception hosted by the city of Norrkoping on Tuesday evening and the conference dinner on Wednesday night.Bodil Axelsson, Director of ACSISOrvar Lofgren, Chair of the ACSIS boardJohanna Dahlin, ACSIS coordinator and conference organizer


Abstract Objective: To evaluate the possible association between protease inhibitor (PI) and premature birth and low birth-weight in HIV-infected pregnancies. Materials and methods: Data were collected retrospectively for maternal and pregnancy characteristics, antiretroviral medication, lowest CD4 count and highest viral load during pregnancy, and pregnancy outcomes. χ2 Analysis, Student's t-test, and multiple logistic regression analysis were performed. Results: Data from 161 HIV-infected women who delivered singleton gestation were analyzed. Fifty-three received an antepartum regimen with PI, 84 received a regimen without PI, and six did not receive antepartum treatment. The mean estimated gestational age (EGA)±SD at delivery was 37.7±3.2 weeks. The premature birth rate was 18.4%. No difference was detected between women receiving the antiretroviral regimen including PI and those on the regimen without PI or on no antepartum medication with regard to: EGA±SD at delivery (37.7±3.2 vs. 37.6±3.1 weeks, respectively, P=0.87), rate of premature birth (14% vs. 20.6%, respectively, P=0.32) and low birth-weight (12.5% vs. 20.2%, respectively, P=0.25). In multiple logistic regression analysis, PI was not associated with premature birth or low birth-weight. Conclusion: Women receiving antiretroviral therapy with PI have a similar rate of premature birth and low birth-weight as women receiving antiretroviral therapy without PI or on no medication.


The view that surgery represents the only curative treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) still prevails today. Perhaps the greatest achievement of stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) has been to challenge this, providing a platform to promote radiotherapy as an effective curative treatment that should be considered alongside surgery (1). The impact of this is clearest when considering populationbased outcomes from national cancer registries. In the Netherlands, the widespread implementation of SBRT has increased radiotherapy utilization, decreased the proportion of patients left untreated and as a consequence improved NSCLC survival (2). The logistic benefits of SBRT courses over conventional radiotherapy has clearly played a role in this, providing a treatment option for the elderly or those with significant comorbidities who might not otherwise be offered curative treatment. These patients represent the fastest growing population of lung cancer patients (3) and a proportion will have central tumors for which conventional radiotherapy is infeasible. The primary argument as to whether to use SBRT for central tumors rests with maintaining population survival gains and weighing the risks of harm against those of not offering curative treatment.


The paper analyzes the possibility to use automatic slide-gate type fire dampers with multiple blades superposed with the linear induction motor secondary elements in dust explosions localization system with large cross-secion ductworks. Sheet metal type blades stress-strain state computations by means of finite element method and studies of dynamics of fire dampers linear electic actuators by means of Matlab Simulink computer model were performed. It was obtained that the dampers blades thickness minimization reduces their response time about two times, closing force - near 30%. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.mech.21.5.11759