The treatment of patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is conventionally considered to be a palliative venture with no hope of cure. Traditionally, patients are treated with maximal surgical resection based on the premise that, although surgery is not a curative procedure, a major resection provides for a longer survival and better quality of life. 1 Radiotherapy increases the duration of survival, but again is not a curative intervention. 2 The role of chemotherapy, specifically focusing on a foundation of chloroethylating agents such as carmustine (BCNU) or lomustine (CCNU), has been controversial with an equal number of clinicians arguing in favor of or against this treatment. Meta-analysis makes it clear that there is a small increase in median survival associated with the addition of these agents, but a consensus was never reached regarding their use. 3


A high level of antioxidants in organic-produced vegetables has been attributed to soil conditions; however, little is known about the relationships between antioxidants and rhizobacteria under different fertilization treatments. A pot trial for pakchoi (Brassica campestris ssp. chinensis L.) was conducted under greenhouse conditions with: (1) control; (2) chemical fertilizer; and (3) organic fertilizer. The responses of the plant, soil properties, and rhizobacterial community were measured after 45 days of cultivation. Fertilization increased soil nutrient levels and pakchoi productivity and the reshaped rhizobacterial community structure, while no differences in rhizobacterial abundance and total diversity were observed. Generally, most plant antioxidants were negatively correlated with inorganic nitrogen (N) and positively correlated to organic N in soil. The genera of Arthrospira and Acutodesmus contained differential rhizobacteria under chemical fertilizer treatment, which are known as copiotrophs. In addition, the addition of a chemical fertilizer may stimulate organic substance turnover by the enrichment of organic compound degraders (e.g., Microbacterium and Chitinophaga) and the promotion of predicted functional pathways involved in energy metabolism. Several beneficial rhizobacteria were associated with organic fertilizer amended rhizosphere including the genera Bacillus, Mycobacterium, Actinomycetospora, and Frankia. Furthermore, Bacillus spp. were positively correlated with plant biomass and phenolic acid. Moreover, predictive functional profiles of the rhizobacterial community involved in amino acid metabolism and lipid metabolism were significantly increased under organic fertilization, which were positively correlated with plant antioxidant activity. Overall, our study suggests that the short-term application of chemical and organic fertilizers reshapes the rhizobacterial community structure, and such changes might contribute to the plant's performance.


This thesis presents algorithms for the analysis of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) data. Mass spectrometry is a technology that can be used to determine the identities and abundances of the compounds in complex samples. In combination with liquid chromatography, it has become a popular method in the field of proteomics, the large-scale study of proteins and peptides in living systems. This area of research has gained a lot of interest in recent years since proteins control fundamental reactions in the cell. Consequently, a deeper knowledge of their function is expected to be crucial for the development of new drugs and the cure of diseases. The data sets obtained from an LC-MS experiment are large and highly complex. The outcome of such an experiment is called an LC-MS map. The map is a collection of mass spectra. They contain, among the signals of interest, a high amount of noise and other disturbances. That is why algorithms for the low-level processing of LC-MS data are becoming increasingly important. These algorithms are the focus of this text. Our novel contributions are threefold: first, we introduce SweepWavelet, an algorithm for the efficient detection and quantification of peptides from LC-MS data. The quantification of proteins and peptides using mass spectrometry is of high interest for biomedical research but also for the pharmaceutical industry since it is usually among the first steps in an LC-MS data analysis pipeline and all subsequent steps depend on its quality. Our approach was among the first to address this problem in a sound computational framework. It consists of three steps: first, we apply a tailored wavelet function that filters mass spectra for the isotope peaks of peptides. Second, we use a method inspired by the sweep-line paradigm which makes use of the redundant information in LC-MS data to determine mass, charge, retention time and abundance of all peptides. Finally, we apply a flexible peptide signal model to filter the extracted signals for false positives. The second part of this thesis deals with the benchmarking of LC-MS signal detection algorithms. This is a non-trivial task since it is difficult to establish a ground truth using real world samples: which sample compounds become visible in an LC-MS data set is not known in advance. To this end, we use annotated data and simulations to assess the performance of currently available algorithms. To simulate benchmark data, we developed a simulation software called LC-MSsim. It incorporates computational models for retention time prediction, peptide detectability, isotope pattern and elution peaks. Using this software, we can simulate all steps in an LC-MS experiment and obtain a list with the positions, charges and abundances of all peptide signals contained in the resulting LC-MS map. This gives us a ground truth against which we can match the results of a signal detection algorithm. In this thesis, we use it for the benchmarking of quantification algorithms but its scope is wider and it can also be used to evaluate other algorithms. To our knowledge, LC-MSsim is the first software that can simulate the full LC-MS data acquisition process. The third contribution of this thesis is a statistical framework for the quality assessment of quantitative LC-MS experiments. Whereas quality assessment and control are already widespread in the field of gene expression analysis, our work is the first to address this problem for LCMS data. We use methods from robust statistics to detect outlier LC-MS maps in large-scale quantitative experiments. Our approach introduces the notion of quality descriptors to derive an abstract representation of an LC-MS map and applies a robust principal component analysis based on projection pursuit. We show that it is sensible to use robust statistics for this problem and evaluate our method on simulated maps and on data from three real-world LC-MS studies.


We designed a strategy to activate fluorescence under the influence of optical stimulations based on the intermolecular transfer of protons. Specifically, the illumination of a 2-nitrobenzyl derivative at an activating wavelength is accompanied by the release of hydrogen bromide. In turn, the photogenerated acid encourages the opening of an oxazine ring embedded within a halochromic compound. This structural transformation extends the conjugation of an adjacent coumarin fluorophore and enables its absorption at an appropriate excitation wavelength. Indeed, this bimolecular system offers the opportunity to activate fluorescence in liquid solutions, within rigid matrixes and inside micellar assemblies, relying on the interplay of activating and exciting beams. Furthermore, this strategy permits the permanent imprinting of fluorescent patterns on polymer films, the monitoring of proton diffusion within such materials in real time on a millisecond time scale, and the acquisition of images with spatial resolution at the nanometer level. Thus, our operating principles for fluorescence activation can eventually lead to the development of valuable photoswitchable probes for imaging applications and versatile mechanisms for the investigation of proton transport.


Two types of human cancers, a renal cell carcinoma and a hepatocellular carcinoma, were investigated in vitro; both produced a marked erythrocytosis in each patient. These tumors, when transplanted into athymic nude mice, produced a remarkable erythrocytosis in the host mice. To analyze this phenomenon, the primary cultures from these xenotransplanted tumors were performed. To obtain pure tumor cell cultures, cells derived from host nude mice were eliminated by the treatment with the antiserum raised against nude mouse cells. Epithelial cells derived from each tumor attached and grew in the cultures. The conditioned media from both tumor cells revealed high erythropoietic stimulatory activities. We have characterized these erythropoietin‐like activities by size‐exclusion high‐performance liquid chromatography. Three peaks of erythropoietin‐like activities were noted after bovine serum albumin region. The molecular weights were estimated at about 55,000, 40,000, and 33,000, respectively. The results suggested that the human renal cell and hepatocellular carcinomas produced erythropoietin‐like activities in vitro in culture and that erythrocytosis found in patients with cancer and in nude mice transplanted with the tumors was attributable to production of the erythropoietin‐like activities by the tumor cells themselves.


MALT1 mediates the activation of NF-κB in response to antigen receptor signaling. MALT1, in association with BCL10 and CARD11, functions as a scaffolding protein to activate the inhibitor of IκB kinase (IKK) complex. In addition, MALT1 is a paracaspase that targets key proteins in a feedback loop mediating termination of the NF-κB response, thus promoting activation of NF-κB signaling. Activated B-cell subtype of diffuse large B-cell lymphomas (ABC-DLBCL), which tend to be more resistant to chemotherapy, are often biologically dependent on MALT1 activity. Newly developed MALT1 small-molecule inhibitors suppress the growth of ABC-DLBCLs in vitro and in vivo. This review highlights the recent advances in the normal and disease-related functions of MALT1. Furthermore, recent progress targeting MALT1 proteolytic activity raises the possibility of deploying MALT1 inhibitors for the treatment of B-cell lymphomas and perhaps autoimmune diseases that involve increased B- or T-cell receptor signaling. Clin Cancer Res; 19(24); 6662–8. ©2013 AACR.


The 2012 Budget announced by the Prime Minister of Malaysia indicated that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) continue to play an important role in the nation's economy and are therefore, given sufficient allocation to sustain the various small enterprises. ICT usage has never been more emphasized than now, therefore the objective of this paper is to assess the SME's use of enterprise information system (EIS) of companies in the Kelantan and Terengganu, Malaysia. The findings from the preliminary study showed that only three out of 20 companies (or 15%) are into full ICT usage. The implication from non-usage of ICT in the globalized world will negatively impact the SMEs ability to compete at both the local and international level, hence, internal management and organizational matters, particularly leadership and resilience must be enhanced, else these SMEs will not succeed in their endeavors.


Canonical approaches are applied to classic Morse, Lennard-Jones, and Kratzer potentials. Using the canonical transformation generated for the Morse potential as a reference, inverse transformations allow the accurate generation of the Born-Oppenheimer potential for the H2+ ion, neutral covalently bound H2, van der Waals bound Ar2, and the hydrogen bonded one-dimensional dissociative coordinate in a water dimer. Similar transformations are also generated using the Lennard-Jones and Kratzer potentials as references. Following application of inverse transformations, vibrational eigenvalues generated from the Born-Oppenheimer potentials give significantly improved quantitative comparison with values determined from the original accurately known potentials. In addition, an algorithmic strategy based upon a canonical transformation to the dimensionless form applied to the force distribution associated with a potential is presented. The resulting canonical force distribution is employed to construct an algorithm for deriving accurate estimates for the dissociation energy, the maximum attractive force, and the internuclear separations corresponding to the maximum attractive force and the potential well.


In this paper, we present a novel cross-consistency based semi-supervised approach for semantic segmentation. Consistency training has proven to be a powerful semi-supervised learning framework for leveraging unlabeled data under the cluster assumption, in which the decision boundary should lie in low-density regions. In this work, we first observe that for semantic segmentation, the low-density regions are more apparent within the hidden representations than within the inputs. We thus propose cross-consistency training, where an invariance of the predictions is enforced over different perturbations applied to the outputs of the encoder. Concretely, a shared encoder and a main decoder are trained in a supervised manner using the available labeled examples. To leverage the unlabeled examples, we enforce a consistency between the main decoder predictions and those of the auxiliary decoders, taking as inputs different perturbed versions of the encoder's output, and consequently, improving the encoder's representations. The proposed method is simple and can easily be extended to use additional training signal, such as image-level labels or pixel-level labels across different domains. We perform an ablation study to tease apart the effectiveness of each component, and conduct extensive experiments to demonstrate that our method achieves state-of-the-art results in several datasets.


Motion capture data is now widely available to create realistic character animation. However, it is difficult to reuse without any additional information. For this reason, annotating motion data with kinematic constraints is a clever step to ease further operations such as blending or motion editing. Unfortunately, prior automatic methods prove to be unreliable for noisy data and/or lack genericity. In this paper, we present a method for detecting kinematic constraints for motion data. It detects when an object (or an end-effector) is stationary in space or is rotating around an axis or a point. Our method is fast, generic and may be used on any kind of objects in the scene. Furthermore, it is robust to highly noisy data as we detect and reject aberrant data by using a least median of squares (LMedS) method. We demonstrate the accuracy of our method in various motion editing contexts.


OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the efficacy of a new triple therapy (amoxycillin, metronidazole, plaunotol) in eradicating Helicobacter pylori in a nude mouse model and in humans.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
In an animal study we used 215 nude mice infected with H. pylori to assess the ability of single, dual and triple therapy to eradicate H. pylori from the mouse stomach. The number of H. pylori in the mouse stomach and extent of the gastritis was assessed from 1 to 4 weeks after treatment. In a human study, we enrolled 78 H. pylori-positive patients with recurrent peptic ulcer diseases, 29 of whom were given triple therapy (amoxycillin and metronidazole for 1 week and plaunotol for 4 weeks). Patients in the control group (n = 49) were given a histamine H2-receptor antagonist. All patients were assessed 5 and 11 months after completion of therapy.

RESULTS
In the mouse model, both the number of H. pylori and the gastritis score were significantly lower in the triple therapy group than in any other treatment group assessed 1-4 weeks after completion of therapy. In the human study, the triple therapy eradicated H. pylori from the stomachs of 25 out of 29 patients (86%), compared to the control group in which none of the 49 patients were free of H. pylori in the stomach 11 months after completion of therapy. There were no reported side effects with this triple therapy. None of the H. pylori-eradicated patients showed a recurrence of peptic ulcer disease; three of the four patients whose H. pylori was not eradicated by triple therapy showed a peptic ulcer recurrence within the study period, whereas 16 out of 49 patients in the control group had a peptic ulcer recurrence.

CONCLUSIONS
This new triple therapy was effective in the eradication H. pylori, had very few side effects and greatly reduced the rate of recurrent peptic ulcers.


OBJECTIVES
The aim of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treatment is remission. As treatment should be targeted at outcomes relevant to patients, it is important to understand how patients perceive remission, and to assess whether the current definition of remission adequately reflects these perceptions. The objective of this study is to explore the patient perspective on remission in RA.

METHODS
Nine focus-group discussions in Austria, The Netherlands and UK were conducted, including patients in American College of Rheumatology (ACR)/ European League of Rheumatology (EULAR) remission, self-declared remission and in moderate/high disease activity. Moderators employed a prespecified interview guide helped to engage patients in a discussion on their experience with remission. Inductive thematic analysis was performed within each country, and identified themes were discussed across countries.

RESULTS
47 RA patients (66% women, disease duration 9 years) participated. Three major themes of patient-perceived remission emerged: (1) symptoms would either be absent or strongly reduced, (2) impact of the disease on daily life would diminish by increased independence, ability to do valued activities, improved mood and ability to cope; (3) leading to a return to normality, including work, family role and perception of others. Patients felt the concept of remission was influenced by ageing, side effects of medication, comorbidities, accrued damage to joints and disease duration. Opinions on duration of state, the role of medication and measurement instruments varied widely.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients characterise remission by the absence or reduction of symptoms, but more directly by decreased daily impact of their condition and the feeling of a return to normality. The next step is to study whether an additional patient-perceived measure of remission may add value to the ACR/EULAR definition of remission.


NIST and other laboratories calibrate meters that measure the flow of valuable liquids such as petroleum products. Historically, these calibrations have been conducted using Stoddard solvent. Laboratories using Stoddard solvent for liquid-flow calibrations must contend with flammability, inhalation toxicity, and hazardous waste disposal requirements. In response to health and safety concerns, we modified NISTs piston-prover flow standards so that calibrations are now conducted with mixtures of propylene glycol and water (PG + W). In this paper, we describe the modifications to NIST's calibration systems and our experiences in using the modified systems to calibrate turbine, positive displacement, and coriolis meters.


Biological knowledge of South American hog-nosed skunks Conepatus remains scarce. Although common in several regions, even basic life-history aspects are poorly known, and important issues of taxonomy and biogeography are yet to be resolved. A better understanding of these species' evolutionary history, biology and ecology would provide a solid basis for conservation planning. Here we provide an overview of current research efforts targeting these issues in Molina's Hog-nosed Skunk Conepatus chinga and Striped Hognosed Skunk C. semistriatus. Preliminary data corroborating these species' evolutionary distinctiveness, and concerning distribution, habitat use, food habits, spatial ecology, life history, and reproductive biology are provided. We hope that these will serve as a basis for in-depth studies targeting these species and the role they play in Neotropical carnivore communities.


A wide-range of acoustical measurements have been conducted in the open field, guinea grass ( panicum maximum ) and forest which comprises iroko ( milicia ezcelea ) and white afara ( terminalia superba ) trees in the ratio of 2:1 approximately. Excess noise attenuation spectra have been plotted for the grass and forest for various distances. It was observed that the grass introduces excess noise attenuation about twice that of the trees (or forest) throughout the octave band centre frequencies. Excess noise attenuation curves for both media indicate three distinct parts. Results have further shown that the grass and the trees can find applications in environmental noise control and the built environment. The proposed best models for excess noise attenuation versus octave band centre frequency in this study are logarithmic (or linear) for the grass and power law for the forest. Keywords : Excess noise attenuation, grass, forest andctave band centre frequency Nigerian Journal of Physics Vol. 18 (2) 2006: pp. 197-202


Summary Injection of seawater-like brines is one of the most successful EOR methods on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Aqueous chemistry affects the mechanical strength of chalk. The injected seawater might trigger several mechanisms simultaneously and the importance of each mechanism is not fully understood. The aim of this study is to obtain an improved understanding of EOR mechanisms at pore scale by studying new mineral phases when flooding chalk with MgCl2 at reservoir conditions (130°C, 1 PV/day, 11.3 MPa effective stress). Two chalk cores were investigated, one artificial and one outcrop chalk. FE-SEM, STEM, and EDS-analyses show newly formed magnesite growing on calcite surfaces after 27 days. The Mg/Ca interphase is sharp, no diffusion of elements is observed on Angstrom scale, and flooding experiments change the crystallography of phases. Whole-rock geochemistry of the Liege outcrop chalk flooded with MgCl2 for 3 years reveals a MgO content of c. 42 wt.%, but still c. 4 wt.% CaO. STEM mapping shows that CaO impurities are present in MgO dominated phases. These experiments confirm that magnesite grows as a new mineral phase even after short term flooding and that calcium is still present as impurities in the magnesite after long term flooding.


PURPOSE
Plasma membrane Ca2+-ATPases (PMCAs) are integral membrane proteins essential to the control of intracellular Ca2+ ([Ca2+]i) concentration. Four genes encode PMCA proteins termed PMCA1-PMCA4. Little is known about the expression of these isoforms in corneal epithelium (CE). The purpose of this investigation is to characterize the expression and distribution of PMCAs in human CE (hCE).

METHODS
PMCA mRNA expression was examined by RT-PCR analysis of total RNA from native hCE using PMCA gene specific primers. PMCA isoform expression at the protein level in native hCE was examined by immunoblotting using isoform specific antibodies (Abs) and a panPMCA Ab that recognizes all PMCAs. Distribution of PMCAs in postmortem and surgical sections of hCE was determined by immunohistochemistry with the same Abs.

RESULTS
Immunoblot analysis with the panPMCA Ab yielded an intense band of approximately 135 kDa and several faintly staining bands above and below this major band. The isoform specific Abs labeled one or more bands that corresponded to bands detected with the panPMCA Ab. RT-PCR analysis of total RNA from hCE yielded PCR DNAs that were identified by sequencing as products of PMCA1, PMCA2, PMCA3, and PMCA4, thus confirming the immunoblot data. Immunohistochemistry demonstrated localization of PMCAs in all layers of hCE. PMCA4 was the predominant isoform, and was expressed along the plasma membrane of cells in all layers of CE, except with a notable absence along the basal cell membranes adjacent to the stroma. PMCA1 and PMCA2 were found mainly on basal and wing cells. In contrast to PMCA4, PMCA1 immunoreactivity (IR) was located on portions of basal cell plasma membranes adjacent to the stroma. PMCA2 IR was detected cytoplasmically within basal and wing cells in both central cornea and limbus. PMCA3 IR was located in basal cell nuclei in central cornea, but in a perinuclear location in the limbal, basal, and wing cells.

CONCLUSIONS
Human CE expresses multiple PMCA isoforms that are differentially expressed and localized among the layers and cells that comprise the CE. We propose that the differential expression of multiple PMCA isoforms affords CE the requisite flexibility to respond to the demands for Ca2+ regulation required during renewal and regeneration of its multiple cell types.


The Arabidopsis B3-domain transcription factor FUSCA3 (FUS3) is a master regulator of seed maturation and also a central modulator of hormonal responses during late embryogenesis and germination. Recently, we have identified AKIN10, the Arabidopsis ortholog of Snf1 (Sucrose Non-Fermenting-1)–Related Kinase1 (SnRK1), as a FUS3-interacting protein. We demonstrated that AKIN10 physically interacts with and phosphorylates FUS3 at its N-terminal region, and genetically interacts with FUS3 to regulate developmental phase transition and lateral organ growth. Snf1/AMPK/SnRK1 kinases are important sensors of the cellular energy level, and they are activated in response to starvation and cellular stress. Here we present findings that indicate FUS3 and AKIN10 functionally overlap in ABA signaling, but play different roles in sugar responses during germination. Seeds overexpressing FUS3 and AKIN10 both display ABA-hypersensitivity and delayed germination. The latter is partly dependent on de novo ABA synthesis in both genotypes, as delayed germination can be partially rescued by the ABA biosynthesis inhibitor, fluridone. However, seeds and seedlings overexpressing FUS3 and AKIN10 show different sugar responses. AKIN10-overexpressing seeds and seedlings are hypersensitive to glucose, while those overexpressing FUS3 display overall defects in osmotic stress, primarily during seedling growth, as they show increased sensitivity toward sorbitol and glucose. Hypersensitivity to sugar and/or osmotic stress during germination are partly dependent on de novo ABA synthesis for both genotypes, although are likely to act through distinct pathways. This data suggests that AKIN10 and FUS3 both act as positive regulators of seed responses to ABA, and that AKIN10 regulates sugar signaling while FUS3 mediates osmotic stress responses.


Squamous cell carcinoma of the penis (SCC-P) demonstrates a reliable pattern of spread to the lymph nodes of the groin. High grade and higher stage (pT1b or greater) SCC-P demonstrate a higher propensity for metastasis to the inguinal lymph nodes. Further, lymphadenopathy progresses in a predictable fashion, from superficial inguinal lymph nodes to deep inguinal lymph nodes to pelvic lymph nodes, with limited survival noted for those patients with progression to pelvic lymph nodes. Fortunately, inguinal lymphadenectomy can provide cure and improvement in RFS for SCC-P. Unfortunately open inguinal lymphadenectomy is associated with significant morbidity. Perhaps owing to this morbidity, inguinal lymphadenectomy is underperformed in the US. In other words, urologists only offer inguinal lymphadenectomy for high risk SCC-P in only a minority of cases and even when performed, lymph node yield is often unsatisfactory (less than 8 nodes per groin). Recently, a laparoendoscopic inguinal lymphadenectomy has been developed as a new approach to offer potentially curative lymph node resection while minimizing morbidity. The robotic platform has since been adapted for this approach and several reports demonstrate significant improvements in morbidity while maintaining oncologic equivalency. This review highlights the rationale for inguinal lymphadenectomy, inguinal lymph node anatomy, and technical considerations and outcomes of laparoscopic and robotic inguinal lymphadenectomy.


In this article I examine the context for the British bank Barclays' decision to disinvest from South Africa in 1986, with special attention to the impact of the Anti-Apartheid Movement's campaign against the bank. The 18-year long campaign against Barclays – the largest bank in South Africa at the time and the fourth largest foreign-owned corporation – points to significant developments within the fields of corporate social responsibility and the potential influence of social movements on multinational corporations. Applying the theoretical approach of subpolitics as developed by Ulrich Beck in combination with the later subdivision by Boris Holzer and Mads P. Sorensen into a passive and an active form, it is possible to analyse the decisions of both anti-apartheid activists and Barclays on similar terms. The conclusions drawn in this article emphasise the idea that economic decisions taken by multinational corporations may have unintended political consequences and, furthermore, that the awareness of this phenomenon has contributed to the development of corporate social responsibility. Finally, I suggest that the campaign against Barclays generated public attentiveness towards the social responsibility of businesses.


Thermoacoustic stability analysis is an essential part of the engine development process. Typically, thermoacoustic stability is determined by hybrid approaches. These approaches require information on the flame dynamic response. The combined approach of advanced System identification (SI) and Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is an efficient strategy to compute the flame dynamic response to flow perturbation in terms of the Finite Impulse Response (FIR). The identified FIR is uncertain due in part to the aleatoric uncertainties caused by applying SI on systems with combustion noise and partly due to epistemic uncertainties caused by lack of knowledge of operating or boundary conditions. Carrying out traditional uncertainty quantification techniques, such as Monte Carlo, in the framework of LES/SI would be computationally prohibitive. As a result, the present paper proposes a methodology to build a surrogate model in the presence of both aleatoric and epistemic uncertainties. Specifically, we propose a univariate Gaussian Process (GP) surrogate model, where the final trained GP takes into account the uncertainty of SI and the uncertainty in the combustor back plate temperature, which is known to have considerable impact on the flame dynamics. The GP model is trained on the FIRs obtained from the LES/SI of turbulent premixed swirled combustor at different combustor back plate temperatures. Due to the change in the combustor back plate temperature the flame topology changes, which in turn influences the FIR. The trained GP model is successful in interpolating the FIR with confidence intervals covering the "true" FIR from LES/SI.


Women entrepreneurs are making significant contributions to business and economic growth. The realization of the importance of entrepreneurs and innovation as the prime engines of Singapore's economic progress was realized as far back as in the 1960s. Women entrepreneurs are an untapped resource and provide a growth engine for Singapore as they create employment and boost the economy. Enterprise, together with new products and innovation, is crucial for the country's economy. Entrepreneurs drive innovation, they speed up structural changes in the economy and force old incumbent firms to shape up thereby making an indirect contribution to productivity. Innovation is one of the most critical functions of entrepreneurship and it thrives within certain organizational cultures which are shaped by their leaders. The objective of this study is to examine how women entrepreneurs in Singapore have built an innovative organisational culture and how they have used technology to grow their businesses. Using a qualitative approach, this study examines the perception of twelvewomen entrepreneurswho own and manage small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) towards innovation and the use of technology in their business. In-depth interviewswere conducted based on a semi-structured questionnaire with open-ended questions. The women entrepreneurs were identified based on certain criteria such as business ownership and demographic profile. Findings show that the women entrepreneurs who were interviewed were very innovative and also open to adopting new ideas and technology to improve and grow their business. The women entrepreneurs recognise the importance of technology for business development in the highly competitive market. They continue to train themselves and their employees to upgrade themselves as they realise that human capital is the driving force that propels the growth of their organisations. They feel that for their businesses to grow, it is vital to constantly innovate and improve human capital. The success and performance of their businesses were largely due to their management and leadership qualities which are prime movers of innovativeness.Implications of these findings for women entrepreneurs and policy implications are also discussed.


The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been a nightmare to citizens, hospitals, healthcare practitioners, and the economy in 2020. The overwhelming number of confirmed cases and suspected cases put forward an unprecedented challenge to the hospital's capacity of management and medical resource distribution. To reduce the possibility of cross-infection and attend a patient according to his severity level, expertly diagnosis and sophisticated medical examinations are often required but hard to fulfil during a pandemic. To facilitate the assessment of a patient's severity, this paper proposes a multi-modality feature learning and fusion model for end-to-end covid patient severity prediction using the blood test supported electronic medical record (EMR) and chest computerized tomography (CT) scan images. To evaluate a patient's severity by the co-occurrence of salient clinical features, the High-order Factorization Network (HoFN) is proposed to learn the impact of a set of clinical features without tedious feature engineering. On the other hand, an attention-based deep convolutional neural network (CNN) using pre-trained parameters are used to process the lung CT images. Finally, to achieve cohesion of cross-modality representation, we design a loss function to shift deep features of both-modality into the same feature space which improves the model's performance and robustness when one modality is absent. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed multi-modality feature learning and fusion model achieves high performance in an authentic scenario.


This article evolved from an ethnographic contradiction. Many monographs on Melanesia and Polynesia mention the idea that after the arrival of the "Whites," the deities or the ancestors abandoned their descendants to emigrate far away to foreign countries, often those of the Whites. This is all the more puzzling in that the same ethnographies attest that the societies concerned accord very high value to these deities and ancestors. I propose a solution to this puzzle here by using Louis Dumont's views on the relation between encompassing and encompassed values. From this perspective, these travels, made under the influence of contemporary changes, appear to result from the recycling of an old subordinated value manifested by the ancestors' senseless wandering, which is omnipresent in the oral literature of these same societies.


Antiprogestins inhibit progesterone action by competing for binding to the progesterone receptor and are potentially important pharmaceuticals in fertility control and cancer therapy. Why the complex of antiprogestins and progesterone receptor is functionally inactive is unclear. Present models are based on indirect evidence, such as transfection competition assays and in vitro DNA binding studies, partly because of difficulties in visualizing the receptor bound to DNA in vivo. Here we used genomic footprinting analysis to show ligand-dependent binding of endogenous progesterone receptor to the hormone responsive elements (HREs) of a chromosomally integrated mouse mammary tumor virus long terminal repeat in a human mammary carcinoma cell line. The antiprogestins RU 486 and ZK 98299 do not promote binding of the progesterone receptor to this natural HRE in vivo, even at concentrations that completely inhibit the agonistic effects of potent synthetic progestins. Moreover, antiprogestins cause a rapid disappearance of the agonist-induced progesterone receptor footprint. We conclude that antiprogestins interfere with receptor function by preventing its specific DNA binding.


Zn-Ni and Zn-Ni-W coatings were prepared by the electrodeposition under the galvanostatic conditions (jdep. = -0.020 A cm-2) from the zinc bath containing additionally ions of nickel (Zn-Ni) and ions of nickel and tungsten (Zn-Ni-W). The Zn-Ni coating after electrodeposition was subjected to outside passivation and in the Zn-Ni-W coating the passive function performs tungsten (inside passivation). The surface morphology of the coatings was studied using a scanning electron microscope (JEOL JSM - 6480). Chemical composition of obtained coatings was determined by the X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF). Phase composition investigations were conducted by X-ray diffraction method using a Philips diffractometer. Electrochemical corrosion resistance investigations were carried out in the 3% NaCl, using potentiodynamic and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) methods. On the basis of these investigations it was found that Zn-Ni coating is more corrosion resistant than the Zn-Ni-W coating.


In "Changing Nature: The Myth of the Inevitability of Ecosystem Management," 20 Pace Envtl. L. Rev. 675 (2003), I challenged the widely held view that ecosystem management (EM) is the only environmental strategy now possible. "Ecosystem management may in some circumstances be the best of the policy options to deal with a particular environmental problem, but to describe it as the only choice available is not accurate," the article stated, "[i]f ecosystem management does become inevitable, it will not be because of nonequilibrium or the absence of pristine systems, but because ecosystem management itself has altered systems past the point of no return." In "The Myth of What Is Inevitable Under Ecosystem Management: A Response to Pardy," 21 Pace Envtl. L. Rev. 315 (2004), Professor J.B. Ruhl objected to my objections and reasserted EM's status as the only legitimate environmental strategy. In this article, I reply to Professor Ruhl's objections. Advocates of EM are often adamant about the pre-eminence of their approach, but it is not easy to find the logical basis for their faith. EM is a choice. There are other choices too. Those who advocate EM should be expected to justify, coherently and persuasively, why it is the best of the choices - why it is necessary to place environmental futures in the hands of a professional elite empowered to shape conditions one ecosystem at a time as it sees fit according to its own technical or political judgment. The discretionary nature of EM leads to utilitarian decisions based upon "balancing" of interests, and thus to incremental ecosystem change. EM prevents environmental law from becoming a coherent, predictable discipline. The most effective excuse for arbitrary environmental decisions is to maintain at the outset that each case must be based on its own particular circumstances. In other words, the best way to acquire undemocratic control over environmental conditions is to insist that EM is inevitable.


Acetaminophen and flucloxacillin both interfere with the γ-glutamyl cycle. Long-lasting concomitant use of flucloxacillin and acetaminophen can lead to 5-oxoproline accumulation and severe high anion gap metabolic acidosis. Females and patients with sepsis, impaired kidney and/or liver function, malnutrition, advanced age, congenital 5-oxoprolinase deficiency and supratherapeutic acetaminophen and flucloxacillin dosage are associated with increased risk. Therefore, a critical attitude towards the prescription of acetaminophen concomitant with flucloxacillin in these patients is needed. We present the case of a 79-year-old woman with severe 5-oxoprolinaemia after long-lasting treatment with flucloxacillin and acetaminophen, explaining the toxicological mechanism and risk factors, and we make recommendations for acetaminophen use in patients with long-lasting flucloxacillin treatment. Learning points Although rare, long-lasting treatment with flucloxacillin concomitant with acetaminophen can lead to severe high anion gap metabolic acidosis.When prescribing long-lasting flucloxacillin therapy in combination with acetaminophen, regular blood gas analysis is needed to evaluate pH and the anion gap.In cases of 5-oxoproline-induced high anion gap metabolic acidosis in patients with long-lasting acetaminophen and flucloxacillin therapy, acetaminophen prescription should be stopped immediately. Replacing flucloxacillin with another antibiotic agent should be considered.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the impact of network communications, community participation and elements of vulnerability on the perception of social cohesiveness in the Blue Mountains local government area (Blue Mountains LGA).

DESIGN
A questionnaire was administered to residents of the Blue Mountains LGA. Econometric analysis of the resulting data was undertaken.

SETTING
Blue Mountains LGA, Australia.

PARTICIPANTS
One thousand one hundred and three residents of the Blue Mountains LGA responded to the questionnaire.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S)
The responses enabled the construction of variables measuring individual perceptions of community cohesiveness, their network communications and community participation. Demographic data and data on the vulnerabilities of individuals were also collected.

RESULTS
The data were used in an econometric model which identified that network communications and community participation impacted positively on perceptions of social cohesiveness while vulnerability factors had a negative impact.

CONCLUSIONS
Remedial action to build community cohesiveness and network communications can be expected to have a positive impact on social cohesiveness. In developing strategies to build community cohesiveness and network communication, particular care needs to be taken to ensure the inclusion of those members of society who are regarded as the most vulnerable.


A proof of work (PoW) blockchain protocol distributes rewards to its participants, called miners, according to their share of the total computational power. Sufficiently large miners can perform selfish mining -- deviate from the protocol to gain more than their fair share. Such systems are thus secure if all miners are smaller than a threshold size so their best response is following the protocol. To find the threshold, one has to identify the optimal strategy for miners of different sizes, i.e., solve a Markov Decision Process (MDP). However, because of the PoW difficulty adjustment mechanism, the miners' utility is a non-linear ratio function. We therefore call this an Average Reward Ratio (ARR) MDP. Sapirshtein et al. were the frst to solve ARR MDPs by solving a series of standard MDPs that converge to the ARR MDP solution. In this work, we present a novel technique for solving an ARR MDP by solving a single standard MDP. The crux of our approach is to augment the MDP such that it terminates randomly, within an expected number of rounds. We call this Probabilistic Termination Optimization (PTO), and the technique applies to any MDP whose utility is a ratio function. We bound the approximation error of PTO -- it is inversely proportional to the expected number of rounds before termination, a parameter that we control. Empirically, PTO's complexity is an order of magnitude lower than the state of the art. PTO can be easily applied to different blockchains. We use it to tighten the bound on the threshold for selfish mining in Ethereum.


The oral antidiabetic drugs (glyformin, glyclaside, glycvidon, glybenclamide) at a concentration of 10-196 mM affect the synthesis of fructosamine in an incubation medium containing 40 mM of glucose and 5% of human serum albumin. All these drugs decrease the fructosamine yield measured in the medium on the 4th day of incubation at 37-198 degrees C, while the effect of glycvidon is pronounced even on the 7th day. The introduction of glyformin, glycvidon, and glybenclamide at an amount close to the maximum daily dose over a period of one month reduces the level of fructosamine in the blood of rats with experimental diabetes mellitus, while not affecting the level of glucose in the blood of test animals. Thus, the oral antidiabetic drugs reduce the level of fructosamine--an agent known to modify the protein structure, thus favoring the development of complications in the course of diabetes under permanent hyperglycemia conditions.


In 2001 the first Supplemental Survey (SS) was conducted using the panel of the sample households selected for the 1999/2000 Post-Harvest Survey (PHS). All of the sample households in the PHS 99/00 that were found in the sample standard enumeration areas (SEAs) in 2001 were included in the sample for this first SS. The SS04 and SS08 followed this same panel of sample households three and seven years later to provide additional longitudinal data for these households. The main objective of the SS was to provide longitudinal data for the sample households in the panel that can be used to study micro-level changes in agricultural practices and socio-economic characteristics over time. The correlation in the sample data between each SS and the PHS 99/00 will improve the precision of the estimates of trends over time for relative indicators such means and proportions.


Madagascar is an Archean to Neoproterozoic continental crust surrounded by transform, oblique and divergent
margins: the oblique Morondava Basin to the west, pounded by the Davie Fracture Zone, and to the north, the
divergent Mahajanga (Majunga) Basin connected to the Somali Oceanic Basin. This 1600 km long island is a
high axial plateau with elevations from 1200 to 1800m. The top of the plateau corresponds to weathered planation
surfaces (etchplains), bounded by more or less high scarps.
We here present geological arguments for the age and the timing of the Madagascar Plateau. This analysis is based
on a double, coupled analysis of the onshore geomorphology (stepped planation surfaces) and the offshore margin
stratigraphy (seismic stratigraphy and wells).
The geomorphological analysis is based on a characterization, a mapping and dating of stepped planation surfaces
(mantled to stripped etchplains, pediments to pediplains). The dating is based on their geometrical relationships
with dated magmatic rocks. The difference of elevation between two planation surfaces (corresponding to local
base level) provides a proxy of the uplift. The sequence stratigraphic analysis is based on a biostratigraphic
reevaluation of 4 industrial wells (foraminifers and nannofossils on cuttings). Uplift periods are characterized by
(1) seaward tiltings of the margins overlain by planar reflectors, (2) forced regression wedges and (3) upstream
erosions of older sediments recorded by fauna/flora reworking.
(1) During Paleocene to Middle Miocene times (66 to 13 Ma), Madagascar is a quite flat low elevation domain
with remnants of an oldest pre-Madagascar Trap (90 Ma) surface. This low relief is highly weathered with growth
of numerous lateritic profiles and surrounded by large carbonate platforms with no siliciclastic sands influx.
(2) The Late Miocene is the paroxysm of uplift with (1) a tilting of the margin (Morondova), (2) an increase of the
siliciclastic sand flux since middle Miocene and (3) a major stepping of dated planation surfaces.
(3) The end result of this uplift is a convex up shape pattern for the end Cretaceous surface weathered during
Eocene times, creating the present-day dome morphology (with a central plateau) of Madagascar.
(4) The amplitude of this uplift can be estimated based on the present-day elevation of Late Eocene lagoonal
sediments located 100 km north-east of Toliara and now at an elevation of 900m. If the absolute sea level was
around 50 m (Miller et al., 2005) above present-day sea level during Late Eocene times, this means a surface uplift
of around 850 m.
(5) The mechanism of this uplift has to explain a very long wavelength deformation (x1000 km) necessary due to
mantle dynamics. The relationships with the other East African domes (Ethiopia, East Africa, South Africa) are
discussed.
This study was founded by TOTAL and IFREMER in the frame of the research project PAMELA (Passive Margin
Exploration Laboratories


The RlmA class of enzymes (RlmAI and RlmAII) catalyzes N1-methylation of a guanine base (G745 in Gram-negative and G748 in Gram-positive bacteria) of hairpin 35 of 23S rRNA. We have determined the crystal structure of Escherichia coli RlmAI at 2.8-Å resolution, providing 3D structure information for the RlmA class of RNA methyltransferases. The dimeric protein structure exhibits features that provide new insights into its molecular function. Each RlmAI molecule has a Zn-binding domain, responsible for specific recognition and binding of its rRNA substrate, and a methyltransferase domain. The asymmetric RlmAI dimer observed in the crystal structure has a well defined W-shaped RNA-binding cleft. Two S-adenosyl-l-methionine substrate molecules are located at the two valleys of the W-shaped RNA-binding cleft. The unique shape of the RNA-binding cleft, different from that of known RNA-binding proteins, is highly specific and structurally complements the 3D structure of hairpin 35 of bacterial 23S rRNA. Apart from the hairpin 35, parts of hairpins 33 and 34 also interact with the RlmAI dimer.


Content Caching at the edge of vehicular networks has been considered as a promising technology to satisfy the increasing demands of computation-intensive and latency-sensitive vehicular applications for intelligent transportation. The existing content caching schemes, when used in vehicular networks, face two distinct challenges: 1) Vehicles connected to an edge server keep moving, making the content popularity varying and hard to predict. 2) Cached content is easily out-of-date since each connected vehicle stays in the area of an edge server for a short duration. To address these challenges, we propose a Mobility-aware Proactive edge Caching scheme based on Federated learning (MPCF). This new scheme enables multiple vehicles to collaboratively learn a global model for predicting content popularity with the private training data distributed on local vehicles. MPCF also employs a Context-aware Adversarial AutoEncoder to predict the highly dynamic content popularity. Besides, MPCF integrates a mobility-aware cache replacement policy, which allows the network edges to add/evict contents in response to the mobility patterns and preferences of vehicles. MPCF can greatly improve cache performance, effectively protect users' privacy and significantly reduce communication costs. Experimental results demonstrate that MPCF outperforms other baseline caching schemes in terms of the cache hit ratio in vehicular edge networks.


Cyberloafing—the use of an electronic device at work for an activity that an immediate supervisor would not consider work-related—is now the most common way that employees waste time at work. It is well established that social norms play a role in cyberloafing, but it is unknown what specific normative information employees attend to when deciding whether or not to cyberloaf. In Study 1, we tested which of four types of normative information could underlie the observed correlation between social norms and cyberloafing. We found that both perceptions of supervisor cyberloafing and perceptions of coworker cyberloafing accounted for unique variance in cyberloafing, and also discovered some evidence that the approval of these referents also had the same effect. In Study 2, we cross-validated these results from Study 1 using a sample that was reasonably representative of the general working population—supporting the generalizability of our findings from Study 1. Furthermore, we conducted supplemental analyses (relative weights analysis and polynomial regression) to untangle nuances in how normative data relates to cyberloafing. In Study 1, we also examined the role of actual norms—as opposed to perceived norms—and found evidence that actual supervisor cyberloafing does influence cyberloafing through employee perceptions of supervisor cyberloafing. Overall, this investigation serves to clarify how social influence plays a role in the cyberloafing phenomenon.


Calyx afferents, a group of morphologically and physiologically distinct afferent fibers innervating the striolar region of vestibular sensory epithelia, are selectively labeled by antibodies to the calcium-binding protein calretinin. In this study, the population of calretinin-stained calyx afferents was used to delineate and quantify the striolar region in six rodent species: mouse, rat, gerbil, guinea pig, chinchilla, and tree squirrel. Morphometric studies and hair cell and calyx afferent counts were done. Numbers of hair cells, area, length, and width of the sensory epithelium increase from mouse to tree squirrel. In the mouse and rat, calretinin is found in 5-9% of all type I hair cells, 20-40% of striolar type II hair cells, and 70-80% of extrastriolar type II hair cells. Numbers of calyx afferents increase from mouse to squirrel, with more complex calyx afferents in larger species. About 10% of calyx afferents are branched. Based on our counts of total numbers of calyx afferents in chinchilla maculae and in comparison to fiber counts in the literature, the proportion of calyx afferents is greater than previously described, constituting nearly 20% of the total. Because morphometric measures increase with body weight, we obtained additional data on vestibular end organ surface areas from the literature and used this to construct a power law function describing this relationship. The function holds for species with body weights less than approximately 4 kg. Greater than 4 kg, the surface area of the sensory epithelia remains constant even with increasing body weight.


ABSTRACT: The suitability of several forage species for use in pasture and hay production on surface-mined land was studied in the eastern and western coal fields of Kentucky. A mixture of KY31 tall fescue [Festuca arundinacea (Schreb.)], and Interstate sericea lespedeza [Lespedeza cuneata (Dum.) G. Don] was used as a standard for comparison. Species tested alone or in mixtures included Caucasian bluestem [Bothriochloa caucasica (Trin.) C. E. Hubb]: Kaw big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii Vitman), Cheyenne Indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans L. Nash), Blackwell switchgrass, (Panicum virgatum L.); Chemung crownvetch (Coronilla varia L.), and Appalow (dwarf) sericea lespedeza [Lespedeza cuneata (Dum.) G. Don]. Each of these species was planted in 1976 in a randomized block design with three replications. Plots were harvested twice a year beginning in 1978 to determine yield, percent protein, dry matter digestibility (DMD), and nonstructural carbohydrate (TNC). Significant differences in percent yield and percent DMD existed among the species. There was also a significant difference in yield of the same species between the two study areas. In eastern Kentucky, a mixture of Blackwell switchgrass and Interstate sericea lespedeza, harvested twice, produced 388 pounds per acre (435 kilograms/hectare) more forage than the control mixture, In western Kentucky, all species seeded alone or in mixture produced more forage than the control mixture. Chemung crownvetch was significantly higher in protein, DMD, and yield than the two sericea lespedeza varieties.


Mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) is a prodrug active only after its hydrolysis to mycophenolic acid (MPA). The UGT1A9 enzyme is of special interest since it is the main enzyme involved in the glucuronidation of MPA. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the UGT1A9 gene may be responsible for individual differences in the pharmacokinetics of MMF. Expression levels and the activity of UGT1A9 may depend on the presence of some SNPs located in the gene promoter region (-2152C>T and -275T>A), as well as changes in the coding region (c.98T>C). The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of allelic variants of the UGT1A9 c.98T>C polymorphism (rs72551330; g. 87289T>C) on MMF metabolism in renal transplant patients. MPA and MPA 7-O glucuronide (MPAG) levels were determined on plasma samples of kidney transplant patients (N = 39) by high-performance liquid chromatography using ultraviolet detection. DNA was isolated from leukocytes and stored at -20°C. The presence of SNPs was investigated using polymerase chain reaction, followed by amplicon sequencing. The analysis of the UGT1A9 c.98T>C polymorphism revealed that all study patients presented the TT genotype. Diverse MPA and MPAG plasma concentrations were detected, including therapeutic, subtherapeutic, and toxic levels. A standardized molecular method permitted identification of UGT1A9 c.98T>C polymorphism genotypes in the examined renal transplant patients. All individuals of the study group presented the same genotype (c.98TT) for that polymorphism. Thereby, no association between the c.98T>C polymorphism and MPA and MPAG plasma levels could be evaluated, despite different levels of these compounds being observed.


This study involves seismic monitoring of a deep coal mine. The purpose is to examine the processes responsible for induced seismicity. A seismic network consisting of five threecomponent short-period seismometers located above the mine recorded the seismic data. The events discussed here occurred from March 1, 2009 until April 7, 2011 during the mining of three longwall panels and the data was telemetered to Blacksburg, Virginia. A correlation equation was developed to relate local magnitude estimated by automatic data processing software in near real-time to seismic moment for well-recorded events. Local magnitude is a relative measure of relative size for a suite of earthquakes, while seismic moment is an objective measure of the actual physical size. Using the calculated seismic moments, we calculated "moment magnitudes" (Mw) for all events, which allowed us to do further studies in terms of their absolute size as a function of both time and space. The results indicate that there are two distinct classes of seismic events at the mine. The first class consists of small (M<=0) earthquakes recorded near the moving mine face. The second class of seismicity occurs in the mined-out "gob" area of the longwall panel at a greater distance behind the moving face. Their occurrence and relation to the mining history, depth of overburden and geology of the roof rocks is a significant interest. Results show that thick overburden due to elevated topography has a positive correlation with the number of seismic events but is not the only controlling factor; other factors include gob size and geological variability. Another important observation is the high seismic attenuation of the rock mass above the mine. This appears to be the result of the fracturing and caving processes associated with the creation of the gob and the resulting subsidence of the ground surface.


The transition between metallic and insulating behaviour in three prototype nanometre scale systems, alkali metal monolayers adsorbed on graphite, C60 monolayers adsorbed on metal surfaces and small metal clusters on surfaces, are examined. The transition between metallic and non–metallic behaviour is shown to be governed by fundamentally different physical phenomena in each system, indicating the need to consider the precise details of individual systems. The power of the surface science techniques of electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and photoemission spectroscopy (PES) for investigating metallic and insulating behaviour in nm scale systems is demonstrated via measurements made on the model systems. We also review the state–of–the–art in cluster beam deposition and show that it is now possible to create monodisperse supported cluster films, the electronic structure of which may be interrogated by EELS and PES.


Eighty-four Pisum sativum legume nodulating bacteria (LNB) were isolated from seven geographical sites from southern Tunisia. Phylogenetic analyses based on partial sequences of 16S rRNA gene and the housekeeping genes glnII, and recA grouped strains into six clusters, four of which belonged to the genus Rhizobium and two to the Ensifer genus. Among Rhizobium clusters, 41 strains were affiliated to Rhizobium leguminosarum, two strains to R. pisi, two strains to R. etli, and interestingly two strains belonged to previously undescribed Rhizobium species. The remaining two strains were closely related to Ensifer medicae (two strains) and Ensifer meliloti (two strains). A symbiotic nodC gene-based phylogeny and host specificity test showed that all Rhizobium strains nodulating pea belonged to the symbiovar viciae, whereas the Ensifer strains were associated with the symbiovar meliloti never described to date. All strains under investigation differed in the number of induced root nodules and the effectiveness of atmospheric nitrogen fixation. The R. leguminosarum PsZA23, R. leguminosarum PsGBL42 and E. medicae PsTA22a, forming the most effective symbiosis with the plant host, are potential candidates for inoculation programs.


This study presents Stravinsky9s well-known ballet Les Noces as seen by an ethnomusicologist familiar with wedding rituals and, particularly, laments of Russian villages. The music of Les Noces, statements made by the composer himself, and the data gleaned from published sources of folk music (those Stravinsky is known to have come in contact with or those accessible to him) are juxtaposed with observations obtained in field interviews with Russian villagers who themselves were participants in wedding rituals and performers of wedding laments. The conceptual and structural ideas of Les Noces are compared to those of the village ritual. The examination of the role of laments and songs in the unfolding of the ritual, the use of ostinato, the analysis of the manner of singing and voice quality in laments, and an inquiry into the polyphonic forms based on polymorphic texture enable a fresh insight into Les Noces and the way Stravinsky handled materials derived from folk practice. The general conceptualization of the composition with its coalescence of high emotional intensity and, at the same time, personal detachment is traced to folk ritual where the episodes, being part of the ritual, embody primarily impersonal responses to the requirements of a ritualized situation, even though they are presented as highly tense and emotionally charged.


Studies were conducted to assess natural mortality in larval and cocoon stages of the larch sawflyPristiphora erichsonii (Htg.) in Maryland. Among newly-cocooned prepupae in August, mortality from unknown causes averaged 23.39%, whereas mortality definitely assessable to parasitism averaged 0.73%. Numbers of larvae missing from 100 colonies during the feeding stage averaged 9.25% of the total. The following 4 species of parasites were reared from the larch sawfly in Maryland;Tritneptis klugii (Ratz.),Mesoleius tenthredinis Morl.,Eucerus sp., andAptesis sp.


The spectral properties of magnetostatic waves in a ferromagnet with a moving periodic domain structure are studied within the exchange-free magnetostatic approximation. It is demonstrated that the Doppler frequency shift caused by the domain-wall motion results in the splitting of the spectrum of each magnetostatic wave mode into two dispersion branches―high-frequency and low-frequency branches. It is found that the more the mode number, the more the separation between these branches with respect to the mode spectrum in the presence of the static domain structure. PACS numbers: 75.60.-d, 75.60.Ch, 75.70.Kw


The successful strategy for water protection by biological wastewater treatment results in a sludge production of about 20 to 40 kg dry matter per population equivalent and year. In the context of regional material fluxes, sewage sludge has a low resource potential and a low pollution potential despite the fact that it can be characterised as a sink, concentrating wastewater compounds. The mass flow of nutrients (N, P) in the sewage sludge is comparatively small as compared to the losses of nutrients in agriculture. The most valuable element in the sludge is phosphorus, as the availability of phosphorus for the production of low-cost mineral fertiliser is limited. The most economical means of P-recycling is agricultural sludge application, which can also be seen as the option with the lowest loss of all valuable compounds of the sludge, and the lowest increase of entropy. The reliability of this disposal route for the treatment plant operator depends on several major pre-requisites: * reliability in regard to hygiene * reliability in regard to long-term soil protection public acceptance (politicians, media) * acceptance by all parties involved in sludge application and its consequences (farmers, farmer unions, land owners, food industry, food trade, retailers, consumers, consumer associations, NGOs, etc.) Only the first two prerequisites can be based on scientific research and risk assessment. As a consequence, only for these two aspects can quality criteria and adequate procedures be developed and introduced into a legal framework and quality assurance procedures. The latter two pre-requisites must be addressed in terms of sociology, psychology and political science and have a strong educational aspect.


This paper attempts to paint a coherent picture of the effects of ageing on a small, open, economy with large pension funds in different institutional settings. Quantitative scenarios are projected with an applied computable general equilibrium model with institutional details. We find that ageing leads to a tighter labor market, increasing costs for both pension funds and the government, and leaving the economy vulnerable to financial and further demographic shocks. We show that defined benefit pension arrangements can be destabilizing, but less so if an average-wage variable-indexation contract is chosen. Government can help by adopting a policy of tax smoothing, but the single most important determinant of the net burden of ageing is the eventual size of the increase in labor market participation of older workers. The intergenerational welfare effects of demographic shocks and changes in international interest rates are sizable and should be an integral part of the assessment of different policy instruments.


Understanding the factors that affect physicians' job satisfaction is important not only to physicians themselves, but also to patients, health system managers, and policy makers. Physicians represent the crucial resource in health-care delivery. In order to enhance efficiency and quality in health care, it is indispensable to analyse and consider the motivators of physicians. Physician job satisfaction has significant effects on productivity, the quality of care, and the supply of physicians. The purpose of our study was to assess the associations between work-related monetary and non-monetary factors and physicians' work satisfaction as perceived by similar groups of physicians practicing at academic medical centres in Germany and the U.S.A., two countries that, in spite of differing health-care systems, simultaneously experience problems in maintaining their physician workforce. We used descriptive statistics, factor and correlation analyses to evaluate physicians' responses to a self-administered questionnaire. Our study revealed that overall German physicians were less satisfied than U.S. physicians. With respect to particular work-related predictors of job satisfaction we found that similar factors contributed to job satisfaction in both countries. To improve physicians' satisfaction with working conditions, our results call for the implementation of policies that reduce the time burden on physicians to allow more time for interaction with patients and colleagues, increase monetary incentives, and enhance physicians' participation in the development of care management processes and in managerial decisions that affect patient care.


FP2020's overarching goal is framed around the new metric of "additional users." This measure inherently captures population-level change but has been conflated with other ambiguous metrics, such as "new users." Therefore, we propose a standard set of terms to provide more consistent measurement. Although commonly used service-level metrics cannot be directly compared to the population-level metric of additional users, we describe 2 modeling approaches that can allow service-level data to inform estimates of additional users. FP2020's overarching goal is framed around the new metric of "additional users." This measure inherently captures population-level change but has been conflated with other ambiguous metrics, such as "new users." Therefore, we propose a standard set of terms to provide more consistent measurement. Although commonly used service-level metrics cannot be directly compared to the population-level metric of additional users, we describe 2 modeling approaches that can allow service-level data to inform estimates of additional users.


Controlling the global COVID-19 pandemic depends, among other measures, on developing preventive vaccines at an unprecedented pace. Vaccines approved for use and those in development intend to use neutralizing antibodies to block viral sites binding to the host's cellular receptors. Virus infection is mediated by the spike glycoprotein trimer on the virion surface via its receptor binding domain (RBD). Antibody response to this domain is an important outcome of the immunization and correlates well with viral neutralization. Here we show that macromolecular constructs with recombinant RBD conjugated to tetanus toxoid induce a potent immune response in laboratory animals. Some advantages of the immunization with the viral antigen coupled to tetanus toxoid have become evident such as predominant IgG immune response due to affinity maturation and long-term specific B-memory cells. This paper demonstrates that subunit conjugate vaccines can be an alternative for COVID-19, paving the way for other viral conjugate vaccines based on the use of small viral proteins involved in the infection process.


Lead-free piezoelectric ceramics Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3+xmol%Co3+ (NBT-xC) were synthesized by conventional solid-state process. Effects of Co3+ addition on the phase structure, dielectric and piezo- electric properties of NBT-xC were investigated. The X-ray diffraction suggested that all specimens were rhombohedral perovskite structure. After a small addition of Co2O3, a dense microstructure with increased grains was developed. The doping with Co3+ enhanced mechanical quality factor Qm significantly, whereas piezoelectric constant d33 and electromechanical coupling factor kp decreased slightly with increasing amount of Co3+. For the ceramics with x=3, the electric properties become optimum, which are as follows: d33=~70pC/N, kp=~13%, Qm=~934, tanδ=~0.02 (1kHz), respectively. These results indicate that the Co3+ ion was considered to replace Ti4+ ion and present "hard doping" effect.


For a number of chromia and alumina forming high temperature alloys and coatings, recent studies revealed, that in some cases the specimen/component or coating thickness may substantially affect the growth rates of the surface oxides. For the alumina formers the thickness dependence is mainly governed by depletion of oxygen active elements such as Y, Zr, Hf, Mg which are either intentionally added alloying elements or manufacturing related alloy impurities. In the case of the chromia forming materials, which tend to exhibit a more substantial dependence of oxidation rate on specimen/component thickness, depletion of minor alloying additions is also an important factor to be considered. However, for these alloys relaxation of oxide growth stresses by plastic deformation of the metallic substrates seems to be the dominant parameter which governs the observed behaviour.


Background: Acute confusion is a common reason for presentation of elderly patients to the emergency which may be of neurological or non-neurological origin. Computerized tomography (CT) scans are often routinely ordered to investigate the cause.
Objective: To determine the usefulness of CT scan brain in confused elderly patients.
Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted in emergency room (ER) of B. P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences over a period of 6 months in 84 patients above the age of 65 years who had CT scan brain done in view of acute confusion. They were reviewed for symptoms, indications of CT scan and presence of focal neurological deficits (FND).
Results: Among patients presenting in confusion and with loss of consciousness or limb weakness, CT scan was abnormal in 90% and 92% cases respectively (p <0.05) whereas those presenting with fever, cough, headache, dizziness, seizure in confusion also had abnormal CT but was statistically not significant (p> 0.05). Out of 84 elderly cases of acute confusion, 52 had FND and the remaining 32 cases were without FND. Among those with FND, 40% and 46% cases had features of ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke respectively. Among the 32 without FND, 66% patients had normal scan and 38% had cerebral atrophy. In patients with Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) < 9 with FND, 75% had CT scan suggestive of hemorrhagic stroke whereas those with GCS> 13 with FND, 57% and 29% cases had ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke respectively.
Conclusion: CT scan brain for confused elderly should be advised for those with focal neurological symptoms and may be suggested in cases of head trauma or alleged history of fall irrespective of GCS and symptomatology.


This investigation centres on the practical advantages of microcomputer based replacements for parts of the conventional electromechanical and static protective relays used in power system protection. Incremental instantaneous protection, in which a trip decision is made on the basis of the rate of change of current, has only become a practical proposition with the advent of fast microcomputers. With the correct choice of current transformer ratio, and preset values in the software, a 12 bit analog-to-digital system is shown to be adequate. Software is also developed to implement the inverse definite minimum time trip function, with satisfactory results.<<ETX>>


samples DTU Orbit (02/11/2019) Adjustment of pH of enrichment media might improve selective isolation of MRSA from pig samples Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) have emerged in livestock in several countries worldwide in recent years. MRSA may colonise in low numbers which makes both epidemiological studies and the implementation of control programmes difficult. Methods for selective isolation of MRSA from animal samples have been developed. However, obtaining sufficient sensitivity has been a challenge. Staphylococcus aureus is normally found on the skin, surviving and growing under extreme conditions: dry environment with high salt and low pH. In the selective isolation so far used high salt concentrations has been the main selection. We hypothesized that also pH adjustment could be used for selection of this species. In this study we compared the growth of MRSA and back ground flora in enrichment media at several different combinations of salt and pH. Background flora isolates were obtained from pig swabs. Initially a total of seven strains, including: two MRSA, two enterococci, two CNS one Aerococcus viridans and one Proteus spp. strains, were tested for growth in Mueller Hinton II broth with pH ranging from 4 to 5.5 and salt addition of 4% to 7%. In the next step, these strains were tested for growth in 12 different combinations of salt (5%6.5%) and pH (4.5-5.5). For assessment of the growth of S. aureus in pH adjusted media, further 14 MRSA and 13 MSSA were tested in a similar way. In a preliminary study using reference strains (data not shown) it was observed that pH ≤5.5 as well as salt concentrations ≥4% did allow growth of S. aureus but was inhibiting the growth of enterococci. Subsequent growth experiments with isolates from background flora showed an inhibitory effect of pH below 5 for Aerococcus spp and enterococci, whereas less effect was observed on CNS and Proteus spp. In the assays using different combinations of pH and salt, the pH showed, in general, a larger effect than the salt concentration on growth. MRSA and MSSA strains were partially inhibited by pH below 4.5 and grew with a moderate growth rate at pH 5.5 with lower salt concentration (5%). The growth of enterococci strains was completely inhibited by pH ≤5.5 at any salt concentrations tested (56,5%), whereas the growth of Proteus spp. was only inhibited totally at pH of 4.5, but the growth rate could be reduced combining pH at 5 or 5.5 with high salt concentrations. In conclusion, pH adjustment of enrichment media might improve sensitivity of methods for detection of S. aureus by reducing background flora growth. Moreover, the combination of pH adjustment with reduction of the currently used salt enrichment concentration migth increase the sensitivity of the detection of MRSA. For screening purposes it will still be necessary to have further steps for the selective enrichment and isolation of MRSA. Further studies are underway to evaluate the value of this under field conditions.


Introduction Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a widespread phenomenon that affects the physical and mental well-being of victims. Several barriers prevented sufferers from receiving face-to-face interventions. These obstacles increased with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, and online psychological intervention can represent a valid solution to increase the well-being of IPV victims. This manuscript describes the study protocol for a single blind randomised controlled trial that examines the efficacy of a web-based psychoeducational intervention for IPV victims that integrates dialectical behavioural therapy and the empowerment approach. Methods and analysis Eighty-six women who were victims of IPV during the COVID-19 outbreak will be recruited by the Interdepartmental Center for Family Research (CIRF) staff from the several antiviolence centres located in Italy. Participants will be randomly allocated to the Women's EmotionS, Trauma and EmpowErMent experimental group or the treatment as usual control condition. Both interventions will be administered individually to each woman. Ethics and dissemination The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Padua (protocol no 4300). Written informed consent will be obtained from all research participants before study entry. Study results will be published as peer-reviewed articles. Any relevant protocol changes will be reported in the published articles. The results will be reported anonymously. Trial registration number ISRCTN12880309.


This research explored the process of creating a shared future and the evolution of cooperative collective endeavours in a regional rural community through a bottom-up planning process that involved professionals, public leadership and residents of a rural region in Israel. Using the MT rural region in Israel as a case study, the research was an interpretive exploration of how this community changed the way it collectively functions to achieve individual and shared aspirations. It examined how the community restructured its patterns of interaction, changing the social dynamics – which people interacted with each other, how they interacted with each other, and who felt committed to whom.

The motivation for this inquiry stemmed from my desire as a practitioner to better understand the processes by which communities learn to function cooperatively. What are the elements that contributed to enabling a community to create the conditions for collectively utilizing and sustaining common resources rather than dividing them up for private consumption and exploitative narrow interests? What type of cooperative mechanisms enabled people to accomplish together what they cannot accomplish alone?

Specifically, there are three research questions: how the change process was initiated in MT, what was significant in the nature of participation in the planning process, and how the mechanisms for regional community cooperation evolved.

It was a case study of the planning and development process that I facilitated in MT from 1994-1999 (prior to my intention to undertake research) and is based mainly upon recent interviews of the participants (in that process), their recollections, and retrospective interpretations of that experience.

The case has been explored from the theoretical perspective of viewing society in general, and community life in particular, as processes of constructing shared social realities that produce certain collective behaviours of cooperation or non-cooperation (Berger and Luckmann, 1967). This research was about understanding the process of making social rules that incorporate shared meanings and sanctions (Giddens, 1986) for undertaking joint endeavours (Ostrom, 1990, 1992, Wenger, 1998).

Specifically two primary insights have come out of this case analysis:
1. In the MT case there was a mutually reinforcing three-way interplay between the strengthening of commitments to mutual care on the regional level, the instrumental benefits from cooperative/joint endeavours, and the envisioning of a shared future.
2. The community development process was owned by the community (not by outside agencies) and they (the community members) set the rules for community involvement. They structured the social interactions which formed the basis for creating shared understandings as a collective to achieve their common future.

These insights shed light on how a community's structuring of its interactions and development interventions influenced its ability to act in a collectively optimal manner. By looking at the interrelation between trust as a function of social esteem (Honneth, 1995) and risk taking linked to instrumental benefits of cooperation (Lewis, 2002; Taylor, 1976; White, 2003) we can better understand what contributes to the way some communities continue to miss opportunities (Ostrom 1992), while others are able to promote their collective development and mutual wellbeing. By examining the process of designing (not only the design itself) community development programmes (Block, 2009) and by observing participation not as technique but as an inherent part of the way a community begins structuring its social interactions with their tacit (Polanyi, 1966) and explicit meanings, we can better understand the role of practitioners.

And finally, perhaps the elements of chance and opportunity that bring certain combinations of people together in a given time and space may need to be given more weight in what remains a very unpredictable non-linear field of professional practice.


Peaceful coexistence is a major implementation issue for both cognitive radios and ultra wideband (UWB) systems. Accordingly, the UWB impulse radio (UWB-IR) based Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) standard IEEE 802.15.4a has suggested using linear combination of pulses to limit interference to coexisting primary systems. In this paper, motivated by implementing the IEEE 802.15.4a based UWB-IR systems for peaceful coexistence, we consider the implementation of linear combination of pulses as suggested by the standard. Accordingly, we (i) design linearly combined pulses that conform to the standard requirements, and (ii) study the UWB-IR system performance in the presence of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based wideband primary systems with various bandwidths and subcarriers. The study shows that the UWB-IR system performance can be significantly improved by selecting suitable pulses for transmission and employing appropriate filtering techniques at the receiver when the primary system is active. The results are important for the practical implementation of IEEE 802.15.4a based UWB systems coexisting with licensed systems.


Surface roughness plays an important role in determining the tribological behaviour of mechanical components (e.g. gears and roller bearings etc.) under full-film and mixed (or partial) elastohydrodynamic lubrication conditions. This paper describes a detailed mechanics analysis of the surface roughness transformation of thin strip which has been cold rolled on an experimental mill. Low carbon steel strips were rolled at various speeds and reductions, and the effects of rolling parameters on surface roughness are studied. The results of surface roughness can provide important information to optimise the rolling schedule and to improve the rolled strip quality.


Reconstructing the 3D shape of an object from a single RGB image is a long-standing problem in computer vision. In this paper, we propose a novel method for single-image 3D reconstruction which generates a sparse point cloud via a conditional denoising diffusion process. Our method takes as input a single RGB image along with its camera pose and gradually denoises a set of 3D points, whose positions are initially sampled randomly from a three-dimensional Gaussian distribution, into the shape of an object. The key to our method is a geometrically-consistent conditioning process which we call projection conditioning: at each step in the diffusion process, we project local image features onto the partially-denoised point cloud from the given camera pose. This projection conditioning process enables us to generate high-resolution sparse geometries that are well-aligned with the input image and can additionally be used to predict point colors after shape reconstruction. Moreover, due to the probabilistic nature of the diffusion process, our method is naturally capable of generating multiple different shapes consistent with a single input image. In contrast to prior work, our approach not only performs well on synthetic benchmarks but also gives large qualitative improvements on complex real-world data. Data and code are available at https://lukemelas.github.io/projectionconditioned-point-cloud-diffusion/.


This paper addresses the test power model problem for embedded SRAMs (e-SRAMs). Previous researches treat e-SRAMs the same as other SoC core and use a "single-rectangle" power model to describe their test power consumption. This leads to significant waste of test time since e-SRAM test usually includes a long period of "zero" power consumption for the detection of data retention faults, This paper takes advantage of this "zero" power period and proposes a "retention-aware" test power model for e-SRAMs. The proposed model is evaluated and its impact on test time reduction is reported for various scenarios in terms of retention test duration, memory capacities, test algorithm complexities, etc. A formula is derived to predict the maximum test time reduction when the "zero" power period is fully utilized in a SoC environment.


Usability concerns are often difficult to integrate into real-world software development processes. To remedy this situation, IBM research and development, partnering with Carnegie Mellon University, has begun to employ a repeatable and quantifiable usability analysis method, embodied in CogTool, in its development practice. CogTool analyzes tasks performed on an interactive system from a storyboard and a demonstration of tasks on that storyboard, and predicts the time a skilled user will take to perform those tasks. We discuss how IBM designers and UX professionals used CogTool in their existing practice for contract compliance, communication within a product team and between a product team and its customer, assigning appropriate personnel to fix customer complaints, and quantitatively assessing design ideas before a line of code is written. We then reflect on the lessons learned by both the development organizations and the researchers attempting this technology transfer from academic research to integration into real-world practice, and we point to future research to even better serve the needs of practice.


Regional evaluation of drought characteristics provides critical information for water resource management. In this case, this study attempts to analyze the probability behaviors of drought events of a given severity in the Pearl River Basin and to construct severity-area-frequency curves of drought events. Due to possible impacts of complicated topographical properties and diverse climate types within the Pearl River Basin, the entire Pearl River Basin is subdivided into different homogeneous regions. In general, the Pearl River Basin can be categorized into four homogeneous regions, and the severity-area-frequency analysis results for the short-, medium- and long-term drought episodes within each homogeneous regions indicate stressful challenge for the water resource management in the Pearl River Basin due to the fact that severe droughts usually occur over the entire Pearl River Basin. Meanwhile, the Pearl River Delta will face a higher risk of drought when compared to other regions of the Pearl River Basin in terms of the medium-term drought. The Pearl River Basin is highly economically development and is heavily populated, thus impacts of droughts and related resilience resolutions or policies should be taken into account in the formulation of regional sustainable development of water resources and socio-economy within the Pearl River Basin, China.


A battery-charging system for stand-alone photovoltaic (PV) applications is presented. Advantages of the proposed method are: better exploitation of the available PV energy by means of a maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique employed in the control algorithm, increased battery lifetime due to higher level state of charge operation, and the charging control process does not depend on accurate battery current measurements, reducing the effect of the current sensor sensitivity on the battery final state of charge. Also, since it is based on the battery current regulation principle, it can be effectively used with large battery strings. The experimental results verify that, using the proposed method, a better exploitation of the available PV energy, compared to a commercial battery charger based on the on/off principle, is achieved, and simultaneously a 100% battery state of charge is reached in shorter time.


There are billions of photographs on the Internet, representing an extremely large, rich, and nearly comprehensive visual record of virtually every famous place on Earth. Unfortunately, these massive community photo collections are almost completely unstructured, making it very difficult to use them for applications such as the virtual exploration of our world. Over the past several years, advances in computer vision have made it possible to automatically reconstruct 3-D geometry - including camera positions and scene models - from these large, diverse photo collections. Once the geometry is known, we can recover higher level information from the spatial distribution of photos, such as the most common viewpoints and paths through the scene. This paper reviews recent progress on these challenging computer vision problems, and describes how we can use the recovered structure to turn community photo collections into immersive, interactive 3-D experiences.


Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP), a 38-amino acid neuropeptide belonging to the secretin-glucagon-vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) family, performs a variety of functions in both the nervous and immune systems. In this study, we examined the effects of PACAP on experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) in C57BL/6 mice. When administrated intraperitoneally every other day after immunization with myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) peptide 35 -55, PACAP ameliorated both the clinical and pathological manifestations of EAE. Ex vivo examination revealed a significant inhibition of MOG35 55-specific Th1 response in mice treated with PACAP.In vitro analysis revealed that PACAP suppressed the production of inflammatory cytokines, including TNF-a, IL-1b, and IL-12, and expression of the costimulatory factor B7-2 on macrophage and microglia, which may function as antigen presenting cells (APC) in the CNS. While PACAP suppressed the differentiation of MOG35 55-specific T cells into Th1 effectors upon restimulation with MOG35 55-expressing APC, it did not affect interferon (IFN)-g production by MOG35 55-specific T cells stimulated with anti-CD3 and anti-CD28. These observations suggested that PACAP suppressed induction of EAE primarily via suppression of APC function and inflammatory cytokine production. PACAP may be useful in the future treatment of Th1-mediated autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis.


Congenital pulmonary vascular abnormalities arise from several etiologies. These anomalies are difficult to categorize and sorted into distinct classifications. Major pulmonary vascular abnormalities can be ranked as interruption of the main pulmonary artery or its absence, emergence of the left pulmonary artery in the right pulmonary artery, pulmonary venous drainage abnormalities, and pulmonary arteriovenous malformations (PAVMs). Some of the cases are asymptomatic and diagnosed by coincidence, whereas a few of them are diagnosed by typical findings in the newborn and infancy period, symptoms, and radiological appearances. Early diagnosis is important, since death may occur as a result of pulmonary and cardiac pathologies developed in patients with pulmonary vascular anomalies. In this case presentation, the clinical and radiological findings of patients that presented with different complaints and were diagnosed with pulmonary vascular anomalies were introduced.


Background: Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or metabolic syndrome (MS) present systemic inflammation and the association between diseases can increase risk of cardiovascular events. However, the influence of MS in survival of COPD patients is still unclear. Methods: We followed 115 COPD patients (age:64.5 ± 1.21years, FEV1:58.7 ± 2.75%) during five years and causes of death were noted. At baseline, patients' clinical history and physical examination were assessed, and anthropometric (weight, height, body mass index and waist circumference), spirometry, 6-minute walking distance (6MWD), dyspnea perception by the modified medical research council (MMRC), serum lipid profile and triglycerides measurements were performed. The diagnosis of MS was established by harmonization MS criteria. The Cox proportional hazard analysis was used to evaluate the influence of MS in the survival time, adjusted for potential confounders (age, gender and BODE index). Results: MS was present in 35.6% of patients and hypertension (47.8%) was the MS component more prevalent. More than 80% of the patients presented at least one diagnostic component of MS. During the period of study, 17.0% died. We did not observe statistical difference in mortality between groups with and without MS (HR:1.30, 95%CI: 0.32-5.20). Conclusion: Patients with COPD have intermediate prevalence of MS; however, no association between MS and mortality was found in these patients.


Probiotic Lactobacillus strains have been widely used in dairy products. Recently, attention has been directed to the use of probiotics in meat products, mainly in fermented sausages. The effect of the utilization of Lactobacillus casei, L. paracasei and L. rhamnosus strains on physicalchemical, microbiological and sensory quality of fermented sausage was evaluated. The sausages were processed in four batches: one was used as the control, while the other three batches received one of the probiotic strains each. The manufacturing procedure described for Italian salami with 25 days of fermentation and ripening was followed. The presence of probiotic Lactobacillus resulted in a faster pH decrease, which affected the taste of the probiotic sausages. There was an increase in acid notes, mostly in the sausage containing L. rhamnosus. The lactobacilli strains also decreased the growth of Staphylococcus xylosus; however, they did not affect the number of Pediococcus pentosaceus and the acceptability of the sausages in the sensory evaluation. All Lactobacillus strains showed an increase in viable cell count during manufacturing and this parameter remained high until the end of ripening. The viability of the utilization of probiotic Lactobacillus, especially L. paracasei and L. casei, in fermented sausage, maintaining the quality characteristics of the product, was demonstrated.


Obesity prevalence in developed countries has promoted the need to identify the mechanisms involved in control of feeding and energy balance. We have tested the hypothesis that different fats present in diet composition may contribute in body weight gain and body indexes by regulation of oxytocin gene (oxt) expression in hypothalamus and Oleylethanolamide (OEA) levels in plasma. Sprague-Dawley rats were fed two high fat diets, based on corn (HCO) and extra virgin olive oil (HOO) and results were compared to a low fat diet (LF). LC-MS/MS analysis showed an increasing trend of OEA plasma levels in HOO group, although no significant differences were found. However, body weight gain of LF and HOO were similar and significantly lower than HCO. HCO rats also had higher Lee index than HOO. Rats fed HOO diet showed higher levels of hypothalamic oxt mRNA expression, which could indicate that oxytocin may be modulated by dietary lipids.