Tectonic exposures of a volcanic sequence and sheeted dike complex over a 4‐km‐wide region at Hess Deep (equatorial Pacific) reveal significant spatial heterogeneity (10–103 m) in the extent and nature of hydrothermal alteration in young, fast spreading East Pacific Rise crust. The volcanic sequence is fairly uniformly altered, with only minor oxidation and alteration to clay minerals. Sheeted dikes in the eastern part of the field area are highly fractured with narrow intervals of intact dikes that dip up to 60°. Their alteration characteristics show a simple depth trend such that with increasing depth the dominant secondary mafic mineral changes from chlorite to amphibole, clinopyroxene replacement increases (<20% to >40%), whole rock δ18O values decreases (4.4–5.5‰ to 3.5–4.5‰), and calculated peak metamorphic temperatures increase (∼250°C to 450°–700°C). Within the deepest dikes, localized zones up to 400‐m‐wide are chlorite‐rich and have low‐δ18O (2.9–4.1‰) and low peak metamorphic temperatures (∼345°C). These alteration patterns likely formed within broad recharge zones whereby the low‐δ18O zones developed in the regions with the highest fluid flux. In the west, massive, slightly rotated sheeted dikes near the volcanic‐sheeted dike transition are δ18O and Cu depleted and display higher peak temperatures (≥345°C) than elsewhere in the shallow dikes. These characteristics are consistent with formation within a high temperature, hydrothermal discharge zone. We propose that the spreading history of a fast spreading ridge segment can create significant spatial heterogeneity in fluid flow and alteration patterns within sheeted dike complexes, similar to those preserved in many ophiolites.


This thesis presents the research of my PhD, which is the study of two-phase flows by using the phase-field methods. The key point for this work is the thermodynamic consistency. We begin by introducing an extension of the Model H to study the two-phase flows with thermocapilliary effects, where we assume that the coefficient of the surface tension is temperature dependent, and the classical energy equation is coupled with the Model H. We then investigate numerically an established phase-field model (Quasiincompressible NSCH model) for the two-phase flows with varible density. We design a numerical method where the energy law of the model is preserved at the discrete level. Fianlly we develop a new model to study the two-phase flows with thermocapilliary effects where the model allows the two fluids to have different physical properties meanwhile maintaining the thermodynamic consistency. The pillbox argument is employed to show that our model can reduce to the sharp-interface model where the jump conditions can be recovered.


Concanavalin A (Con A) has been used to rapidly and selectively agglutinate murine and avian oncornavirions from culture medium or plasma. The agglutinated virus was concentrated rapidly and gently by low-speed centrifugation and solubilization with alpha-methyl mannoside. Infectious virus was purified 2.3 times with respect to nucleic-acid content, and more than 60% of its infectivity was recovered. Infectious particles of densities 1.18 and 1.16 g/cm(3) were found in mouse cells infected with Friend virus. Con A reacted only with particles of density 1.16 g/cm(3), indicating heterogeneity with respect to carbohydrate content or structure as well as buoyant density. Electron microscopy of virus agglutinated with Con A showed a zone of Con A-glycoprotein complexes averaging 12-15 nm in thickness.


The IL-22 pathway has been shown to play an important role in the pathogenesis of liver fibrosis. However, little is known about the role of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in IL-22-related genes in relation to the severity of liver fibrosis. This study aimed to investigate the association of polymorphisms in IL22 and IL22RA1 genes with the severity of liver fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis C. A total of 326 patients (165 with mild fibrosis and 161 with severe fibrosis) were included. Four SNPs in IL22 (rs1179251, rs2227473, rs1012356, and rs2227485) and two in IL22RA1 (rs4648936 and rs3795299) were evaluated by real-time PCR. No significant association was observed between the polymorphisms studied and the severity of liver fibrosis. The SNPs rs1179251, rs2227473, rs1012356, and rs2227485 in IL22 and rs4648936 and rs3795299 in IL22RA1 may not be involved in the pathogenesis of liver fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis C.


Athletic contests constitute an important aspect of human affairs. However, the evolutionary origins of athletic behavior, that is, behavior which is associated with participating in and watching athletic contests, are rather obscure, as they do not seem to contribute directly to increasing survival or reproductive success. This article argues that athletic behavior has been shaped in ancestral times jointly by intrasexual selection forces, where men look for potential allies, and intersexual selection forces, where men look for spouses for their female relatives. On the basis of this evolutionary framework, a number of hypotheses are derived: First, men are more interested than women in taking part in and watching sports. In addition, men are more interested than women in taking part in and watching competitive sports than non-competitive sports, and are more interested in team sports than individual sports. Finally, men and women differ in their motives for participating in sports, while the sex differences in athletic behavior between men and women are consistent across different cultures. Evidence from a sample composed of 37 different countries provides support for all hypotheses.


The aim of this work was to replace sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) in chemical scrubbing towers, in order to avoid the formation of chlorinated species, harmful for human health. Some previous studies have already shown the ability of H2O2 to treat the hydrogen sulfide (H2S) pollution. However, an important decomposition of the oxidant was observed in the scrubbing solution (carbonates, transition metal and high pH are responsible for this decomposition) leading to high reactant consumption. Consequently, this study first focused on research into a compound able to reduce the hydrogen peroxide degradation. Experiments were conducted on a pilot unit (3,000 m3 h–1) in a wastewater treatment plant. The sodium silicate (Na2SiO3) proved to be a good scrubbing solution stabilizer. A very good removal of hydrogen sulfide (up to 98%) was also obtained. Finally, the study resulted in the determination of the best operating conditions to achieve both an efficient and economical process.


We investigate the recruitment into the upper class, analysing the impact of different forms of capital and modes of closure. Unlike many Bourdieu-influenced approaches to class, we systematically investigate divisions by composition of capital: the relative weight of economic to cultural capital. We find capital-specific barriers to mobility: access to the upper class fractions is not only differentiated by one's parents' volume of capital or the general class hierarchy, but also by the relative weight of cultural to economic capital. Drawing on theories of social closure, we further investigate the role of two distinct modes of closure – credentialism and private property. The degree of closure differs significantly between subfractions of the upper class, based on the degree to which they refer to positions involving specific credential requirements. Our findings underline the importance of capital composition, but also that closure operates by neither credentials nor property alone.


Abstract The Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event (T-OAE, c. 182 Ma) represents a major perturbation of the carbon cycle marked by widespread black shale deposition. Consequently, the onset of the T-OAE has been linked to the combined effects of global warming, high productivity, basin restriction and salinity stratification. However, the processes that led to termination of the event remain elusive. Here, we present palynological data from Arctic Siberia (Russia), the Viking Corridor (offshore Norway) and the Yorkshire Coast (UK), all spanning the upper Pliensbachian – upper Toarcian stages. Rather than a 'dinoflagellate cyst black-out', as recorded in T-OAE strata of NW Europe, both the Arctic and Viking Corridor records show high abundance and dinoflagellate diversity throughout the T-OAE interval as calibrated by C-isotope records. Significantly, in the Arctic Sea and Viking Corridor, numerous species of the Parvocysta and Phallocysta suites make their first appearance in the lower Toarcian Falciferum Zone much earlier than in Europe, where these key dinoflagellate species appeared suddenly during the Bifrons Zone. Our results indicate migrations of Arctic dinoflagellate species, driven by relative sea-level rise in the Viking Corridor and the establishment of a S-directed circulation from the Arctic Sea into the Tethys Ocean. The results support oceanographic models, but are at odds with some interpretations based on geochemical proxies. The migration of Arctic dinoflagellate species coincides with the end of the T-OAE and marks the arrival of oxygenated, low-salinity Arctic waters, triggering a regime change from persistent euxinia to more dynamic oxygen conditions.


Abstract A global spectral survey of 4506 immature craters with diameters <1 km was carried out using near-IR data from the Kaguya Spectral Profiler to characterize the composition of the lunar megaregolith. On the basis of band minima and radiative transfer mixing models, small crater spectra fall into three groups: (1) mare basalts with strong absorptions at relatively long wavelengths indicating high ratios of high- to low-Ca pyroxene; (2) norites containing about 50% plagioclase and with pyroxene assemblages dominated by low-Ca pyroxene that occur within the South Pole-Aitken Basin (SPA), near Apollo 14 and other locations near Imbrium Basin, and three major cryptomaria deposits; and (3) noritic anorthosites occurring within the Feldspathic Highlands Terrane containing about 20 wt% pyroxene with a pyroxene assemblage containing exclusively very low-Ca pyroxene. Very few pure anorthosites are present in this survey and there are no occurrences of pyroxene-poor olivine-rich assemblages. Models of the composition of basin ejecta incorporate large amounts of mantle material and the spectral results require that that the sampled mantle is orthopyroxenite. Basin depth-diameter ratios used in the models required to match the measured composition are consistent with prior estimates for the largest basins. The composition found in the SPA and Imbrium regions are consistent with mafic impact melt breccias or basaltic impact melts of basin origin. For SPA we model this composition and find it requires an extremely low impact angle. While this is consistent with prior work on an oblique impact for the SPA event, a more robust solution invokes the production of norite in impact melt seas.


Raman optical activity (ROA) spectra recorded for a chiral naphthalene diimide derivative (nBu-NDI–BINAM) dissolved in a series of solvents exhibit strong solute to solvent induced chirality with: (1) dominating bands of solvents, (2) nBu-NDI–BINAM resonance ROA (RROA) bands which are barely visible, (3) monosignate RROA Solvent spectra with an unexpected sign concordant with that of the ECD band of the resonant electronic state, (4) bisignate RROA bands for a few solvents, and (5) superposition of non-resonant and resonant ROA bands of the chiral solvents. The unusual ROA enhancement was explained in terms of resonance energy transfer with resonant Raman emission. The surprising RROA sign-switching was found to be due to specific conformational equilibria where one solute conformer dominates in the ground and the other in the first excited singlet state, and, the signs of the related ECD bands of these two conformers are opposite.


To avoid continuous damage of ozone layer and deterioration of global warming, many countries have devoted to the development and application of natural refrigerant. Although CO2, an alternative refrigerant in the area of air conditioning is not the best all-temperature refrigerant, it has the lowest operating risk as compared to hydrocarbon (HCs) and ammonia.Traditional drinking fountain provides heat source through secondary energy source - electric heating; however, the heating effect is limited. Since heat pump has a high performance, this study used a carbon dioxide heat pump, which has energy-saving effect and high efficiency, to provide heat source to drinking fountains. It further assembled the drinking fountain system with carbon dioxide heat pump and analyzed its performance.


In German, past participles not only occur in root position with a directive force, as in Stillgestanden! 'Stop!' lit. 'stood still(ptcp)', but also as performatives in responses: A: Du sagst also nichts zu Papi. 'So you won't tell dad.' B: Versprochen! 'I promise!' lit. 'promised(ptcp)'. Here B performs the speech act denoted by the verb by saying that it has been performed. The propositional argument of the participle (what is promised) is resolved contextually, and the agent and the recipient arguments are restricted to the speaker and the hearer, respectively. This article presents a syntactic analysis of this rarely studied phenomenon, arguing that the construction with a performative participle is not ellipsis but an IP with a participial head and null pronominal complements. The syntactic analysis is formalized within Lexical-Functional Grammar. A pragmatic analysis is proposed arguing that the performative participle in its core use alternates with Yes! to express agreement with an assertion or compliance with a request, that is, to express consent to the effect that a proposition p may safely be added to the Common Ground. This analysis is cast within the dialogue framework of Farkas & Bruce (2010) and extended to response performative participles in monological uses.*


A temporary network of 10 broad-band seismic stations has been installed in French Polynesia for the Polynesian Lithosphere and Upper Mantle Experiment (PLUME). All the seismic stations were installed either on volcanic islands or on atolls of the various archipelagos of French Polynesia in a manner which complements the geographic coverage provided by the regional permanent stations. The primary aim of PLUME is to image the upper mantle structures related to plate motion and hotspot activity. However, because of its proximity to all sites, the ocean is responsible for a high level of noise in the seismic data and we show that these data can also be used to analyse ocean wave activity. The power spectral density (PSD) analyses of the seismic data recorded in French Polynesia show clear peaks in the 0.05– 0.10 Hz band (periods between 10 and 20 s), which corresponds to swell frequencies. Clear peaks in this frequency band are also observed in infrasonic data recorded on Tahiti. Ground motion analysis shows that the swell-related seismic noise (SRSN) is linearly polarized in the horizontal plane and its amplitude decreases rapidly with the distance from the shore. The microseismic and the infrasonic 'noise' amplitudes show very similar variations from station to station and both are strongly correlated with the swell amplitudes predicted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), wind-forced, 'WaveWatch' models. The swell direction can be estimated from SRSN polarization analysis but this has to be done with care since, for some cases, the ground motions are strongly controlled by the islands' anisometric shapes and by swell refraction processes. We find cases, however, such as Tahiti or roughly circular Tuamotu atolls, where the azimuth of the swell is in good agreement with the seismic estimates. We, therefore, demonstrate that the SRSN and the infrasonic signal observed in French Polynesia can be used in such cases as a proxy for swell amplitude and azimuth. From the continuous analysis of the data recorded in 2003 at the permanent seismic station PPTL in Tahiti, transfer functions have been obtained. This could provide a way to quantify the swell activity during the last two decades and, therefore, assist in the investigation of climate changes.


Motivated by a priori uncertainty with respect to the parametric specification of the earnings function, I model the earnings function as semiparametric partially linear model and follow the estimation approach described in Robinson (1988). Using data from the personnel records of a large major UK based financial sector employer, I let years of within-firm and pre-firm experience form the nonparametrically modelled component of the earnings function. It is shown that the estimated within-firm experience earnings profiles, which are conditional upon a given number years of pre-firm experience accumulated before entry, converge and even overtake as years of pre-firm experience increases. This result can be explained with the recognition of unobservable explanatory variables, such as the match and individual quality of the employees, both of which are a function of years of within- and pre-firm experience and wages.


This is a brief description of how to access databases, books, journal articles, and other information on pastoral, theological and religious topics when doing research at Loyola University Chicago.


Malpractice litigation has dramatically increased in recent years, posing a major challenge to psychiatrists and other clinicians. The author reviews the current legal situation and major court decisions, and then addresses five categories of litigation specifically affecting psychiatry: (1) patients' acts of violence; (2) patient suicides; (3) patient injuries that result from negligent treatment; (4) faulty initiation, process, or termination of treatment; and (5) liability arising from employer, supervisory, or consultative relationships. He concludes that a sensitive and effective relationship between treaters and patients remains the best safeguard against malpractice litigation.


Background:
International guidelines recommend pulmonary rehabilitation for COPD patients in all stages of the disease, in particular for those patients who experience exercise-related restrictions in daily physical activities. The success of Pulmonary Rehabilitation programs resides in the integration between exercise prescription , the choice of methods and patients' compliance with home training. Several methods that can be applied to improve exercise performance in patients with COPD. One of the crucial issue for the patients is the understanding of the correct exercise intensity especially for the development of cardio-respiratory fitness (general exercise training). If the choice of method affects the area respiratory muscle training (inspiratory muscles training-IMT), normocapnic hyperventilation seems effective in improving exercise endurance in healthy subjects but few data are available for COPD patients. My PhD program consist in two studies with the common aim to evaluate the efficacy of different methods of training to improve exercise capacity and Quality of Life.
Study N°1:
The first study aimed to compare 2 methods of home exercise training (based on walking) titled
"A simple method for home exercise training in COPD patients: 1-year study"
Methods: 47 COPD were recruited and underwent respiratory function, exercise capacity evaluation with six minutes walking test (6MWT) and treadmill tests. Physical Activity was monitored by multisensor Armband. Patients were randomly assigned to 2 different home training methods and assessed again after 6 and 12 months. Group A1) speed walking marked by a metronome; Group A2) covering a known distance in a fixed time.
Results: Thirty-six patients completed the study (77% of the enrolled patients). All subjects showed a significant improvement in 6MWT after 1 year but the improvement was higher in A1 than in A2 (p<0.05). Physical Activity levels were significantly higher at T12 vs baseline only in group A1(p<0.05).
Conclusions: The use of a metronome to keep the rate of walking during the home exercise training improves the understanding of exercise intensity allowing the patients to follow the exercise prescription and to get better results.
Study N°2:
The second study aimed to assess the effects of 4 weeks of normocapnic hyperventilation (NH) by means of Spirotiger® titled "Inspiratory muscle training (IMT) with normocapnic hyperventilation (NH) improves respiratory muscle strength, exercise performance and ventilatory pattern in COPD patients".
Methods: 21 COPD were recruited. Respiratory function tests (FEV1, FVC, Pimax), QoL (St George's Questionnarie), 6MWT and endurance exercise performed at 75-80% of peak-work rate measured during an incremental test to the limit of tolerance (tLIM). 7 of 21 patients were instrumented with a portable inductive plethysmografhy (Lifeshirt System) to evaluate breathing pattern during tLIM. After 1 month of weekly supervised training, the patients trained at home for 4 weeks: 10 min twice a day at a breathing rate 12-24/min with a tidal volume (TV) equal to 50% of CV.
Results: 6 patients dropped out (poor compliance). IMT significantly improved Pimax, QoL, exercise capacity (Tab 1). Ventilatory pattern after IMT is characterized by a significantly higher TV with no change in VE (Tab 2).
Table1
FEV1(%)
FVC(%)
Pimax(KPa)
QoL(tot)
tLIM(min)
6MWt(m)
preIMT
55,216,9
82,322,8
8,93
22,716,6
6,43,4
43674,5
postIMT
57,615,8
82,724,1
9,72,8*
17,512,2*
10,37,4*
466,279,7*
Table2
SpO2mean(%)
VE(L/min)
TV(L/min)
Br(b/min)
preIMT
912,2
28,616,1
0,80,4
334,2
postIMT
92,31,5*
2916,4
0,90,4*
30,86,5
*p<0,05.
Conclusions: After a short IMT with NH, COPD patients show a higher exercise capacity and an intriguing change in ventilatory pattern which improves oxygen saturation.


When 2,3- or 3,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid, 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine, and 3,4-dihydroxycinnamic acid are added to growth media, they are converted to a characteristic brown pigment by Cryptococcus neoformans. This pigment formation has hitherto been encountered only when this microorganism was cultivated on media containing Guizotia abyssinica seed. This phenomenon can be used for differentiating Cryptococcus neoformans from Candida albicans. Possible precursors of these o-diphenols (quinic acid, aromatic monohydroxy acids, or tyrosine) do not give rise to the brown pigmentation.


Failure to correct for pension risk leads to upward-biased discount rate estimates in firms with pension risk exposure. The result is a negative and economically significant relation between pension risk and corporate investment. The effect is confined to investment decisions that require discount rate estimates. Moreover, it is stronger if project value is more sensitive to such estimates. Because of this bias, firms miss valuable investment opportunities. The results survive robustness tests that address endogeneity concerns and alternative interpretations of the evidence. The general implication is that non-operating risks can distort corporate investment decisions.


Metasurfaces are artificially engineered two‐dimensional materials composed of sub‐wavelength meta‐atoms, which have shown unprecedented capabilities in manipulating the amplitude, phase, frequency, and polarization states of electromagnetic waves. Specifically, polarization control can be attained via suitable anisotropic, linear, and time‐invariant designs, while frequency conversion is realized via nonlinear or time‐varying platforms. Simultaneous manipulations of polarization and frequency would be of considerable practical interest in many application scenarios, but remain unattainable with current approaches. Here, a time‐division‐multiplexing metasurface is proposed to realize the simultaneous conversion of polarization and frequency. The platform relies on time‐modulated polarization switches and, by varying the duty cycle and time delays of the polarization channels, can arbitrarily rotate the polarization at the central frequency of operation, and synthesize various polarization states at selected harmonic frequencies. Theoretical predictions are validated via measurements on a prototype operating at microwave frequencies, providing the first experimental evidence of simultaneous polarization and frequency conversions via time‐division‐multiplexing metasurfaces. The outcomes open a new pathway in manipulating the electromagnetic waves via time‐varying metasurfaces, and may be of interest for a broad variety of applications in scenarios ranging from polarization imaging to quantum optics.


This study tests the hypothesis that atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) and C-ANF(4-23)-NH2 (C-ANF) augment cGMP generation and inhibit both cAMP generation and depolarization-induced catecholamine release in nerve growth factor treated pheochromocytoma cells by a pertussis toxin (PTX)-sensitive mechanism. Synthetic rat ANF(99-126) and the clearance receptor antagonist C-ANF (10(-12)-10(-9) M) inhibited basal and 5 microM vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP)-induced cAMP generation in a concentration-dependent manner. These actions of ANF and C-ANF were blocked by 12-18 h pretreatment with PTX (100 ng/ml), suggesting ANF receptor coupling to adenylate cyclase via an inhibitory guanine nucleotide-binding protein. Both ANF (10(-11)-10(-9) M) and C-ANF (10(-11)-10(-8) M) also inhibited K(+)-induced catecholamine release in a concentration-dependent manner. ANF (10(-11)-10(-8) M) increased cGMP generation in a concentration-dependent manner but C-ANF did not. The accumulation of cGMP in response to ANF was not altered by treatment with PTX. Therefore, PTX dissociated the increased concentrations of cGMP from the ANF-mediated depression of evoked catecholamine release. C-ANF also dissociated elevations in cGMP concentrations from an ANF-mediated attenuation of evoked catecholamine release. The results of this study indicate that ANF inhibits adrenergic neurotransmission independent of guanylate cyclase.


This paper studies an optimal insurance problem with finitely many potential policyholders. A monopolistic, risk-neutral insurer offers an insurance contract, and exponential utility maximizing individuals accept the offer or not. We allow for heterogeneity in the preferences of the individuals, while the insurer cannot discriminate in the insurance premium. We show that it is optimal for the insurer to offer only a full insurance contract, and the price optimization problem is reduced to a discrete problem, where the premium is an indifference premium for one individual in the market. Moreover, if individuals can self-select their insurance coverage given the market premium rate, then we find that partial insurance is generally optimal. Since the risk aversion parameters of individuals is generally unobserved, we also present a simulation-based framework. We show its convergence, and provide numerical examples.


In this study, antibacterial activities of some essential oils against Paenibacillus larvae were investigated as an alternative to synthetic antibiotics used against American foulbrood (AFB), which causes serious damage to the beekeeping industry. Ten essential oils belonging to various species and carvacrol, the major component of Origanum onites oil, were analyzed. Besides examining the antibacterial activities of the essential oils in the experiments, composition of the oils was investigated by gas chromatography (GC) and GC–mass spectroscopy (GC–MS) analysis. The minimum inhibition concentrations (MICs) of the effective essential oils were also determined. The conclusions resulting from these observations were that Origanum onites oil showed the strongest antibacterial activity. Rosmarinus officinalis, Seseli andronakii, Pimpinella anisum, Heracleum platytaenium, Anethum graveolens, Bifora radians, and Seseli tortuosum were respectively found to be effective coming after Origanum onites. Seseli petraeum and Seseli resinosum, two different species within the same genus showed no antibacterial activity against AFB. The results show that composition of the essential oils is very important for antibacterial effect; in fact antibacterial effect is determined by the major component in the essential oil composition. However, intercomponent synergetic effect is as important as the major component itself according to the results of carvacrol experiments.


Although the cranial anatomy of the lysorophian tetrapod Brachydectes has been reported in detail recently, many attributes of the group are inadequately known, and lysorophian systematics remain unclear.  One under-described aspect of the genus is the development and variation of cranial ornamentation.  Whereas the smallest skulls (< 5 mm in length) lack sculpturing, ornamentation increases in progressively larger specimens and is conspicuous in the largest (> 30 mm skull length) individuals.  It includes rugose ornament on the anterior cranial roof elements (frontals and anterior parietals) and pustular ornament on the posterior elements (posterior parietals and postparietals).  Such ornamentation is unique within recumbirostrans and is identified as an ontogenetic feature.


Viscous pressure forming (VPF) uses a highly viscous but flowable material as pressure-carrying medium (PCM). Due to the relative low flowability of viscous medium compared with fluid, nonuniform pressure distribution in viscous medium can be used to control and regulate the deformation sequence of the workpiece through controlling the loading mode of viscous medium. In the present study, viscous pressure bulge (VPB) tests with three kinds of loading location of viscous medium (central zone, corner zone and the whole deformation zone) are conducted and the influences of loading location of viscous medium on sheet deformation behavior are investigated via numerical simulations and experiments. It is found that changing the loading location of viscous medium can greatly affect the deformation behavior of sheet metal. When the viscous medium is injected from the die corner zone, a local high pressure formed at the corner zone of sheet metal and a higher limiting dome height and strains are obtained.


Object state behavior implies that the effect of an operation on an object may depend on the states of the object and other objects. It may cause state changes to more than one object. Thus, the combined or composite effects of the object operations must be analyzed and tested. We show that certain object state behavior errors cannot be detected readily by conventional testing methods. We describe an object state test method consisting of an object state model, a reverse engineering tool, and a composite object state testing tool. The object state test model is an aggregation of hierarchical, concurrent, communicating state machines envisioned mainly for object state testing. The reverse engineering tool produces an object state model from any C++ program. The composite object state testing tool analyzes the object state behaviors and generates test cases for testing object state interactions. We show the detection of several composite object state behavior errors that exist in a well-known thermostat example.


Reflection coefficients for higher‐order modes impinging on the ends of finite rectangular ducts were predicted and measured. The results show coupling between propagating and evanescent modes. Expressions for the reflection coefficients in terms of modal coefficients and modal impedances have been developed. Radiation patterns were predicted from the knowledge of the coupling coefficients. It was found that higher‐order modes radiate most of their energy off towards the sides and less straight ahead than the plane wave mode.


Objective Cervical cancer is a major cause of mortality among women in developing countries. Thus, it is necessary to offer novel therapies to treat this malignancy. Astemizole has been suggested as a novel and interesting anticancer agent because it targets several proteins involved in cancer including Eag1 (ether à-go-go-1) potassium channels. Eag1 has been proposed as a tumor marker for different types of cancer. Actually, we previously suggested Eag1 channels as cervical cancer and dysplasia markers. Besides, Eag1 has been proposed as a therapeutic target for different malignancies. However, the effect of astemizole in cervical cancer cells is unknown. Therefore, we investigated the effect of astemizole on the proliferation and apoptosis of cervical cancer cells. Methods Five cervical cancer cell lines (HeLa, SiHa, CaSki, INBL, and C-33A) were cultured according to manufacturer's instructions. Eag1 protein expression was studied by immunocytochemistry. Cell proliferation was assayed with the MTT method, and apoptosis was investigated by flow cytometry. Results Eag1 protein expression was observed in different cell lines. Astemizole decreased cell proliferation in up to 40% and increased apoptosis severalfold in all the cell lines studied. Conclusions Our results suggest astemizole as a potential therapy for cervical cancer.


The synthesis and the optical properties of a new organic–inorganic hybrid material (C6H22N4)[Pb2Br8] (abbreviated as TETAPb2Br8) is reported here. Its ladder‐like crystal structure is built up from infinite 1D chains of corner‐sharing [Pb2Br8]4− bi‐octahedra surrounded by tetra‐protonated triethylenetetramine (abbreviated as TETA4+) organic cations. Under UV excitation, this hybrid organic–inorganic compound emits white light due to radiative recombinations of self‐trapped excitons associated with a structural distortion of the PbBr6 octahedra. Thin films of TETAPb2Br8 show a photoluminescence (PL) quantum yield of ≈11% and exhibit a Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage coordinates of (0.32, 0.37). In the low‐temperature range, the PL intensity increases with increasing temperature. This negative thermal quenching of white‐light emission is interpreted in terms of transitions between excitonic states involving an exciton–phonon interaction. The interpretations are supported by the temperature dependence of the resonant Raman scattering and by density functional theory calculations.


: The paper deals with the specific features of using Doppler transcranial sonography in patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage. It describes the advantages and disadvantages of the method for the diagnosis of arterial spasm of various intracranial arteries. A comparison of angiographic and Doppler sonographic findings revealed that the values of the peak systolic velocity of blood flow (r = -0.875, p < 0.0001) are the most informative for the diagnosis of the extent of intracranial arterial lumenal narrowing. Patients with aneurysm ruptures in the internal carotid and middle cerebral arteries were found to have a pronounced increase in the blood flow velocity at the site of aneurysm. The intracranial arterial blood flow parameters critical for the development of brain ischemia during cerebral arterial spasm after subarachnoid hemorrhage are specified in the paper.


Recently, research in the field of protein amyloid fibers has gained great attention due to the use of these materials as nanoscale templates for the construction of functional hybrid materials. The formation of apoferritin amyloid-like protein fibers is demonstrated herein for the first time. The morphology, size and stiffness of these one-dimensional structures are comparable to the fibers formed by β-lactoglobulin, a protein frequently used as a model in the study of amyloid-like fibrillar proteins. Nanometer-sized globular apoferritin is capable of self-assembling to form 1D micrometer-sized structures after being subjected to a heating process. Depending on the experimental conditions, fibers with different morphologies and sizes are obtained. The wire-like protein structure is rich in functional groups and allows chemical functionalization with diverse quantum dots (QD), as well as with different Alexa Fluor (AF) dyes, leading to hybrid fluorescent fibers with variable emission wavelengths, from green to near infrared, depending on the QD and AFs coupled. For fibers containing the pair AF488 and AF647, efficient fluorescence energy transfer from the covalently coupled donor (AF488) to acceptor tags (AF647) takes place. Apoferritin fibers are proposed here as a new promising template for obtaining hybrid functional materials.


Genetic associations with macroscopic brain networks can provide insights into healthy and aberrant cortical connectivity in disease. However, associations specific to dynamic functional connectivity in Alzheimer's disease are still largely unexplored. Understanding the association between gene expression in the brain and functional connectivity may provide useful information about the molecular processes underlying variations in impaired brain function. Given the potential of dynamic functional connectivity to uncover brain states associated with Alzheimer's disease, it is interesting to ask: How does gene expression associated with Alzheimer's disease map onto the textit{dynamic} functional brain connectivity? If genetic variants associated with neurodegenerative processes involved in Alzheimer's disease are to be correlated with brain function, it is essential to generate such a map. Here, we investigate how the relation between gene expression in the brain and dynamic functional connectivity arises from nodal interactions, quantified by their role in network centrality (i.e., the drivers of the metastability), and the principal component of genetic co-expression across the brain. Our analyses include genetic variations associated with Alzheimer's disease and also genetic variants expressed within the cholinergic brain pathways. Our findings show that contrasts in metastability of functional networks between Alzheimer's and healthy individuals can in part be explained by the two combinations of genetic co-variations in the brain with the confidence interval between $72%$ and $92%$. The highly central nodes, driving the brain aberrant metastable dynamics in Alzheimer's disease highly correlate with the magnitude of variations of the two combinations of genes expressed in brain. These nodes include mainly the white matter, parietal and occipital brain regions, each of which (or their combinations) are involved in impaired cognitive function in Alzheimer's disease. In addition, our results provide evidence of the role of genetic associations across brain regions in asymmetric changes in ageing. We validated our findings on the same cohort using alternative brain parcellation methods. This work demonstrates how genetic variations underpin anomaly in dynamic functional connectivity in Alzheimer's disease.


Long Noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are transcribed RNAs molecules greater than 200 nucleotides in length. Nowadays, lncRNAs are found to have lots of functions including regulating transcription, post-transcriptional RNA processing, translation, gene rearrangement and chromatin modification. Abnormal expressions and functional abnormity of lncRNAs may play an important role in the development and progress of autoimmune diseases. Thus a systematic and comprehensive profiling of lncRNA will help us to have a deeper understanding of the pathogenesis of the diseases. This article will focus on the latest research progress of lncRNA in autoimmune diseases, which will contribute to clinical applications for diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of autoimmune diseases.


Atrial fibrillation (AF) is supraventricular tachyarrhythmia characterized by uncontrolled atrial activation, and deteriorates atrial function. In AF patients, increasing of age is related with enlarge left atrium (LA), diminished flow velocity of left atrial appendage (LAA), and spontaneously contrast echo, with other factors which are predisposition for LA thrombus. In AF patients, thromboemboli after cardioversion without anticoagulant administration is 1.5-3.0%. Elderly patient is not contraindication for anticoagulant, although higher risk for bleeding. For stroke prevention in >65 years of age whilst the patient is candidate for oral anticoagulant warfarin, it should be prescribed to reach INR 2.0-3.0. Some reports on anticoagulant evaluation (INR) and bleeding as complication of warfarin prescribed for AF treatment are not significantly different in elderly and younger patients.


The distribution of nutrients and chlorophyll-a ( Chl-a ) in reservoir could provide data for decision making. In-situ measurements were performed in April, June, August and October of 2013 in the Panjiakou, a channel reservoir located in Hebei Province of China. Sampling points of total phosphorus (TP) and total nitrogen (TN) were set at 0.5 m under water surface, 1/2 water depth and near the bottom, respectively, while Chl-a were set according to thermocline. The spatiotemporal variations of TN, TP and Chl-a were studied using Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) method, and the influence of nutrients on Chl-a was examined using an empirical method. Generally, the peak values of both TN and TP concentrations appeared in October. The TN concentration in the upstream was higher than that in the downstream, while the TP concentration was opposite. High nutrients concentration or low nitrogen to phosphorous ratio (NPR) promoted the increase of Chl-a concentration. However, phosphorus was the limiting element to Chl-a as it had placed greater contribution to NPR than nitrogen. Therefore, limiting phosphorus input is important to improve reservoir water quality.


Chemical, physical, and mechanical methods are used to control human lice. Attempts have been made to eradicate head lice Pediculus humanus capitis by hot air, soaking in various fluids or asphyxiation using occlusive treatments. In this study, we assessed the maximum time that head lice can survive anoxia (oxygen deprivation) and their ability to survive prolonged water immersion. We also observed the ingress of fluids across louse tracheae and spiracle characteristics contrasting with those described in the literature. We showed that 100% of lice can withstand 8 h of anoxia and 12.2% survived 14 h of anoxia; survival was 48.9% in the untreated control group at 14 h. However, all lice had died following 16 h of anoxia. In contrast, the survival rate of water-immersed lice was significantly higher when compared with non-immersed lice after 6 h (100% vs. 76.6%, p = 0.0037), and 24 h (50.9% vs. 15.9%, p = 0.0003). Although water-immersed lice did not close their spiracles, water did not penetrate into the respiratory system. In contrast, immersion in colored dimeticone/cyclomethicone or colored ethanol resulted in penetration through the spiracles and spreading to the entire respiratory system within 30 min, leading to death in 100% of the lice.


Once the exclusive preserve of member states, international organizations have become increasingly open in recent decades. Now virtually all international organizations at some level involve NGOs, business actors and scientific experts in policy-making. This book offers the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of this development. Combining statistical analysis and in-depth case studies, it maps and explains the openness of international organizations across issue areas, policy functions and world regions from 1950 to 2010. Addressing the question of where, how and why international organizations offer transnational actors access to global policy-making, this book has implications for critical issues in world politics. When do states share authority with private actors? What drives the design of international organizations? How do activists and businesses influence global politics? Is civil society involvement a solution to democratic deficits in global governance?


A medium designed for the detection of motility, indole, lysine decarboxylase and deaminase reactions, and H2S production was devised and evaluated. Results, using 157 strains of enteric pathogens, were in agreement with reference methods. When 300 isolates from fecal cultures were screened using this medium, Shigella was easily differentiated from Escherichia and more of the Proteus species, especially P. morganii, could be eliminated from further study.


OBJECTIVE Little is known about arsenic and diabetes in youth. We examined the association of arsenic with type 1 and type 2 diabetes in the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth Case-Control (SEARCH-CC) study. Because one-carbon metabolism can influence arsenic metabolism, we also evaluated the potential interaction of folate and vitamin B12 with arsenic metabolism on the odds of diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Six hundred eighty-eight participants <22 years of age (429 with type 1 diabetes, 85 with type 2 diabetes, and 174 control participants) were evaluated. Arsenic species (inorganic arsenic [iAs], monomethylated arsenic [MMA], dimethylated arsenic [DMA]), and one-carbon metabolism biomarkers (folate and vitamin B12) were measured in plasma. We used the sum of iAs, MMA, and DMA (∑As) and the individual species as biomarkers of arsenic concentrations and the relative proportions of the species over their sum (iAs%, MMA%, DMA%) as biomarkers of arsenic metabolism. RESULTS Median ∑As, iAs%, MMA%, and DMA% were 83.1 ng/L, 63.4%, 10.3%, and 25.2%, respectively. ∑As was not associated with either type of diabetes. The fully adjusted odds ratios (95% CI), rescaled to compare a difference in levels corresponding to the interquartile range of iAs%, MMA%, and DMA%, were 0.68 (0.50–0.91), 1.33 (1.02–1.74), and 1.28 (1.01–1.63), respectively, for type 1 diabetes and 0.82 (0.48–1.39), 1.09 (0.65–1.82), and 1.17 (0.77–1.77), respectively, for type 2 diabetes. In interaction analysis, the odds ratio of type 1 diabetes by MMA% was 1.80 (1.25–2.58) and 0.98 (0.70–1.38) for participants with plasma folate levels above and below the median (P for interaction = 0.02), respectively. CONCLUSIONS Low iAs% versus high MMA% and DMA% was associated with a higher odds of type 1 diabetes, with a potential interaction by folate levels. These data support further research on the role of arsenic metabolism in type 1 diabetes, including the interplay with one-carbon metabolism biomarkers.


BACKGROUND
Controversy and speculation exist regarding intracranial pressure (ICP) changes produced by various combinations of rapid sequence intubation (RSI) agents. In this pilot study, we sought to develop a swine model to investigate these changes in classic RSI.

METHODS
Eight adult swine were instrumented with arterial and intracranial pressure monitors. Four different versions of rapid sequence intubation were then performed sequentially in each animal in a crossover trial design: regimen 1, thiopental; regimen 2, thiopental and succinylcholine; regimen 3, lidocaine, thiopental, and succinylcholine; and regimen 4, pancuronium, lidocaine, thiopental, and succinylcholine. ICP and hemodynamic parameters were recorded and compared. Trials were excluded from analysis if baseline ICP measurements were unstable or if intubation was difficult.

RESULTS
Peak changes in ICP were noted at 2 to 3 minutes after administration of induction agents. Mean values for peak changes in ICP were as follows: regimen 1 (n = 5), 3.6 mm Hg (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.0-6.2 mm Hg); regimen 2 (n = 9), 13.6 mm Hg (95% CI, 9.6-17.6 mm Hg); regimen 3 (n = 2), 16.0 mm Hg (95% CI, -34.8-66.8 mm Hg); and regimen 4 (n = 3), 12.0 mm Hg (95% CI, -8.3-32.3 mm Hg).

CONCLUSION
The model is effective. It enables investigators to examine the aggregate ICP effects of combinations of RSI medications. RSI regimens with paralysis produced threefold increases in peak ICP change compared with the sedation-only regimen. Pretreatment agents did not affect ICP changes. Future investigations can examine other agents and add experimental manipulation of ICP to simulate head injury physiology. Additional parameters including cerebral metabolism and/or oxygenation may also be explored.


Jaws osteonecrosis were, in most cases, caused by external irradiation. It was otherwise a rare occurrence. However, bisphosphonates have recently been associated with osteonecrosis of the mandible or the maxilla. Bisphosphonates are widely used in the treatment of osteoporosis, multiple myeloma and osteolytic bone metastases. They inhibit bone resorption by osteoclasts and disrupt the bone turnover. The so-caused bone expositions are painful and prone to surinfection. Even after cessation of the bisphosphonates, the results of medical and surgical treatment are very inconsistent. A thorough dental check-up is recommended before initiating a course of bisphosphonates.


In the last decade sheet metal forming market has undergone substantial mutations since the development of more efficient strategies in terms of flexibility and cost reduction is strictly due. Such requirements are not consistent with traditional metal stamping processes which are characterized by complex equipment, capital and tooling costs; thus the industrial application of such processes is economically convenient just for large scale productions. For this reason most of the research work developed in the last years has been focused on the development of new sheet forming processes able to achieve the above discussed goals. Contemporary, with particular reference to the automotive industries the requirement of light components and the engineering of the outer skin parts of the vehicles have determined the growing utilization of tailored blanks characterized by either different material or different sheet thickness. In the paper SPIF processes of FS welded aluminium blanks are investigated in order to analyse the product properties in terms of strength and formability. A proper experimental investigation has been carried out and interesting guidelines have been highlighted in the next paragraphs.Copyright © 2006 by ASME


Normal microflora plays a key role in ensuring and maintaining the health of human body. Currently, much attention is paid not only to rational, but the so-called optimal, or health nutrition, which includes individual selection of food, the most satisfying human needs for energy, plastic and regulatory components. The aim of our study was to evaluate the effectiveness of pre-and probiotics in correction of the intestine microbiocenosis, effect on the rate of the hyperendotoxemia and related functional changes in the liver and lipid metabolism. In our study, we identified changesof the intestine microbiocenosis, which led to endotoxemia to develop, and the associated changes in liver enzymes and lipid blood composition in patients after various variants of the hemicolectomy. During treatment were selected 50 patients with dysbiosis 2 - 4-th degree who underwent hemicolectomy. In the 1st groupwere patients (25 pat.) with the prevailing complaints of constipation that were performed therapy with lactulose prebiotics (Dyufalak) at 20 - 30 ml per day for 3 months. In the 2nd group were patients (25 pat.) with complaints of diarrhea and was conducted therapy with bifiform probiotic in a daily dose to 2 capsules 2 times a day for 3 months. The results of studies performed after treatment showed that the admission of pro-and prebiotics in patients after hemicolectomy, has a high efficiency in micro biocenosis restoring and had a positive effect not only on bacterial composition of the microflora, but also on the functional state of the liver and lipid levels in patients serum.


A distinct gap between the fields of peptide-based supramolecular assemblies and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) exists. Despite recent efforts to explore this area of materials, many metal-directed peptide-based assemblies remain unpredictable, necessitating deeper study to establish robust design principles with which functional materials may be built. The profound unpredictability is not surprising, since peptide-based building blocks are more complex than others which have achieved success in organic and inorganic materials chemistry. The present study attempts to expand and solidify basic design rules for self-assembling metal-directed peptide-based architectures by first exerting control over the assembly of a serendipitously discovered supramolecular lattice. Recent published work has shown coiled-coil peptides containing one or more unnatural solvent-exposed terpyridine (Tpy) side chains can self-assemble to form supramolecular networks in the presence of copper (II) ion. Unexpected was the involvement of glutamic acid (Glu) side chains in the coordination motif (Tpy-Cu2+-Glu). Here, we seek to exert better control over these materials through systematic placement of both Tpy and Glu residues. Results are presented for six designed sequences, including one that manifests a hexagonal net rare in the materials literature. Collectively, these results demonstrate the power of harnessing peptide folding and metal coordination as driving forces for the formation of predictable supramolecular architectures.


Attitude estimation from vector observations is widely employed in aerospace applications for accurate integrated navigation using solutions to Wahba's problem. Wahba's solutions are practical but may corrupt facing critical cases in the presence of almost collinear reference vector measurements, which is inevitable in robotic applications with redundant sensor arrays or platforms with celestial vision sensors in similar directions. Different from existing algorithms, this paper presents a novel sequential multiplicative quaternion attitude estimation method from various vector sensor outputs. The unique linear constitution of the algorithm leads to its specific name of Recursive Linear Quaternion Estimator (RLQE). The algorithm's architecture is designed to use each single pair of vector observation linearly so that the vector observations can be arbitrarily chosen and fused. The closed-form covariance of the RLQE is derived that builds up the existence of a highly reliable RLQE Kalman filter (RLQE-KF). Simulations and experiments are carried out to give the performances of our algorithm and representative ones. Compared with other works, the proposed RLQE maintains good precision, better consistency and lower variance bounds. Moreover, the attitude estimation performance with critical cases is especially much better than conventional Wahba's solution on its continuity, accuracy and variance.


An extensive study on the electrical properties of Si nanocrystals under dark and solar light exposure in AM1.5G conditions is presented. The nanostructures have been obtained through chemical vapor deposition of multilayers of ultrathin silicon rich oxide/SiO2 films and subsequent thermal annealing. The electrical data demonstrate that the current transport in such systems is mediated by tunnel effect, and the lowest effective energy barrier limiting the carrier transport has been found to be 1.7 eV, well below the values of 3.1 eV and 4.7 eV of free electrons and holes, respectively, at the standard Si/silicon dioxide interface. Under AM1.5G solar light illumination the contribution of the photocarriers increases with the voltage and above 60 V shows a trend toward saturation. A quantitative explanation of this saturation is discussed. Moreover, the photocarrier generation rate in the nanocrystals averaged over the solar spectrum region is evaluated.


We present theoretical and experimental results on the generation and detection of pulsed, relative-intensity squeezed light in a hot 87Rb vapor. The intensity noise correlations between a pulsed probe beam and its conjugate, generated through nearly degenerate four-wave mixing in a double-lambda system, are studied numerically and measured experimentally via time-resolved balanced detection. We predict and observe approximately − 1 dB of time-resolved relative-intensity squeezing with 50 ns pulses at 1 MHz repetition rate. (− 1.34 dB corrected for loss).


On Thursday, I had the unique opportunity of guest lecturing in The Hague, The Netherlands at a seminar hosted by the Asser International Sports Law Centre of the T.M.C. Asser Institute, which is a center for research and postgraduate education in the field of international and European law. The center publishes numerous books, including an international sports law series, and for those interested in how sports agents are regulated around the globe I highly recommend their recent publication on the subject, Players Agents Worldwide: Legal Aspects. The seminar provided a great opportunity to engage in a comparative approach to agent regulation, and there are glaring differences between the systems in the U.S. and Europe. In Europe, FIFA has been very proactive recently in unilaterally adopting strict rules and regulations that govern the certification and activities of agents, including in the areas of exam requirements, compulsory insurance, charging of fees and conflicts of interests (to name just a few). The first question from the perspective of an American familiar with agent regulation in the U.S. is obviously, why should FIFA have any say whatsoever in how agents conduct their business with players? That would be like the NFL dictating to players and agents how their relationship should operate. In the U.S., although we like to think that agent regulation is very complex with all of the various union agent regulations, state laws (UAAA), federal law (SPARTA), NCAA rules, and common law agency and fiduciary duty principles, agent regulation is much more complicated in Europe for a variety of reasons. First, public regulation of agents via national law oftentimes expressly contradicts FIFA's agent regulations (which bind its member associations that are also bound by national law). For example, national law may prohibit intermediaries from receiving any compensation from workers and only permit compensation to be paid by the employer (which obviously prohibits a player from compensating his agent as permitted by FIFA). To make it more complicated, national law takes precedent over regulations of private associations such as FIFA. However, in the U.S., for the most part, state laws governing agents do not contradict union regulations. State law just adds another layer of certification and fee requirements, and in many respects union regulations are actually more stringent on agents than state and federal law. Also, in the U.S., public regulators basically defer to the unions to monitor and regulate agent misconduct. As I discussed at the seminar, although players unions in the U.S. are private associations (like FIFA), the unions are essentially "quasi-public" regulators of agent activity involving both amateur and professional players because federal labor law affords them the status of "exclusive" representative of the players, which even exempts union agent regulations from antitrust law. While the FIFA regulations have been challenged before under the Treaty of Rome's restraint on trade laws in the Laurent Piau case (in the Court of First Instance), without the benefit of an exemption, the regulations will most likely be challenged again on the same grounds as FIFA continues to make them more strict on agents. …


Most recent decisions for breast cancer patients are made on the basis of prognostic and predictive factors. In addition to the traditional tumor/nodal/metastasis staging variables, estrogen and progesterone receptor status as assessed by biochemical ligand-binding assays are the only other factors that have been adequately validated and recommended for routine clinical use. Pathologists today, however, are evaluating estrogen and progesterone receptors almost exclusively by immunohistochemical means. Although many studies suggest that these tests might have equivalent or even superior abilities to predict patient outcome, there are important methodologic shortcomings to resolve before this technology achieves the clinical and technical validation necessary to justify its routine use. Many laboratories are also evaluating other factors for clinical use by immunohistochemical techniques, including, in particular, c-erbB-2, p53, and Ki-67 proliferation indices. Although available studies suggest that these factors might indeed be helpful in making treatment decisions, their clinical usefulness is still controversial, and, like the assessment of hormone receptors, there are important unresolved technical issues, such as how to prepare the tissue, which reagents to use and, most importantly, how to interpret the results. A few laboratories have gone to considerable effort to develop reproducible methods for evaluating these factors, and they have performed comprehensive studies demonstrating the prognostic and predictive significance of their results. Nonetheless, most laboratories offering these tests have not adequately validated them and might not even be aware of the issues needing attention. Unless laboratories validate their tests or follow the procedures of others who have, they run the risk of reporting meaningless and potentially harmful results. In the future, these and other factors will be incorporated into a prognostic index that will better reflect the biologic diversity of breast cancer and that will more accurately predict clinical outcome.


The macro-economy of Saudi Arabia has been dominated by oil exports. Between 1970 and 1995 these exports have accounted for more than 85% of total export earnings. Because of the fact that oil is an exhaustible resource, the price of which fluctuates considerably, and is produced in an enclave economy, the Saudi Arabian government had recognized the need to diversify their economy away from oil as the main source of income. Since the oil price crash in 1986, the Saudi Arabian government has adopted a new policy to develop non-oil sectors, such as manufacturing, agriculture and, more recently, non-oil minerals. The reasoning behind the new Saudi Arabian policy can be summarized as follows. Firstly, large reserves of both metallic and non-metallic minerals such as gold, iron, copper and strategic minerals have been found such as, phosphate and bauxite. Secondly, it is believed that the minerals industry has relatively strong links with other sectors inside the country. Finally, minerals exports, as well as other non-oil commodities, could help in reducing the instability in exports and in turn reduce Saudi Arabia's total revenues fluctuation. As Saudi Arabia is a vast country, the government has therefore focused not only on locating mineral deposits, but also on making them accessible for exploitation. Saudi Arabia occupies over 70% of the Arabian Peninsula which encompasses a territory of about more than 2 million sq. km. As a result, the issue of transportation infrastructure has been prominent on the government's agenda. The government's policies were advocated to better maintain, restore, rebuild, and invest in our highways, bridged, transit facilities, rail lines, airports, and ports. Therefore, the first aim of this paper is to evaluate the contribution of the non-oil minerals sector to the economic growth of Saudi Arabia during the period 1970-2005. The second aim is to identify and evaluate the role of the transportation infrastructure in the minerals sector.


Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and soluble TNF receptors (sTNFR1 and sTNFR2) have been implicated in infectious diseases. We investigated dynamic changes among TNF-alpha, membrane TNF receptors (mTNFR1 and mTNFR2), and sTNFR1 and sTNFR2 levels for patients with dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) and those not infected during a DEN-2 outbreak in southern Taiwan in 2002-2003. Patients with DHF showed the lowest levels of mTNFR1 and mTNFR2 expression. Multivariate analysis showed that a decrease in levels of mTNFR1 expression was the only factor significantly different between patients with DHF and those with dengue fever. Moreover, lower mTNFR1 expression was significantly correlated with higher plasma TNF-alpha levels, but not with sTNFR1 levels in patients with DHF. This finding suggests that a lower level of mTNFR1 expression in response to a higher plasma TNF-alpha level may be a pathogenic marker for early detection of DHF.


This text is an introduction to the future of mass media and mass communications – cross-media communications. Cross-media is explained through the presentation and analysis of contemporary examples and project-based tutorials in cross-media development. The text introduces fundamental terms and concepts, and provides a solid overview of cross-media communications, one that builds from a general introduction to a specific examination of media and genres to a discussion of the concepts involved in designing and developing cross-media communications.DOWNLOAD CMC MEDIA FILES: Hands-on exercises and media examples


This paper contributes to model the industry interconnecting structure in a network context. General predictive model (Rapach et al. 2016) is extended to quantile LASSO regression so as to incorporate tail risks in the construction of industry interdependency networks. Empirical results show a denser network with heterogeneous central industries in tail cases. Network dynamics demonstrate the variety of interdependency across time. Lower tail interdependency structure gives the most accurate out-of-sample forecast of portfolio returns and network centrality-based trading strategies seem to outperform market portfolios, leading to the possible 'too central to fail' argument.


The CD40 receptor is an important molecule regulating B lymphocyte proliferation, maturation, Ab class switching, and cell survival. In the present study, we identified signal transduction events triggered by cross-linking the CD40 receptor. Stimulation of Daudi B cells with anti-CD40 resulted in activation of p21ras, an important switch point in the regulation of cell growth and differentiation. Ras activation correlated with a stimulation of Rac1 and MEK-1 as well as tyrosine phosphorylation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase. Inhibition of endogenous Ras by transfection of transdominant inhibitory Ras prevented tyrosine phosphorylation or stimulation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase, Rac1, or MEK-1 upon CD40 receptor triggering, proving an activation of the Ras pathway by CD40. Ras activation was partially inhibited by either herbimycin A or calphostin pretreatment and completely inhibited by preincubation with a combination of both inhibitors, indicating a synergistic role for protein tyrosine kinases and diglycerides in Ras activation after CD40 stimulation. In support of a role for diglycerides, we detected a 30 +/- 5% decrease of cellular phosphatidylcholine content, correlating with a threefold increase of diacylglycerol synthesis induced by CD40. Supporting a role for protein tyrosine kinase, we measured a five- to eightfold stimulation of p56lyn and p58blk kinase activity. These results suggest the activation of the Ras pathway via an additive function of src kinases and phospholipases that may be important in the mediation of biologic effects after CD40 receptor engagement.


Standard methods of monitoring the fetus and maternal health during labor are cardiotocogram, tocography, ultrasound and magnetocardiograpghy. These methods have some limitations in real time continuous monitoring and cause some degree of inconvenience to the patient and demand special attendance of the obstetrician also these methods cannot be used for continuous monitoring of the fetal well being. To overcome the limitations of above techniques, a non-invasive bioimpedance measuring method is proposed. This technique helps in monitoring and recording of the electrical field distribution of a closed object. The output variation on the outer surface is likely to provide information because of fetal movements and related physiological parameters. It will also help in the development of Electrical Impedance Tomography based imaging technique for a closed body system with special reference to fetal monitoring in-utero during pregnancy and labor. Also we have developed the data acquisition system of 16 electrodes with software for image reconstruction.


A healthy debate on the treatment of metals recycling in the life cycle assessment (LCA) community has persisted for more than a decade. While no clear consensus across stakeholder groups has emerged, the metals industry has endorsed a set of recycling "facts" that support a single approach, end‐of‐life recycling, for evaluating the environmental benefits of metals recycling. In this article we draw from research conducted in several disciplines and find that three key tenets of the metals industry capture the theoretical potential of metals recycling from a metallurgical standpoint rather than reflecting observed behavior. We then discuss the implications of these conclusions on environmental emissions from metals production and recycling. Evidence is provided that, contrary to the position of the metals industry, metals are not necessarily recycled at high rates, are recycled only a small number of times before final disposal, and are sometimes limited in recycling potential by the economics of contaminant removal. The analysis concludes that metal recycled from old scrap largely serves as an imperfect substitute for primary metal. As a result, large‐scale displacement of primary production and its associated environmental emissions is currently limited to a few specific instances.


The present article describes the development of a Modern Biased Information Test (MBIT) inspired by the work published by Donald Campbell in 1950 on indirect measures of prejudice. A biased information test aims to tap individuals' intergroup attitudes from the selective information they use to describe group members. Two biased information tests were developed to measure ethnocentric and androcentric biases, respectively, and applied in four convenience samples of students from two different cultural settings (Costa Rica and the USA). The internal consistency for the accuracy indicators derived from both tests was acceptable and comparable across cultures. In contrast, the internal consistency for ethnocentric biases was adequate across samples and cultures, but the internal consistency for androcentric biases was unacceptable across both cultures. Results are discussed in the line of the usefulness of alternative measures for tapping implicit attitudes.


Cellular membranes have a complex phospholipid composition that varies greatly depending on the organism, cell type and function. In spite of this complexity, most structural data available for phospholipid bilayers concern model systems containing only one or two different phospholipids. Here, we examine the effect of cholesterol on the structure of a complex membrane reflecting the lipid composition of mitochondrial membranes, with five different types of headgroups (phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), phosphatidylinositol (PI), phosphatidylserine (PS) and cardiolipin (CL)) and a variety of hydrocarbon tails. This particular system was chosen because elevated cholesterol contents in mitochondrial membranes have been linked to a breaking down of Bax-mediated membrane permeabilization and resistance to cancer treatments. High resolution electron density profiles were determined by X-ray reflectivity, while the area per phospholipid chain, Apc, and the chain order parameter, SX-ray, were determined by wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS). We show that chain order increases upon the addition of cholesterol, resulting in both a thickening of the lipid bilayer and a reduction in the average surface area per phospholipid chain. This effect, well known as cholesterol's condensation effect, is similar, but not as pronounced as for single-component phospholipid membranes. We conclude by discussing the relevance of these findings for the insertion of the pro-apoptotic protein Bax in mitochondrial membranes with elevated cholesterol content.


Dating back to 1992, healthcare in Colombia is characterized by a managed competition model, where citizens may choose between one of the health insurance companies. Insurers are financed by premiums and tax revenues. Healthcare services are largely provided by private care providers, but there are also public hospitals. Access to secondary care is dependent on a GP referral and the insurer's authorization. Remuneration of services (emergency care excepted) depends on a contract between provider and insurer. Services are usually contracted on a fee-for-services basis, in some areas a fee per capita is used. The Colombian healthcare system recently has made significant advances, for example regarding universal coverage (covering more than 95.6 per cent of the population). Some serious challenges remain, notably regarding a clearer delineation of the coverage, an increase of insurer's financial sustainability and actual or potential anticompetitive behaviour.


Some practical implications of the complex envelope representation of seismic signals are presented. Beginning with a look at an artificially constructed signal and proceeding to seismic records, it is seen that the complex envelope is more amenable to visual interpretation than the real signal itself. This is attributed to the natural separation of amplitude information from angle information afforded by the complex representation, and examples of arrival time measurement and P-coda correlation suggest that this leads to concrete seismological benefits. On this basis, it is suggested that the complex envelope may be a useful tool in seismic signal analysis.


1. Heart rate and respiratory frequency were recorded from free-range pochards and tufted ducks by using an implantable radio-transmitter. Particular attention was paid to the changes associated with natural diving behaviour which occurred on an outside pond (4 × 8 × 0.65 m depth). 2. Spontaneous dives, which occurred in the absence of any obvious external stimuli, often occurred in a series and there could be in excess of 40 dives in fairly quick succession. The first dive in a series was heralded by tachycardia and tachypnoea. Upon submersion there was transient bradycardia, but heart rate then increased over a period of 6-8 s until it was close to the value recorded when the bird was swimming on the pond before the dive. This rate was maintained throughout the dive. Upon surfacing, heart rate increased when lung ventilation commenced, and then decreased steadily until a few seconds before the next dive when it increased. The average duration of all spontaneous dives of a series was 8.4 ± 0.2 (137) s for pochards and 9.9 ± 0.8 (95) s for tufted ducks. The birds also dived in response to food being thrown onto the water (feeding dives). Changes in heart rate associated with these dives were similar to those described for the spontaneous dives. Heart rate did, however, tend to be higher during all stages of the feeding dives, and it often increased at the end of a dive before the bird started to ventilate its lungs. 3. When being chased with a net, the birds had extremely high values of heart rate and respiratory frequency. Immediately they dived to escape, heart rate fell to a rate which was similar to the rate recorded when the unstressed birds were swimming. This rate was maintained throughout the dive. Anticipatory increases in heart rate preceded lung ventilation at the end of the dives. 4. The birds showed a progressive reduction in heart rate when their heads were submerged under water in the laboratory. After 10 s submersion, heart rate was lower than the lowest heart rate recorded during any of the free-range dives.


The COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19) is a collection of over 400,000 of scholarly papers (as of January 11th, 2021) about COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, and related coronaviruses curated by the Allen Institute for AI. Carrying out an exploratory literature review of these papers has become a time-sensitive and exhausting challenge during the pandemic. The topic modeling pipeline presented in this thesis helps researchers gain an overview of the topics addressed in the papers. The preprocessing framework identifies Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) entities by using MedLinker, which handles Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) through a pretrained Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) model. The topic model used in this research is a Variational Autoencoder implementing ProdLDA, which is an extension to the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model. Applying the pipeline to the CORD19 dataset achieved a topic coherence value of 0.7 and topic diversity measures of almost 100%.


Due to chronic spectral congestion in the lower reaches of the RF spectrum and the envisaged demand for future high bit rate services, a number of wireless communication systems have been developed or proposed for the 5-20 GHz frequency range. For transceivers operating below 3 GHz, surface mount lumped element components or coaxial resonator structures are typically employed to realise the RF front end filtering requirements, due to size and cost considerations. However, for systems operating at these new, higher frequencies, distributed filter structures implemented in stripline geometries become attractive and this is likely to drive a resurgence of interest in distributed filter technology. Design methodologies for distributed element bandpass filters are well established and widely available. A linear circuit simulator CAD package is typically used to verify the design and characterise second order effects such as impedance discontinuities and field fringing. In addition, such packages usually include performance optimisation tools, allowing the designer to perform a rough hand calculation and then use the CAD package to centre the design. However, attempting to optimise a distributed element filter using an ideal filter for the performance goal can sometimes produce undesirable implementation parameters. The distributed filter is composed of inherently periodic structures that possess line loss and dispersion that fundamentally limits the "fit" of the characteristic to that of the ideal. This paper discusses optimisation strategies based on a knowledge of the specific limitations of the distributed filter, using two case studies for illustration. It argues that, in many cases, the optimiser is only required to absorb second order effects and merely centre the design frequency, rather than be used to perform "blind" optimisation.


OBJECTIVE
To compare the antiviral activity of once-daily didanosine (ddI) and twice-daily ddI in combination with stavudine (d4T).

DESIGN
Randomized, double-blind, multicenter study.

SETTING
Twenty-one sites in the United States.

PATIENTS
Eighty-seven antiretroviral-naive, HIV-1-infected adults with baseline plasma HIV RNA counts of > or = 10,000 copies/ml and CD4 cell counts of > or = 100 cells/mm3 started study therapy.

INTERVENTIONS
Patients received once-daily ddI or twice-daily ddI, each combined with twice-daily d4T.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Plasma HIV-1 RNA levels, CD4 cell counts, and adverse events were regularly monitored. The primary efficacy analysis used was the time-averaged difference (TAD) between treatment regimens in change from baseline plasma HIV-1 RNA levels over the first 12 weeks of therapy.

RESULTS
At week 12, median log10 HIV-1 RNA changes were -1.83 log10 copies/ml in the once-daily ddI/d4T group and -1.80 log10 copies/ml in the twice-daily ddI/d4T group, and 18 out of 44 patients (41%) and 17 out of 43 patients (40%), respectively, had HIV-1 RNA levels below 400 copies/ml. Similar results were seen at week 24. The TAD between the two treatment groups (once-daily ddI/d4T minus twice-daily ddI/d4T) in change from baseline plasma HIV RNA levels over the first 12 weeks was 0.14 log10 copies/ml (95% CI: -0.11, 0.40). At week 12, subjects averaged an increase in CD4 cell count of over 140 cells/mm3. The TAD between the two treatment groups in change from baseline CD4 cell counts over the first 12 weeks was 2 cells/mm3 (95% CI: -40, 45).

CONCLUSION
Once-daily ddI plus d4T and twice-daily ddI plus d4T were similarly effective in reducing plasma HIV-1 RNA levels and increasing CD4 cell counts over 12-24 weeks of therapy.


An arbitrary weak spatial distribution of vorticity can be represented in terms of plane sinusoidal shear waves of all orientations and wave lengths (Fourier integral). The analysis treats the passage of a single representative weak shear wave through a plane shock and shows refraction and modification of the shear wave with simultaneous generation of an acoustically intense sound wave. Applications to turbulence and to noise in supersonic wind tunnels are indicated.


This paper describes an adaptive protective relaying scheme for parallel-line distance protection. The scheme adjusts its operation, based on the availability of input signals, to achieve an optimal distance protection performance on parallel lines influenced by mutual coupling effect. When available, zero sequence current from the parallel line is used to fully compensate the mutual coupling effect. The zero sequence current ratio is used to avoid possible false operations on a healthy line, which may result from such compensation. When the parallel lines' zero sequence current is not available, the line operating status is used instead to select proper zero sequence current compensation factors in impedance calculation. Default zero sequence current compensation factor is used when both parallel lines' zero sequence current and line operating status signals are not available. The performance of the scheme has been verified on a simulated network and the results are presented.


Background Recent breakthroughs in therapies with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have revolutionized the treatment of lung cancer. However, only 15–25% of patients respond to the ICIs therapy, and methods to identify those responsive patients are currently a hot research topic. PD-L1 expression measured on tumor tissues using immunohistochemistry (IHC) was approved as one of the companion diagnostic methods, but it is invasive and cannot be used to monitor dynamic changes in PD-L1 expression during treatments. Methods In this study, we developed an Epcam-PD-L1 extracellular vesicle (EV) detection prototype using the Simoa platform. This assay detected PD-L1 expression levels on tumor-derived exosomes from the lung cancer cell lines A549 and SK-MES1. In addition, 35 plasma samples from patients with lung cancer were tested with this assay and the results were compared to the tissue PD-L1 expression levels represented by the tumor proportion score (TPS). Results PD-L1 TPS-positive patients (≥1% IHC TPS) had significantly higher Simoa Epcam-PD-L1 signals than TPS-negative patients (<1% IHC TPS, P=0.026). The Simoa Epcam-PD-L1 area under curve (AUC) reached 0.776, with a sensitivity of 92.86% and a specificity of 71.43%. When PD-L1 TPS-positive patients were defined as having an IHC TPS ≥10%, the greatest difference in Epcam-PD-L1 signals was observed between IHC TPS-positive and IHC TPS-negative groups (P=0.0024) and the Simoa Epcam-PD-L1 AUC reached 0.832. Finally, the Spearman's correlation coefficient showed a significant correlation between the TPS and Simoa Epcam-PD-L1 signals (0.428, P=0.0104). Conclusions Based on our results, our Simoa Epcam-PD-L1 EV detection assay is a potential liquid biopsy method to predict the PD-L1 expression level in patients with lung cancer.


In the present study, we investigated the clinical and histopathological effects of CP therapy consisting of cisplatin (CDDP 50 mg/m2) or carboplatin (CBDCA 300 mg/m2) and peplomycin (PEP 5 mg/day) for 25 patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma. The effects of treatment and associated complications were as follows: 1) Complete response (CR) was achieved in 8 and partial response (PR) in 14 of the 25 cases. The overall clinical response rate was 88%. The histological response rate was 64%. 2) The clinical effects were not always consistent with the histopathological effects. There were discrepancies between the clinical and histopathological effects, especially in PR determined by clinical findings. 3) The principal adverse reaction was gastro-intestinal disturbances, but symptoms were able to be controlled. Signs of hematologic toxicity and renal disturbance were mild and did not preclude the continuance of therapy. The results of this study indicated that neo-adjuvant chemotherapy with CDDP and PEP was highly effective for the local control of oral squamous cell carcinoma.


A differential architecture of an analog Viterbi de- coder is presented. Analog processing enables the analog-digital converter to be excluded from the decoder realization. Moreover, high-speed operation can be achieved via differential processing. We describe the differential operation, together with the resulting decoder structure. The differential architecture enables the trace- back memory to be excluded and makes online decoding after ini- tial transitional stages possible. We analyze the performance of the differential analog decoder by including analog circuit nonide- alities in the system-level model. The decoder obeys a nonlinear transfer function, and the monotonical growth of path metrics is avoided by scaling and subtraction of the global minimum. The re- sulting differential analog decoder performance is compared with the performance of a 3-bit soft-decision digital Viterbi decoder. The simulations are performed for a (2,1,7) convolutional code.


High performance liquid chromatography was employed to determine the contents of eight marker bioactive components such as rhein, aloe-emodin, nobiletin, emodin, honokiol, magnolol, chrysophanol, and physcion in the traditional Chinese medicinal preparation, Xiaochengqi decoction. The separation was performed on a C18 column by stepwise gradient elution with water (1.1% v/v acetic acid)–acetonitrile (0.01min, 75:25; 15 min, 60:40; 30 min, 50:50; 40 min, 45:55; 55min, 30:70) as the mobile phase at a flow-rate of 1.0ml·min-1, with UV detection at 254nm. Eight regression equations showed good linear relationships between the peak area and the amount of each marker. The recoveries of the markers were 99.6, 99.5, 97.4, 97.7, 98.9, 97.9, 99.0 and 98.5%, respectively. The repeatability and reproducibility (relative standard deviation) of the method were less than 2.1% and 2.5%, respectively.


This final rule with comment period addresses changes to the physician fee schedule and other Medicare Part B payment policies to ensure that our payment systems are updated to reflect changes in medical practice and the relative value of services. It finalizes the calendar year (CY) 2010 interim relative value units (RVUs) and issues interim RVUs for new and revised procedure codes for CY 2011. It also addresses, implements, or discusses certain provisions of both the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 (MIPPA). In addition, this final rule with comment period discusses payments under the Ambulance Fee Schedule (AFS), the Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) payment system, and the Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (CLFS), payments to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) facilities, and payments for Part B drugs. Finally, this final rule with comment period also includes a discussion regarding the Chiropractic Services Demonstration program, the Competitive Bidding Program for durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies (CBP DMEPOS), and provider and supplier enrollment issues associated with air ambulances.


The transition from fossil fuel-based to renewable energy sources is one of the main economic and social challenges of the early 21st century. Due to the volatile character of wind and solar power production, matching supply and demand is essential for this transition to be successful. In this context, the willingness of private consumers to use energy flexibly has gained growing attention. Research indicates that a viable driver to motivate consumers to be demand flexible is to make them (co-)owners of renewable energy production facilities. However, existing research has only analyzed this question from an aggregated perspective. This article analyses whether behavioral changes triggered by (co-)ownership in renewables differ according to the type of installation; be it solar, wind, or bioenergy. In addition, the prosumption options self-consumption/self-consumption and sale/sale are considered. To do so, we collected 2074 completed questionnaires on energy consumption that entered an econometric model using propensity score matching to control for estimation biases. We find significant differences in the willingness to consume electricity in a flexible manner for (co-)owners of solar installations. However, only the usage of household appliances proves to be statistically significant (p-value = 0.04). Furthermore, the results show that within the group of (co-)owners of solar installation, the choice between self-consumption and sale of the produced energy has a significant effect on the inclination to become demand flexible (p-value ≤ 0.001; p-value = 0.003).


The next ten years will see distributed real-time computer systems replacing many mechanical and hydraulic control systems in high-dependability applications. In these applications a failure in the temporal domain can be as critical as a failure in the value domain. This paper discusses some of the technology trends that explain why distributed embedded real-time systems for highdependability applications will move into the mainstream. It then investigates the new requirements that must be addressed by the software engineering process. Two of the most important requirements are the design for composability and the systematic validation of highdependability distributed real-time systems. In the last two sections, these issues of composability and validation are treated in some detail.


In this paper, Siberian elm (Ulmus pumila L) which was regarded as our research object was measured with the technology of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) before and after being treated with microwave at different periods of time. By comparing the spin - spin relaxation time of hydrogen nuclear (T2) which can reflect the mobility of water molecules, the states and changes of the moisture distribution within the wood in the process of microwave treatment have been analyzed. The results indicate that in the initial stage of drying, the degree of the decline in bound water is greater than that in free water, for there may be a process of the transformation from bound water to free water; With the drying going on, the movement and expulsion mainly happen to free water above the fiber saturation point (FSP); In the later stage of drying, when the moisture content decreases near the FSP, bound water has also begun moving significantly on the expulsion of plenty of free water. In the final stage of drying, the decrease of hydrogen bonds in water molecules resulting from a plentiful reduction in free water, as well as the increased permeability within the wood caused by the microwave drying makes the relaxation time of free water to rise up.


Three of the four Starling forces were measured in the intact dog forelimb after anesthetization and all four of the Starling forces were measured in the same forelimb which was surgically isolated yet innervated. In the isolated forelimb, isogravimetric capillary pressure (Pci) averaged 15.6 mmHg; colloid osmotic pressure of the plasma proteins (IIp) averaged 19.9 mmHg; mean interstitial fluid pressure (Pif) was +0.4 mmHg, and the average value of interstitial colloid osmotic pressure (IIif) was 4.9 mmHg. Thus the net imbalance in the Starling forces, i.e., (Pci - Pif) - (IIp - IIif), averaged 0.3 mmHg. Furthermore, the value of IIif was consistently decreased after isolation (average decrease of 1.2 mmHg) while Pif was always increased following isolation (average increase of 4.3 mmHg). In addition, it was found that if the forelimb was denervated during isolation, then Pif was increased by an average of 2 mmHg above Pif in the innervated, isolated forelimb. In summary, these studies show that the differences between the intact and isolated forelimb are that Pci averages 10-11 mmHg in the intact forelimb and 15-16 mmHg in the isolated innervated forelimb while interstitial fluid pressure is negative in the intact limb and positive in the isolated limb.


The free-form deformation model can represent a wide range of non-rigid deformations by manipulating a control point lattice over the image. However, due to a large number of parameters, it is challenging to fit the free-form deformation model directly to the deformed image for deformation estimation because of the complexity of the fitness landscape. In this paper, we cast the registration task as a multi-objective optimization problem (MOP) according to the fact that regions affected by each control point overlap with each other. Specifically, by partitioning the template image into several regions and measuring the similarity of each region independently, multiple objectives are built and deformation estimation can thus be realized by solving the MOP with off-the-shelf multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs). In addition, a coarse-to-fine strategy is realized by image pyramid combined with control point mesh subdivision. Specifically, the optimized candidate solutions of the current image level are inherited by the next level, which increases the ability to deal with large deformation. Also, a post-processing procedure is proposed to generate a single output utilizing the Pareto optimal solutions. Comparative experiments on both synthetic and real-world images show the effectiveness and usefulness of our deformation estimation method.


Dramatic changes in health care require physician leadership. Efforts to instill necessary skills often occur late in training. The Heath Innovations Scholars Program (HISP) provided preclinical medical students with experiential learning focused on process improvement. Students led initiatives to improve the discharge process for stroke patients. All students completed an aptitude survey and Quality Improvement Knowledge Assessment Test (QIKAT) before and after the program. Significant improvements occurred across subject areas of leadership (18.4%, P < .001), quality and safety (14.7%, P < .001), and health care systems operations (21.2%, P < .008), and in the domains of knowledge (25.9%, P < .001) and skills (25.2%, P < .001). Average cumulative QIKAT results improved significantly (8.33 to 9.83, P = .04). Three of 4 recommended interventions were implemented. Furthermore, students engaged in other process improvement work on return to their home institutions. The HISP successfully advanced preclinical medical students' ability to lead clinical systems improvement.


This paper develops a self-adaptive control strategy for a newly-proposed J-type air-based battery thermal management system (BTMS) for electric vehicles (EVs). The structure of the J-type BTMS is first optimized through surrogate-based optimization in conjunction with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, with the aim of minimizing temperature rise and maximizing temperature uniformity. Based on the optimized J-type BTMS, an artificial neural network (ANN)-based model predictive control (MPC) strategy is set up to perform real-time control of mass flow rate and BTMS mode switch among J-, Z-, and U-mode. The ANN-based MCP strategy is tested with the Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule (UDDS) driving cycle. With a genetic algorithm optimizer, the control system is able to optimize the mass flow rate by considering several steps ahead. The results show that the ANN-based MPC strategy is able to constrain the battery temperature difference within a narrow range, and to satisfy light-duty daily operations like the UDDS driving cycle for EVs.


In this paper, we present our continuous research on similarity search problems. Previously we proposed PanKNN[18]which is a novel technique that explores the meaning of K nearest neighbors from a new perspective, redefines the distances between data points and a given query point Q, and efficiently and effectively selects data points which are closest to Q. It can be applied in various data mining fields. In this paper, we present our approach to solving the similarity search problem in the presence of obstacles. We apply the concept of obstacle points and process the similarity search problems in a different way. This approach can assist to improve the performance of existing data analysis approaches.


In the current study, consumption of energy sources (CES) are modeled using trend analysis and projections are presented for future planning. For projections, trends in CES during 1965–2010 are first identified. According to the trend observed, the appropriate regression analysis is employed to catch the best relations between CES and years. Developed models are tested by the t-distribution, the F-distribution and residual analysis. Additionally, the calculated results for CES from fitted curves that were compared with the projected CES calculated by British Petroleum and the International Energy Agency. Statistically significant trends are indicated for each kind of energy source. It is seen that differences between calculated and the projected CES from different scenarios are in the acceptable range. It is concluded that the models are statistically valid in terms of t-test and F-test. The residuals also confirm the accuracy of the models. The results show that the developed models can be used for projections of primary energy consumption by the sources for future planning.