The aim of the study was to determine how mining operations affected the health of aquatic ecosystems. The investigation was carried out in the diamond, gold, and manganese mining areas of Tortiya, Hiré, and Lauzoua. Leaf litter bags were used to assess breakdown. To further identify macro-invertebrates in the laboratory, leaves from emerged large-mesh bags were preserved in 70% alcohol. The results showed that there was no statistically significant difference in lost masses between small mesh nets and large mesh nets for a foliar species at the same station. The breakdown rates of Alchornea cordifolia in large mesh nets at N'Teko station were significantly higher (p<0.05) than in small mesh nets (0.017 j-1). The majority of the macro-invertebrates found in leaf litter bag were insects and gastropods, with proportions exceeding 50%. Insects dominated the macroinvertebrate group involved in leaf litter decomposition in Lauzoua (91% of associated species) and Hiré (56.5%), whereas gastropods (Mesogastropoda and Basommatophora, 77% of related organisms) were most abundant in Tortiya. The functional feeding groups of macro-invertebrates involved in the breakdown of leaf litter were dominated by predators (46% of species) and scrapers grazers (27% of taxa). Shredders made up only 1% of the species associated with leaf litter. Macro- invertebrates' contribution was significantly higher (Mann -Whitney test, p <0.05) at Bou 1 station. Insects and gastropods made up the majority of the macro-invertebrates involved in litter decomposition. Breakdown rates were relatively low at all stations.


We present a detailed study of variations observed in low-angular degree solar p-mode frequencies during solar cycles 22 and 23, and their relation to global and spatially decomposed proxies of the surface activity. To do so, we have analysed 11 yr of unresolved (Sun-as-a-star) Doppler velocity observations of the solar disc made by the Birmingham Solar-Oscillations Network (BiSON). The sensitivity of these observations to different azimuthal orders, m, is such that for the degree range studied (0 less than or equal to l less than or equal to 2) extracted frequencies can be regarded as providing a measure of the response of the sectoral modes (with \m\ = l). After allowing for the dependence of the frequency shifts on mode frequency and inertia, we find the average = 0 shift is significantly weaker than that at = 2; the magnitude of the average = 1 shift lies in between the two. The comparative sizes of the shifts are observed to match those of the corresponding spherical harmonic (Legendre) components of both the Kitt Peak magnetogram (KPMI) and He I equivalent width activity indices, and reflect, therefore, the sensitivity of the observed mode components to the distribution of activity over the solar surface (i.e. a 'spatial' contribution to the shifts). When the falling and rising parts of the cycles are analysed independently, we uncover a significant difference in behaviour at l = 1. Possible reasons for this are discussed.


More than 70 conjugative R plasmids have been isolated from wild-type strains originating mainly in South-East Europe and identified as incompatible with the reference plasmid R387 of the incompatibility group K. These plasmids, governing different resistance patterns, have been characterized as P1 cotransducible species of between 50 and 60 mega-daltons. In contrast to the genetic similarity between all these plasmids and the reference type R387, their DNA revealed different digestion patterns after EcoRI treatment, although a number of common fragments could be identified. The molecular and genetic properties of these plasmid species demonstrate a phylogenetic relatedness.


California's mild coastal regions produce 90% of avocados grown in the United States. However, drought and urbanization are placing a strain on water supplies for agriculture. Avocados are a thirsty crop (an acre of avocado orchards consumes 4 acre-feet/year), and are particularly sensitive to salt. Recycled water has been proposed for irrigation, however it is higher in salt content than freshwater sources. Results from this study identify potential problems that may arise from avocado irrigation with recycled water and strategies for mitigating such issues. Trees irrigated with potable water at rates of 14, 12, and 9 gallons per hour were compared with trees irrigated with recycled water at the same application rates. Effects of recycled water on soil quality, tree health, fruit yield, and fruit quality were assessed and provide a framework for future implementation of recycled water irrigation in avocado orchards. Findings showed that recycled water impaired tree growth and health. Leaves were also deficient in micronutrients such as iron and zinc, while elevated in macronutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium). Poor tree health and suboptimal leaf nutrition reduced yield and fruit quality among trees irrigated with recycled water. Fruit rot occurred more frequently and with greater severity in trees irrigated with recycled water; these fruits also had reduced post-harvest shelf-life. Soil clay content also affected tree health. Trees irrigated with potable water at 9 and 14 gallons/hour showed higher rates of saltburn damage than expected; these trees were situated on heavy clay soils, which would explain abnormally high leaf damage for trees irrigated with potable water. Clay reduces soil aeration and leaching; reduced oxygen availability to avocado roots encourages chloride uptake and chloride damage. However, these trees still produced a copious crop. The study demonstrates that improvements in treated wastewater quality are needed prior to application of recycled water to avocado orchards, and that recycled water irrigation necessitates non-traditional strategies for orchard management.


A common method of channel network extraction from digital elevation model (DEM) data is based on specification of a threshold area Ath, that is, the minimum support area required to drain to a point for a channel to form. Current efforts to predict Ath from DEM data are inconclusive, and usually an arbitrary constant Ath value is chosen for channel network extraction. In this paper, we study the effects of threshold area selection on the morphometric properties (such as drainage density, length of drainage paths, and external and internal links) and scaling properties (such as Horton's laws and fractal dimension) of a channel network. We also study the related problem of DEM data resolution and its effect on estimation of scaling properties. The results indicate that morphometric properties vary considerably with Ath, and thus values reported without their associated Ath are meaningless and should be used in hydrologic analysis with caution. Also, the "completeness" of a channel network (in terms of having the outlet stream flowing directly into a higher-order stream) is found to depend on Ath in a random unpredictable way. Even if only the complete channel networks are used in the analysis, the statistical variability of scaling properties estimates due to Ath selection is significant and can be of comparable size to the variability due to DEM resolution and variability between estimates of different river networks. Our analysis highlights the need to carefully study the problem of network source representation or channel initiation scale from DEMs which will point to an appropriate Ath for channel network extraction and estimation of morphometric properties.


The contents of the phenolic compounds can be summarizing as following :Juniperus phoenicea leaves :4,5-Dicaffeoly guinic acid (0.003047 mg/g), Cinnamic acid (0.00000696 mg/g), Galic acid (0.0161mg/g) Geraniol (0.000644 mg/g), Phloridzin (0.00000297 mg/g), Quercetin (0.02033 mg/g) and Catecin (0.0424 mg/g). On the other side in Juniperus phoenicea fruits: 3,4-Dicaffeoly guinic acid (0.00115 mg/g), Galic acid (0.0000975 mg/g and Catecin (0.0424 mg/g). While in Quercus coccifera plan : The concentrations were fluctuated as following: Quercus coccifera leaves: Chlorogeneic acid (0.0115 mg/g), 3,4Dicaffeoly guinic acid (0.129 mg/g), 3,5-Dicaffeoly guinic acid (0.309 mg/g), 4,5Dicaffeoly guinic acid (0.0161 mg/g), 2,5-dihydroxy Benzoic acid (0. 0000589mg/g), and Galic acid (0.166mg/g). While in Quercus coccifera fruits the contents were recorded as following: (0.0197 mg/g), (0.102 mg/g), (0.132 mg/g), (0.205 mg/g), and cinnamic acid (0.000698mg/g.


Abstract : A design study was conducted to investigate optional methods for the design and fabrication of a production version of the Microfiche Image Transmission System (MITS II). This second-generation facsimile is intended for high volume electronic transmission of microfiche personnel records from the Naval Military Personnel Command to major Navy facilities around the world. Major tasks in this design study include: evaluation of alternative design approaches for improving the performance and reliability of the prototype MITS configuration (MITS I); identification of commercially available components, systems, or related technologies which potentially satisfy MITS II functional requirements; and preparation of a System Design Description which documents the results. Significant findings of this study include: a new concept for a whole fiche scanner which requires a minimum on complexity in the film transport; a minicomputer/microcomputer architecture for control and processing of image data and record request activity respectively; incorporation of a high performance microfiche stack loader and bar code label identification; a customized satellite telecommunications interface to optimize data transmission performance; a commercially available laser computer output microfilm (COM) recorder which uses dry-processed silver halide film; a recommendation to not implement multi-grey level scanning or recording for reasons of system throughput and hardware availability; and selection of PASCAL as the most appropriate high order language for all custom system software.


An analytical and numerical model are presented and applied to predict gravitydriven transport and deposition o f fluid mud layers that form within the wave boundary layer on the continental shelf off the Eel River in northern California. Observations indicate that following floods of the Eel River down-slope transport of fluid mud trapped within the wave boundary layer is the dominant across-shelf transport mechanism. The models are based upon the assumption that following significant floods, an abundant supply o f easily suspended fine sediment is delivered to the coastal ocean, allowing a negative feedback mechanism to maintain the near-bed Richardson number at its critical value. Thus, sediment-induced stratification effectively limits the amount of fine sediment that can be maintained in suspension, allowing the calculation of down-slope transport and deposition knowing only the appropriate near-bed velocity scale. Analytic predictions o f mid-shelf mud transport and deposition are spatially and temporally consistent with field observations and provide strong evidence that gravitydriven processes control the emplacement and location of the Eel margin flood deposit. Analytic predictions of deposition suggest that the magnitude of wave energy is more important than the magnitude o f the flood event in controlling the thickness of mid-shelf gravity-driven deposition following floods. Higher wave energy increases the capacity for critically-stratified gravity flows to transport sediment to the mid-shelf and results in greater deposition. The bathymetry o f the Eel margin plays a critical role in gravitydriven transport and deposition. Analytic predictions indicate that gravity-driven deposition on the mid-she If begins roughly 7-8 km north of the river mouth. Closer to the river mouth, the seaward increasing mid-shelf slope associated with the concave downward subaqueous delta causes gravity-driven flux divergence, preventing significant mid-shelf gravity-driven deposition and favoring sediment bypassing. Seaward decreases in shelf slope in the vicinity o f the observed flood depo-center leads to greater flux convergence by gravity-driven flows, and hence greater deposition. The numerical model predicts gravity-driven deposition on the continental shelf for four consecutive flood seasons of the Eel River using realistic bathymetry, waves and river forcing. Results from the numerical model are consistent with observations of deposition on the mid-self and support the results of the analytical model that suggest wave intensity and bathymetry are the dominant factors controlling the location and magnitude o f observed deposition. Despite significantly greater sediment input near the river mouth, little mid-shelf deposition is predicted in this region due to the increasing off-shelf slope. The numeric results suggest that gradients in the along-shelf components o f bed-slope also favor gravity-driven deposition 10-30 km north o f the river mouth. Including the influence of along-shelf currents had little impact on the location o f mid shelf deposition, providing further support for bathymetric control of flood sedimentation on the Eel margin. A significant fraction of sediment from the Eel River was predicted to leave the shelf as a gravity-driven flow during floods with large wave energy. However, in extremely large floods, gravity-driven processes were not capable o f removing riverderived fine sediment from the inner-shelf. MODELING OF CRITICALLY-STRATIFIED GRAVITY FLOWS: APPLICATION TO THE EEL RIVER CONTINENTAL SHELF, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA


This study is a contribution to Jatropha curcas cultivation and seeks to analyze the morphological variability and identification of morphotypes of Jatropha curcas . The study was conducted in 44 communities equitably distributed among 22 towns (populations) and geographically widespread in the 10 phytodistricts of Benin. Per population, at least 30 individuals of the species spaced at least 20 meters apart were randomly selected for the collection of morphological data. In total, 840 individuals, 714 leaves, 2294 fruits and 3465 seeds of Jatropha curcas were measured in all the country. The part of the variability of Jatropha curcas morphological traits due to individual, populations, phytodistricts, climatic zones were determined using the variance component analysis. The stepwise discriminant analysis was performed on Jatropha curcas populations to identify the morphological traits which discriminate them and the numeric classification was realized to regroup Jatropha curcas populations. The results show that variability of Jatropha curcas morphological traits is generally larger at individual level or between individuals of the same population than between populations, phytodistricts and climatic zones except fruits and seeds weight whose variability is larger between populations. Ten of twenty-one morphological traits studied were identified as the most discriminant variables of Jatropha curcas . Four morphological groups of Jatropha curcas were distinguished in Benin considering 10 discriminant variables.

Keywords: morphological traits, variability, Jatropha curcas , Benin.


Over the last decade, a growing number of emerging countries has adopted inflation targeting as monetary policy framework. In a recent paper, Freedman and Laxton (2009) ask the question "Why Inflation Targeting?". This paper empirically investigates this question by analyzing a large set of institutional and political factors potentially associated with a country's choice of adopting IT. Using panel data on a sample of thirty inflation targeting and non-inflation emerging countries, for the period 1980-2006, our results suggest that central bank independence, policy-makers' incentives, and characteristics of political system play an important role in the choice of IT, while the level of financial development and political stability do not seem to matter. Empirical findings are confirmed by extensive robustness tests.


Seven infants with group B streptococcal (GBS) cellulitis-adenitis were compared with nine previously described patients. The clinical features of infection included a mean age at onset of five weeks, a male predominance (75%), a history of poor feeding or irritability (94%), and a rapid resolution with appropriate antimicrobial therapy. Bacteremia occurred in 94% of the patients. Type III GBS were associated with 75% of these infections; no antibody response to the capsular antigen of these organisms was detected in convalescent sera. Two of our cases had previously unreported sites of involvement, inguinal lymph nodes and a thyroglossal duct cyst. Four infants (80%) with typical facial or submandibular GBS cellulitis had ipsilateral otitis media at the time of admission. Otitis media with subsequent lymphatic spread to facial or submandibular areas, rather than primary bacteremia, may explain the pathogenesis of these unusual infections.


The authors, Miss Whetnall and Professor Fry, state in their preface that this book is an expansion of the courses of lectures and demonstrations given at the audiology unit of the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital for otologists, paediatricians, medical officers of health, and general practitioners. Its contents may be classified under three heads-clinical data, motor and acoustic phonetics with communication theory, and educational management of deafness in children under 5. The book, therefore, will be of great interest to all workers who share in professional responsibility for deaf children. An important chapter on causation and pathology of deafness includes an analysis of 3,047 cases. Of these, 460 were attributed to nose and throat infections, acute otitis media, and chronic suppurative otitis media. Ifereditary and familial causes accounted for 191, the next most prevalent cause being haemolytic disease of the newborn (148). Among the children referred, 1,157 were found not to be deaf. Emphasis is placed on very early detection of deafness and the value of special training for health visitors to fit them to find children who are not responding normally to sound. It is recommended that " all children should have a hearing test during their second term after entry to school." Reliance on testing "at risk" groups is discounted-among 1,103 congenital cases causation was found to be unknown in 502-and it is stated that " a routine test should be made of every infant." " After all, such a test can be made in a few minutes and, even though it has to be repeated as the infant grows older, a lifetime disability can be avoided." Chapters III, IV, and V constitute a valuable discussion of the learning processes and skills, upon which normal linguistic development depends. The phonetic " code " of English-how some forty vowels and consonants may combine and how they may not -is related to psychological, physiological, and physical data. " The knowledge of these units and the way in which they combine is stored in the memory of every speaker and listener, though of course we are not usually aware of this fact." Spectrograms of English vowels, consonants, and words are used and clearly explained to illustrate the functioning of the auditory mechanism of the brain in speech reception. Here and elsewhere in the book the auditory feed-back or capacity of a speaker to hear himself talking and so to control his own phonation and articulation is stressed as " by far the most important one in the learning of speech movements." Formant frequencies are related to resonance and attenuation in mouth and pharynx cavities. The achievement of the normally hearing child, by the age of 5 or 6 years, in learning to talk is analysed under nine heads. A section on recognition of speech sounds will be very helpful to audiologists and teachers of the deaf. In this book educational management is related principally to auditory training. " Sub-total deafness " is described as " a stage in the learning process. As the result of learning the hearing will improve and reclassification will be needed." It is said that such children " can usually take their place in a normal hearing environment." It is recognized that adult patients with a purely perceptive deafness often cannot do well with a hearing-aid, but it is claimed that " Distortion does not arise for those who are born deaf and these children can learn to make discriminations in the early years of life which to the adult are impossible." Yet severe malformations of the inner ear are described with special reference to hereditary deafness. The hypothesis that a majority of deaf children, with auditory training during preschool life, can become able to hear well enough to be educated with normally hearing children would seem to account for the absence of reference to special schools for the deaf and partially deaf, included in the national systems of education of all Western and many other countries. A need for validation is indicated in terms of standardized linguistic tests and extensive followup studies of early home-trained children. Available data from such studies elsewhere contraindicate the hypothesis apart from a small number of exceptional cases. It would seem to take no account of reverberation and noise in schoolrooms as factors shown by experiment to be adverse to successful use of wearable hearing-aids, nor to the degree of mental stress and sense of social handicap that deafness in childhood often imposes. Despite these reservations the book can be highly recommended as a contribution to a developing field of knowledge.


Gaps in comprehension of demographic change in the region of ex-Yugoslavia after 1990, caused by a lack of reliable data series, frequent change of borders, and distinctive historical and cultural tradition in comparison to other post-communist societies, motivated us to contribute to the understanding of the spatial diffusion of recent profound fertility changes in South-Eastern Europe. We analysed changes in the spatial pattern and distribution of typical fertility indicators of the second demographic transition at the sub-national level in Serbia in order to find out whether these demographic shifts could be interpreted to be similar to those in Central and Eastern Europe. We found that differences in economic, historical, and cultural development between sub-regions of the country strongly affect spatial patterns of fertility change. Also, this paper suggests that the sub-regions forerunners of the first demographic transition could be considered as the cores of diffusion for the second demographic transition.


s IPRED 2010 s47 Earthquake in L'Aquila: The Lombardy 1-1-8 System Response M. Salmoiraghi; F. Foti, S. Repetto Italy Introduction: On 06 March 2009, at 03:32 hours (h), an earthquake partially destroyed one of the most beautiful and historical regions in the center of Italy. Methods: The Italian Civil Protection Command Centre activated a national-level response to manage the disaster and AREU Lombardy (the prehospital care system agency) was involved to support the local 1-1-8 and to deploy a field camp under the supervision of the Civil Protection Command and Control Center. Physicians, nurses, and technicians specifically trained for mass-casualty incident (MCI) and disaster management within the 1-1-8 System were recruited. Among the criteria for the selection of personnel, individual motivation and recent MCI and disaster management courses in Israel were included. The first level Advanced Medical Post (AMP) of AREU Lombardy was placed at the railway station of L'Aquila: from 08 April to 17 April, this structure supported 980 evacuatees. The goals of the mission were to: (1) give medical and psychological support to the displaced people; (2) cooperate with the local emergency system; and (3) reinforce local general practitioners for the progressive restoration of family services. Results: During the above-mentioned period, 211 patients were observed in the AMP: post-traumatic stress syndrome (33), minimal surgery and medications (46), were the most frequent causes of admission. The lessons learned from the operation of the camp included the effectiveness and benefit of a small, rapidly activated and flexible camp unit sent to a disaster-affected area. Personnel should be allocated from the prehospital 1-1-8 system, as they are accustomed to everyday emergencies and are regularly trained on disaster preparedness and response. Conclusions: Following the first medical emergency response to the disaster, the first+level AMP demonstrated its usefulness in restoring and sustaining basic medical services.


A set of behaviour patterns characterized by excessive hostility, competitiveness, and impatience have been identified in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) and labelled "Type A". Since several studies have shown that the Type A behaviour pattern is an independent psychological risk factor for heart disease, attempts have been made to modify the behaviour pattern in both healthy subjects and patients suffering from CHD by altering physiological, cognitive and behavioural characteristics• The present research offers an alternative approach to the modification of physiological responses in healthy Type A adults and adolescents. It is proposed that the core elements of Type A such as competition could be exploited in order to induce physiological relaxation rather than excitement. Four experiments were carried out. The first study identified behavioural and physiological characteristics of Type A subjects such as increased heart rate while competing. The second experiment used contingent and false heart rate biofeedback training to challenge Type A adults to decrease heart rate in a competitive situation. Biofeedback was found to be an effective method of training Type A subjects to relax. Furthermore, it was found that Type As decreased heart rate significantly more than other subjects when challenged to do so by biofeedback. As a first step in attempting a similar approach with adolescents and to see if an identifiable pattern of beliefs and fears associated with Type A exists in the younger population, a questionnaire was designed to identify these beliefs and fears. Type A adolescents were found to hold a similar pattern of beliefs and fears to that shown in adult subjects in previous studies. Furthermore, measures of beliefs and fears correlated significantly but modestly with measures of Type A. Using heart rate biofeedback, competition did not seem to have any specific effect on the performance of Type A adolescents. Nevertheless, Type As were found to be more responsive to biofeedback training than Type Bs and results for subjective reports of relaxation were encouraging. The results are discussed in terms of using challenging incentives to reduce physiological responses in Type A adults and adolescents. It is argued that programmes aimed at modifying Type A in healthy individuals have produced mixed results and have repeatedly failed to alter physiological responses. This is due to many problems including the fact that the negative consequences of the behaviour pattern are not readily recognized and therefore healthy Type As may be resistant to change. Furthermore, there are ethical issues involved in actually altering behaviour in an apparently healthy population. It is proposed that in view of these problems, challenging incentives such as competition could play a significant role in the reduction of physiological responses in healthy Type A individuals particularly the younger population.


The objective of this study was to analyze the morphology of Guiana dolphin ( Sotalia guianensis ) to evaluate the existence of geographical variation along southeastern Brazil. Body length and 39 cranial variables were measured of specimens stranded or accidentally captured to consider ontogenetic and geographic variations. The areas studied were Espirito Santo (ES; 18°30'S-20°40'S), northern Rio de Janeiro (NRJ; 21°35'S-22°25'S), southern Rio de Janeiro (SRJ; 23°00'S-23°07'S) and Sao Paulo (SP; 23°30'S-25°30'S). Body length at age zero predicted by a non-linear Gompertz model for the Guiana dolphin was 148.3cm for area ES, 108.97cm for area NRJ, 98.4cm for area SRJ and 90.9cm for area SP. Asymptotic values were reached at about six years of age for total body length and cranial variations. These results indicate that Guiana dolphins reach adult size and sexual maturity simultaneously at six to seven years of age, when specimens cease to grow. The growth pattern for body and skull size indicated that there is variation between geographic areas. Guiana dolphins found in Sao Paulo are smaller than those analyzed in northern Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo, which implies a different growth rate. A canonical discriminant analysis of the cranial metric characters indicated significant differences between the four geographic areas. Differences between areas NRJ, SRJ and SP were responsible for 54% (axis 1) and 34% (axis 2) of the variation, respectively. The third axis depicted a difference between the area ES and the others. A partial overlap between geographic areas was observed in the projection of the species on the canonical axes, suggesting parapatry. Geographic variation recorded in this study is likely to be related to environmental adaptations. One of the areas that could play a role in the distribution of Guiana dolphin in the surveyed area is the central coast of Rio de Janeiro, which is characterized by the absence of river discharges, a narrowing of the continental shelf and upwelling influence that might be limiting the species occurrence in this area.


Human influences strongly affect the Earth Surface, environment and impact natural resources. To reduce the disadvantages, we have to monitor the human activities as well as the environment. Considering the rapid increase of population the loss of agricultural land is a very dangerous situation for the future of the country. Multi temporal Remote Sensing data is the most powerful tool for mapping and monitoring the land use changes and GIS is the best way to store and reproduce various kinds of integrated data. The aim of this study is to determine agricultural land loss and environmental changes caused by urban sprawl and industrialization using the Multi temporal Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographical Information System (GIS). A major problem of rapid urban growth is changing land use patterns. Agricultural lands are most affected by rapid urbanization and its functions of demand. In this study, a database will create the parameters of land loss and environmental changes by means of field observation, interpretation of satellite images like Landsat-ETM+, LISS IV .Through this study, which aimed to reveal the characteristics of the areas of land already lost as well as the types of land use in the hosur city and to determine geographically the remaining areas in need of protection, local authorities were provided with the required data support.


Purpose: The usefulness of 2-[18F]-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose ([18F]FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) can help predict the presence and the extent of malignant cells. The aims of current study were to investigate the expression patterns of genes or enzymes in glucose metabolism, and to determine whether the FDG PET/CT finding correlates with these proteomic markers in surgical specimens. Patients and Methods: Fifty patients with uterine cervical cancer who underwent [18F]FDG PET/CT before treatment were included in this study. Tumor sections were stained by immunohistochemistry for glucose transporter 1 (GLUT1), glucose transporter 3 (GLUT3), hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α), hexokinase 2 (HK2), glycolysis markers (pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2), phosphofructokinase (PFK), glycoaldehyde-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH)), electron transporter chain marker (β-F1-ATPase), mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM), oncogene (c-Myc), and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma coactivator 1 alpha (PGC-1α). Results: In vivo glucose uptake of primary cervical cancer (R = −0.298, P = 0.036) and metastatic lymph nodes (R = −0.298, P = 0.037), as assessed by FDG uptake inversely correlates with the mitochondrial biogenesis determined by immunohistochemical staining of PGC-1α. Cellular GLUT1 expression was also inversely correlated with the expression of PGC-1α (R = −0.413, P = 0.003). Moreover, the level of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation expressed by β–F1-ATPase inversely correlates with that of PFK (r = −0.337, P = 0.021). Expression of PGC-1α was lower in squamous cell carcinoma than that of adenocarcinoma (P Conclusion: The results highlight the relevance of the alteration of the glucose metabolism by aerobic glycolysis in cervical cancer, and affording a mechanistic explanation for FDG PET/CT imaging. Citation Information: Cancer Prev Res 2011;4(10 Suppl):A46.


The capability to debug a program at the source level is useful and often indispensable. Debuggers use sophisticated techniques to provide a source view of a program, even though what is executing on the hardware is machine code. Debugging techniques evolve with significant changes in programming languages and execution environments. Recently, software dynamic translation (SDT) has emerged as a new execution mechanism. SDT inserts a run-time software layer between the program and the host machine, providing flexibility in execution and program monitoring. Increasingly popular technologies that use this mechanism include dynamic optimization, dynamic instrumentation, security checking, binary translation, and host machine virtualization. However, the run-time program modifications in a SDT environment pose significant challenges to a source level debugger. Currently debugging techniques do not exist for software dynamic translators.
This thesis is the first to provide techniques for source level debugging of dynamically translated programs. The thesis proposes a novel debugging framework, called Tdb, that addresses the difficult challenge of maintaining and providing source level information for programs whose binary code changes as the program executes. The proposed framework has a number of important features. First, it does not require or induce changes in the program being debugged. In other words, programs are debugged is their deployment environment. Second, the framework is portable and can be applied to virtually any SDT system. The framework requires minimal changes to an SDT implementation, usually just a few lines of code.
Third, the framework can be integrated with existing debuggers, such as Gdb, and does not require changes to these debuggers. This improves usability and adoption, eliminating the learning curve associated with a new debugging environment. Finally, the proposed techniques are efficient. The runtime overhead of the debugged programs is low and comparable to that of existing debuggers.
Tdb's techniques have been implemented for three different dynamic translators, on two different hardware platforms. The experimental results demonstrate that source level debugging of dynamically translated programs is feasible, and our implemented systems are portable, usable, and efficient.


In accordance with the requirements of the modern market, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to offer a wide range of products tailored to the specific and individual requirements. The article presents the conditions of production using modern computer techniques. Presented solutions are used in modern practice.


Introduction Coping mechanism was an individual effort to deal with a stressor. Diabetes mellitus was a degenerative disease that could not be cured and could become a stressor for the patients. If this stressor unhandled it can make the condition of patients become worse. Methods The object of this research was to know the coping mechanism of diabetic person. Design used in this research was quasy experimental pre post test design. This research was using purposive sampling with five people as the samples. The recording result of interview would be transcribed as the data. Data would be classified depend on the criteria inclusion and would be analyzed by reduction, data serving, and data conclution to get the good result. Result and Analysis The results showed that interviews with partisipants indicated they have accepted their condition by making efforts to deal with negative feelings experienced through self control, taking a positive appraisal and accepting the responsibility. They tended able to do a good self-management to deal with diabetes mellitus by performing the routine control, dietary changes, looking for information about diabetes mellitus and exercise regularly. Partisipants were also getting support from family, friends, and health professionals.  Discussion coping mechanisms were performed by diabetic person include emotional focused coping to deal with negative emotions and problem focused coping to deal with diabetes itself through management regimen task.


Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is a major fiber crop; however, cotton yields are often limited due to its extreme sensitivity to environmental stress such as high temperature and drought. The current project was designed to evaluate the use of the plant growth regulator 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) to alleviate the adverse effect of environmental stress on cotton yields. Three field studies were conducted in Arkansas in 2006 and 2007. An untreated control was compared with 1-MCP at 10 g ai ha-1 applied at first flower (FF), and another applied at FF and again two weeks later. Measurements were made of boll weight, boll number and yield, as well as on plant physiological and biochemical responses. During the period of cotton fruit development, the maximum temperatures for Marianna, AR in 2006 and 2007 were well above the optimum 30oC temperature for cotton growth, indicating that cotton was under heat stress. Plants that received 1-MCP at FF and FF+2 weeks had significantly higher seed cotton and lint yields than the untreated control. This result was possibly due to a significant weight increase in 1-MCP treated bolls located in the middle of the plant canopy as no effect was observed on cotton fruit abscission. Applications of 1-MCP significantly decreased the stress levels of cotton plants as indicated by higher maximum quantum efficiency of Photosystem II and lower activity of the leaf antioxidant glutathione reductase. No 1-MCP effect on protein and malondialdehyde content in leaves was observed. The study showed that foliar application of 1-MCP has the potential to improve yields due to reduced plant stress.


This paper investigates the dependence of the transmission speed and the system performance of an inter satellite link (ISL) on the modulation technique and the type of detector used. In ISL links, the modulation technique used in transmission and the type of detector used for reception are significant factors that directly affect the quality of transmission between satellites. The paper proposes a transmission link model to obtain the maximum allowable data rate over different orbits. In this study, the Q-factor and the bit error rate (BER) are measured and analyzed for all scenarios in order to optimize the ISL performance.


In 2009, Blacks earned about 6% of the doctoral degrees awarded in the field of epidemiology (NSF, 2010). This one year snapshot of attainment estimated that 17 of the 273 doctoral degrees in the field were granted to Blacks. Aschengrau and Seage (2008) defined epidemiology as "the study of the distribution and determinants of disease frequency in human populations and the application of this study to control health problems" (p. 6). The research in epidemiology is often organized by disease or source of risk – e.g., infectious disease, cancer, occupational injury, psychiatric, respiratory, intestinal, renal, dental, or cardiovascular. Another way to categorize the research in epidemiology is by method – spatial, meta-analysis, economic, environmental, clinical, surveillance, disease informatics, biostatistics, and so on. For example, the progress in the Human Genome Project, in computing power, and in the development of powerful statistical approaches has expanded the analytical possibilities in genetic epidemiology, a discipline that seeks to understand how genetics, environmental factors, and their interactions produce various diseases and traits in humans. Genetic epidemiology as well as the other methodologies associated with field of epidemiology is part of population science where population history and dynamics are modeled. The scientific discipline of epidemiology is rarely part of discussions focused on opportunity pathways in STEM fields. Nor are many other fields aligned with population science (e.g., demography and population sociology) included in these discussions. These omissions represent blind spots that deserve to be clearly seen as part of discussions of STEM fields that require sound inquiry and serve to advance human development and human capital, while contributing to the common good.


ABSTRACT X-radiography and scanning electron microscope analyses of shales from diverse sedimentary environments reveal wide variations in macro-and microfabrics attributed to the degree of bioturbation. These fabrics provide clues about the physical condition of the sediment substrate at the time of clay deposition and the relationship between bioturbation activity and the sedimentary environment. Organic-rich shales from anoxic environments are unbioturbated and characterized by fine lamination and a microfabric of parallel clay flakes. Two fabric types were found in shales formed under oxic conditions--highly bioturbated and indistinctly bedded. Fabric in shales subjected to considerable bioturbation is recognized by a homogeneous, gray tone in an X-radiograph and by a random microfabric in a scanning electron micrograph. This fabric is also very similar to mudstones formed from lithified flocculated clay; however, it does not possess the stepped domains or stepped cardhouse fabric of the latter. Indistinctly bedded shale possesses remnant original lamination and preferred particle orientation indicative of less intense bioturbation. The fabric types are useful in determining whether the sediment substrate was a soupground, softground, or firmground, as well as indicating the amount and intensity of biogenic activity during sediment deposition.


Tibet is one of the five largest pasturing regions of China. Grassland classification is significant for its utilization and protection, but few correlative studies have been done in Tibet due to its rugged natural conditions, which make it difficult and time-consuming to conduct extensive field measurements. The remote-sensing technique is helpful for grassland classification in such regions. In this study, high temporal resolution of a moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) is used to construct temporal profiles of enhanced vegetation index (EVI) during the grass growth period in Tibet. By dividing the large study area into individual regions based on altitude and latitude, we classified the grasslands of Tibet into six types-meadow steppe, typical steppe, desert steppe, alpine meadow steppe, alpine typical steppe, and shrub herbosa. Based on the 1:500 000 scale maps of China's grassland resources, the validation process indicates an overall accuracy of 68.02 %, and a Kappa coefficient of 0.52. Land managers are provided with maps and area values of each grassland type in Tibet in 2005. In addition, regional average EVI reflect the relative biomass of each types of the grassland, which will provide evidences for coordinating plans for grassland developing. MODIS_EVI provides a simple and rapid method to classify the grassland in regions that are hard to reach, which offers an effective means of investigating biological resources on a large scale.


We applied a two-stage value chain model to investigate the effects of input application and occasional transaction costs on vegetable marketing chain efficiencies with a farm household-level data set. In the first stage, the production efficiencies with the combination of resource endowments, capital and managerial inputs, and production techniques were evaluated; then at the second stage, the marketing technical efficiencies were determined under the marketing value of the vegetables for three typical marketing chains in Nanjing area, P.R. China. The impacts of the transaction costs to the supply chain technical efficiency both at the production and marketing stages were examined by using Tobit model. Study showed that transaction costs significantly impacts on vegetable marketing chain efficiency in research area. Results also revealed that the impacts of transaction costs on marketing chain efficiency differ cross chains. This paper concluded with the reduction of the various types of transaction costs incurred in the vegetable marketing chains as managerial implementations for technical efficiency improvement and farmers' income increasing.


The agricultural traceability system provides information transparency throughout the agricultural supply chain. This paper applies game theory to analyse the traceability system used by the herbal product industry in order to elucidate the strategic choices made by government authorities, farmers (e.g. producers), certification agencies, and consumers. This paper clarifies how relevant variables affect the traceability system employed in the herbal product industry. The analysis yields strong results and indicates a superior equilibrium; the observed strategic choices comprise active traceability system promotion by authorities, development of a comprehensive traceability system by farmers, maintenance of independence by certification agencies, and purchase of herbal products by consumers. The traceability system and existing herbal product safety programs must be refined because they are crucial to consumers, farmers, and people who support agricultural communities. These results contribute to the literature in the field, serving as a reference for members of the herbal product industry, government authorities, and academics.


In order to meet the country's growing demand for food, and to transform the economy of rural communities, the South African Government aims to develop the agricultural sector in the uThukela Catchment, KwaZulu-Natal Province. Intensification of agriculture will depend on the availability of water resources, with subsequent impacts on the quality and quantity of water resources. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the impacts of proposed agricultural developments on the water flows in the upper uThukela Catchment using the multi-purpose, multi-soil-layered, daily time step ACRU model. The first phase of the study was to confirm the model's ability to simulate flows in three, relatively small, gauged subcatchments of the uThukela catchment (Quaternary Catchments V11K, V14C and V31F), using current land cover and climate information extending to present day. However, the documented decline in the number of, and quality of data from, hydrometeorological stations, particularly since the year 2000, was concerning. Therefore, the impact of this decline on model performance was investigated in the selected subcatchments by comparing simulated flows to available observed flows in a confirmation study. Configuration of the model to present day conditions was restricted by the unavailability of rainfall stations. In cases where stations were available, there were no nearby stations to patch or compare to, when the record had missing or suspicious values. Given this, the model was set to run from 1960 to the latest record date available for catchments V14C and V31F. For V14C, the model performance decreased when the model was run from 1960 to 2012, compared to 1960-1999. Although a slightly better performance was obtained at V31F, the simulation time period was reduced to 1960-1999 for both catchments due to uncertainties with post 2000 rainfall and streamflow data. However, V14C continued to prove problematic and further investigation using of the Indicators of Hydrological Alteration software revealed a marked change in the flow characteristics between 1980 and 1981. No documentation of developments or substantial changes in the catchment could be sourced. Therefore, Quaternary Catchment (QC) V14C was excluded from further analysis. The ACRU model adequately simulated the flows for V11K and V31F, with the simulated flows being more representative of the observed flows in V31F. With the ability of the ACRU model to simulate the flows in the upper uThukela catchment under various land uses confirmed, the model could be used to investigate the impacts of agricultural land management scenarios on water flows. The agricultural land management scenarios were developed from the national and local government's plan to expand agriculture to transform the socioeconomic status of the uThukela catchment. To develop scenarios for larger scale modelling, numerous scenarios were tested at QCs V31F and V11K. However, V11K was not responsive to changes in land use; therefore, results from the catchment were not used. For large scale modelling, the Upper uThukela (V1) Secondary Catchment was selected. The scenarios considered were: (i) increasing the fraction of irrigated commercial agriculture into currently dryland commercial fields, (ii) increasing subsistence agriculture through reduction of commercial agriculture (i.e. land reform), (iii) conversion of dryland commercial agriculture into crops with biofuel potential (iv) increased burning, (v) intensified land degradation and (vi) rehabilitation of degraded areas. These were developed from current land cover and compared to a simulation assuming natural conditions. The runoff components of interest were baseflow, quickflow and streamflow, as well as the low, median and high streamflows. Irrigation resulted in the highest flow reductions, with permanent cropping and planting two crops per year resulting in the largest decrease in streamflow at V31F and V1, when compared to natural conditions. These scenarios also had the greates impact on low flows. Plantation of biofuels increased flows, with soya beans having a higher impact on baseflows. Intensified burning and degradation increased quickflow and streamflow, while increasing subsistence agriculture and rehabilitation of degraded areas had little impact on flows. These results were generated from poor climate and land cover input information. Therefore, these results cannot be used at a definite decision-making tool, rather as an indication of the possible impacts of land use change on flows at the uThukela Catchment and similar regions. Efforts should be made to improve and maintain hydrometeorological monitoring stations. In addition, there should be more initiatives to collect land cover and water use data at various catchments in order to improve the quality of input data. Lastly, the current version of the ACRU model requires high computational power for large catchment simulations, lowering the model performance. Investigation into better versions or possible development of the current version should be conducted to enable modellers to finish large projects in allocated time.


Background: Panoramic radiography is a simple and valuable diagnostic tool in dentistry. The aim of the present study was detecting factors influencing panoramic radiography requests by general dentists in Kerman and their compatibility with FDA recommendation. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on general dentists in Kerman. Data were collected by a questionnaire including demographic variables as well as factors influencing the selection of panoramic radiography and the diagnostic value of panoramic as compared to intra oral radiography. Data were analyzed through SPSS 19 and using ttest and linear regression test. P<0.05 was considered as the statistical significant level. Results: In the present study, 67.9% were men with mean age of 35.3±8.71 years and mean time since graduation was 6.23±5.18 years. Mean score of factors influencing panoramic radiography request was 88.80±4.78 and mean score of the diagnostic value of panoramic as compared to intra oral radiography was 13.80±11.28. There was a significant relationship between responding to the questions related to the diagnostic value of panoramic radiography and participating in continued education programs. Conclusion: Request of panoramic radiography among the general dentists in Kerman is in some cases not according to FDA guidelines and more supervision is recommended.


PURPOSE
To determine the safety and activity of weekly paclitaxel in combination with estramustine and carboplatin (TEC) in patients with advanced prostate cancer.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
In a dose-escalation study, patients with advanced prostate cancer were administered paclitaxel (weekly 1-hour infusions of 60 to 100 mg/m(2)), oral estramustine (10 mg/kg), and carboplatin (area under the curve, 6 mg/mL-min every 4 weeks). Paclitaxel levels were determined 0, 30, 60, 90, and 120 minutes and 18 hours after infusion, and a concentration-time curve was estimated. Once a safe dose was established, a multi-institutional phase II trial was conducted in patients with progressive androgen-independent disease.

RESULTS
Fifty-six patients with progressive androgen-independent disease were treated for a median of four cycles. The dose of paclitaxel was escalated from 60 to 100 mg/m(2) without the occurrence of DLT. Posttherapy decreases in serum prostate-specific antigen levels of 50%, 80%, and 90% were seen in 67%, 48%, and 39% (95% confidence interval, 55% to 79%, 35% to 61%, 26% to 52%) of the patients, respectively. Of the 33 patients with measurable disease, two (6%) had a complete response and 13 (39%) had a partial response. The overall median time to progression was 21 weeks, and the median survival time for all patients was 19.9 months. Major grade 3 or 4 adverse effects were thromboembolic disease (in 25% of patients), hyperglycemia (in 38%), and hypophosphatemia (in 42%). Significant leukopenia, thrombocytopenia, and peripheral neuropathy were not observed.

CONCLUSION
TEC has significant antitumor activity and is well tolerated in patients with progressive androgen-independent prostate cancer.


Elderly people still play a minor role in research on information needs and usage patterns of Internet users. Online research and advocacy groups look optimistically at the (economic and social) potential of the active and technology–skilled elderly; other approaches dealing with the social appropriation of technology see obstacles and stress the dangers of an increasing digital divide between generations. Our objective is to refer to taken for granted normative assumptions of the digital divide discourse, highlighting different requirements for the appropriation of the Internet. Using the concept of technological generations we look at formal and informal learning of young and elderly people in the German context. We use survey material and field impressions we gained in various technology related studies. The results show that the "two worlds apart" assumption (young vs. elderly people) is too simplistic. Factors like gender, education and socio–economic status still play an important role for acceptance and diffusion of a technology. The diffusion rate among the elderly is increasing, but will continue to lag behind the figures of the young users. Cultural preparations and easy access modes are essential for the elderly, who could make use of latecomer advantages. Informal learning and peer group support will be crucial for the diffusion of the Internet among the elderly. In our conclusions we look at the specific social status of the elderly cohort, which makes a comparison with other social groups very difficult.


It is important to determine the relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors to the etiology of childhood cancer in order to elucidate the pathogenic mechanisms involved and to develop effective means of primary prevention. Geographic differences in cancer incidence as well as changes in incidence over calendar time have long been used to generate clues to possible etiologic agents. The important role of genetic factors in childhood cancer is clear, and is exemplified by the observations in retinobiastoma. The importance of the contributions of environmental factors in general and of specific factors in particular, to the etiology of cancers in children, has proven more difficult to determine. A variety of environmental factors have been implicated to varying degrees in the etiology of different childhood cancers. These factors include physical agents such as radiation, chemical agents such as nitrosamines, and organic solvents, and infectious agents such as the Epstein‐Barr virus. The observations that certain compounds may act as teratogens when a prenatal exposure occurs early in pregnancy and as carcinogens when the exposure occurs late in pregnancy, suggests that there may be a continuum of teratogenesis arid carcinogenesis. This finding has major implications for the possible biologic mechanisms that could be involved in childhood cancers and for the design of future research of their etiology and prevention. The etiology of childhood cancer should be viewed as an interaction of environmental factors to which the child or his parent were exposed together with varying degrees of genetically determined susceptibility of the child to the carcinogenic effects of these factors. Cancer 58:546‐549, 1986.


In the early 1990s Michael Jordan fascinated the sports world when he attempted to extend his success from the basketball court onto the baseball diamond. It did not work out. Jordan returned to basketball, still the best player in the game, after a rather dismal attempt at baseball. He never made it out of baseball's Minor Leagues and did not do very well even there. Basketball and baseball, at least in Jordan's case, seemed to be almost mutually exclusive endeavors: baseball was a sport of compactness, and basketball was one of expansion. If nothing else, the six-foot-four-inch Jordan offered a strike zone to opposing pitchers that looked like the broad side of a barn. History reveals that others have tried, and fared much better, in this two-sport combination. Bill Sharman of the Celtics played a few seasons with the AAA St. Paul Saints; Gene Conley, also of the Celtics, won 91 games as a Major League pitcher; and Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton of the Knicks batted over .300 in each of his two seasons in the minors. (1) While it may be difficult to select which athlete played most successfully in both sports, it is fairly easy to name the one whose experience was the most interesting. His name was Reese "Goose" Tatum, and during the 1940s, he hit a ball almost as well as he shot one. Not only was Tatum one the 1940s' great African-American sports stars, but he also embodied how many black celebrities came to serve the African-American community beyond the realm of sports. Not long after Tatum was born on May 2, 1921, in Arkansas, his arms and hands seemed to outgrow the rest of his body, giving him a natural physique for basketball. However, it was on the baseball field that he first became a star athlete. In 1942, while playing center field for the Birmingham Black Barons, coincidentally a team that played in the same stadium where Michael Jordan's Minor League team played its games, Tatum was asked to join a basketball team that Barons owner Abe Saperstein also owned. Its name was the Harlem Globetrotters. Tatum accepted the offer but also continued to play baseball. Saperstein made a fortune off the activities of segregated black athletes. The oldest of nine children, Saperstein was born in 1903 in London but grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. In late 1926 Saperstein took Walter "Toots" Wright, Byron "Fat" Long, Willis "Kid" Oliver, Andy Washington, and Al "Runt" Pullins, five former basketball players from Chicago's Wendell Phillips High School, and created the "Savoy Big Five." After failing to attract enough spectators, the "Big Five" was renamed the Harlem Globetrotters. Although the team had no affiliation with New York City, Saperstein named the team "Harlem" to clue--or perhaps warn--people into the fact that all of the players were black. On January 7, 1927, the Globetrotters played their first game, in Hinckley, Illinois. While Saperstein contended that he had created the Globetrotters as a touring team whose only goal was victory, after the team began to defeat its opponents so handily that fans became restless and fewer in number, he encouraged the players to "clown" with the opposing players in the manner that soon became their trademark--but only after the game was in hand. (2) In the early 1930s the basketball Globetrotters were not financially successful enough for Saperstein to devote all of his time to its caretaking, and he had to maintain other business interests. Like his activities in basketball, Saperstein's other business ventures relied upon the entertainment value of black athletes, in this case baseball players. Saperstein's interests in Negro League baseball included promoting the annual East-West All-Star Game held at Comiskey Park and booking such Negro American League (NAL) teams as the Chicago American Giants, Birmingham Black Barons, Memphis Red Sox, and Kansas City Monarchs. However, it was one of the teams Saperstein owned that resembled his basketball "court jesters" the most. …


Many species are able to recognize objects, but it has been proven difficult to pinpoint and compare how different species solve this task. Recent research suggested to combine computational and animal modelling in order to obtain a more systematic understanding of task complexity and compare strategies between species. In the present study, we created a large multidimensional stimulus set and designed a visual discrimination task partially based upon modelling with a convolutional deep neural network (CNN). Experiments included rats (N = 11; 1115 daily sessions in total for all rats together) and humans (N = 45). Each species was able to master the task and generalize to a variety of new images. Nevertheless, rats and humans showed very little convergence in terms of which object pairs were associated with high and low performance, suggesting the use of different strategies. There was an interaction between species and whether stimulus pairs favoured early or late processing in a CNN. A direct comparison with CNN representations and visual feature analyses revealed that rat performance was best captured by late convolutional layers and partially by visual features such as brightness and pixel-level similarity, while human performance related more to the higher-up fully connected layers. These findings highlight the additional value of using a computational approach for the design of object recognition tasks. Overall, this computationally informed investigation of object recognition behaviour reveals a strong discrepancy in strategies between rodent and human vision.


The Fenton chemistry comprises both the classical Fenton reagent and its modification, so-called Fenton-like techniques, which have received great attention as a promising technology for wastewater treatment. In the present study real wastewater from different sources (leachate from oil shale semicoke landfill, pharmaceutical effluents from medical ointment production, municipal landfill leachate and wastewater originated from food-processing) were treated by means of Fenton/Fenton-like systems. The effectiveness of wastewater treatment was assessed by COD removal. Additionally, biodegradability improvement (BOD7/COD) and acute toxicity reduction of investigated wastewater samples were observed. The application of the Fenton chemistry to wastewater samples with different origin resulted generally in 70% or higher COD removal. Thus, the Fenton could be effectively applied both as a single treatment method and pre-treatment step to improve subsequent biodegradability of wastewater effluents.


Presented at the 3rd Annual Undergraduate Research Spring Symposium held on April 3, 2008 in the Student Center Ballroom on the Georgia Tech Campus


Background Neonatal septic shock is a devastating condition associated with high morbidity and mortality. Methods A retrospective study was conducted in children's hospital Tunisian PICU between 2005 to 2013. All neonates (<28 days) treated for septic shock with bacterial proof were included. Nosocomial infection was an exclusion critéria. The chart review relieved demographics, length of stay, therapies and outcomes. Results A total of 40 neonates were included. Mean age on admission was 34 h±3.7. Mean SNAPP score was 25 ± 17. Materno-fetal infection was observed in 37 cases, staphylococcal pneumonia in 2 cases and bacterial coinfection with bronchiolitis in the last case. The bacteriological study showed a notable predominance of streptococcus B (40%) and E.coli (35%). All patients required mechanical ventilation (mean duration: 85 ± 556 h) and haemodynamic support (mean duration 49 ± 335 h). Mortality rate was 19% in full term infants, 12.5% in near term infants and 27% in extremely preterm infants. Conclusions Our results would indicate a high mortality rate in neonatal septic shock. A goal –directed therapy for septic shock, implanted in our PICU, could improve outcomes for this vulnerable population.


A 57-year-old man with fatigue was admitted to our hospital. Abdominal contrast computed tomography indicated the presence of a 35mm tumor in the pancreatic head and dilation of the main pancreatic duct from its body to the tail. Endoscopic ultrasonography revealed that the tumor had infiltrated and occupied the main pancreatic duct, and endoscopic retrograde pancreatography confirmed that the tumor was present in the main pancreatic duct. Tumor biopsy via endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography demonstrated the proliferation of spindle and pleomorphic cells. Therefore, the patient was diagnosed with anaplastic pancreatic carcinoma and underwent subtotal stomach-preserving pancreaticoduodenectomy. Histological analysis showed the prevalence of adenocarcinoma and anaplastic carcinoma cells in the pancreatic parenchyma and main pancreatic duct, respectively. Anaplastic carcinoma cells showed a decrease in E-cadherin staining. In conclusion, tumor cell proliferation and lack of cell adhesion may have caused the infiltration into the main pancreatic duct.


We systematically reviewed the evidence on secular trends in main chronic conditions, disability and self-assessed general health among adults in the United Kingdom, as reported in primary/secondary care databases and population-based surveys. Searches were conducted separately for: (1) trends in age-standardised or age-specific prevalence of major non-communicable diseases, disability, and self-reported general health; (2) trends in health expectancy. The databases searched were MEDLINE, EMBASE/EMBASE Classic and Web of Science (all from 1946/7). The evidence was synthesised narratively. There were 39 studies reporting trends in prevalence of health conditions and 15 studies in health expectancy. We did not find evidence for improvement in the age-standardised or age-specific prevalence of any of the studied major chronic conditions over the last few decades, apart from Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. Both increasing or stable prevalence rates with simultaneous rising life expectancy support the expansion of morbidity theory, meaning that people are expected to spend a greater number of years with chronic condition(s). The evidence on disability—expressed as prevalence or health expectancy—was mixed, but also appeared to support the expansion of morbidity among those aged 65 or over. The evidence on trends in disability for younger age is lacking. Across the studied period (1946–2017), the UK population endured more years with chronic morbidity and disability, which may place a serious strain on the health care system, the economy and the society.


Background and Hypothesis: Thoracic aortic aneurysm (TAA) histopathology includes elastic fiber (EF) abnormalities, mucoid extracellular matrix (MECM) accumulation, and smooth muscle derangement in the aortic medial layer. While semi-quantitative grading of these characteristics is a standard practice, computational characterization of medial layer components may facilitate novel quantitative analyses at higher throughput. We hypothesized that computational results would correlate with results of semi-quantitative grading of aortic histopathology.
Experimental Design: Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded human aortic tissue sections were stained with Movat's pentachrome to characterize aortic microstructure. Sections were also immunostained for nitrotyrosine residues to assess oxidative stress. Samples were initially graded semi-quantitatively by two independent blinded readers. Next, computational histopathology software was used a) to quantify the proportions of EF, MECM, and cellular area in the medial layer of pentachrome-stained sections and b) to quantify the distribution and intensity of positive nitrotyrosine staining in immunostained sections. Association between semi-quantitative grading and computed values was tested with ANOVA.
Results: The cohort included 74 participants who underwent prophylactic aortic replacement for TAA and 23 healthy controls. The mean age was 54±17 years. On average, EFs accounted for 49% (range 6-90%) of medial tissue area, whereas MECM accounted for 25% (1-73%). The overall semi-quantitative grade of medial degeneration severity was associated with decrease in EF fraction (p=0.02). The grade of EF thinning also strongly correlated with decrease in EF fraction (p=1x10-6). Meanwhile, grade for accumulation of MECM was associated with increase in MECM (p=0.004). Increased semi-quantitative grading for nitrotyrosine levels was associated with increased nuclear signal optical density (p=9x10-10) and greater percentage of cells labeled as strongly positive (p=8x10-10).
Conclusion and Potential Impact: We observed significant correlations between computed quantitative values and semi-quantitative grading. This suggests that computational histopathology is a valid method for investigation of human TAA tissues.


Author(s): Pelechrinis, Konstantinos | Advisor(s): Krishnamurthy, Srikanth V | Abstract: The open and shared nature of the wireless medium makes it easy for adversaries to launch simple, yet effective, denial of service attacks (DoS attacks). As an example, jamming attacks, involve the uncoordinated transmission of electromagnetic energy on the medium. In a carrier sensing network (e.g., 802.11), this attack strategy increases the number of collisions at the receiver side and/or blocks the medium access to legitimate nodes at the transmitting side. Both of the above effects degrade the wireless network performance significantly. Frequency hopping (FH) has been traditionally used to overcome jamming attacks. However, we analytically and experimentally show that FH is inadequate to efficiently cope with jamming in today's networks. Later we propose a suite of systems that aim at coping with jamming attacks at various levels (i.e., detection, localization and prevention). We first identify two intelligent and effective jamming attacks that can be launched in 802.11 WLANs and we provide robust detection systems. In particular, we design and implement (i) CMD, a system to detect active jamming attacks that exploit the carrier sensing functionality of 802.11 networks and (ii) FIJI, a cross-layer system for detecting (and mitigating) jamming attacks that exploit the performance anomaly of 802.11 WLANs. Furthermore, given the importance of locating the jamming device in many deployment scenarios (e.g., battlefield), we propose a lightweight jamming localization scheme. Our system utilizies ideas borrowed from the gradient descent optimization method. The system's evaluations, show the potentials and applicability of our localization strategy. The final step for coping with jamming attacks is jamming prevention. Based on our initial measurement driven analysis, we do not rely on a FH scheme, that tries to simply avoid the jammer. On the contrary, we design, implement and evaluate a prevention system, called ARES (Anti-jamming REinforcement System), to fight against the saboteur. ARES is applicable to carrier sensing networks and tunes the parameters of rate adaptation and power control to improve the performance under the presence of an attack while ensuring that operations under benign conditions are unaffected. Our extensive evaluations, show that ARES improves the network throughput across all scenarios by up to 150%.


ABSTRACT RAG1 and RAG2 cleave DNA to generate blunt signal ends and hairpin coding ends at antigen receptor loci in lymphoid cells. During V(D)J recombination, repair of these RAG-generated double-strand breaks (DSBs) by the nonhomologous end-joining (NHEJ) pathway contributes substantially to the antigen receptor diversity necessary for immune system function, although recent evidence also supports the ability of RAG-generated breaks to undergo homology-directed repair (HDR). We have determined that RAG-generated chromosomal breaks can be repaired by pathways other than NHEJ in mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells, although repair by these pathways occurs at a significantly lower frequency than NHEJ. HDR frequency was estimated to be ≥40-fold lower than NHEJ frequency for both coding end and signal end reporters. Repair by single-strand annealing was estimated to occur at a comparable or lower frequency than HDR. As expected, V(D)J recombination was substantially impaired in cells deficient for the NHEJ components Ku70, XRCC4, and DNA-PKcs. Concomitant with decreased NHEJ, RAG-induced HDR was increased in each of the mutants, including cells lacking DNA-PKcs, which has been implicated in hairpin opening. HDR was increased to the largest extent in Ku70 − / − cells, implicating the Ku70/80 DNA end-binding protein in regulating pathway choice. Thus, RAG-generated DSBs are typically repaired by the NHEJ pathway in ES cells, but in the absence of NHEJ components, a substantial fraction of breaks can be efficiently channeled into alternative pathways in these cells.


Main content of Finance aims to maximize business value and economic means and tools to achieve this objective are the subject of financial management. The financial management in the broad sense means all actions relating to the conservation, management and disposition of a patrimonial right. The property firm is reflected script in the balance sheet, summary of the monetary expression of the activity in one year is given by results account. Synthesis of the results renders all income and expenditure of the company's overall activity, i.e. cash picture of any operation conducted by the firm and hired her heritage in any way. If stock of a company expresses patrimonial state, how they reached that state, which are streams of revenue and expenditures are expressed through your results. Account the economic flows resulting emphasises term revenue and expenditure management, resulting from operating activities, financial and exceptional. Intermediate management balances aimed at explaining the training outcome management company to review its progress. These are two categories of financial management indicators: balances interim management, capacity of self-financing. Give different levels of profitability of the firm. Characterize the financial situation of the enterprise in terms of contribution of different inputs. GIS are largely indicators "cascade".


The study is focused on synthesis, investigation of the structural and morphological changes induced by MoO3 addition, and thermal treatment, as well as in vitro characterization of a new sol–gel derived SiO2–CaO–P2O5 bioactive materials. The obtained systems are composite materials consisting of nanocrystalline apatite, bioactive glass and CaMoO4 nanoparticles, which are of interest for both regenerative medicine and specific medical applications of the releasable molybdenum ions. The changes induced by the thermal treatments and MoO3 addition with respect to the structure and morphology were completed using differential thermal analysis\thermogravimetric analysis, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, electron paramagnetic resonance, and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller. The biological performance of these materials was evaluated in vitro by performing bioactivity and biocompatibility tests. The bioactive properties in terms of hydroxyapatite layer formation on the biomaterial surface after simulated body fluid immersion were studied by XRD and SEM. To establish their biocompatibility, the biomaterials surface was functionalized with protein and the resulted sample was investigated using SEM, FTIR, and XPS. The obtained results suggest that the addition of molybdenum oxide in proper concentration improves the biocompatibility in terms of enhancement of protein adherence on Si–Ca–P surface due to CaMoO4 crystalline phase development and does not inhibit bioactivity. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A: 102A: 3177–3185, 2014.


Oral administration of type II collagen (CII) has been shown to suppress collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) in experimental animals. However, the exact mechanism by which CIA is suppressed following administration of CII remains to be investigated, although it was demonstrated that active suppression by regulatory T cells might be involved in the suppression. Therefore, we have examined whether the inhibitory cytokine IL-4 plays a role in the suppression of CIA, by using an anti-IL-4 mAb (11B11 mAb). Mice were fed daily with CII over a period of 10 days before immunization with CII. 11B11 mAb was i.p. injected 30 min before each oral administration of CII. The results showed that treatment with 11B11 mAb markedly blocked suppression of CIA by the oral Ag. The blockade of suppression of CIA by the anti-IL-4 mAb was associated with the blockade of augmentation of IL-4 secretion in CII-fed mice. The treatment with 11B11 mAb also resulted in the prevention of decreases in anti-CII IgG2a Ab production, DTH responses to CII, proliferation of lymphoid cells to CII, and IFN-gamma secretion in mice given CII orally. Thus, the neutralization of IL-4 by an anti-IL-4 Ab appears to be effective in blocking suppression of CIA by oral administration of CII, suggesting that IL-4 may be critically involved in its suppression.


The main objective of this research is to compare different irrigation methods based upon a parametric evaluation system in an area of 48956 ha in the Hendijan plain located in the Khuzestan Province, in the southwest of Iran. The soil properties of the study area such as texture, depth, electrical conductivity, drainage, calcium carbonate content and slope were derived from a semi-detailed soil study carried out on the Hendijan plain on a scale of 1:20000. Once the soil properties were analyzed and evaluated, suitability maps were generated for surface, sprinkle and drip irrigation methods using Remote Sensing (RS) Techniques and Geographic Information System (GIS). The obtained results showed that for 5917 ha (12.08%) of the study area sprinkle irrigation method was highly recommended; whereas highly suitable lands (S1) in this plain were not identified for drip and surface irrigation methods. The results demonstrated that by applying sprinkle irrigation instead of drip and surface irrigation methods, the arability of 47272 ha (96.56%) in the Hendijan Plain will improve. In addition by applying drip Irrigation instead of sprinkle and surface irrigation methods, the land suitability of 1549 ha (3.17%) of this Plain will improve. The comparison of the different types of irrigation techniques revealed that the sprinkle irrigation methods were more effective and efficient than the drip and surface irrigations methods for improving land productivity. It is of note however that the main limiting factors in using different irrigation systems in this area were soil texture, soil calcium carbonate content, salinity and drainage.


: Kinetic properties of electron transfer by nitrogenase of Azotobacter vinelandii are dependent on the concentration of the two components of nitrogenase. An excess of the MoFe protein inhibits electron transfer in a distinctive manner, and the inhibition is reversed by increasing levels of reductant. The saturation curve for Fe protein is hyperbolic, indicating that only one Fe protein molecule per MoFe protein is required for full activity in ATP hydrolysis and electron transfer. These results can be interpreted on the basis of a complex between the Fe protein and the MoFe protein that dissociates rapidly during turnover. Both 2:1 and 1:1 complexes (Fe-MoFe) are active. Dithionite appears to be a relatively poor reductant for nitrogenase from Azotobacter vinelandii, whereas azotobacter flavodoxin is much better. In the presence of the flavodoxin it is possible to increase the specific activity of the Fe protein more than 50% relative to its activity with dithionite alone as a reductant; specific activities greater than 3000 nmol of C2H4 formed min(-1) (mg of Fe protein)(-1) have been observed.


(a) In order to meet the requirements of subpart A of this part as they apply to microbiological contamination, chemical contamination, natural toxins, and related food safety hazards, processors shall include in their HACCP plans how they are controlling the origin of the molluscan shellfish they process to ensure that the conditions of paragraphs (b), (c), and (d) of this section are met. (b) Processors shall only process molluscan shellfish harvested from growing waters approved for harvesting by a shellfish control authority. In the case of molluscan shellfish harvested from U.S. Federal waters, the requirements of this paragraph will be met so long as the shellfish have not been harvested from waters that have been closed to harvesting by an agency of the Federal government. (c) To meet the requirements of paragraph (b) of this section, processors who receive shellstock shall accept only shellstock from a harvester that is in compliance with such licensure requirements as may apply to the harvesting of molluscan shellfish or from a processor that is certified by a shellfish control authority, and that has a tag affixed to each container of shellstock. The tag shall bear, at a minimum, the information required in § 1240.60(b) of this chapter. In place of the tag, bulk shellstock shipments may be accompanied by a bill of lading or similar shipping document that contains the information required in § 1240.60(b) of this chapter. Processors shall maintain records that document that all shellstock have met the requirements of this section. These records shall document: (1) The date of harvest; (2) The location of harvest by State and site; (3) The quantity and type of shellfish; (4) The date of receipt by the processor; and (5) The name of the harvester, the name or registration number of the harvester's vessel, or an identification number issued to the harvester by the shellfish control authority. (d) To meet the requirements of paragraph (b) of this section, processors who receive shucked molluscan shellfish shall accept only containers of shucked molluscan shellfish that bear a label that complies with § 1240.60(c) of this chapter. Processors shall maintain records that document that all shucked molluscan shellfish have met the requirements of this section. These records shall document: (1) The date of receipt; (2) The quantity and type of shellfish; and (3) The name and certification number of the packer or repacker of the product.


New immunotherapeutic advances for common epithelial cancers relies on our ability to stimulate T lymphocytes against specific tumour antigens (Ag). Next-generation sequencing now allows rapid identification of somatic cancer mutations that can lead to the expression of mutated Ag. We hypothesize that gastrointestinal cancer metastases are infiltrated by T cells recognizing tumour mutated Ag. Our aim is to set up an experimental platform to screen for and study the frequency and function of mutation-reactive T cells, while characterizing novel tumour mutated Ag. To do this, we used two cancer cell lines generated from a liver metastasis of a gastric cancer patient. The cell line A was recognized by an autologous CD8+ T cell clone infiltrating the patient9s metastasis, restricted by HLA C*0701, while cell line B was not recognized by the same clone despite its expression of the HLA C*0701. The CD8+ T cell clone was not reactive to a large panel of HLA-C*0701 expressing gastrointestinal cancer cell lines, reinforcing the hypothesis that the Ag recognized was unique to the autologous gastric cancer cell line. Exome and transcriptome sequencing was performed to compare the mutated genes differentially expressed by cancer cell line A and B. A total of 27 mutated Ag were selected as candidates: 26 Ag only expressed by cell line A, and one Ag overexpressed by cell line A. To screen for reactivity of the CD8+ T cell clone to mutated Ag, 25 amino acid (aa) mini-genes containing the mutation flanked upstream and downstream by normal aa were synthesised and cloned in tandem into 3 expression plasmids. A control sequence from the MAGE-A12 gene containing an epitope restricted by HLA-C*0701was included in each tandem minigene (TMG) construct. The mRNA from these 3 TMG constructs were in vitro transcribed and electroporated into CD40-activated B cells expressing HLA C*0701, used as antigen presenting cells. Co-culture assays are ongoing, using the CD8+ T cell clones as effectors and T cells transduced with a MAGE-A12-specific TCR as control. For the detection of mutation-reactive T cells, the sensitivity of TMG expression is compared to pulsing mutated peptides on B cells. Taking advantage of the differential recognition of two cancer cell lines by an autologous CD8+ T cell clone, we have established a bioinformatics approach based on next-generation sequencing to obtain a list of candidate mutated Ag and we have designed an experimental system to assess their recognition by T cells. This platform will allow us to study the function of T cells reactive against metastatic gastrointestinal cancers and should lead to the discovery of new tumour Ag. Gaining a better understanding of T cells reactive to gastrointestinal cancers should ultimately contribute to the development of immunotherapies for these common malignancies. Citation Format: Melissa Mathieu, Sandy Pelletier, David Laperriere, Sylvie Mader, Simon Turcotte. Identification of mutation-reactive T cells in patients with gastrointestinal cancers. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR Inaugural International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival; September 16-19, 2015; New York, NY. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Immunol Res 2016;4(1 Suppl):Abstract nr A084.


In flies, circulating Hedgehog produced by the gut coordinates growth and development with nutritional status. Hedgehog (Hh) is a secreted ligand that influences cell fate and behavior locally. Lipoprotein-associated forms of Hh are also present in the circulation of fruit fly larvae, suggesting that Hh may also act systemically. In fruit flies, growth and developmental timing are coupled; fly larvae pupariate only after reaching a critical weight. Using tissue-specific RNA interference, Rodenfels et al. identified the enterocytes of the midgut as a source of circulating Hh in Drosophila melanogaster. Larvae lacking Hh grew faster and pupariated earlier than controls; restoring Hh production specifically in midgut enterocytes rescued these phenotypes. Reducing Hh production by midgut enterocytes caused larvae to pupariate earlier than, but at the same body size as, controls. Conversely, overexpressing Hh in midgut enterocytes increased the abundance of circulating Hh and delayed larval growth and pupariation. Midgut-derived Hh was not required for gut development or homeostasis, implying that its effects were mediated by other organs. Interfering with mediators of Hh signaling in the fat body, a tissue functionally analogous to the vertebrate liver and adipose tissue, reduced the ability of circulating Hh to slow growth. Circulating Hh also delayed the production of the steroid hormone ecdysone by the prothoracic gland. This gland produces a short pulse of ecdysone that commits the larva to pupariation once the critical weight has been reached. Circulating Hh was not required for normal triacylglycerol (TAG) metabolism in well-fed animals, but was required for mobilization of TAG from the fat body during starvation. Starvation caused an increase in hh expression in the midgut, and reducing hh expression in the midgut decreased the amount of time larvae could survive starvation. The fat body does not express hh, but the abundance of Hh in the fat body correlated with the amount of Hh produced by the midgut, and Hh pathway components were required in the fat body for TAG mobilization. Together these results show that circulating Hh produced by the midgut acts as an endocrine signal that controls growth and development in response to nutritional status and regulates metabolism during starvation. Hh has also been implicated in fat storage and glucose metabolism in mice, suggesting that this hormonal function of Hh may be conserved. J. Rodenfels, O. Lavrynenko, S. Ayciriex, J. L. Sampaio, M. Carvalho, A. Shevchenko, S. Eaton, Production of systemically circulating Hedgehog by the intestine couples nutrition to growth and development. Genes Dev. 28, 2636–2651 (2014). [PubMed]


The main goal of this project is to increase the opportunities of intergenerational interaction in order to enrich retirees' social life in the near future. I started with broad research, and then narrowed it down to the specific design proposal. Through my design process and methods I developed the application-Together, using "same interest" as the connection between old and young, creating a digital tool for retirees to hold their preferred activities for the younger people to join.The development process is mainly focused on simplification. I eliminated or combined functions during every iteration according to the core needs of users. The direction and decisions I have taken were affirmative according to positive feedback from users and the experts.


A rate-limiting step for circulating tumor cells to colonize distant organ sites is their ability to locate a microenvironmental niche that supports their survival and growth. This can be achieved by features intrinsic to the tumor cells and/or by the conditioning of a "premetastatic" niche. To determine if pulmonary inflammation promotes the latter, we initiated models for inflammatory asthma, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, or bleomycin-induced sterile inflammation before introducing tumor cells with low metastatic potential into the circulation. All types of inflammation increased the end-stage metastatic burden of the lungs 14 days after tumor cell inoculation without overtly affecting tumor extravasation. Instead, the number and size of early micrometastatic lesions found within the interstitial tissues 96 hours after tumor cell inoculation were increased in the inflamed lungs, coincident with increased tumor cell survival and the presence of nearby inflammation-induced monocyte-derived macrophages (MoDM; CD11b+CD11c+). Remarkably, the adoptive transfer of these MoDM was sufficient to increase lung metastasis in the absence of inflammation. These inflammation-induced MoDM secrete a number of growth factors and cytokines, one of which is hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), that augmented tumor cell survival under conditions of stress in vitro. Importantly, blocking HGF signaling with the cMET inhibitor capmatinib abolished inflammation-induced early micrometastatic lesion formation in vivo. These findings indicate that inflammation-induced MoDM and HGF in particular increase the efficiency of early metastatic colonization in the lung by locally preconditioning the microenvironment. Implications: Inflammation preconditions the distant site microenvironment to increase the metastatic potential of tumor cells that arrive there.


This article investigates the (dis)embeddedness of digital labour within the remote gig economy. We use interview and survey data to highlight how platform workers in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are normatively disembedded from social protections through a process of commodification. Normative disembeddedness leaves workers exposed to the vagaries of the external labour market due to an absence of labour regulations and rights. It also endangers social reproduction by limiting access to healthcare and requiring workers to engage in significant unpaid 'work-for-labour'. However, we show that these workers are also simultaneously embedded within interpersonal networks of trust, which enable the work to be completed despite the low-trust nature of the gig economy. In bringing together the concepts of normative and network embeddedness, we reconnect the two sides of Polanyi's thinking and demonstrate the value of an integrated understanding of Polanyi's approach to embeddedness for understanding contemporary economic transformations.


Radiotherapy (RT) is a proven curative and palliative therapeutic tool in the treatment of a wide variety of primary and metastatic brain tumors in adults. Recent advances in multimodality therapy have led to improvement in survival for many cancer patients. As survival has improved, more attention has been directed toward long-term treatment-related morbidity. Specifically, the effect of RT on the long-term cognitive performance of these patients is a major concern. This article reviews the neurocognitive effects of cranial RT on adult patients with brain tumors. Analyses of neurocognitive function are confounded by factors such as surgery, chemotherapy, tumor characteristics, tumor progression, concurrent medical illnesses, neurologic comorbidity, and medications that can contribute to neurocognitive deficits. Risk of deficits after cranial RT is associated with high RT dose, large fraction size, larger field size, and extremes of age at time of treatment. Using modern techniques with moderate total doses (50 to 54 Gy), conformal RT, conventional fractionation, and advanced planning imaging and software, the risks of neurocognitive deficits are quite small and greatly overshadowed by deficits caused by the tumor itself. Further studies need to be undertaken to elucidate the degree and cause of cognitive decline in adult patients undergoing multimodality therapy for cranial tumors.


The present analysis of sexual dimorphism variation is based on 26 specimens (12 females and 14 males) of pikeperch (Sander lucioperca) from the same lake. On the left lateral aspect, 19 homologous landmarks were obtained which were studied according to geometric morphometric methods. The utilisation of geometric morphometric techniques in assessing sexual dimorphism in the present study showed statistically significant differences, mainly in length and the dorsal fins of pikeperch, with males having a shorter body and being clearly dorsally-convexed. No differences appeared between sexes for body mass and size.


Motivated by extremely large-scale machine learning problems, we introduce a new multistage algorithmic framework for submodular maximization (called MultGreed), where at each stage we apply an approximate greedy procedure to maximize surrogate submodular functions. The surrogates serve as proxies for a target submodular function but require less memory and are easy to evaluate. We theoretically analyze the performance guarantee of the multi-stage framework and give examples on how to design instances of MultGreed for a broad range of natural submodular functions. We show that MultGreed performs very closely to the standard greedy algorithm given appropriate surrogate functions and argue how our framework can easily be integrated with distributive algorithms for further optimization. We complement our theory by empirically evaluating on several real-world problems, including data subset selection on millions of speech samples where MultGreed yields at least a thousand times speedup and superior results over the state-of-the-art selection methods.


This research focused on the politicization of specific Gulf media outlets brought on by the current crisis between Qatar and its neighbors. The analysis looked at Al-Jazeera on the Qatari side and Al-Arabiya and Sky News Arabia on the Saudi/ UAE side. 25 total content samples were researched to provide the analysis and conclusion offered by this paper.


: The non-cholinergic, non-adrenergic responses of the rainbow lizard (Agama agama Linn.) isolated rectum to transmural electrical stimulation have been examined in an effort to characterise them. In the presence of atropine (2 microM) and guanethidine (10 microM), tetanic transmural electrical stimulation (at 20 Hz) induced, in most of the preparations examined, a rapid initial relaxation (primary relaxation), which changed during the stimulation period into a contraction (primary contraction) followed by a rebound contraction (secondary contraction), which subsided at the end of the stimulus and was followed, in most preparations, by a relaxation (secondary relaxation) of variable extent and duration. Noradrenaline (1-10 microM) reduced or markedly inhibited the cholinergic muscle twitches, and decreased the various phases of the non-cholinergic, non-adrenergic muscle contractions, especially at low frequencies of stimulation (less than or equal to 10 Hz). At higher frequencies (greater than or equal to 20 Hz), ATP (5-10 microM) increased the primary relaxation, decreased the contractile phases, and inhibited post-tetanic inhibition induced by non-cholinergic, non-adrenergic nerve stimulation. Theophylline (0.1-1.0 microM) increased the primary and rebound contractions with no marked influence on the primary or secondary relaxation. Quinidine (5-50 microM) enhanced the primary relaxation, slightly inhibited the rebound contraction, but inhibited the primary contraction in a concentration-dependent manner. It is concluded that the P1 and P2 purinergic receptors proposed by Burnstock (10) are unlikely to mediate the non-cholinergic, non-adrenergic postsynaptic responses of the rainbow lizard isolated rectum.