Recent years have witnessed the success of binary hashing techniques in approximate nearest neighbor search. In practice, multiple hash tables are usually built using hashing to cover more desired results in the hit buckets of each table. However, rare work studies the unified approach to constructing multiple informative hash tables using any type of hashing algorithms. Meanwhile, for multiple table search, it also lacks of a generic query-adaptive and fine-grained ranking scheme that can alleviate the binary quantization loss suffered in the standard hashing techniques. To solve the above problems, in this paper, we first regard the table construction as a selection problem over a set of candidate hash functions. With the graph representation of the function set, we propose an efficient solution that sequentially applies normalized dominant set to finding the most informative and independent hash functions for each table. To further reduce the redundancy between tables, we explore the reciprocal hash tables in a boosting manner, where the hash function graph is updated with high weights emphasized on the misclassified neighbor pairs of previous hash tables. To refine the ranking of the retrieved buckets within a certain Hamming radius from the query, we propose a query-adaptive bitwise weighting scheme to enable fine-grained bucket ranking in each hash table, exploiting the discriminative power of its hash functions and their complement for nearest neighbor search. Moreover, we integrate such scheme into the multiple table search using a fast, yet reciprocal table lookup algorithm within the adaptive weighted Hamming radius. In this paper, both the construction method and the query-adaptive search method are general and compatible with different types of hashing algorithms using different feature spaces and/or parameter settings. Our extensive experiments on several large-scale benchmarks demonstrate that the proposed techniques can significantly outperform both the naive construction methods and the state-of-the-art hashing algorithms.


Dynamic propagation of mode Ⅲ crack under variable moving loads on the crack surface is investigated using the theory of complex functions. Using the approaches of self-similar functions, the problems are readily transformed into Riemann-Hilbert problems. The paper presents a new mechanical model for dynamic crack propagation, in which the crack is under the conditions that the variable concentrated loads Pt3/x2 and Px/t move along x-axial with velocity β. At last, analytical solutions of stress, displacement and stress intensity factor are attained, respectively.


Fully supervised methods for semantic segmentation require pixel-level class masks to train, the creation of which is expensive in terms of manual labour and time. In this work, we focus on weak supervision, developing a method for training a high-quality pixel-level classifier for semantic segmentation, using only image-level class labels as the provided ground-truth. Our method is formulated as a two-stage approach in which we first aim to create accurate pixel-level masks for the training images via a bootstrapping process, and then use these now-accurately segmented images as a proxy ground-truth in a more standard supervised setting. The key driver for our work is that in the target dataset we typically have reliable ground-truth image-level labels, while data crawled from the web may have unreliable labels, but can be filtered to comprise only easy images to segment, therefore having reliable boundaries. These two forms of information are complementary and we use this observation to build a novel bi-directional transfer learning framework. This framework transfers knowledge between two domains, target domain and web domain, bootstrapping the performance of weakly supervised semantic segmentation. Conducting experiments on the popular benchmark dataset PASCAL VOC 2012 based on both a VGG16 network and on ResNet50, we reach state-of-the-art performance with scores of 60.2% IoU and 63.9% IoU respectively1.


The Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG), which produced the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video and audio compression standards, is developing the MPEG-4 standard. MPEG-4 targets interactive multimedia applications and will become a standard in 1999. As well as an increased compression efficiency, MPEG-4 will also offer content-based functionality, i.e. the possibility of accessing and manipulating individual objects in the picture. Furthermore, MPEG-4 will offer possibilities for efficient video storage and for transmission over poor audio and video channels at bit rates between 5 kbit/s and 4 Mbit/s. This paper gives an overview of the state of the art of MPEG-4 development, concentrating especially on video content-based functionality, which is so important for interactive applications.


INTRODUCTION
The normal vaginal flora is highly complex, dominated by lactobacilli of doderlein that plays a vital role in maintaining the women's health and inhibits other pathogenic microorganisms. Fluctuation in local environment or exposure to any exogenous and endogenous sources changes the vaginal flora over a period of time. Disruption of the vaginal ecosystem changes the microflora of the healthy vagina, altering the pH and predisposing to lower reproductive tract infections. The change in the microflora of the female genital tract by pathogenic organisms may ascend from vagina to upper genital tract and may cause infertility. Although several studies demonstrate a higher prevalence of bacterial vaginosis in infertile population. The role of vaginal microbiome in infertility is not clear and need to be explored further.

AIM
To compare the vaginal flora and analyse the incidence of asymptomatic vaginosis among healthy women and in women with infertility problems.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A cross-sectional study was conducted over a period of six months at Sri Lakshmi Narayana Medical College and Hospital Puducherry, India. A total of 200 high vaginal swabs were collected from Group 1 which included 84 healthy women with regular menstrual cycles without any gynaecological disorder and from Group 2, 116 women with infertility problems attending fertility clinic within the age group of 18 to 45 years. All swabs were subjected to routine aerobic, anaerobic and fungal culture. Saline wet mount was performed for the detection of clue cells and Trichomonas vaginalis, 10% KOH was performed for demonstration of budding yeast cells and pseudo hyphae, Gram's staining to determine the presence of yeast cells, leucocytes and bacterial morphotypes. The smear was also graded using Nugent scoring system.

RESULTS
The vaginal flora of Group 1 was dominated by Lactobacillus (40, 27.8 %) followed by Micrococcus (22, 15.3 %), Enterococcus (16, 11.1%), Coagulase negative Staphylococcus spp. (12, 8.3%). Whereas in Group 2, the most dominant flora was Candida spp. (30, 26.5 %), Enterococcus (26, 23%) followed by Gram negative bacilli such as E. coli (16, 14.1 %). The percentage of Lactobacillus in Group 2 women with infertility problems was relatively low (4, 3.5%). Asymptomatic vaginosis was present in 32 (27.6 %) of Group 2 women compared to Group 1 women were only 6 (7.1%) had asymptomatic vaginosis.

CONCLUSION
Women with infertility problems showed higher prevalence of asymptomatic vaginosis and abundance of Bacterial Vaginosis (BV) associated bacteria compared to healthy women. Hence, this study recommends the screening of vaginal flora as a routine for all women, especially in women undergoing infertility treatment and also suggests the importance of vaginal culture and sensitivity in routine practice.


This article pays tribute to Ferdinand de Saussure's contribution to the study of literature. De Saussure's idea that the linguistic sign is a combination between sound images and concepts, and that their relationship is arbitrary (De Saussure, 1916) is my starting point to explore Katherine Mansfield's particular way to combine both music and meaning in order to reveal different, and often opposed, levels of consciousness in the characters of her short story "The Singing Lesson".  The study is based on a structuralist analysis (Genette, 1972, 1983) of sound and meaning in Mansfield's short story as it highlights transgressive narrative structures leading to blurring polyphonic voices and discloses the provoking and dual relationship between music and meaning in " The singing Lesson".


Since Tanzania's transition from a purely socialist approach to economic governance, the country has made some strides in attracting foreign investment. Given its negligible domestic saving culture, the answer to capital formation, job creation and general social upliftment lies in large part in foreign investment. Unlike the Ujaamanization era – when the government wanted to play a dominant role as an investor, with disastrous economic consequences – the current situation demands that the state create an environment conducive to foreign investment. The Tanzanian government can achieve this through instituting regulations and providing a foundation for its own people to emerge as entrepreneurs with the capacity to partner with foreign investors. In addition, the government has to invest in human capital development. This paper recognises Tanzania's political stability, its membership in the East African Community and SADC, and its physical location as constituting a positive platform on which it can build its competitive advantage for foreign investment. Further, Tanzania's highly liberal regulatory regime on foreign investment, as encapsulated in various domestic statutes and bilateral investment treaties, is a positive attribute. Nevertheless, if the country is to realise its full potential as an investment destination it must deal with those structural challenges that impede the attraction and retention of foreign direct investment. It should update its bilateral investment treaty network; harmonise all investment regulatory instruments; empower the Tanzania Investment Centre as an institution; take primary responsibility for developing the skills of Tanzanians; facilitate the integration of its small and medium enterprises into regional and global value chains by encouraging foreign firms to set up in its export processing zones; incentivise locals to integrate into agricultural and agro-processing value chains by providing them with title deeds to their land (which can be used as collateral to raise finance); and link incentive schemes to the integration of locals into value chains and skills development.


In order to diminish the industrial pollution to maintain the sustainable development and to reduce the cost of the steel production, a unified technology combining plastic forming and heat treatment for some steel parts production is suggested. This article mainly concerns part theoretical foundation of such technology, i.e. the thermodynamic and kinetic models of the ferrite and pearlite transformations under external stress. Simulation of the ferrite fraction after continuous cooling under stress in a low-alloyed steel is presented. The effects of stresses on bainitic and martensitic transformations are also briefly introduced. The unified technology seems favorable to be realized in manufacturing practice.


ABSTRACT This study extends prior research by examining residents' perception of an international sport event using panel data design, comparing pre- and post-event perceptions among demographic categories, and applying a moderating variable that influences the relationship between socio-demographic variables and perceived social impacts of the event. We administered 2,000 mail-in questionnaire surveys to randomly selected residents at the 2013 Tour de France Saitama Criterium in Japan. The results suggest that the residents overestimated the sporting event's impacts. The moderating variable "interest in the event" is significant; further several social impacts are significant factors in the sustainability of the event.


A study was made to search for the morphological basis and, indirectly, the developmental basis for racial differences in risk of cleft lip with or without cleft palate CL(P) in Hawaii. A total of ten linear and three angular measurements read from anterior-posterior cephalographs were examined on 210 healthy adult Caucasian, Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino subjects. Racial comparisons were made on these variables after adjusting for age and sex. Generally, the CL(P) high-risk group consisting of Japanese, Chinese, and Filipinos had smaller dimensions than Caucasians and Hawaiians in the variables (S-N, N-Ba) representing size of cranial base and the measurements of face height (N-A, N-ANS), palatal length (ANS-PNS), and mandibular length (Ar-Gn). Facial width relative to palatal length as measured by the ratio of bizygomatic diameter to palatal length showed a marked consistency with the racial differences in CL(P) risk. Possible significance of this finding is discussed in relation to development of the orofacial structure.


MOTIVATION
Identifying the location of binding sites on proteins is of fundamental importance for a wide range of applications, including molecular docking, de novo drug design, structure identification and comparison of functional sites. Here we present Erebus, a web server that searches the entire Protein Data Bank for a given substructure defined by a set of atoms of interest, such as the binding scaffolds for small molecules. The identified substructure contains atoms having the same names, belonging to same amino acids and separated by the same distances (within a given tolerance) as the atoms of the query structure. The accuracy of a match is measured by the root-mean-square deviation or by the normal weight with a given variance. Tests show that our approach can reliably locate rigid binding scaffolds of drugs and metal ions.

AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION
We provide this service through a web server at http://erebus.dokhlab.org.


The relation of the phonocardiographic time intervals (Q-I) and (IIA-OS) and the use of two formulas (Q-I, IIA-OS difference versus their ratio) for estimation of left atrial pressure were investigated in 70 cases ofpure mitral stenosis. It was noted that, in cases with normal blood pressure and pulse rate, there was afair correlation of the two intervals to left atrial pressure. In our studies the best correlation was obtained by using the ratio of these two intervals (Q-I)/(IIA-OS). These results indicate that it is possible to use a newformula and equation that are dependable for phonocardiographic evaluation of left atrial pressure.


The dynamics of contemporary economic processes urge researchers in the marketing field to study pricing outside of its traditional role. Modern customer-oriented approaches examine price levels as an instrument which contributes to retention and attraction of clients. Retention and expansion of client base is a subject-matter of the concept of customer equity which aims at long-term enhancement of customer relationship value. This value depends directly on the price levels defined by business organizations. Therefore, excessive application of discounts and sales may be risky for the company as it may turn its clients into "discount hunters" which will have detrimental impact on customer equity. In this regard, the current study aims to discover opportunities to enhance price competitiveness through promotion of customer perceived value. In pursuance of the objective of the present study, the drivers influencing the perceived value and particularly the technology and equipment equity were examined. As a result, the content of the factor was clarified and its positive impact on the level of customer perceived value was established. Guidelines were established for building technology and equipment equity, enhancement of the perceived value of products, and price competitiveness.


Injuries seen in football players mainly affect the knee and ankle joints and muscles. The causes include chronic overstrain and traumatization usually resulting from physical contact between opponent players. Torsional trauma of the joints results in excessive stressing of the capsular ligaments, potentially leading to rupture of the structures involved. Therapeutic options range from conservative measures to reconstructive or prosthetic surgery. While muscular injuries have a good prognosis with regard to the chances of continuing sports activities, injuries to ligaments often enforce a lengthy pause from sports. Extensive injuries to cartilages can terminate a player's sporting career. However, new procedures that take account of physiological biomechanics, together with the further development of surgical technologies now often allow players to regain their pre-injury level of fitness. Specific rehabilitation is a major therapeutic means of preventing further injury. Language: de


The complement system is an important immune system. Its activation results in membranolytic elimination of microbes and opsonization. The classical, alternative and lectin pathways (LP) activate complement. Either mannan-binding lectin (MBL), ficolin-1, ficolin-2 or ficolin-3 initiate the LP through associated serine protease (MASP-2) after binding to microorganisms'surface carbohydrate patterns. Genetic polymorphisms behind MBL deficiency are rather common. Numerous studies indicate that MBL deficiency is a risk factor for invasive and recurrent infections, especially when other immune systems are immature, deficient or compromised. Research in ficolins is limited but last year ficolin-3 deficiency was described. This review focuses on these recently WHO defined immunodeficiencies.


Particle concentrations were measured for a probability-based sample of 178 nonsmoking individuals aged 10 or older residing in Riverside, California, in the fall of 1990. Two 12-hr personal-exposure PM10 samples were obtained for each participant, along with fixed-location PM10 and PM2.5 indoor and outdoor air samples at their residences. The particle samples were also analyzed via X-ray fluorescence (XRF) to determine elemental concentrations for selected elements, including some toxic metals, crustal elements, and combustion- and industrial-source related elements. About 25% of the target population was estimated to have 24-hr personal exposures to PM10 that exceeded the national ambient air concentration standard of 150 micrograms/m3. The daytime personal exposure levels (median of 130 micrograms/m3) tended to exceed both indoor and outdoor levels by about 50%; nighttime personal exposure levels were lower and were only slightly higher than nighttime indoor levels. Several possible reasons for the elevated daytime personal PM10 levels (relative to indoor levels) are considered. Certain activities such as house cleaning and smoking were found to be associated with elevated personal exposure levels.


Cancer genome sequencing studies have identified tens of thousands of somatic mutations in various human cancers to date. This data has started to generate new insights into mutation patterns and their differences between various cancers. Further, the mutation patterns have also helped to elucidate mechanism involved in generating mutations in cancer genome such as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)-repair processes and mutagen exposures. With the introduction of next-generation sequencing technologies, cancer genome sequencing has evolved from a targeted sequencing approach to whole-exome sequencing and whole-genome sequencing (WGS) approaches. However, each sequencing approach has its strengths and limitations. It is widely anticipated that WGS would eventually replace targeted and exome sequencing. WGS offers a unique advantage to study structural variants or rearrangements and fusion genes in a single experiment, in addition to point mutations. However, currently the WGS is still prohibitively expensive for a large number of samples. Despite these technological advances, several challenges still remain, such as discerning driver mutations from benign mutations and collection of high-quality primary tumour tissues to minimise tissue heterogeneity. Ultimately, a comprehensive delineation of the somatic mutations in the cancer genome would require WGS of a large number of samples from various cancer types and subtypes. Congruent to this goal, the International Cancer Genome Consortium was initiated and upon completion of the project, its data is expected to further enhance our knowledge and understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying cancer development.

Key Concepts:

Several sequencing approaches are available to decipher the somatic mutation profile of cancer genome, including targeted sequencing, whole-exome sequencing (WES) and whole-genome sequencing (WGS).

Targeted sequencing is a hypothesis-driven approach where candidate genes were often selected based on knowledge of previously reported mutated genes or their related functions in cancer development, such as the kinome or phosphatome.

The ability to study different cancers and their subtypes in a comparatively higher throughput to exome and WGS is an important advantage of the targeted sequencing approach.

The introduction of multiple commercial exome enrichment kits has circumvented the technical challenges in isolating the entire exome for sequencing.

Although WES interrogates only approximately 1–2% of the entire human genome, the several hundred somatic mutations identified in WES studies have already prohibited all of them to be examined by follow-up studies in larger sample series.

The advances of NGS technologies and rapidly declining sequencing cost have enabled the completion of a number of WGS studies for various cancers.

The patterns of somatic mutations provided by WGS are useful in elucidating the mechanisms of generating the mutations in cancer genome such as DNA-repair processes and differences in mutagen exposure.

A further advantage over the other two sequencing approaches of WGS is its ability to identify structural rearrangements.

Although WES and WGS approaches have now been shown to be technically feasible, several challenges still remain.

Delineating patterns of somatic mutations in the cancer genome require a comprehensive interrogation of cancer genomes (entire genome, exome or a large number of candidate genes) in series of up to hundreds of samples.

Keywords:

somatic mutation;
targeted sequencing;
whole-exome sequencing;
whole-genome sequencing;
next-generation sequencing;
cancer genome;
single nucleotide variation;
copy number variation;
structural rearrangement;
fusion gene


Importance
Limited evidence is available regarding the benefit and hazard of higher-intensity treatment to lower lipid levels among patients 75 years or older. As a result, guideline recommendations differ for this age group compared with younger patients.

Objective
To determine the effect on outcomes and risks of combination ezetimibe and simvastatin compared with simvastatin monotherapy to lower lipid levels among patients 75 years or older with stabilized acute coronary syndrome (ACS).

Design, Setting, Participants
In this prespecified secondary analysis of the global, multicenter, prospective clinical randomized Improved Reduction of Outcomes: Vytorin Efficacy International Trial (IMPROVE-IT), outcomes and risks were compared by age among patients 50 years or older after a hospitalization for ACS. Data were collected from October 26, 2005, through July 8, 2010, with the database locked October 21, 2014. Data were analyzed May 29, 2015, through March 13, 2018, using Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox proportional hazards models.

Interventions
Double-blind randomized assignment to combined simvastatin and ezetimibe or simvastatin and placebo with follow-up for a median of 6 years (interquartile range, 4.3-7.1 years).

Main Outcomes and Measures
The primary composite end point consisted of death due to cardiovascular disease, myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, unstable angina requiring hospitalization, and coronary revascularization after 30 days. Individual adverse ischemic and safety end points and lipid variables were also analyzed.

Results
Of 18 144 patients enrolled (13 728 men [75.7%]; mean [SD] age, 64.1 [9.8] years), 5173 (28.5%) were 65 to 74 years old, and 2798 (15.4%) were 75 years or older at randomization. Treatment with simvastatin-ezetimibe resulted in lower rates of the primary end point than simvastatin-placebo, including 0.9% for patients younger than 65 years (HR, 0.97; 95% CI, 0.90-1.05) and 0.8% for patients 65 to 74 years of age (hazard ratio [HR], 0.96; 95% CI, 0.87-1.06), with the greatest absolute risk reduction of 8.7% for patients 75 years or older (HR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.70-0.90) (P = .02 for interaction). The rate of adverse events did not increase with simvastatin-ezetimibe vs simvastatin-placebo among younger or older patients.

Conclusions and Relevance
In IMPROVE-IT, patients hospitalized for ACS derived benefit from higher-intensity therapy to lower lipid levels with simvastatin-ezetimibe compared with simvastatin monotherapy, with the greatest absolute risk reduction among patients 75 years or older. Addition of ezetimibe to simvastatin was not associated with any significant increase in safety issues among older patients. These results may have implications for guideline recommendations regarding lowering of lipid levels in the elderly.

Trial Registration
ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00202878.


Plasma membranes in eukaryotic cells display asymmetric lipid distributions with aminophospholipids concentrated in the inner and sphingolipids in the outer leaflet. This asymmetry is maintained by ATP-driven lipid transporters whose identities are unknown. The yeast plasma membrane contains two P-type ATPases, Dnf1p and Dnf2p, with structural similarity to ATPase II, a candidate aminophospholipid translocase from bovine chromaffin granules. Loss of Dnf1p and Dnf2p virtually abolished ATP-dependent transport of NBD-labeled phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylserine, and phosphatidylcholine from the outer to the inner plasma membrane leaflet, leaving transport of sphingolipid analogs unaffected. Labeling with trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid revealed that the amount of phosphatidylethanolamine exposed on the surface of Deltadnf1Deltadnf2 cells increased twofold relative to wild-type cells. Phosphatidylethanolamine exposure by Deltadnf1Deltadnf2 cells further increased upon removal of Drs2p, an ATPase II homolog in the yeast Golgi. These changes in lipid topology were accompanied by a cold-sensitive defect in the uptake of markers for bulk-phase and receptor-mediated endocytosis. Our findings demonstrate a requirement for Dnf1p and Dnf2p in lipid translocation across the yeast plasma membrane. Moreover, it appears that Dnf1p, Dnf2p and Drs2p each help regulate the transbilayer lipid arrangement in the plasma membrane, and that this regulation is critical for budding endocytic vesicles.


In many countries of the world the extent of ethnic, cultural and racial diversity is increasing as a result of international migration. One frequently voiced concern is that as populations become more diverse, socioeconomic inequalities within countries will become greater. The present study presents new measures of ethnic, racial and religious diversity for 198 countries and territories. These measures were used as predictors of the Gini index in regression models with other predictors. Ethnic and religious diversity were found to be virtually unrelated to the Gini index. However, a high level of racial diversity independently predicts a high Gini index. The effect of racial diversity is robust and persists when controls for spatial and cultural autocorrelation are introduced.


PurposeClass imbalance learning, which exists in many domain problem datasets, is an important research topic in data mining and machine learning. One-class classification techniques, which aim to identify anomalies as the minority class from the normal data as the majority class, are one representative solution for class imbalanced datasets. Since one-class classifiers are trained using only normal data to create a decision boundary for later anomaly detection, the quality of the training set, i.e. the majority class, is one key factor that affects the performance of one-class classifiers.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, we focus on two data cleaning or preprocessing methods to address class imbalanced datasets. The first method examines whether performing instance selection to remove some noisy data from the majority class can improve the performance of one-class classifiers. The second method combines instance selection and missing value imputation, where the latter is used to handle incomplete datasets that contain missing values.FindingsThe experimental results are based on 44 class imbalanced datasets; three instance selection algorithms, including IB3, DROP3 and the GA, the CART decision tree for missing value imputation, and three one-class classifiers, which include OCSVM, IFOREST and LOF, show that if the instance selection algorithm is carefully chosen, performing this step could improve the quality of the training data, which makes one-class classifiers outperform the baselines without instance selection. Moreover, when class imbalanced datasets contain some missing values, combining missing value imputation and instance selection, regardless of which step is first performed, can maintain similar data quality as datasets without missing values.Originality/valueThe novelty of this paper is to investigate the effect of performing instance selection on the performance of one-class classifiers, which has never been done before. Moreover, this study is the first attempt to consider the scenario of missing values that exist in the training set for training one-class classifiers. In this case, performing missing value imputation and instance selection with different orders are compared.


Since the 2006 bombing of the al-Askari Mosque, 4.5 million Iraqis have fled their homes, and displacement has become a central strategy in the civil war. Militant groups have engineered these colossal population movements to consolidate their power and expand their territorial claims. As this crisis demonstrates, displacement can expand and intensify violence during a civil war. In addition, refugee flows increase the risk that conflict will spread across international borders. In some cases, refugee militarization can lead to international war and regional destabilization. Even if the displaced Iraqis do not join militant groups, their mere presence will exacerbate political tensions. To prevent the wide-scale militarization of the displaced Iraqis, donors and host states should heed the following policy recommendations. First, provide a massive infusion of humanitarian aid. Second, resist the temptation to build camps to house the displaced. Third, do not return the displaced people home against their will. Fourth, expand and expedite the resettlement process, especially for vulnerable Iraqis such as those who were once coalition employees.


OBJECTIVES
There are multiple approaches to vaginectomy for the purpose of masculinizing gender-affirming genital surgery including mucosal fulguration and excision. The outcomes of the approaches are not well described. We aim to describe the surgical outcomes of gender-affirming vaginectomy and colpocleisis by complete mucosal excision.

METHODS
We performed a case series study of 40 transmasculine patients who underwent gender-affirming vaginectomy and colpocleisis. Vaginectomy was performed by complete excision of the vaginal mucosa via a transperineal approach. We recorded perioperative outcomes and operative time. We performed a multivariate analysis to assess patient factors on operative outcomes.

RESULTS
Forty vaginectomies were performed between September 2016 and April 2019, 27 (67.5%) in phalloplasty patients and 13 (32.5%) in metoidioplasty patients. Perioperative complications included 2 blood transfusions, 1 pelvic hematoma, and 1 Clostridium cifficile colitis. No urethral fistulae to the vaginal space, mucoceles, or visceral injures were seen with a median follow-up of 7.7 months. Operative time decreased significantly with later surgery year.

CONCLUSIONS
This is a large series studying the outcomes of gender-affirming vaginectomy by complete mucosal excision approach in the literature. Perioperative complications were low. Operative time decreased overtime such that after approximately 20 cases, the procedure fairly consistently takes 2 to 2.5 hours to perform.


Derivation of low-energy effective models by a partial trace summation of the electronic degrees of freedom far away from the Fermi level, called downfolding, is reexamined. We propose an improved formalism free from the double counting of electron correlation in the low-energy degrees of freedom. In this approach, the exchange-correlation energy in the local-density approximation (LDA) is replaced with the $GW$ self-energy; herewith its low-energy part associated with the double counting is subtracted. Moreover, in our formalism, the frequency dependence of the effective parameter is renormalized into the static one. We apply the formalism to SrVO${}_{3}$ as well as to two iron-based superconductors, FeSe and FeTe. The resultant bandwidths of the effective models are nearly the same as those of the previous downfolding formalism because of striking cancellations between an increase arising from the exclusion of the low-energy correlation and a shrinking arising from the renormalization of the frequency dependence. In the nondegenerate multiband materials such as FeSe and FeTe, the momentum dependent self-energy effects yield substantial modifications of the band structures and relative shifts of orbital-energy levels of the effective models, which may explain the stability of the bicollinear antiferromagnetic phase in FeTe as well as the experimental absence of the antiferromagnetic phase in FeSe.


Mycobacterial chaperonin 60 (Cpn60) is an intracellular molecule essential for
cellular function due to its protein folding actions. However, it has recently been
established that Cpn60 can be released by certain bacteria and act as an extracellular
signalling protein. Mycobacterium tuberculosis has two genes coding for Cpn60
proteins: cpn60.1 and cpn60.2 (also known as hsp65). It was recently shown that
Cpn60.1 and Cpn60.2 are pro-inflammatory activators of myeloid cells and that the
effects of Cpn60.1, but not Cpn60.2, depend on CD14. This PhD project shows that
M. tuberculosis Cpn60.1 and Cpn60.2 proteins strongly bind to human peripheral
blood monocytes but their binding sites are different. Both M. tuberculosis Cpn60
proteins depend on MyD88 for the maximal activation of intracellular signalling
pathways but have different TLR requirements: Cpn60.1 signals exclusively through
TLR4 while Cpn60.2 needs the presence of TLR2 and TLR4 for maximal induction
of pro-inflammatory cytokines. A study has recently established that an M.
tuberculosis mutant with an inactivated cpn60.1 gene is unable to induce granulomas
in animal models suggesting that Cpn60.1 has inflammation-modulatory effects on
myeloid cells. This PhD project identified that recombinant M. tuberculosis Cpn60.1
has bipolar effects on human circulating monocytes. At high concentrations Cpn60.1
induces the synthesis of TNF-α and promotes the phosphorylation of NF-κB p65,
p44/42MAPK and p38 MAPK while at picomolar concentrations, Cpn60.1 inhibits the
lipopolysaccharide-induced formation of TNF-α and the phosphorylation of NF-κB
p65 without affecting the activation of MAP kinases. Gene expression analysis show
that low concentrations of Cpn60.1 completely suppress cell activation while higher
concentrations of Cpn60.1 down-regulate the expression of major pro-inflammatory
cytokine and chemokine genes in human monocytes. It is therefore concluded that M.
tuberculosis Cpn60.1 is an unusual protein with the ability to induce bipolar effects
which may help explain the pathology of granuloma formation in tuberculosis.


STUDY DESIGN
Controlled laboratory study.

OBJECTIVES
To examine the effect of 2 adhesive tape conditions compared to a no-tape condition on muscle activity of the fibularis longus during a sudden inversion perturbation in male athletes (soccer, team handball, basketball).

BACKGROUND
Ankle sprains are common in sports, and the fibularis muscles play a role in providing functional stability of the ankle. Prophylactic ankle taping with nonelastic sports tape has been used to restrict ankle inversion. Kinesio Tape, an elastic sports tape, has not been studied for that purpose.

METHODS
Fifty-one male premier-league athletes were tested for functional stability of both ankles with the Star Excursion Balance Test. Based on the results, those with the 15 highest and those with the 15 lowest stability scores were selected for further testing. Muscle activity of the fibularis longus was recorded with surface electromyography during a sudden inversion perturbation. Each participant was tested under 3 conditions: ankle taped with nonelastic white sports tape, ankle taped with Kinesio Tape, and no ankle taping. Differences in mean muscle activity were evaluated with a 3-way mixed-model analysis of variance (ANOVA) for the 3 conditions, across four 500-millisecond time frames, and between the 2 groups of stable versus unstable participants. Differences in peak muscle activity and in the time to peak muscle activity were evaluated with a 2-way mixed-model ANOVA.

RESULTS
Significantly greater mean muscle activity was found when ankles were taped with nonelastic tape compared to no tape, while Kinesio Tape had no significant effect on mean or maximum muscle activity compared to the no-tape condition. Neither stability level nor taping condition had a significant effect on the amount of time from perturbation to maximum activity of the fibularis longus muscle.

CONCLUSION
Nonelastic sports tape may enhance dynamic muscle support of the ankle. The efficacy of Kinesio Tape in preventing ankle sprains via the same mechanism is unlikely, as it had no effect on muscle activation of the fibularis longus.


Structural signal is taken self-adaptive decomposition by Hilbert-Huang Transform mainly composed of the EMD(empirical mode decomposition) and HT(Hilbert Transform), which is especially suitable for structural projects in the non-linear, non-stationary signal analysis through local characteristic. However, some weak signal may be ignored by EMD resulting in modal missing. Butterworth filter is an electronic filter designed to have flat frequency response. Considering the influence of noise , Hilbert-Huang Transform and Butterworth band pass filter are applied together to process the structural signal in order to obtain the frequency, damping ratio and mode shapes of the structure more precisely in this paper. Numerical Simulation results show that the proposed method in this paper could identify the modal parameters effectively and accurately.


In the European Union, asylum-seekers not only have the opportunity to apply for refugee status, but also for subsidiary protection when risking serious harm if sent back to their country of origin. This form of complementary protection is granted, inter alia, to those fleeing indiscriminate violence stemming from international or internal armed conflicts.While this serious harm has often been interpreted by national courts in light of international humanitarian law, in its Diakite Judgment of 30 January 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union adopted a new definition of 'internal armed conflict' differing from the humanitarian law understanding. The present article enquires into the reasons given by the Court to discard international humanitarian law as the appropriate interpretative framework and into the protective and systemic implications of such a distinct definition.


Giant Unilamellar Vesicles (GUVs) are a valuable tool to study lipid bilayer-biomolecule interactions in simplified cell-like model systems. In this work, a new method to efficiently form GUVs within minutes from more complex systems was developed. This method is based on swelling of a PVA-film under a lipid bilayer and minimizes damage of involved molecules during GUV formation. It also opens up many interesting perspectives for the formation of GUVs composed from new classes of synthetic lipids, such as glycolipids and amide-bearing phospholipids, where the traditional methods fail to efficiently produce "undamaged" vesicles. GUVs were also used for studying lipid-peptide interactions of a new class of elastin-like polypeptides functionalized with arginine-rich residues. It is shown that attractive interactions between lipids and peptides are suppressed by cargo-attachment and can be tuned by self-assembly into micelles and the arginine-amount of the cell penetrating residue.


Central umbilical artery catheterization, currently a widely used procedure in neonatal intensive care units, is accompanied by a substantial risk of vascular complications. Unilateral skin necrosis of the buttock was the initially seen manifestation of vascular occlusion secondary to thromboembolic phenomena or direct vascular damage from central umbilical artery catheterization in a premature male infant. Skin findings, such as transient blanching or erythema in a neonate who has had umbilical artery catheterization, can precede the evolution of gangrene and necrosis. One should be alert to the possibility of a vascular basis for lesions in infants in whom indwelling umbilical artery catheters have been used.


Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space and Ultralife Batteries, Inc. are developing batteries for spacecraft and launchers based on Li-ion solid-polymer-electrolyte cell technology. These cells utilize a carbon anode, a manganese dioxide cathode and a solid polymer electrolyte. Electrode and electrolyte layers are thin and flexible. The electrode assembly is easily fabricated into thin, flat prismatic shapes using ordinary lamination techniques and is hermetically sealed in thin foil packaging. Cells ranging in capacity from 4 Ah to 50 Ah have been designed and are in development testing. The packaged cells have specific energies in excess of 100 Wh/kg. Prototype 30 volt batteries have also been designed and are being assembled and tested along with the critical battery cell charge management controllers needed to recharge all cells to full capacity while preventing overvoltage damage. The major results of this development effort are reviewed and the key issues for advancing this technology to flight qualification demonstrations are discussed.


BACKGROUND: The monocyte-to-lymphocyte (MLR) and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte (NLR) ratio are calculated from routine full blood counts. The aim of this study was to systematically review MLR and NLR as biomarkers for diagnosis, treatment response monitoring and prognostic biomarker for TB infection or disease.METHODS: A systematic literature search was conducted in Medline, Embase and the Cochrane Library on 12 January 2022. The following search terms were used: tuberculosis AND (monocyte OR neutrophils), AND lymphocytes AND (diagnostic OR prognostic OR treatment).RESULTS: A total of 2,314 studies were identified, of which 41, covering 11,952 individuals, were included in the final analysis. Studies enrolled a median of 154 individuals (IQR 108-301). Increased MLR and NLR were associated with TB disease when compared to healthy controls and individuals with TB infection. MLR was shown to be prognostic for progression to TB disease and to decrease in response to TB treatment. The cut-offs determined in the studies were highly variable for MLR and NLR, making it impractical to conduct a meta-analysis of sensitivity and specificity.CONCLUSION: Higher MLR and NLR are associated with TB disease and could be used as easy-to-obtain, low-cost additional diagnostic biomarkers. Further studies investigating these biomarkers are needed.


This paper reports on mites of the family Pachylaelapidae collected in Bayburt Province, Turkey, during 2013-2015. Nine species were recorded in the genera Pachyseius, Olopachys, Pachylaelaps, and Onchodellus. Pachylaelaps (Longipachylaelaps) bayburtensis sp. nov., Onchodellus turcicus sp. nov. and O. montanus sp. nov. are described to new, and Pachylaelaps (Longipachylaelaps) vicarus is a new record for the Turkish mite fauna. New records extend the geographic range of Pachyseius masani, Olopachys hallidayi, and O. elongatus in Turkey.


The performance of any multiuser wireless communications system is strongly affected by interference. Consequently, the design of such systems must comply with some outage probability criteria. Although interference occurs in a mutual entangled basis, with wireless devices interfering with each other, outage is commonly considered on an individual per-device basis. This approach, however, is a simplified solution to a more intricate multidimensional and system-wide problem, in which several mutually interfering devices may be experiencing an outage simultaneously. The true outage probability across several devices is given by a set of mutual entangled boundary conditions to be fulfilled. This paper presents useful novel formulations for outage probability in multiuser wireless settings, here named mutual outage probability (MOP), for the interference-limited environment. Several scenarios are envisaged, in which some signals are in outage, whereas others are not and still for some others these conditions are irrelevant, all at the same time. We introduce a general framework for calculating the MOP, and present closed-form formulas for the Rayleigh case. Finally, we illustrate the practical use of these formulations in a call admission control application.


There is increasing evidence that many amphibian and reptilian species use relatively slow ion-exchange mechanisms in addition to ventilation to adjust pH as body temperature changes. Large changes in blood bicarbonate concentration with changes in temperature have previously been reported for the snake Coluber constrictor. The purpose of the present study was to determine the ventilatory and pH adjustments associated with the increase in CO2 stores when the snakes are cooled. Body temperature was lowered from 30 to 10 °C within 4 h, at which time measurements of inspired minute ventilation (V.air), O2 consumption (VO2) and CO2 production (V.CO2) were started and continued for 56 h. The decrease in temperature produced a transient fall in the respiratory exchange ratio (V.CO2/VO2) to 0.2-0.3 and a steady-state value of 0.65±0.14 (mean ± s.d., N=7) was not achieved until about 35 h. There were concomitant transient reductions in V.air and V.air/V.O2. However, V.air/V.CO2 initially increased, with a corresponding reduction in arterial PCO2 (PaCO2) and increase in arterial pH. By 35 h, V.air/V.CO2 had decreased and PaCO2 had increased to steady-state levels, but pH decreased very little because of a gradual increase in bicarbonate concentration. We conclude that the drop in temperature imposed a metabolic acidosis for approximately 35 h because of the time required to increase bicarbonate concentration, and that the acidosis was compensated for by an elevated V.air/V.CO2. Steady-state breathing and acid-base status were not achieved until the relatively slow increase in CO2 stores had been completed.


Necessitated by the subzero temperatures and seasonal exposure to ice, various organisms have developed a remarkably effective means to survive the harsh climate of their natural habitats. Their ice-binding (glyco)proteins keep the nucleation and growth of ice crystals in check by recognizing and binding to specific ice crystal faces, which arrests further ice growth and inhibits ice recrystallization (IRI). Inspired by the success of this adaptive strategy, various approaches have been proposed over the past decades to engineer materials that harness these cryoprotective features. In this review we discuss the prospects and challenges associated with these advances focusing in particular on peptidic antifreeze materials both identical and akin to natural ice-binding proteins (IBPs). We address the latest advances in their design, synthesis, characterization and application in preservation of biologics and foods. Particular attention is devoted to insights in structure-activity relations culminating in the synthesis of de novo peptide analogues. These are sequences that resemble but are not identical to naturally occurring IBPs. We also draw attention to impactful developments in solid-phase peptide synthesis and 'greener' synthesis routes, which may aid to overcome one of the major bottlenecks in the translation of this technology: unavailability of large quantities of low-cost antifreeze materials with excellent IRI activity at (sub)micromolar concentrations.


Systemically administered antisense oligonucleotide AZD9150 inhibits STAT3 and shows anticancer activity in preclinical models and patients. Blocking transcription in tumors, STAT STAT3 is a transcription factor that plays an oncogenic role in many cancers, which has proven very difficult to target with chemical inhibitors. Now, Hong et al. have demonstrated that antisense technology is a feasible alternative to small-molecule inhibitors for targeting STAT3. The authors used high-affinity next-generation antisense oligonucleotides, which have higher potency than previous generations and can be systemically administered without a lipid vehicle. One of these new antisense oligonucleotides, AZD9150, demonstrated activity in a variety of preclinical cancer models, as well as in cancer patients who have failed one or more previous treatments, paving the way for additional clinical testing of this therapy. Next-generation sequencing technologies have greatly expanded our understanding of cancer genetics. Antisense technology is an attractive platform with the potential to translate these advances into improved cancer therapeutics, because antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) inhibitors can be designed on the basis of gene sequence information alone. Recent human clinical data have demonstrated the potent activity of systemically administered ASOs targeted to genes expressed in the liver. We describe the preclinical activity and initial clinical evaluation of a class of ASOs containing constrained ethyl modifications for targeting the gene encoding the transcription factor STAT3, a notoriously difficult protein to inhibit therapeutically. Systemic delivery of the unformulated ASO, AZD9150, decreased STAT3 expression in a broad range of preclinical cancer models and showed antitumor activity in lymphoma and lung cancer models. AZD9150 preclinical activity translated into single-agent antitumor activity in patients with highly treatment-refractory lymphoma and non–small cell lung cancer in a phase 1 dose-escalation study.


As landscape architects deal with the design of environments for children, the inclusion of children with disabilities in their peers should be one of the core goals in designing natural settings. They often times face problems while working in public playgrounds, parks and green landscapes mainly due to lack of adequate provisions to meet their special needs. The purpose of the present study is twofold: to investigate different kinds of problems and specific needs of disabled children in natural settings including parks and playgrounds in Ankara (Turkey), and also to offer solutions for solving these problems. This study that is of case study type consists of parents with disabled children aged between 8 and 12 years old. Parents were investigated and interviewed in the research to obtain their perspectives. The findings revealed that there was a necessary need to improve and construct equipped natural settings specialized for children with disabilities.


: The conductor-like polarizable continuum model (C-PCM) with switching/Gaussian smooth discretization is a widely used implicit solvation model in quantum chemistry. We have previously implemented C-PCM solvation for Hartree-Fock (HF) and density functional theory (DFT) on graphical processing units (GPUs), enabling the quantum mechanical treatment of large solvated biomolecules. Here, we first propose a GPU-based algorithm for the PCM conjugate gradient linear solver that greatly improves the performance for very large molecules. The overhead for PCM related evaluations now consumes less than 15% of the total runtime for DFT calculations on large molecules. Second, we demonstrate that our algorithms tailored for ground state C-PCM are transferrable to excited state properties. Using a single GPU, our method evaluates the analytic gradient of the linear response PCM time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) energy up to 80X faster than a conventional central processing unit (CPU)-based implementation. In addition, our C-PCM algorithms are transferable to other methods that require electrostatic potential evaluations. For example, we achieve speedups of up to 130x for restricted electrostatic potential (RESP) based atomic charge evaluations, compared to CPU-based codes. We also summarize and compare the different PCM cavity discretization schemes used in some popular quantum chemistry packages as a reference for both users and developers.


Human apolipoprotein E (apo E) alleles are polymorphic with significantly different frequencies among different ethnic groups and have been associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease, and postulated as a major genetic susceptibility locus for Alzheimer's disease. Studies undertaken in different populations have shown different association patterns between apo E genotype and stroke. The aim of this study was to determine the risk of apo E genotype in stroke patients living in the eastern part of Turkey. The apo E genotypes and allele frequencies of 229 individuals from the same geographic area were determined by polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism, of which 103 were patients with a documented history of stroke without other apparent dementia and 126 age-matched healthy subjects as a control group. A reduced E3/4 genotype frequency was found in subjects with stroke and the E2/3 genotype frequency was elevated in patients with previous stroke. There was no association between apo E ε4 allele and stroke. The APOE alleles had divergent effects in this population. Association between APOE (the gene) alleles and stroke in this population may be altered due to interaction with other genetic effects. The effects of APOE alleles and genotypes require further study in different populations.


The ceaseless progress of nanotechnology, observed in the last years, causes that nanomaterials are more and more often applied in several fields of industry, technique and medicine. E.g. silver nanoparticles are used in biomedicine for disinfection and polymer nanoparticles allow insulin transportation in pharmacology. New generation materials containing nanoparticles are also used in the chemical industry (their participation in the commercial market equals app. 53 %). Nanomaterials are used in electronics, among others for semiconductors production (e.g. for producing nanoink Ag, which conducts electric current). Nanomaterials, due to their special properties, are also used in the foundry industry in metallurgy (e.g. metal alloys with nanocrystalline precipitates), as well as in investment casting and in moulding and core sand technologies. Nanoparticles and containing them composites are applied in several technologies including foundry practice, automotive industry, medicine, dentistry etc. it is expected that their role and market share will be successively growing.


Amongst other causes, the excessive and uncontrolled credit growth, the high levels of leverage with insufficient high-quality capital funding, the high degree of systemic risk accompanied with the inadequate capital buffers and the insufficient liquidity buffers and excessive exposure to liquidity risk (Coen, 2016) in the early 2000's led to first global financial crisis of the millennium in 2008–2009. Although there has been a global effort to consolidate the financial markets, different countries had different levels of regulatory response to the financial crisis, which resulted in different speed of recovery and impact on internal management control processes. This paper delivers a comprehensive review of the key global changes in the financial market and banking regulations since the 2007–2008 financial crisis by conducting a systematic review of the published papers, directives and regulations of the global, especially the new and existing American, European and Ukrainian financial regulatory bodies and International Organizations such as the Basel Committee, IMF, FSB, EU Parliament and Commission. Trend analysis provides some evidence for the stabilization effect of the new regulations, especially in case of countries with stricter supervisory frameworks (such as the Basel Standards). Finally, the impact of the regulatory environment's changes on the existing internal controlling systems and functions of financial institutions is assessed by comparing the key pre- and post-crisis states of the different management control functions.


We investigate possible connections between two different implementations of the Poisson-Nernst-Planck (PNP) anomalous models used to analyze the electrical response of electrolytic cells. One of them is built in the framework of the fractional calculus, and considers integro-differential boundary conditions also formulated by using fractional derivatives; the other one is an extension of the standard PNP model presented by Barsoukov and Macdonald, which can also be related with equivalent circuits containing constant phase elements (CPE). Both extensions may be related to an anomalous diffusion with subdiffusive characteristics through the electrical conductivity and are able to describe the experimental data presented here. Furthermore, we apply the Bayesian inversion method to extract the parameter of interest appeared in the analytical formulae of impedance. To resolve the corresponding inverse problem, we use the delayed-rejection adaptive Metropolis algorithm (DRAM) in the context of Markov-chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms to find the posterior distributions of the parameter and corresponding confidence intervals.


Recent research on genome evolution of large DNA viruses has highlighted a number of incredibly dynamic processes that can facilitate rapid adaptation. The genomes of amphibian-like ranaviruses - double-stranded DNA viruses infecting amphibians, reptiles, and fish (family Iridoviridae) - were examined to assess variation in genome content and evolutionary processes. The viruses studied were closely related, but their genome content varied considerably, with 29 genes identified that were not present in all of the major clades. Twenty-one genes had evidence of recombination, while a virus isolated from a captive reptile appeared to be a mosaic of two divergent parents. Positive selection was also found to be acting on more than a quarter of Ranavirus genes and was found most frequently in the Spanish common midwife toad virus, which has had a severe impact on amphibian host communities. Efforts to resolve the root of this group by inclusion of an outgroup were inconclusive, but a set of core genes were identified, which recovered a well-supported species tree.


Sodium ion capacitors are under extensive investigation as companionable pre-existing lithium ion batteries and sodium ion batteries. Finding a suitable host for sodium ion storage is still a major challenge. In this context, here we report a MoS2 nanoflowers@rGO composite produced via a hydrothermal method followed by an ultra sonication process as a sodium ion symmetric hybrid supercapacitor. The structural and electrochemical performances of the electrode material were investigated to establish its applicability in sodium ion capacitors. The electrochemical performance was evaluated using metallic sodium in a half cell configuration which delivered a maximum specific capacitance of 226 F g−1 at 0.03 A g−1. When examined as a symmetric hybrid electrode (full cell) it delivered a maximum capacitance of 55 F g−1 at 0.03 A g−1. This combination may be a new gateway for upcoming research work which deals with sodium ion storage applications. The results confirmed that the as-synthesized MoS2 nanoflowers@rGO heterostructure electrode exhibited notable electrochemical behaviour.


Positive-Unlabeled learning (PU learning) is a special case of semi-supervised binary classification where only a fraction of positive examples is labeled. The challenge is then to find the correct classifier despite this lack of information. Recently, new methodologies have been introduced to address the case where the probability of being labeled may depend on the covariates. In this paper, we are interested in establishing risk bounds for PU learning under this general assumption. In addition, we quantify the impact of label noise on PU learning compared to the standard classification setting. Finally, we provide a lower bound on the minimax risk proving that the upper bound is almost optimal


Computer-to-computer communication in a very large net, parallel processing, and content-based in retrieval associative memories all can be viewed in a broader context as the broadcast of a "to-whom-it-may-concern" type message and the subsequent routing of the response messages to the broadcast source. Simplicity and economies in logic and memory can be obtained if the routing does not require site information and is as decentralized as possible. We propose a procedure for such routing in a large net of modules of limited logic and memory, with connectivity primarily to near neighbors with one-way channels. The procedure is based on the Selcuk principle which maintains that in properly constructed networks routing can be achieved with each module basing its switching decision only on the identity of its input channel(s) upon which the broadcast message first arrived—a strictly local information. One-way channel connectivity emerges as advantageous because it requires much less memory and logic than two-way arrangements, while achieving nearly the same efficiency in properly constructed nets.


The lower temperatures utilized during profound hypothermic circulatory arrest (PHCA) surgery may exacerbate the hypothermia associated platelet and clotting factor dysfunction observed in conventional cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) procedures. Hypothermia has been shown to impair the activity of the enzymes involved in the platelet activation pathways and to reduce the enzymatic activity of clotting factors upon coagulation activation. The resulting retardation of the generation of fibrin/platelet clot compounded by the presence of heparin may contribute significantly to a bleeding tendency. Excessive fibrinolytic activity may disrupt surgical wound thrombi and exacerbate haemorrhage. There is good evidence that the fibrinolytic activity, mediated predominantly by tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), is a secondary response to thrombin generated by coagulation activation, which is ongoing during CPB despite full heparinization. The effects of hypothermia on the fibrinolytic response remain to be clarified and the extent to which the lower temperatures and blood stasis associated with PHCA moderate this response is unknown. Despite impairment of coagulation activation by hypothermia there appears to be a shift in the hemostatic balance towards thrombosis presumably as a consequence of endothelial cell injury by both hypothermia and stasis induced ischemia. There is evidence that widespread microvascular thrombus deposition may occur as a consequence of stasis in patients undergoing PHCA and that this might result in vascular occlusion and end organ damage. Although it is not uncommon to find laboratory evidence of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) in patients presenting with aortic aneurysm rupture or dissection, the incidence of clinically overt DIC resulting in bleeding is low. The underlying hemostatic disturbance however may contribute to the surgery-associated bleeding diathesis.


One way to reduce uncertainty in problem solving and decision making is by seeking the advice of an expert in related field. On the other hand, when we use computers to reduce uncertainty, the computer itself can become an expert in a specific field through a variety of methods. One such method is machine learning, which involves computer algorithm to capture hidden knowledge from data. In this research, a problem solving scenario for a metal cutting industry which faces some problems in determining the end product quality of Manganese Molybdenum (Mn-Mo) pressure vessel plate is investigated. Therefore, several real life machining scenarios with some expert knowledge input and machine technology features were incorporated. Three significant design parameters were used, namely; cutting speed, gas pressure and power. Artificial Neural network (ANN) has an ability to derive meaning from complicated data, and can be used to extract patterns and detect trends that are too complex to be noticed by either humans or other computational techniques. Therefore, prediction of laser machining cut quality, namely surface roughness was carried out using machine learning techniques based on Quick Back Propagation Algorithm using ANN. Experimentally observed responses were used to train, map and optimize the network algorithms before the best architecture was selected. Ten different architectures and models were tested and finally the best 3-8-1 model was finalized based on R square values. The model was then fed with new sets of machining parameters to experimentally validate the model's ability in predicting the cut quality. The findings were found to be very promising and yielded excellent accuracy for both model and experimental validation reaching almost 88% and 92% respectively. Index Term— Artificial Neural network, predictive modeling, laser processing, surface roughness, back propagation.


Materials for the generation and detection of long wavelength IR radiation continue to be of considerable interest for many applications such as night vision, defense and security, rescue, life sciences, industrial processing etc. For this purpose photodetection based on InSb is a well known technology in mid wavelength (3-5 μm) range. One of the ongoing projects in IMAGIC centre has been working on the development of technologies for the next generation long wavelength infrared (LWIR) photodetector focal plane arrays (FPAs) based on a 'dot to bulk' concept. A promising potential of this type photodetector exists to extend the detection wavelength to LWIR by using InSb QDs in InAs matrix, which also enable the device to operate at higher temperatures. Although, it is a novel and promising concept but still some challenges like optimization of material quality and device dark current etc are to be addressed. This project work has been focused on the optical and structural characterization of various size InSb QDs embedded in InAs matrix grown on InAs substrate by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The InSb QD's base diameter, height and density have been revealed and evaluated by Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Strong QDs related photoluminescence (PL) signals in IR range have been observed which can be attributed to interband transition between the InSb QDs (holes) and their InAs matrix (electrons). The absorption measurement results show that high absorbance is in the corresponding IR wavelength range which is in agreement with PL measurement results. The experimental results concluded from this work provide valuable information to optimize the InSb QDs materials for designing and fabricating desired LWIR photodetectors with low dark current and high photoresponsivity.


Bacteria resistant to most or all available antibiotics are causing increasingly serious problems and raising widespread fears of returning to a pre-antibiotic era of untreatable infections and epidemics. Despite intensive work by drug companies, no new classes of antibiotics have been found in the last 30 years . There are hopes that the newfound ability to sequence entire microbial genomes and to determine the molecular bases of pathogenicity will open new avenues for treating infectious disease, but other approaches are also being sought with increasing fervor. One result is a renewed interest in the possibilities of bacteriophage (phage) therapy the harnessing of a specific kind of viruses that attack only bacteria to kill pathogenic microorganisms. Bacteriophages are bacterial viruses. They are viruses that infect specific bacteria and destroy them. A bacteriophage virus infects a host bacterial cell by attaching itself to the surface of a bacterial cell and then injecting its viral nucleic acid into the cell. Hundreds of new bacteriophage virus particles are then formed within the bacterial cell as the virus replicates itself. The bacterial cell is then destroyed, releasing the new bacteriophage viruses to infect other bacterial cells. The process is repeated within the bacterial cell population about every 20 minutes until the bacteria are eliminated. This paper is written primarily to put phage therapy in a historical and ecological context; to explore the roles of bacteriophages in maintaining microbial ecology; and in helping to deal with the growing crisis in antibiotic resistant microbes.


Menstruation is an important indicator of reproductive health and development. In spite of a biological fact, menstrual distress is rooted in psychological and socio-cultural realities of the life of adolescent girls and women. The purpose of this study was to better understand the challenges girls face due to menstruation in the form of menstrual distress adolescent girls in Haryana State. The study was conducted on 240 adolescent girls in the age group of 10-14years and 15-19 years belonging to rural and urban areas of Hisar district. The study found that more than one fourth adolescent girls irrespective of area of residence reported higher physical distress and socially imposed impurity and restriction distress. Rural girls were more distressed than urban counterparts. Regarding facilities at school in terms of MHM, girls reported lack of proper disposal system for sanitary materials and lack of availability of changing rooms. Nearly half of respondents reported lack of open discussion from family on MHM issues. Results indicated that menstrual experiences were very painful and made adolescent girls distressed both at physiological and psychological levels. Rural adolescents had higher distress in all the aspects as compared to urban adolescents except positivity on womanhood.


Structural abnormalities of the upper genital tract in diethylstilbestrol-exposed (DES-exposed) female progeny have been noted. Since upper genital tract anomalies are often associated with upper urinary tract anomalies, intravenous pyelography was obtained in 102 DES-exposed patients at our institution to determine the incidence of upper urinary tract anomalies. Only two patients had duplication of the ureter. Since this incidence is not greater than that expected in an unexposed population, intravenous pyelogram studies are not routinely recommended for DES-exposed patients.


The hyperpolarization‐activated cyclic‐nucleotide‐gated (HCN) ion channels control nerve impulse transmission and cardiac pacemaker activity. The modulation by cAMP is critical for the regulatory function of HCN in both neurons and cardiomyocytes, but the underlying mechanism is not fully understood. Here, we show how the structure of the apo cAMP‐binding domain of the HCN4 isoform has contributed to a model for the cAMP‐dependent modulation of the HCN ion‐channel. This model recapitulates the structural and dynamical changes that occur along the thermodynamic cycle arising from the coupling of cAMP‐binding and HCN self‐association equilibria. The proposed model addresses some of the questions previously open about the auto‐inhibition of HCN and its cAMP‐induced activation, while opening new opportunities for selectively targeting HCN through allosteric ligands. A remaining challenge is the investigation of HCN dimers and their regulatory role. Overcoming this challenge will require the integration of crystallography, cryo electron microscopy, NMR, electrophysiology and simulations.


We propose a set theory strong enough to interpret powerful type theories underlying proof assistants such as LEGO and also possibly Coq, which at the same time enables program extraction from its constructive proofs. For this purpose, we axiomatize an impredicative constructive version of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory IZF with Replacement and ω-many inaccessibles, which we call IZFRω. Our axiomatization utilizes set terms, an inductive definition of inaccessible sets and the mutually recursive nature of equality and membership relations. It allows us to define a weakly-normalizing typed lambda calculus corresponding to proofs in IZFRω according to the Curry-Howard isomorphism principle. We use realizability to prove the normalization theorem, which provides a basis for program extraction capability.


Geological structures, such as faults and fractures, appear as image discontinuities or lineaments in remote sensing data. Geologic lineament mapping is a very important issue in geo-engineering, especially for construction site selection, seismic, and risk assessment, mineral exploration and hydrogeological research. Classical methods of lineaments extraction are based on semi-automated (or visual) interpretation of optical data and digital elevation models. We developed a freely available Matlab based toolbox TecLines (Tectonic Lineament Analysis) for locating and quantifying lineament patterns using satellite data and digital elevation models. TecLines consists of a set of functions including frequency filtering, spatial filtering, tensor voting, Hough transformation, and polynomial fitting. Due to differences in the mathematical background of the edge detection and edge linking procedure as well as the breadth of the methods, we introduce the approach in two-parts. In this first study, we present the steps that lead to edge detection. We introduce the data pre-processing using selected filters in spatial and frequency domains. We then describe the application of the tensor-voting framework to improve position and length accuracies of the detected lineaments. We demonstrate the robustness of the approach in a complex area in the northeast of Afghanistan using a panchromatic QUICKBIRD-2 image with 1-meter resolution. Finally, we compare the results of TecLines with manual lineament extraction, and other lineament extraction algorithms, as well as a published fault map of the study area.


Over the past two decades, researchers have struggled to efficiently express foreign DNA in primary macrophages, impeding research progress. The applications of lipofection, electroporation, microinjection, and viral-mediated transfer typically result in disruptions in macrophage differentiation and function, low expression levels of exogenous proteins, limited efficiency and high cell mortality. In this report, after extensive optimization, we present a method of expressing large tagged proteins at high efficiency, consistency, and low cost using lentiviral infection. This method utilizes laboratory-propagated second generation plasmids to produce efficient virus that can be stored for later use. The expression of proteins up to 150 kDa in size is achieved in 30-70% of cells while maintaining normal macrophage differentiation and morphology as determined by fluorescence microscopy and Western blot analysis. This manuscript delineates the reagents and methods used to produce lentivirus to express exogenous DNA in murine bone marrow-derived macrophages sufficient for single cell microscopy as well as functional assays requiring large numbers of murine bone marrow-derived macrophages.


The article analyses patterns and country-specific determinants of Visegrad Countries' (VC) agri-food trade with the European Union. Literature focusing on the country-specific determinants of vertical and horizontal intra-industry trade is rather limited and those analysing agricultural (or agri-food) trade are extremely rare. Therefore, the paper seeks to contribute to the literature by covering latest theory and data available on the topic to provide up to date results and suggestions. Moreover, it seeks to identify the determinants of horizontal and vertical intra-industry trade of the Visegrad Countries after EU accession. Results suggest that agri-food trade of the Visegrad Countries is mainly inter-industry in nature but intra-industry trade is dominated by vertical elements. Results verify that determinants of horizontal and vertical IIT differ and suggest that economic size is positively, while distance is negatively related to both sides of IIT. However, the relationship between vertical IIT and differences in factor endowments as well as FDI is ambiguous.


To develop guidelines for using C-ring specimens for evaluating the fracture strength of ceramics in tubular form, a series of finite-element analysis (FEA) calculations was performed. These calculations focused on the ranges of specimen dimensions and loading distributions required to maintain a uniaxial stress state within the C-ring specimen under diametral loading. Results of the FEA calculations indicated that the degree of uniaxiality of the C-ring stress state could be described completely by a combination of the width-to-thickness ratio (b/t) and the inner radius-to-outer radius ratio (ri/ro). It was also found that a reasonably wide range of geometries can be used with accuracy to extract fracture strength design data, provided b/t does not get too large or ri/ro too low. Given the potential statistical distribution of flaws in most ceramics, there is also cause for concern when b/t → 0 or ri/ro → 1 as this implies a small sample of flaws in the critical tensile stress region. Calculations also indicated that the uniaxiality of the C-ring stress state followed the expected 1/v dependence so that the behaviors of different materials can be surmised easily from the current results calculated for v = 0.155. As expected, and in contrast to O-ring specimens, the loading distribution between the C-ring surface and platum do not seem to have any effect on the stress state.


The judicial process is able to create stress and anxiety for people who pass through it. Some conditions of prisoners who are just undergoing detention are vulnerable to stress, anxiety that leads to suicide. The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between religiosity and resilience in penitentiaries. The design of this study was cross-sectional. The total population in this study was 1195, with a target population of 437, and an affordable population of 137 fostered residents was obtained by simple random sampling. The independent variable is religiosity. The dependent variable is resilience. The instrument in this study used the religiosity questionnaire and Brief Resilience Scale (BRS), and the data were analyzed with Spearmen's Rho. Respondents with moderate religiosity and resilience were 118 (90.1%) WBP, and low religiosity and resilience were 11 WBP. There is a relationship between religiosity and resilience in prisons (p=0.000; r=0.845). There is a strong relationship between religiosity and resilience of fostered adults. Therefore the clinic nurse can continue to help the WBP to continue to motivate and help to reduce the anxiety, social, and physical conditions experienced by the WBP when they first enter prison.


Dissolved gas analysis (DGA) of oil is one of the major diagnostic tools that are used to detect the incipient faults of oil-immersed transformers through the correlation between the dissolved gases content in transformer oil and a particular malfunction. There are several techniques of DGA to interpret the incipient transformer faults such as Doernenburg ratio, Rogers's ratio, IEC ratio and Duval triangle techniques. This study presents a new proposed technique for transformer fault diagnosis using a new three gas ratios concentration of DGA to overcome the conflict that takes place in the traditional interpretation techniques. The accuracy of the proposed diagnosis technique is verified using practical DGA data obtained from 688 samples that have been collected from different transformers of different rating and different lifespan reported by Egyptian Electricity Holding Company, IEC TC10 and related databases surveyed from actual incident cases. The comparison with traditional DGA techniques showed that the proposed DGA ratio technique has good diagnosis accuracy. It is found that the suggested three ratios technique method has 99.86% accuracy as compared with 85.67% for Duval, 75.08% for Doernenburg, 47.34% for IEC and 39% for Rogers when testing 688 cases.


Abstract:Gayl Jones's novel Corregidora has most often been read as testament to the continuity of the traumas of slavery and sexual violence across temporal and spatial boundaries—traumas transmitted and affirmed both through familial descent and through the enduring vitality of the blues aesthetic. This essay argues, however, that what Corregidora affirms most strongly is not a more accurate (because more traumatic) history but rather what Stephen Best has recently called the desire to make the past present. What Ursa Corregidora struggles to realize in the novel is precisely the pastness of the past, the recognition that the past need not determine the present. Because this realization is thematically bound up with a celebration of nonprocreative sexuality and with an ambivalent critique of futurity, it anticipates a number of contemporary emphases within queer theory.


The 'Situational Analysis' tool (SA) as part of Cognitive Behavioural Analysis System of Psychotherapy -CBASP' was developed by Dr James McCullough specifically for the treatment of chronic depression. The concept here is to capture a 'slice in time' and work towards examining and changing thoughts and behaviour in the service of 'Chosen Values', an integral part of orienting the client towards values based behaviour in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Whilst the SA was developed for chronic depression it is unsurprisingly effective in many psychiatric disorders as 'psychological overwhelm' and suffering as a result of being triggered by past traumatic experiences which is, as the Buddha said a 'feature of the human condition'. When we are 'triggered' we tend to lose contact with the present moment. The SA succinctly and eloquently captures a frame in time so that both the therapist and client are able to remain grounded in a specific situation that is the cause of distress to the client. It facilitates being 'present' in the moment so as to engage with thoughts and behaviors that lead to the 'Desired Outcome- DO' as opposed to the familiar but distressing 'Actual Outcome- AO'. Noting the gap and building on what is required to achieve the DO allows the person to find and remain on the path of 'Chosen Values'. The tool also serves to impart agency to the client which serves to strengthen their belief in their capacity to effect change and builds to a more confident future. Conclusion: This workshop will teach participants how to use this tool which directly engages the client in the process of change and helps provide a meaningful aim i.e. through uncovering or building in, as the case may be of working towards chosen goals in the moment leading to achieving in the longer term 'chosen values'.


Test procedures for characterizing the orthotropic behavior of a unidirectional composite at room temperature and quasi-static loading conditions are developed and discussed. The resulting data consisting of 12 stress–strain curves and associated material parameters are used in a newly developed material model—an orthotropic elasto-plastic constitutive model that is driven by tabulated stress–strain curves and other material properties that allow for the elastic and inelastic deformation model to be combined with damage and failure models. A unidirectional composite—T800/F3900, commonly used in the aerospace industry, is used to illustrate how the experimental procedures are developed and used. The generated data are then used to model a dynamic impact test. Results show that the developed framework implemented into a special version of LS-DYNA yields reasonably accurate predictions of the structural behavior.


Relationship between groundwater invertebrate communities and environmental variables: The study of aquifers from an ecosystemic perspective that focus on their invertebrate communities is relatively recent. Particularly, the invertebrates living in low permeability loessic aquifers have not been studied. The objective of this work was to evaluate the influence of environmental variables on the invertebrate communities in the loessic phreatic aquifer of La Colacha basin (Cordoba). Seven perforations were selected according to the thickness of the vadose zone and the surrounding land use. Also a superficial water body was selected as a reference. The perforations were sampled twice during a hydrological year. The samples corresponded to fresh water, with the exception of one perforation (brackish water). Nitrate was detected in all samples. As expected, the superficial water body showed higher invertebrate abundance than the wells. Invertebrate density ranged between 1.6 and 23.7 individuals/L, which is in the range of densities of other aquifers of the world. The dominant taxon was Crustacea, in particular Copepoda, followed by Acari, Collembola, Insecta, Oligochaeta, Pauropoda and Nematoda. Invertebrate abundance diminished with vadose zone depth, associated with a decrease of the flow of oxygen and organic matter to the groundwater. Land use surrounding the wells significantly affected the aquifer invertebrates through the contribution of organic matter.


Nutrient resorption from senescing photosynthetic organs is a powerful mechanism for conserving nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in infertile environments. Evolution has resulted in enhanced differentiation of conducting tissues to facilitate transport of photosynthate to other plant parts, ultimately leading to phloem. Such tissues may also serve to translocate N and P to other plant parts upon their senescence. Therefore, we hypothesize that nutrient resorption efficiency (RE, % of nutrient pool exported) should correspond with the degree of specialization of these conducting tissues across the autotrophic branches of the Tree of Life. To test this hypothesis, we had to compare members of different plant clades and lichens within a climatic region, to minimize confounding effects of climatic drivers on nutrient resorption. Thus, we compared RE among wide-ranging basal clades from the principally N-limited subarctic region, employing a novel method to correct for mass loss during senescence. Even with the limited numbers of species available for certain clades in this region, we found some consistent patterns. Mosses, lichens, and lycophytes generally showed low REN (<20%), liverworts and conifers intermediate (40%) and monilophytes, eudicots, and monocots high (>70%). REP appeared higher in eudicots and liverworts than in mosses. Within mosses, taxa with more efficient conductance also showed higher REN. The differences in REN among clades broadly matched the degree of specialization of conducting tissues. This novel mapping of a physiological process onto the Tree of Life broadly supports the idea that the evolution of conducting tissues toward specialized phloem has aided land plants to optimize their internal nitrogen recycling. The generality of evolutionary lines in conducting tissues and nutrient resorption efficiency needs to be tested across different floras in different climatic regions with different levels of N versus P availability.


Auteur(s) :, Simon Shorvon* Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK The classification of disease has always been, and presumably will always remain, a controversial subject. It is therefore with some trepidation that I make this contribution to the pages of Epileptic Disorders. It is an almost universal truth that no single classification scheme in neurology will satisfy all persons, and indeed, most satisfy few, the field of epilepsy provides no exception. Clinicians, scientists, [...]


Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the US. Cancer-associated cachexia is present in up to 80% of PDAC patients and is associated with aggressive disease and poor prognosis. In the present studies we evaluated an anti-cancer natural product silibinin for its effectiveness in targeting pancreatic cancer aggressiveness and the cachectic properties of pancreatic cancer cells and tumors. Our results demonstrate that silibinin inhibits pancreatic cancer cell growth in a dose-dependent manner and reduces glycolytic activity of cancer cells. Our LC-MS/MS based metabolomics data demonstrates that silibinin treatment induces global metabolic reprogramming in pancreatic cancer cells. Silibinin treatment diminishes c-MYC expression, a key regulator of cancer metabolism. Furthermore, we observed reduced STAT3 signaling in silibinin-treated cancer cells. Overexpression of constitutively active STAT3 was sufficient to substantially revert the silibinin-induced downregulation of c-MYC and the metabolic phenotype. Our in vivo investigations demonstrate that silibinin reduces tumor growth and proliferation in an orthotopic mouse model of pancreatic cancer and prevents the loss of body weight and muscle. It also improves physical activity including grip strength and latency to fall in tumor-bearing mice. In conclusion, silibinin-induced metabolic reprogramming diminishes cell growth and cachectic properties of pancreatic cancer cells and animal models.


A single band t-U-J1-J2 model is proposed as the minimum model to describe the superconductivity of the newly discovered iron-based superconductors R(O1-xFx)FeAs and RO1-xFeAs (R = La, Ce, Sm, Pr, Nd, Gd). With the mean-field approach, it is found that the pairing occurs in the d-wave channel. In the likely parameter region of the real materials, by lowering temperature, the system enters firstly the dxy superconducting phase with D4h-symmetry and then enters the time-reversal-symmetry-broken dxy + idx2-y2 superconducting phase with C4h-symmetry.


When addressing unconscionability, the legal academy focuses almost exclusively on the transaction between the parties, analyzing the parties themselves only in passing, if at all. More importantly, the current writing on unconscionability does not analyze the parties in the context of their culture. In cases like the famed Harry v. Kreutziger, now marking its 30th anniversary, the appropriate resolution to the unconscionability argument should rest not only on the transaction itself, but also on the culture of the parties and the effect that culture may have had on their dealings. By failing to conduct such a cultural analysis, the academy and courts have not only continuously provided little guidance to future litigants, but also failed to treat culturally like cases alike. The cultural approach shares outcomes with two more established approaches to unconscionability: the paternalistic and the economic approaches. The cultural view of unconscionability may result in contracts being rescinded in many (but not all and not for the same reasons) of the situations in which paternalism would have them rescinded. On the other hand, the cultural view also shares outcomes with the economic approach: unconscionability, applied through a cultural analysis, will also be a narrow doctrine of exceptional application (but for practical reasons, not purposely, as intended by the economic approach).


We describe two new markers of mouse liver epithelial cells detected by monoclonal antibodies. Immunomorphological localization of antigens was performed using light and electron microscopy. Antigen G7 is a marker of cholangiocytes and oval cells. Antigen A6 is present in cholangiocytes and oval cells; moreover, it is expressed in normal liver in single hepatocytes adjacent to the portal vein, in preneoplastic liver, in newly formed hepatocytes, and in certain hepatocarcinomas. Thus, antigen A6 is a marker of cholangiocytes, oval cells and of certain stages of hepatocyte differentiation. We also detected phenotypic heterogeneity of Gehring cells in terms of antigen A6 content. We have formulated problem of the relationship between A6-negative Gehring cells and liver stem cells. Both marker antigens are species-specific but are not specific for the liver. Antigen A6 is simultaneously a differentiation marker of cells belonging to the erythroid series. It is expressed in erythroblasts of fetal liver and is absent in erythroblasts of the yolk sac and erythrocytes. The relationship between antigen A6 and blood group antigens is discussed.


Although our perceptions regarding distance education (DE) have changed significantly, there still remains a perceived lack of quality in the development, management and delivery of DE programmes. Unfortunately, DE offered in developing countries depends largely on first and second-generation delivery modes and relies heavily on print as form of information dissemination. Thus, technological drawbacks are often hailed as the main reason for such setbacks. This article discusses the findings of a comparative study involving an education programme that runs as both a contact and a distance programme. The assessment indices include access, delivery and output, while the Transactional Distance Theory is adopted to ascertain the extent to which the theory accounts for excellence in a given programme. Findings clearly support the importance of the relationships between dialogue, structure and autonomy. However, the researchers proffer that the Transactional Distance Theory should apply not just to learning material, but to the totality of a given programme. Finally, suggestions on enhancing the total quality of programmes in this context include: the introduction of generic courses; provision of bursaries; introduction and


When a system's context of use changes, the security impact may be felt in other contexts. Risks mitigated for one operational context may continue to pose a danger in others due to contextual differences in assets, threats and vulnerabilities. The research presented will identify security factors in these contexts of use, and describe their application to secure systems design. The contributions of this research lead to conceptual models, processes and toolsupport which better situate requirements and risk analysis for different contexts of use.


OBJECTIVES
(1) To compare the survival of concomitant chemotherapy and radiotherapy with radiotherapy alone in Chinese patients with primary glioblastoma. (2) To determine the methylation status of O(6)Methylguanine DNA methyltransferase in Chinese primary glioblastoma, and to assess the prognostic value of O(6)Methylguanine DNA methyltransferase methylation status in such patients.

DESIGN
Retrospective correlative analysis.

SETTING
University teaching hospital, Hong Kong.

PATIENTS
Patients diagnosed with histologically proven primary glioblastoma in the period of March 2005 to June 2007 were recruited. Genomic DNA was isolated from formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded sections of glioblastoma tissues. Methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction for O(6)Methylguanine DNA methyltransferase was performed. Patients' information at presentation was collected (age, performance status, steroid use, extent of resection, complications, radiotherapy data, use of chemotherapy). Primary outcome was measured by overall survival while secondary outcome was measured by progression-free survival. Overall and progression-free survivals were estimated by the Kaplan-Meier technique. Outcomes were assessed for groups with and without concomitant chemoradiotherapy and for groups with and without O(6)Methylguanine DNA methyltransferase methylation.

RESULTS
A total of 35 glioblastoma patients were recruited; 27 were male and 8 female. Their mean age was 50 years. In all, 17 received concomitant chemoradiotherapy, and 18 received radiotherapy only. Their median overall survival was 12 (range, 7-17) months and the median progression-free survival was 5 (range, 3-6) months. In the radiotherapy alone group, the median progression-free survival and overall survival was 4 (range, 3-5) months and 6 (range, 2-10) months, respectively. In the concomitant radiochemotherapy group, the median progression-free survival and overall survival was 6 (range, 2-10) months and 13 (range, 8-18) months, respectively. Fifteen (43%) of the tumour samples showed methylation of O(6)Methylguanine DNA methyltransferase. There was a trend towards overall longer survival in the group with methylated tumours compared to those with unmethylated tumours; respective values for median survival (ranges) were 17 (13-21) versus 10 (6-14) months (P=0.105).

CONCLUSIONS
Our single-centre results indicated that Chinese glioblastoma patients who had received concomitant chemoradiotherapy showed a trend towards longer overall survival compared to those receiving radiotherapy alone. Approximately 43% of our Chinese glioblastoma samples showed methylation of O(6)Methylguanine DNA methyltransferase. O(6)Methylguanine DNA methyltransferase methylation may be a significant prognostic factor in Chinese glioblastoma patients.


We study the consequences of an extension of the standard model containing an invisible extra gauge group under which the SM particles are neutral. We show that effective operators, generated by loops of heavy chiral fermions charged under both gauge groups and connecting the new gauge sector to the Standard Model, can give rise to a viable dark matter candidate. Its annihilations produce clean visible signals through a gamma-ray line. This would be a smoking gun signature of such models observable by actual experiments.