Verbascum L. is the largest genus of the family Scrophulariceae and includes several species are of medicinal importance. In this study, external seed morphologies of 30 taxa included in Group A belonging to genus Verbascum L. (Scrophulariaceae) in Turkey, have been investigated using SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) and LM (Light Microscopy). Light microscope observations showed that seed size ranges from 0.3 mm to 1.5 mm in length and 0.1 to 0.6 in width. Seeds vary from oblong, oblong prismatic, trigonious prismatic, prismatic, ovoid to eliptic in shape among the studied species. The seeds end to an acute, obtuse, truncate or rounded beak. The seed coat is transversal ridged or alveolate. The results of this study showed that considerable taxonomic insight can be gained from study of seed characters of Verbascum , especially at the species level. The variation in seed morphology is manifested mainly in shape, size, colour, seed coat ornamentation. To make a conclusion about the delimitation under the genus Verbascum based on the seed characteristics, all taxa included in the genus should be studied comparatively.


Reinforced soil is a composite material which is formed by the association of frictional soil and tension resisting elements in the form of sheets, strips, nets, or mats of metal, synthetic fabrics or fiber reinforced plastics and arranged in the soil mass in such a way as to reduce or suppress the tensile strain which might develop under gravity and boundary forces. It is well-known facts that most granular soils are strong in compression and shear but weak in tension. The performance of such soils can be substantially improved by introducing reinforcing elements in the direction of tensile strains in the same way as in reinforced concrete. Keeping this in view the present study was taken up. In this study triaxial compression tests were conducted on a medium dense granular soil (RD = 40 %) reinforced with synthetic geogrid sheet. The geogrid sheets equal to plan dimension of split mould were placed within the triaxial test samples in different combinations such as 3 layers, 4 layers and 5 layers at equal vertical spacing. The stiffness modulus (σd/ϵ) and shear strength parameters (c and ϕ) of reinforced sand corresponding to each combination of geogrid sheet were determined in the laboratory. Tests results indicate that the stiffness modulus and the shear strength parameters of soil increase on the inclusion of geogrid sheet. It was also observed that on increasing the number of geogrid sheet these strength parameters further improve and the improvement is substantial corresponding to 5 layers of geogrid sheet. Thus there is a significant improvement in stiffness modulus and shear strength parameters of reinforced soil due to geogrid sheet and the load carrying capacity of reinforced soil will be improved and immediate settlement will be reduced.


Inherited deficiency of the purine salvage enzyme adenosine deaminase (ADA) gives rise to a syndrome of severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). We have studied a 2.5-yr-old immunologically normal child who had been found to lack ADA in his erythrocytes during New York State screening of normal newborns. His erythrocytes were not detectably less deficient in ADA than erythrocytes of ADA(-)-SCID patients. In contrast, his lymphocytes and cultured long-term lymphoid cells contained appreciably greater ADA activity than those from patients with ADA(-)-SCID. This residual ADA activity had a normal molecular weight and K(m) but was markedly unstable at 56 degrees C. His residual erythrocytes-ADA activity also appeared to have diminished stability in vivo. ADA activity in lymphoid line cells of a previously reported erythrocyte-ADA-deficient!Kung tribesman was found to contain 50% of normal activity and to exhibit diminished stability at 56 degrees C. ATP content of erythrocytes from both partially ADA-deficient individuals was detectably greater than normal (12.3 and 6.1 vs. normal of 2.6 nmol/ml packed erythrocytes). However, the dATP content was insignificant compared to that found in erythrocytes of ADA(-)-SCID patients (400-1,000 nmol/ml packed erythrocytes). The New York patient, in contrast to normals, excreted detectable amounts of deoxyadenosine, but this was <2% of deoxyadenosine excreted by ADA(-)-SCID patients. Thus, the residual enzyme in cells other than erythrocytes appears to be sufficient to almost totally prevent accumulation of toxic metabolites.


A consecutive series of 120 individuals with subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) from a ruptured supratentorial aneurysm were subjected to early aneurysm operation followed by subsequent intravenous administration of the calcium antagonist nimodipine during the critical period for symptomatic vasospasm. One hundred and one patients were in Hunt and Hess neurological Grades I-III, and 19 were in Grade IV or V prior to surgery. In 50 individuals the aneurysm was located in the anterior cerebral artery complex (ACA), in 34 it originated from the internal carotid artery complex (ICA), and in 36 individuals the ruptured aneurysm arose from the middle cerebral artery (MCA). 74% of the patients made a good neurological recovery, the morbidity was 20%, and the mortality was 6%. Of the Grade I-III patients, 82% made a good neurological recovery, and the mortality was 5%. Delayed ischemic deterioration (DID) with permanent dysfunction occurred in five patients, all with ruptured ACA aneurysms. No single patient in the ICA or MCA populations developed DID with fixed neurological deficit (FND). The low incidence of symptomatic vasospasm following early aneurysm surgery suggests that intravenous nimodipine exerts an additional anti-ischemic effect. Analysis of blood concentration of nimodipine did not make it likely that therapeutical failures in the ACA aneurysm patients could be ascribed to individual deviations in the pharmacokinetics of nimodipine.


Experiments on animals have shown a favourable effect of orotic acid upon reparative regeneration processes in injured abdominal wall and stomach. In the clinic the administration of orotic acid favoured the decrease of the incidence of postoperative complications from 32% to 14% and the acceleration of the wound healing by 30%.


Federal law prohibits discrimination in employment decisions against persons in certain protected categories. The common method for measuring discrimination involves a comparison of some aggregate statistic for protected and nonprotected individuals. This approach is open to question when employment decisions are made over an extended time period. We show how to use hierarchical proportional hazards models (Cox regression models) to analyze such data.


This paper was published online on 18 August 2016 with errors in the author list. The original author list was generated
with errors in the labels for secondary affiliations of authors. The labels for the affiliations have been corrected as of
8 March 2017. The labels for the affiliations are incorrect in the printed version of the journal.


Seasonal variations in vertical density structure, inorganic nutrient concentrations, dissolved oxygen concentrations, and phytoplankton biomass were investigated in a shallow, tidally choked coastal lagoon subject to impaired water quality. Vertical turbulent mixing rates, which govern the distribution of scalars relevant to water quality, were quantified on both seasonal and diurnal time scales. The project site, Rodeo Lagoon, is located in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, California, and has experienced fish kills and intense algae blooms in recent years. Monthly measurements collected along a transect of the lagoon from March 2006 to April 2008 show it was strongly stratified by brackish water in winter, when freshwater inputs from the watershed and saltwater inputs from storm surge were both at their largest. The squared buoyancy frequency exceeded 0.5 s -2 under these conditions, and the lower layer was typically warmer, depleted in oxygen and enriched in ammonium. In summer, weaker diurnal temperature stratification was the result of strong light absorption in this hypereutrophic lagoon. In fall 2007, hypoxia and potentially toxic levels of ammonium were observed coincident with the seasonal decline in algal biomass.Wind is the dominant driver of turbulent mixing in Rodeo Lagoon. Although water depths of less than 2.5 m lead to the expectation of rapid vertical mixing, limited fetch and strong density gradients reduce the coupling of wind stress and bottom stress. The vertical turbulent diffusivity is reduced by as much as three orders of magnitude across the pycnocline, and the water column in and below the pycnocline shows active turbulence only intermittently. The annual cycle of salt-based stratification and accompanying reduction in turbulent exchange of nutrients between the sediments and overlying water column inhibit the flushing of nutrients out of the lagoon and contribute to excessive phytoplankton biomass.


Our study compares the demand for high and low quality chicken, pork, and beef in Seattle and Indianapolis during 2008- 2010. We determined which of the Barton's General Demand System specifications best fit the data and if beef, pork or chicken demands are asymmetrically separable by either quality or type of meat product. Our data is from a random weight syndicated grocery dataset. This data set provided weekly expenditures on meat products at sample stores within a given city. We found that the Indianapolis data best fist the AIDS model, while Seattle data does not satisfy any of the subset models nested in the Barton Demand system. There is no evidence of asymmetric separability by high quality, low quality, or type of meat, in either Indianapolis or Seattle.


The current review introduces a new program of research that suggests the perception of spatial layout is influenced by emotions. Though perceptual systems are often described as closed and insulated, this review presents research suggesting that a variety of induced emotions (e.g., fear, disgust, sadness) can produce changes in vision and audition. Thus, the perceptual system may be highly interconnected, allowing emotional information to influence perceptions that, in turn, influence cognition. The body of work presented here also suggests that emotion-based changes in perception help us solve particular adaptive problems because emotion does not change all perceptions of the world. Taking the adaptive significance of emotion into account allows us to make predictions about when and how emotion influences perception.


One hundred and six patients with dorsalgia of lumbar-sacral spine have been examined and treated. The developed and tested optimal methodology for using biofeedback, reflex therapy and manual therapy in a combined treatment of patients of different age in acute and chronic stages of the disease raised treatment efficacy. Combined treatment, including biofeedback, manual therapy, acupuncture of patients with dorsalgia, provides rapid arrest of pain syndrome, reduction of high tonicity of paravertebral muscles, motion volume increasing in lumbar spine region. Biofeedback allows patients to self-regulate muscle tone, therefore prevent further possible exacerbations.


This paper adopts a synthesis algorithm which combines FIR filters and wavelet threshold de-noising method to complete ECG de-noising. Firstly, we designed a FIR equiripple bandpass filter using Matlab FDATool to remove baseline drift, power interference and the high frequency part of muscle moments. Then we adopted an improved wavelet threshold de-noising algorithm to remove the remaining muscle moments with less decomposing levels. The algorithm was implemented on Matlab platform. The experimental results show that the algorithm is simple in design and has less calculation and good de-noising effect, which is superior to conventional wavelet threshold de-noising algorithm, and can be used in clinical analysis.


CHOP-10 (GADD153/DDIT-3) is a bZIP protein involved in differentiation and apoptosis. Its expression is induced in response to stresses such as nutrient deprivation, perturbation of the endoplasmic reticulum, redox imbalance, and UV exposure. Here we show that CHOP expression is induced in cultured pancreatic β-cells maintained in a basal glucose concentration of 5.5 mM and repressed by stimulatory glucose (≥11 mM). Both induction and repression of CHOP are dependent on the MAPKs ERK1 and ERK2. Two regulatory composite sites containing overlapping MafA response elements (MARE) and CAAT enhancer binding (CEB) elements regulate transcription in an ERK1/2-dependent manner. One site (MARE-CEB), from −320 to −300 bp in the promoter, represses transcription. The other site (CEB-MARE), from +2,628 to +2,641 bp in the first intron of the CHOP gene, activates it. MafA can influence transcription of both sites. The MARE-CEB is repressed by MafA, whereas the CEB-MARE site, which is homologous to the A2C1 component of the glucose-sensitive RIPE3b region of the insulin gene promoter, is activated by MafA. These results indicate that ERK1/2 have dual roles in regulating CHOP gene expression via both promoter and intronic regions, depending on environmental and metabolic stresses imposed on pancreatic β-cells.


Antenatal attachment representations (Adult Attachment Interview classification and reflective function), 'mind-mindedness' (Meins, 1997) in relation to the foetus, and attachment to the unborn child (Condon, 1993) were assessed in 25 couples and 3 solo mothers. Families were followed up at 6 months postpartum, at which time infant-parent interaction was observed separately for mothers (N=21) and fathers (N=17). These free-play interactions were coded for parents' sensitivity (Ainsworth, Bell, & Stayton's, 1974) and mind-mindedness (Meins, Femyhough, Fradley, & Tuckey, 2001). Infant-parent attachment security was assessed using the Strange Situation in a further follow-up at 12 months for mothers (№=18) and 15 months for fathers (iV=15), with parents predicting in advance how their infants would react. Parental mind-mindedness in the Strange Situation was also assessed using Meins et al.'s (2001) scheme. The results across the four testing ages largely showed that autonomous AAI classification and RF were both positively associated with parental mind-mindedness, although in general, stronger effects were seen (a) for fathers than for mothers, and (b) using RF rather than AAI classification as the index of parental attachment representations. There was evidence for continuity in mind-mindedness from pregnancy to 6 months in mothers and fathers, but there was less continuity in mind- mindedness across different contexts than was observed over time. With respect to accuracy of parental predictions about attachment behaviours, maternal mindedness both antenatally and at 6 months was positively related to accuracy. Accuracy in mothers was also related to higher levels of sensitivity and RF. Potential pathways from antenatal attachment representations to Strange Situation via indices of infant-parent interaction (mind-mindedness or sensitivity) were explored using a descriptive approach. Regardless of whether high sensitivity or high mind-mindedness was used as the intermediary, autonomous AAI classification related to secure Strange Situation classification. Low sensitivity or mind-mindedness appeared to have a negligible impact on the likelihood of a secure attachment being formed if the parent was autonomous. Non-autonomous AAI classification coupled with low sensitivity or mind-mindedness was similarly strongly related to insecure Strange Situation classification. However, unlike for high sensitivity, having a mind- minded parent appeared to ameliorate the effect of non-autonomous AAI classification on infant attachment security, at least for fathers.


We implement a new IP address auto-configuration mechanism for MANET. The proposed mechanism lets any nodes in a MANET distribute address pools to a new node. The proposed algorithm can guarantee address uniqueness and achieve fast address assignment. The protocol is implemented on the Optimized Link State Routing protocol and supports both IPv4 and IPv6. This paper extends the previous work [6] by providing reliability, optimizing the codes and validating the protocol performance with more experiments and more nodes on the real wireless testbed. We also discuss concerns about security vulnerabilities of this proposed protocol.


Climate change research has faced increased public scrutiny over the last several years. The scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change has significant public policy implications, and this, combined with the resulting public scrutiny, has had material consequence to how science in this field is done. Dissenting research, as well as dissent more generally, is often made in a way that is damaging to the pursuit of knowledge, instead of beneficial to it.

While historical accounts of 'epistemically detrimental dissent' (EDD) have captured some of the ways these views are created and spread, establishing strict criteria for these without implicating the normal dissent that is so crucial to scientific practice, remains difficult. After discussing the background of EDD in existing philosophical literature, an alternative – the communications account of epistemically detrimental dissent – is proposed.


In a freshman engineering course, one objective is to introduce multidisciplinary teams of engineering students to unifying engineering and science principles such as mass, momentum and energy balances; materials; thermodynamics, and electricity and magnetism using a consumer product or engineering process as a test bed. In several of the course sections, the test bed was a Net Zero Energy Building (NZEB). A NZEB is a building that, over the course of a year, produces as much energy as it consumes. One lab activity associated with this project was experimentally determining the most energy efficient of several types of light bulbs. Students measured the visible light output, power consumption, and surface temperature of four different bulb types (incandescent, halogen, compact fluorescent, and LED) and then determined the efficiency of the bulbs and considered the implications for a NZEB and their own home. In the lab, student teams measured illuminance as a function of angle for each bulb, converted that illuminance to a luminous flux using numerical integration, and then converted to radiant flux and power. Students then calculated the fraction of the power consumed by the bulb that was used to produce light. Students' results showed LED bulbs were the most efficient and incandescent bulbs were the least efficient. While this is, perhaps, an obvious finding, the addition of the bulb temperature measurement brought to life the First Law of Thermodynamics. In their reports students commented on the inverse relationship between efficiency and bulb temperature and related their results to NZEBs, indicating that LED bulbs would be preferable not only for their high energy efficiency, but for their low residual heat. This paper will describe the details of the laboratory set up and assignment, highlight the intellectual scaffolding that was provided to students, and present future assessment plans. Index Terms Energy, laboratory project, numerical integration, Excel, measurements, lighting, freshman


ABSTRACT:  The effects of school inspections on school improvement have been investigated only to a limited degree. The investigation reported on in this article is meant to expand our knowledge base regarding the impact of school inspections on school improvement. The theoretical framework for this research is partly based on the policy theory behind the Dutch Educational School Supervision Act (the latter includes assumptions about how school inspections lead to school improvement). Interviews and a survey with school inspectors gave insight into how school inspectors implement the Supervision Act and how they assess schools, and stimulate schools to improve. The results of ten case studies showed that all schools started to improve after a school visit. The innovation capacity of the school and the school environment do not seem to contribute to school improvement after school inspections. No effects were found on school-improvement processes of the number of insufficient scores that schools received from inspectors, the extent of feedback and suggestions for improvement, and the number of agreements. The provision of feedback about weaknesses, the assessment of these weak points as unsatisfactory, and the agreements between an inspector and the school regarding improvement activities do appear to make a difference in promoting school improvement.


This paper aims to contribute to the debate on the presence of foreign banks in Latin America. To clarify the discussion, we shall conduct a survey of the empirical literature devoted to internationalization in the banking sector so as to provide a better analysis of the determinants that currently underpin foreign banking investments. The multinational banks concerned come mainly from the European Union, particularly Spain, and primarily focus their investments in the region's large emerging economies. They display profitability indicators that are on a par with those of domestic banks, generate a significantly lower level of operational efficiency, but are more efficient in their management of risk. International banks can help reinforce banking stability by spreading new risk management methods, introducing new control procedures and strengthening asset solidity. However, they are partly responsible for the credit squeeze from which Latin America is suffering. Foreign banks can be the cause of new sources of banking fragility such as the exposure to foreign exchange risks, the increase in market influence, persistently high intermediation spreads and moral hazard.


This paper examines data from a survey of Animal Studies scholars undertaken by the authors in 2015. While the survey was broad ranging, this paper focuses on three interconnected elements; the respondents' opinions on what role they think the field should play in regard to animal advocacy, their personal commitment to animal advocacy, and how their attitudes toward advocacy in the field differ depending on their dietary habits. While the vast majority of respondents believe that the field should demonstrate a commitment to animal wellbeing, our findings suggest that respondents' level of commitment to animal advocacy is informed by whether they choose to eat animal products or not. We conclude that this reflects the breadth of the field as well as the fact that it is a relatively new area of study and as such is still evolving. In relation to the question posed in the title of this article – should we eat our research subjects? – it seems that Animal Studies scholars are divided on that issue; some do, some don't, but for those who do eat their research subjects there is a degree of unease about the contradictions that such a choice implies.


«Beyond the city there was a wide plain, which sloped gently towards the sea and it was dominated by a semicircle of mountains. The soil of such plain was shimmering red, the sea looked blue enamel, the mountain slopes were brilliant yellow. It was a country completely influenced by Eastern culture in the spirit and splendour of colours. But it was more than this. Old temples laid scattered across the valley». The Swedish writer Selma Lagerlof [Antikrists mirakler, 1897] illustrates the impressive peculiarities of Agrigento monuments immersed in the magnificent Sicilian landscape, but Sicily is more than classical masterpieces. As a matter of fact, the southern island of Italy was the scene of subsequent dominations which established different cultural atmospheres, resulting in a dynamic melting pot, also on the architectural side. The present paper aims to demonstrate it through the travelling experiences conducted by two Swedish architects at the turn of the 20th century: Ragnar Ostberg (1866-1945) and Erik Gunnar Asplund (1885-1940). Even though Swedish academies stressed the mere and distant re-drawing of classical examples, they were fascinated by the aura emanated from this extraneous world. Nonetheless, they were also capable of exploring other architectural treasures of Sicily, including Saracen and Norman ones. After receiving a three-year Royal Academy travel scholarship, Ostberg departed from Marseilles' harbour for the South of Italy in January 1897. He spent approximately two months travelling around Sicily. By contrast, at the end of 1913, Asplund left Stockholm for a short journey on the proceeds of his own work. In February 1914, he departed for Palermo by way of Naples. Compared to Ostberg's itinerary, the promising pupil added some pioneering and unconventional cities which broadened his interests. It is likely that the largely spread Baedecker suggested some of them; in fact, the same Ostberg stressed the considerable utility of those travel guides. The time gap of seventeen years between their respective journeys reveals a development in the art of 'contemplating', literally far from the traditional 18th century aristocratic Grand Tour. Something that owed so much to the master's input yet became manifest in what Asplund would go on to make of it. The timespan between the two generation is also evident in the way that the older preferred charcoal sketches, while Asplund employed many disparate sketching styles as well as photographs. Their sketchbooks captured the attention of later generations. On the Ostberg's 75th birthday the Academy students, a group of Swedish architects and the Association of Swedish architects re-printed a selection of his sketches about Italy and Greece, while the Asplund's travel notes and drawings were partially published ten years after his death by the Swedish historian Hakon Ahlberg. But, even now, they remain an enduring benchmark for understanding the multifaceted nature of the Sicilian landscape and architecture.


A review of the literature was conducted on student incivility in higher education, with an eye toward implications for instructors in business. The incivility construct is defined in the context of numerous associated concepts that have been studied in the higher education literature. Evidence is shared about the prevalence of student incivility and its causes, both student- and instructor-related, with a targeted focus on establishing what is known (and not known) based on prior empirical research. Ultimately, practical strategies for instructors as well as meaningful, theoretically grounded directions for future research are outlined.


The words in the lexicon are assumed to be arranged in networks or semantic fields. This view is the basis for priming experiments. The priming experiments believe that when the target word is preceded by a semantically related word, the word is activated earlier when compared to conditions where the word occurs in isolation or it is preceded by a semantically unrelated word. This view is universally related but the magnitude of semantic relationship may not be the same for all kinds of words. A word in the lexicon can be related to other words by four types of relationships namely super ordinate, derivative, category coordinate and derivative. The aim of the study was to study the semantic organisation in adolescent, young and older adults. A total of 200 participants were considered for the study. A paper-pencil test was administered on these participants, where they were asked to encircle the word which would go well with the target word. The findings of the study showed that the semantic organisation did not vary much between the three groups. Associative semantic ordinate was proximally related to the target word, while super ordinates were distally related to the target word


Happiness and responsibility are among the components on which students' mental health, performance and success depend. Therefore, the present study aimed to compare the effect of life skills education and acceptance and commitment on the happiness and responsibility of physical education students. A semi-experimental design was conducted (pre-test and post-test) with two experimental and one control group. 45 female physical education and sports teaching departments students in Kilis (Turkiye) with lower scores on the Oxford Argyle (1990) Happiness Questionnaire and the California Psychological Responsibility Scale (CPI-R), were selected by convenience sampling and randomly divided into two experimental groups (15 people in each group) and one control group (15 people). For the first group, life control education (8 sessions; week 2 one-hour session) and the second group, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (8 sessions; week 2 one-hour session) was applied and the control group did not receive any education. Prior and after the education, the subjects completed the Argyle (1990) Oxford Happiness Questionnaire and the California Psychological Responsibility Scale (CPI-R). Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was used to analyze the data. The results showed that the mean scores of students' happiness and responsibility in the acceptance and commitment group compared to the life skills education group and in the life skills education group compared to the control group in the post-test increased significantly (p < 0.05). In conclusion, the results showed that commitment and acceptance education is more effective than life skills education in increasing the responsibility and happiness of physical education students.


BACKGROUND Between 1976 and 1987, 35 cases of acute gastritis with hypochlorhydria (AGH) were seen in our research laboratory. The aims of this study were to determine the natural history of AGH and the role ofHelicobacter pylori in its pathogenesis. METHODS Archived serum and gastric biopsy samples obtained from AGH subjects were examined for evidence of H pylori colonisation. Twenty eight of 33 (85%) surviving AGH subjects returned a mean of 12 years after AGH for follow up studies, including determination ofH pylori antibodies, basal and peak acid output, endoscopy, and gastric biopsies. A matched control group underwent the same studies. RESULTS Archived material provided strong evidence of new H pylori acquisition in a total of 14 subjects within two months, in 18 within four months, and in 22 within 12 months of recognition of AGH. Prevalence of H pylori colonisation at follow up was 82% (23 of 28) in AGH subjects, significantly (p<0.05) higher than in matched controls (29%). Basal and peak acid output returned to pre-AGH levels in all but two subjects. CONCLUSIONS One of several possible initial manifestations of H pylori acquisition in adults may be AGH. WhileH pylori colonisation usually persists, hypochlorhydria resolves in most subjects.


Paraproteinaemic neuropathies comprise a heterogeneous group of neuro-haematological conditions with some distinct neurological, haematological and systemic phenotypes. The spectrum of disease varies from mild to severe, indolent to rapidly progressive and from small fibre sensory involvement to dramatic sensorimotor deficits. The haematological association may be overlooked, resulting in delayed treatment, disability, impaired quality of life and increased mortality. However, the presence of an irrelevant benign paraprotein can sometimes lead to inappropriate treatment. In this review, we outline our practical approach to paraproteinaemic disorders, discuss the utility and limitations of diagnostic tests and the distinctive clinical phenotypes and touch on the complex multidisciplinary management approaches.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate two new methods of using computer-aided detection (CAD) system information for the detection of lung nodules on chest radiographs. We evaluated an interactive CAD application and an independent combination of radiologists and CAD scores.

METHODS
300 posteroanterior and lateral digital chest radiographs were selected, including 111 with a solitary pulmonary nodule (average diameter, 16 mm). Both nodule and control cases were verified by CT. Six radiologists and six residents reviewed the chest radiographs without CAD and with CAD (ClearRead +Detect™ 5.2; Riverain Technologies, Miamisburg, OH) in two reading sessions. The CAD system was used in an interactive manner; CAD marks, accompanied by a score of suspicion, remained hidden unless the location was queried by the radiologist. Jackknife alternative free response receiver operating characteristics multireader multicase analysis was used to measure detection performance. Area under the curve (AUC) and partial AUC (pAUC) between a specificity of 80% and 100% served as the measure for detection performance. We also evaluated the results of a weighted combination of CAD scores and reader scores, at the location of reader findings.

RESULTS
AUC for the observers without CAD was 0.824. No significant improvement was seen with interactive use of CAD (AUC = 0.834; p = 0.15). Independent combination significantly improved detection performance (AUC = 0.834; p = 0.006). pAUCs without and with interactive CAD were similar (0.128), but improved with independent combination (0.137).

CONCLUSION
Interactive CAD did not improve reader performance for the detection of lung nodules on chest radiographs. Independent combination of reader and CAD scores improved the detection performance of lung nodules.

ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE
(1) Interactive use of currently available CAD software did not improve the radiologists' detection performance of lung nodules on chest radiographs. (2) Independently combining the interpretations of the radiologist and the CAD system improved detection of lung nodules on chest radiographs.


Schizophrenia is a precocious dementia (dementia praecox), essentially characterized by affective symptoms, which are manifested through the isolation of the schizophrenic from the real world, as a way of protecting oneself from the surrounding hostilities. Based on the perspective of Merleau Ponty, the objective of the present research is to understand the schizophrenic person by revealing his/her position towards the world and towards him/herself as well as his/her perception of the society he/she is living in. Data were collected through guided interviews with five patients from two private hospitals. A phenomenological framework, based on the hermeneutic circle, was used to analyze the data. Results showed references to their body, time, world and people related to them outlining an interlink between these references, based on the perception of those who are close or not at the moment.


In this abstract, we combine work from [Lagarde et al., 2010] and [Calinon et al., 2009] for learning and reproduction of, respectively, navigation tasks on a mobile robot and gestures with a robot arm. Both approaches build a sensory motor map under human guidance to learn the desired behavior. With several actions possible at the same time, the selec- tion of action becomes a real issue. Several solutions exist to this problem : hi- erarchical architecture, parallel modules including subsumption architectures or even a mix of both [Bryson, 2000]. In navigation, a temporal sequence learner or a state-action association learner [Lagarde et al., 2010] enables to learn a sequence of direc- tions in order to follow a trajectory. These solu- tions can be extended to action sequence learning. In this paper we propose a simple architecture based on perception-action that is able to produce complex behaviors from the incremental learning of simple tasks. Then we discuss advantages and limitations of this architecture, that raises many questions.


Abstract This article examines Anna Kavan's sojourn in New Zealand from February 1941 to November 1942 in the company of the pacifist playwright Ian Hamilton. Living in the most remote of the ex-British colonies reinforced Kavan's ontological sense of homelessness and wish to disidentify from British society, yet the colony's anglophone orientation offered familiarity within the strange and alien. The geography, landscapes and communities of its Pacific islands encouraged a reshaping of her imaginative engagement with otherness. Referring to Kavan's recently published diary, 'Five Months Further or What I Remember ab[ou]t New Zealand', the essay argues that the New Zealand 'experience' encouraged her use of tropes of the Gothic and uncanny as she grappled with issues of distance, homelessness and disjunctive reality. The discussion focuses on the alternative/parallel world that New Zealand represents in stories published in I Am Lazarus (1945). It identifies experimental techniques associated with Gothic fiction by which Kavan registers the overlapping dualisms of war-torn London and idyllic rural New Zealand, and represents memory through framing devices and defamiliarizing rhetorical tropes as a distancing activity interrupting the present moment: dream sequences, irruptions into and splittings of reality, space and time reversals, doublings of self/other, disjunctive non sequiturs and ghostly mirror imaging.


Staphylococcus aureus No. 580 strain contains simultaneously two plasmids: bacteriocinogenicity plasmid and penicillinase plasmid. Both plasmids are lost spontaneously with a high frequency, and also under the effect of acridine orange at temperatures of 37 degrees C and 44 degrees C, and in cultivation at a temperature of 44 degrees C for 5 days. Loss of one of the plasmids failed to lead to stabilization of another plasmid, and it was eliminated spontaneously with the same frequency as in the population of the initial strain. Plasmid loss did not lead to the changes in biochemical and pathogenic properties and also of the phagovar and bacteriogenovar. At the same time in elimination of one or both plasmids lag-phase diminished from 220 to 120 min.


Benzidine (BZ) and beta-naphthylamine (BNA) have been classified as definite human carcinogens for bladder cancer by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. However, the epidemiological evidence for an association between exposure to BZ and/or BNA and lung cancer has been inconclusive. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to determine the risk for lung cancer among workers exposed to BZ/BNA. A systematic literature search was conducted to identify studies that had reported occupational BZ/BNA exposure and the outcome of interest (lung cancer death and/or incidence). Meta-analyses were performed using random effects models to combine standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) or standardized incidence ratios (SIRs). We identified 23 retrospective cohort studies including 1745 cases of lung cancer; only one study reported smoking-adjusted lung cancer risk. A significantly increased lung cancer risk (pooled SMR/SIR 1.28; 95% CI, 1.14-1.43) was observed by combining all studies, with significant heterogeneity among studies (I(2) = 64.1%, P < 0.001). Effect estimates were higher for studies with direct BZ/BNA exposure (ie, dyestuff and manufacturing industries) (pooled SMR/SIR 1.58; 95% CI, 1.31-1.89), and studies that identified BZ/BNA-associated bladder cancer with SMR/SIR ≥4.7 (pooled SMR/SIR 1.68; 95% CI, 1.35-2.09). Effect estimates were similar for studies with and without concomitant occupational exposure to chromium, asbestos, arsenic, or bis(chloromethyl) ether. The cumulative meta-analysis showed that the evidence of association between occupational BZ/BNA exposure and lung cancer has been stable since 1995. Although the results of this meta-analysis have the potential for confounding by smoking and heterogeneity, our findings suggest that a finding of lung cancer following occupational BZ/BNA exposure should be considered to be a potential occupational disease.


Objective A preliminary serological survey was carried out to assess the likelihood of Influenza A (IA) infection in wild boars and begin to characterize the role of wild boars in the epidemiology of the IA virus. Introduction Domestic swine have been viewed as important for the adaptation and spillover of IA from birds into human populations as they are sensitive to both avian and mammalian (including human) influenza viruses [1]. However, in much of Eurasia and North America wild swine are geographically widespread, abundant and often come in close contact with humans in rural and agricultural settings. Until recently, little attention has been paid to this as an alternate route for IA transmission to human and domestic populations and its significance is not clear. Therefore, the monitoring of the exposure of wild mammals to IA was viewed as essential as potential vectors impacting domestic animals and public health. Methods From September to December 2014, wild boar sera were collected by professional hunters in 4 Oblasts of Ukraine: Volyn, Rivne, Zhytomyr, and Chernihiv. Blood was collected from jugular veins. Sera were collected in Eppendorf type tubes, separated from whole blood without centrifugation and stored at -20C until serologically tested. To detect antibodies to IA, a blocking ELISA was used. Serum samples were tested using commercial test kits "Influenza A Ab Test" (IDEXX, USA). Specific antibodies in wild boar serum samples were detected based on manufacturer's instructions. Briefly, sera were diluted 1:10, and incubated in test wells for 60 minutes at room temperature, followed by three washes. Anti-IA Horseradish Peroxidase HRP conjugate was then added and incubated for 30 minutes at room temperature. Following three washes, 3',5,5'-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB), as a substrate, was added and incubated for 15 minutes. Absorbencies were measured at 650 A using a iMark Microplate Absorbance Reader and data were analyzed using Microsoft Excel. Based on the manufacturer's instructions, a serum sample was considered positive if the sample/ negative control ratio (S/N) did not exceed a threshold of 0.60. Statistical analyses were performed with the program "Statistics Calculator". Results Sera from 120 wild boars that were shot in 2014 were tested. Thirty boars from each of 4 Oblasts were collected in the north central and northwestern regions of Ukraine. Antibodies against IAV were detected using ELISA in 27 samples (22.5 %), (Table 1). Antibodies to IA virus were detected in at least some of the wild boars from all of the 4 Oblasts. The highest percentages of seropositive samples were detected in wild boar from Volyn and Zhytomyr Oblasts (Fig. 1). The prevalence differences were statistically significant only between samples from Volyn and Chernihiv Oblasts (P<0.05). The average S/N value of all positive serum samples was 0.36 ± 0.03. Conclusions This preliminary survey of IA antibodies in wild boar populations of northern Ukraine indicates a substantial presence of exposure to IAV throughout the region. Infection of wild boar populations provides an alternative or additional route for spillover from wild populations to domestic animals and humans. This potential has received relatively little attention until recently, likely in part because feral swine populations have not been viewed as a serious challenge in most regions of the world where the natural history of IA has received serious study. Table 1 Seroprevalence of IA virus in wild boars in Ukraine Figure 1 Serological surveillance of wild boars for IA virus in northern Ukraine


This work has been partially funded by Agricultural Development in the American Pacific project (ADAP)-NIFA Grant #2009-38826-19927. Financial support was also provided by a US Department of Agriculture Hatch grant, CRIS Accession No. 0212428, administered by the American Samoa Community College.


High performance paint coatings of modern days require the prepared surface to have Sa 21/2 (very thorough blast cleaning) or higher class of finish. Dry abrasive blasting easily meets this requirement resulting in adequate bonding of the paint coating to the substrate, thus achieving durability of the elements. This method of surface preparation is very fast and effective in preparing a large surface. However, the method is not cost-effective for use on small areas on site due to the associated peripheral work.Advanced power tools are now available to provide nearly the same level of surface preparation as obtained with dry abrasive blasting without the need to have the peripheral work associated with the latter. One of such power tools, Bristle Blaster, was used for preparing the welded areas on the steel girders of a recently constructed bridge in New South Wales. The trial, carried out in collaboration with the contractor to validate its use, indicates the tool has the potential to become a preferred method for small areas for bridges in the future.This paper briefly describes the methods commonly used for surface preparation, the trial procedure and the outcome achieved using this tool on the welded areas of the steel girders.


Abstract The Outpatient Osteopathic Single Organ System Musculoskeletal Exam Form (SOS form) is a standardized examination data form. A standardized form is necessary to ensure that essential quality data are collected during osteopathic studies and that each submitted form is completed adequately and uniformly. Use of the standardized form permits reliable statistical computations from the collected data. The training process for the SOS form incorporated the following elements: (1) training investigators to use the form; (2) having trainees transcribe three clinical case examples onto SOS forms; (3) comparing each transcribed clinical case to a prepared key; (4) evaluating the trainees' work for accuracy; and (5) statistically evaluating the trainees' records for intraexaminer and interexaminer reliability. The success or failure of trainees to receive certification in their training process involved evaluating their ability to accurately and appropriately record data collected from three case examples. These cases were designed to evaluate recording accuracy and intraexaminer and interexaminer reliability. All trainees scored 80% or better for accuracy, and their work had good intraexaminer and interexaminer reliability. As a result, all trainees were awarded a numbered certificate for successful completion of the training process. Having a pool of well-trained, certified investigators available and ready to participate in the gathering of data through the use of the SOS form ensures that necessary data are collected and that the resulting databases are unified. It will also facilitate comparisons and statistical analysis of osteopathic research projects. Standardized forms and certified investigators will improve the quality of osteopathic research throughout the profession.


Low streamflow statistic estimators at ungauged river sites generally have large errors and uncertainties. This can be due to many reasons, including lack of data, complex hydrologic processes, and the inadequate or improper characterization of watershed hydrogeology. One potential solution is to take a small number of streamflow measurements at an ungauged site to either estimate hydrogeologic indices or transfer information from a nearby site using concurrent streamflow measurements. An analysis of four low streamflow estimation techniques, regional regression, regional plus hydrogeologic indices, baseflow correlation, and scaling, was performed within the Apalachicola–Chattahoochee–Flint watershed, a U.S. Geological Survey WaterSMART region in the south‐eastern United States. The latter three methods employ a nominal number of spot measurements at the ungauged site to improve low streamflow estimation. Results indicate that baseflow correlation and scaling methods, which transfer information from a donor site, can produce improved low streamflow estimators when spot measurements are available. Estimation of hydrogeologic indices from spot measurements improves regional regression models, with the baseflow recession constant having more explanatory power than the aquifer time constant, but these models are generally outperformed by baseflow correlation and scaling.


Identifying targets that are exposed on the plasma membrane of tumor cells, but expressed internally in normal cells, is a fundamental issue for improving the specificity and efficacy of anticancer therpeutics. Using blind cell Systemic Evolution of Ligands by EXponetial enrichment (SELEX), which is untargeted SELEX, we have identified an aptamer, P15, which specifically bound to the human pancreatic adenocarcinoma cells. To identify the aptamer binding plasma membrane protein, liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was used. The results of this unbiased proteomic mass spectrometry approach identified the target of P15 as the intermediate filament vimentin, biomarker of epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT), which is an intracellular protein but is specifically expressed on the plasma membrane of cancer cells. As EMT plays a pivotal role to transit cancer cells to invasive cells, tumor cell metastasis assays were performed in vitro. P15-treated pancreatic cancer cells showed the significant inhibition of tumor metastasis. To investigate the downstream effects of P15, EMT-related gene expression analysis was performed to identify differently expressed genes (DEG). Among five DEGs, P15-treated cells showed the downregulated expression of matrix metallopeptidase 3 (MMP3), which is involved in cancer invasion. These results, for the first time, demonstrate that P15 binding to cell surface vimentin inhibits the tumor cell invasion and is associated with reduced MMP3 expression. Thus, suggesting that P15 has potential as an anti-metastatic therapy in pancreatic cancer. Implications: This study reveals that anti-vimentin RNA aptamers selected via blind-SELEX inhibit the tumor cell metastasis. Mol Cancer Res; 15(7); 811–20. ©2017 AACR.


Electromagnetic launcher (EML) research at Elgin Air Force Base has progressed beyond available power source levels. Therefore, an inexpensive, high-power, high-energy battery system is under construction to fulfil present and future requirements. Data on the subscale battery power supply (BPS) system are examined. Decisions made on the design and operation of pneumatic switches, batteries, and contactors as a result of this testing program are described. Discharges to date have proved that the gang concept of operation is successful at current levels significantly higher than the standard operational level of 50 kA to 60 kA expected in the full BPS system. The electrical integrity of the prototype system has also been proved at energy levels of approximately 45 MJ, which is 15 to 20 MJ greater than energy levels that will be exhibited at the gang level in the final system. >


Contention-based geographic forwarding (CGF) is a state-free communication paradigm for data delivery in multihop wireless sensor networks. CGF is robust to frequent topology changes, scalable to large-scale node deployment and applicable to data-centric applications and resource constrained networks. However, CGF may experience significant performance degradation under unreliable links. In this work, we present the intelligent CGF (ICGF) to combat the channel variation. IGCF combines the advantages of both cooperative and contention-based forwarding, involving multiple neighbours of the sender into the local forwarding to improve the transmission reliability. ICGF differs from existing work in that it extends the cooperation scope intelligently, by sending one additional control message on demand. For this reason, the probability of cooperation void in ICGF is decreased and the single-hop packet progress is increased. The authors conduct extensive simulations to study the performance of the proposed ICGF compared with existing protocols. Simulation results demonstrate that ICGF improves the end-to-end data delivery delay, energy efficiency and data delivery ratio.


Web 2.0 tools provide enormous opportunities for teaching and learning, yet their application in education is still underdeveloped. What is more, it is no longer possible for teachers to ignore such a technological advance, while they are expected to provide students with opportunities to take control of their learning. However, teachers are still reluctant with technology integration. This paper introduces four Web 2.0 tools; Blogger, StripGenerator, Go!Animate, and Google Forms, that are free and easy to use, in an effort to motivate teachers with low technological skills in integrating them into their instruction practices. The aforementioned tools comprised the curriculum in a blended-learning professional development course for in-service teachers and attracted many favourable comments from the participants.


As autonomy becomes more complex, it is increasingly important to measure the amount of trust exhibited by a human towards a machine, regardless of the level of trustworthiness of the machine. There are several challenges associated with current methods that rely primarily on self-report subjective ratings: 1) self-reports are dependent on the self-awareness of subjects and may not be reliable, 2) low sampling rates may not result in an adequate level of granularity for analysis for high tempo, highly dynamic scenarios, and 3) in high risk scenarios like air-to-air combat, subjects may be cognitively overloaded and unable to use the think aloud protocol, or their surveys may simply not be feasible or practical. To overcome these challenges, we were inspired by the "freeze on-line" approach of the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT) and modified it for use in an off-line video-based approach to avoid the high logistics costs of performing this assessment during flight or while in a flight simulation. Subjects were first recorded during flight. In an extended post-hoc video replay, time was frozen during predetermined events, and subjects were asked to report their thought process at the time. Their comments and other behaviors observed in the video were then recorded and coded by study staff after the debrief. We report on the development of the codebook and the resulting Inter Rater Reliability calculations.


This paper examines the Cambodian trials of three former Khmer Rouge commanders, Nuon Paet, Sam Bith and Chhouk Rin. Between 1999 and 2006, all three were prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by Cambodian civilian courts for their role in a 1994 train ambush and the subsequent kidnapping and murder of three Western backpackers. The trials are unique in the history of Cambodia, and were the first time that any commanders of the Khmer Rouge had been brought into civilian court to answer for their crimes. At a time when the Cambodian government was negotiating with the international community over the structure of the proposed United Nations-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal, the competence and independence of the Cambodian judiciary and legal system came under particular scrutiny. The trials were a crucial and timely test of the Cambodian legal system, and indeed a test of the willingness and ability of the Cambodian government to bring to justice former officers of the Khmer Rouge. As such, they mark a significant moment in the legal development of Cambodia, and represent an important step towards the creation of a functioning legal system and – at least in theory – a greater respect for legal process and for the role of an independent judiciary in that country. These domestic trials are amongst the most important legal cases to have been heard by Cambodian courts, and deserve the careful attention of the international legal community, human rights scholars and practitioners, and those interested in the rule of law and civil society generally and in Cambodia specifically.


The alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) has been popularly used for a wide range of applications in the literature. When big datasets with high-dimensional variables are considered, subproblems arising from the ADMM must be solved inexactly even though theoretically they may have closed-form solutions. Such a scenario immediately poses mathematical ambiguities such as how accurately these subproblems should be solved and whether or not the convergence can be still guaranteed. Despite of the popularity of ADMM, it seems not too much is known in these regards. In this paper, we look into the mathematical detail of implementing the ADMM to such big-data scenarios. More specifically, we focus on the convex programming case where there is a quadratic function component with extremely high-dimensional variables in the objective of the model under discussion and thus there is a huge-scale system of linear equations to be solved at each iteration of the ADMM. We show that there is no need (indeed it is impossible) to solve this linear system exactly or too accurately; and propose an automatically adjustable inexactness criterion to solve these linear systems inexactly. We further identify the safe-guard numbers for the internally nested iterations that can sufficiently ensure this inexactness criterion if these linear systems are solved by standard numerical linear algebra solvers. The convergence, together with worst-case convergence rate measured by the iteration complexity, is rigorously established for the ADMM with inexactly-solved subproblems. Some numerical experiments for big datasets of the LASSO with millions of variables are reported to show the efficiency of this inexact implementation of ADMM.


Lipodystrophies are characterized by selective but variable loss of body fat and metabolic complications of insulin resistance. We hypothesized that reduced synthesis and secretion of adipocyte-specific proteins may be related to the metabolic complications of lipodystrophy. Therefore, we compared fasting serum concentrations of adiponectin and leptin, in 18 patients with congenital generalized lipodystrophy (CGL), 11 with acquired generalized lipodystrophy (AGL), 46 with familial partial lipodystrophy-Dunnigan variety (FPLD) and 18 with acquired partial lipodystrophy (APL) and studied their relationship to metabolic parameters. Patients with CGL and AGL had markedly reduced serum adiponectin levels compared to those with FPLD and APL (median [range]: 1.5 [0.4-7.5], 3.2 [0.6-7.7], 6.9 [1.9-23.2] and 7.9 [3.1-13.3] microg/mL, respectively, p < 0.0001); the same trend was noted for serum leptin levels (0.63 [0.05-3.7], 2.18 [0.05-11.30], 2.86 [0.23-9.00] and 6.24 [1.21-10.4] ng/mL, respectively, p < 0.0001). Serum adiponectin levels correlated negatively with fasting serum triglycerides (r = -0.6, p < 0.001) and insulin levels (r = -0.5, p < 0.0001) and positively with serum high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels (r = 0.5, p < 0.001). Serum adiponectin levels were lower in patients with diabetes compared to non-diabetic subjects (3.0 vs. 7.1 microg/mL, p < 0.001). Our results indicate that serum adiponectin and leptin levels are extremely low in patients with generalized lipodystrophies and may be related to severe insulin resistance and its metabolic complications in lipodystrophies.


Two distinct evolutionary pulses, represented by the Vendian Ediacaran fauna and Cambrian small shelly faunas, are generally thought to characterize the emergence of macroscopic animals at the end of Precambrian time. Biostratigraphic and uranium-lead zircon age data from Namibia indicate that most globally distributed Ediacaran fossils are no older than 549 million years old and some are as young as 543 million years old, essentially coincident with the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary. These data suggest that the most diverse assemblages of Ediacaran animals existed within 6 million years of the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary and that simple discoid animals may have appeared at least 50 million years earlier.


ADC is an application which enables the user to view and interact with Remote PC by using an Android phone via Internet. With this application the user can not only interact with the remote system of various operating systems(Linux, Unix, Windows ,Macintosh, etc. ) but can also perform several operations like mouse click operations, sending a text message, opening documents ,manipulating files, FTP. It uses a simple Bilinear Interpolation Algorithm for scaling remote system's GUI with the android phone. It uses a SHA- I algorithm for OTP.


The project is aimed to utilize layer of protection analysis (LOPA) to verify safety integrity level (SIL) of safety instrumented system. Safety instrumented system (SIS) is the last resort in case of emergency happened in plant. Determining the specific safety requirement of safety systems is a vital part to ensure accidents are prevented. Previous study is carried out till classification of Safety Integrity Levels (SIL) for hazardous installation by using the risk assessment techniques. In this study, the focus will be on SIL classification and verification in safety instrumented system (SIS).
The program is developed using Microsoft Excel based on established methodology found in the literatures. Thorough literature surveys are expected in order to gather appropriate SIL verification information which will further integrate in existing spreadsheet. The program is tested using two case studies related to process plant industries. The results obtained show the sufficiency of the protection system and provide risk control strategy including number of SIL required in case of the protection is insufficient. If the protection system is sufficient, it will ensure the design is the optimum. Reliability and accurateness of the result are vital due to main function of the program is to assess and validate the SIS.
The application is used either in designing the SIS or in auditing the effectiveness of the installed SIS. The verification of assigned SIL to a particular Safety Instrumented Function (SIF) is still new compared to SIL classification. Based on industrial perspective, there is no established method on verification of an installed SIS. Most scenarios can be catered by enhancing the existing design rather than adding safety protection layer.
Future study shall be continued to improve the relevancy and reliability of the tool by integrating more parameters in assessing a case.


Although the study of human body composition is advancing rapidly, confusion still prevails regarding the molecular-level lipid component. Most molecular-level body composition models are presently based on the overall hypothesis that nontriglyceride lipids constitute an insignificant proportion of total body lipid. A single lipid or "fat" component consisting of triglycerides is thus assumed in most molecular-level body composition models. To test this hypothesis, the present study, carried out in adult rats, was designed to examine two questions: 1) What is the proportion of total lipids as triglycerides? and 2) Is this proportion constant or does it change with negative energy balance and weight loss produced by calorie restriction and increased exercise? Results indicated that with negative energy balance and weight loss there were progressive losses of total body triglyceride and lipid. The proportion of total lipids as triglyceride was 0.83 ± 0.08 (SD) in control animals, with reductions at 2 and 9 wk of energy restriction [0.82 ± 0.04 ( P = NS vs. control) and 0.70 ± 0.15 ( P = 0.05)] and at 9 wk for energy restriction plus exercise [0.67 ± 0.09 ( P = 0.003)]. Nontriglyceride lipids comprised 2.8% of carcass weight at baseline and decreased to 2.2% by 9 wk of energy restriction and exercise ( P = NS). Substantial differences were observed between body composition ratios expressed as percentages of the lipid-free body mass (LFM) and triglyceride-free body mass (TGFM); (e.g., total body water/LFM and TGFM in controls = 72.7 ± 0.7 and 70.4 ± 2.2, respectively; P = 0.02). These observations strongly support the existence and importance of nontriglyceride lipids as a body composition component that responds independently from storage triglycerides, with negative energy balance produced by food restriction and exercise.


BACKGROUND: Involvement of the thyroid gland is an important morbidity of therapy for Hodgkin's disease, which should be well recognized by caretakers of these patients. However, the roles of age at the time of therapy for Hodgkin's disease, chemotherapy, treatment with reduced dose of radiation and lymphangiography in causing thyroid abnormalities have not been defined. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Eighty-nine pediatric and young adult patients (less than 21 years old at diagnosis) with Hodgkin's disease who were treated with either radiation alone (57 patients), radiation and chemotherapy (20 patients), or chemotherapy alone (12 patients) at the University of Minnesota between 1971 and 1986 were periodically evaluated. RESULTS: The median age at diagnosis was 14 years, and the median duration of follow up was 11 years. Of 89 patients evaluable for thyroid abnormalities, 51 patients developed biochemical hypothyroidism. The median time to development of hypothyroidism was six years. The estimated actuarial risk of developing hypothyroidism was 60% at 11 years. Radiation to the thyroid region was associated with an elevated risk of development of hypothyroidism (relative risk = 9.9), with patients receiving mantle irradiation alone developing hypothyroidism earlier (median time 2.5 years) than patients receiving combined modality treatment (median time 6 years; p = 0.001). Dose of radiation was the chief correlate for the development of hypothyroidism (relative risk increasing by 1.02/Gy; p < 0.001). Age, gender, chemotherapy and prior lymphangiography were not shown to be significant risk factors for the development of hypothyroidism. Four patients were diagnosed with thyroid nodules, (diagnosed 7.6 to 14.3 years after treatment of Hodgkin's disease), with histology showing multinodular goiter (2), single colloid nodule (1) and papillary carcinoma (1). Transient hyperthyroidism developed in two patients 8 and 13 months after treatment for Hodgkin's disease. CONCLUSIONS: There is a high risk for development of thyroid disease after patients have received radiation therapy for Hodgkin's disease, reinforcing the need for continued clinical and biochemical evaluation of such patients.


This paper presents a novel design scheme for a bandswitchable multi-band power amplifier (BS-MPA). A key point of the design scheme is configuring multi-section reconfigurable matching networks (MR-MNs) optimally in terms of low loss matching in multiple frequency bands from 0.7 to 2.5 GHz. The MR-MN consists of several matching sections, each of which has a matching block connected to a transmission line via a switch. Power dissipation at an actual on-state switch results in the insertion loss of the MR-MN and depends on how the impedance is transformed by the MR-MN. The proposed design scheme appropriately transforms the impedance of a high power transistor to configure a low loss MR-MN. Numerical analyses show quantitative improvement in the loss using the proposed scheme. A 9-band 3-stage BS-MPA is newly designed following the proposed scheme and fabricated on a multi-layer low temperature co-fired ceramic substrate for compactness. The BS-MPA achieves a gain of over 30 dB, an output power of greater than 33 dBm and a power added efficiency of over 40% at the supply voltage of 4 V in each operating band. key words: power amplifier, reconfigurable, matching network, multiband, switch


The fine dust PM2.5 can suspend in the air for a long period, penetrate human body's defense system, and deposit directly into the alveoli, where does harm to health. Because of the serious pollution and the trapping difficulty of ordinary dust removal technologies, PM2.5 has become the focus of international air pollution control. To effectively capture PM2.5, detailed analysis of the creation of PM2.5 have been done, and different trapping strategies specific to different creation sources have been posed in this paper. Low collection efficiency of PM2.5 can be expected to be solved by the electrostatic precipitator, which applies the charging and coagulation for fine dust, penetrating-type electric field, high frequency DC power supply, combined with reduced voltage optimization of the rapping mode, etc.


The media are an important part of young people's lives, but television, computer games, Internet use, cellular phone use, and even book reading threaten healthy sleep. Adults do not fully comprehend the ways in which young people use various media. Media use is a type of behavior that may displace sleep time or shorten it. Media content may lead to overexcitement or cause recurring nightmares. The cellular telephone is a particular threat. Parents may also use media excessively, establishing an unhealthy environment that may lead to sleep dysfunction in children and adolescents. Therefore, anticipatory guidance for healthy behavioral changes should be focused on the family.


Environmental health has become a worldwide debating issue among researchers,
scientists, and governments. Although fossil fuels have been the greatest energy resources
for the human, their consumption leads to injecting greenhouse gases into the air, which
can affect the existence of all living species dramatically. In fact, fossil fuels consumption pollutes
the environment because of the injection of greenhouse gases which result in global warming. On
the other hand, reductions in fossil fuel and drinking water resources have highlighted the importance
of energy management and loss reduction in brand-new management strategies and manufacturing
methods. Distribution transformers are one of the most used devices in power distribution
networks. Hence, it seems to be logical to consider transformer losses as a definitive factor in
design and construction procedures. Furthermore, such design procedures require powerful tools
to solve complex non-linear equations and find the best solutions in the shortest time. Researchers
and scientists have always had a great challenge regarding finding the best solutions for their
analysis. In actuality, it is hard to solve complex non-linear problems by means of traditional calculation
methods even if a researcher employs a powerful computer. For this reason, metaheuristic
optimization algorithms have found great popularity among scientists. These algorithms
seek the best solution through a solution pool at an appropriate pace. Therefore, a researcher can
save more time and energy in solving an intricate problem.

 In this paper, the authors aim to modify the conventional Teaching-Learning Based
Optimization (TLBO) algorithm to design an optimum distribution transformer by consideration
of the transformer Total Owning Cost (TOC). The TOC consists of operational and initial manufacturing
costs of a distribution transformer. The used raw materials affect the manufacturing cost
and it would be decreased if the copper and iron volumes are reduced in the construction instruction.
However, the operational cost that includes iron and copper losses must not be forgotten in
design analysis. Indeed, loss consideration is of great significance to keep energy from frittering
away and as a result, protects environmental resources.

A novel approach based on an optimization technique for distribution
transformer design problems is presented in this paper. The entire expenses of a transformer consist
of transformer construction and operating costs. In other words, by reducing copper and iron
volumes, the initial cost of a transformer will be decreased. Due to the electromagnetic and electrical
losses in transformers, the initial cost of a transformer is not its entire design problem and
the operating cost must be considered in the design algorithm. Appropriate limits on efficiency,
voltage regulation, temperature rise, no-load current and winding fill factor are the constraints on
the transformer design problems in the international standards. With respect to these constraints,
the transformer designer can minimize the volume of the core and windings. In this paper, the
Conditional Teaching-Learning Based Optimization (CTLBO) algorithm determines the appropriate
transformer properties, while transformer construction cost and its operating cost are selected
as an objective function for optimization method. In order to attain a suitable voltage regulation,
transformer impedance is chosen as an optimization constraint.

The result of the paper demonstrates the proposed algorithm ability in reducing the Total
Owning Cost (TOC) during transformer lifetime, which could be useful for energy distribution
companies. In addition, the result analysis proves that the total losses of the transformer are reduced
by the proposed approach in comparison to conventional design techniques. Then, more energy
will be saved in the power grid when the proposed transformer is utilized in the power network.

In this paper, a suitable method to design an optimum distribution transformer is
proposed which enables manufacturers to construct their product based on the proposed method.
In this way, it can be claimed that not only more money will be saved during the transformer operation,
but also the energy consumption will be decreased drastically. Therefore, world resources
will remain for future generations.


The prevalence of hypertension in type 2 diabetics is high, though there is no published data for Switzerland. This prospective cohort survey determined the frequency of type 2 diabetes mellitus associated with hypertension from medical practitioners in Switzerland, and collected data on the diagnostic and therapeutic work‐up for cardiovascular risk patients. The Swiss Hypertension And Risk Factor Program (SHARP) is a two‐part survey: The first part, I‐SHARP, was a survey among 1040 Swiss physicians to assess what are the target blood pressure (BP) values and preferred treatment for their patients. The second part, SHARP, collected data from 20,956 patients treated on any of 5 consecutive days from 188 participating physicians. In I‐SHARP, target BP⩽135/85 mmHg, as recommended by the Swiss Society of Hypertension, was the goal for 25% of physicians for hypertensives, and for 60% for hypertensive diabetics; values >140/90 mmHg were targeted by 19% for hypertensives, respectively 9% for hypertensive diabetics. In SHARP, 30% of the 20,956 patients enrolled were hypertensive (as defined by the doctors) and 10% were diabetic (67% of whom were also hypertensive). Six per cent of known hypertensive patients and 4% of known hypertensive diabetics did not receive any antihypertensive treatment. Diabetes was not treated pharmacologically in 20% of diabetics. Proteinuria was not screened for in 45% of known hypertensives and in 29% of known hypertensive diabetics. In Switzerland, most physicians set target BP levels higher than recommended in published guidelines. In this country with easy access to medical care, high medical density and few financial constraints, appropriate detection and treatment for cardiovascular risk factors remain highly problematic.


Ergonomics/human factors is, above anything else, a systems discipline applying a systems philosophy and systems approaches. Many things are labeled as "systems X" in today's world, and this paper specifies just what attributes and notions define ergonomics/human factors in systems terms. These are concern for context, acknowledgement of interactions and complexity, a holistic approach, recognition of emergence and embedding of the professional effort involved within organization systems. These five notions are illustrated with examples from a large body of work on rail human factors.


ABSTRACT The current study examines the longitudinal relationship between anxiety disorders in general, specific phobia in particular, and subsequent-onset alcohol use disorders in an adult population-based sample. In addition, the authors explore whether the hypothesized associations vary by gender. Approximately 23 years of data from the Baltimore Epidemiological Catchment Area Follow-up (N = 587) allow for the estimation of the development of incident alcohol use disorders in later life among those with anxiety disorders at the time of the baseline interview in 1981. Although baseline specific phobias were common, neither the number of fears nor any specific fear was statistically associated with the onset of alcohol use disorders. Rather, the findings suggested a modest association between adult sub-clinical specific phobia (without substantial distress or interference) and later-onset alcohol use disorders (odds ratio = 3.2). Moreover, the authors found that this association might be stronger for women than for men.


SUMMARY The aim of this study was to investigate the amount of binaural squelch effect (BSE) and head shadow effect (HSE) in children who use unilateral cochlear implants (CI) and contralateral hearing aids (HA). The study group consisted of 19 CI recipient children who consistently wore a contralateral HA. Speech sounds were used to evaluate speech perception performance in noise. Testing was performed in three listening conditions: (1) bimodal listening with noise source on HA side; (2) CI only with noise source contralaterally (HA off); (3) CI only with noise source on the CI side. Statistical analysis revealed a significant difference between the three listening conditions and post hoc tests indicated significant differences for all pairwise comparisons (p < 0.001). The average BSE and HSE were 11.8% and 17.1% respectively. The majority of bimodal CI users showed BSE and HSE with significant speech perception improvement in the presence of noise.


In the New Lander, growth of production is characterized by two diverging developments. On the one hand, the manufacturing sector has expanded strongly while the public service sector as well as the retail sectors has considerably damped economic activity. On the other hand, those firms primarily bound to local markets have gained hardly any momentum, whereas others have been stimulated by external markets in Western Germany and abroad. These differences are mainly due to weak local demand in the wake of a low purchasing power and an ongoing reduction in the population. At the same time, export-oriented firms in the manufacturing sector have benefited from strong external demand, and they will further benefit from it, although somewhat less owing to the slowing world economy. However, as East German exporting firms are less exposed to those countries where the ongoing crisis in the real estate and the financial sector has unfolded its dampening effects the most, they are also less prone to it. Accordingly, gross domestic product will increase by 1,7% this year and 0,8% in 2009. This translates into further improvements on labor markets. Registered unemployment will fall below one million. In particular, manufacturing firms and the private business service sector will increase their demand for labor.


Facebook use is very popular among young people, but many open issues remain regarding the individual traits that are antecedents of different behaviours enacted online. This study aimed to investigate whether the relationship between self-esteem and the amount of time on Facebook could be mediated by a tendency towards social comparison. Moreover, three different modalities of Facebook use were distinguished, i.e., social interaction, simulation, and search for relations. Because of gender differences in technology use and social comparison, the mediation models were tested separately for males and females. Data were collected by means of a self-report questionnaire with a sample of 250 undergraduate and graduate Italian students (mean age: 22.18 years). The relations were examined empirically by means of four structural equation models. The results revealed the role of orientation to social comparison in mediating the relations between low self-esteem and some indicators of Facebook use, i.e., daily hours on Facebook and the use of Facebook for simulation. For females, the use of Facebook for social interaction was directly influenced by high self-esteem and indirectly influenced by low self-esteem. Globally, the dimension of social comparison on Facebook emerged as more important for females than for males.


ERCIM News is the magazine of ERCIM. Published quarterly , it reports on joint actions of the ERCIM partners, and aims to reflect the contribution made by ERCIM to the European Community in Information Technology and Applied Mathematics. Through short articles and news items, it provides a forum for the exchange of information between the institutes and also with the wider scientific community. This issue has a circulation of about 6,500 printed copies and is also available online.


Both perceptual load theory and dilution theory purport to explain when and why task-irrelevant information, or so-called distractors are processed. Central to both explanations is the notion of limited resources, although the theories differ in the precise way in which those limitations affect distractor processing. We have recently proposed a neurally plausible explanation of limited resources in which neural competition among stimuli hinders their representation in the brain. This view of limited capacity can also explain distractor processing, whereby the competitive interactions and bias imposed to resolve the competition determine the extent to which a distractor is processed. This idea is compatible with aspects of both perceptual load and dilution models of distractor processing, but also serves to highlight their differences. Here we review the evidence in favor of a biased competition view of limited resources and relate these ideas to both classic perceptual load theory and dilution theory.


We report on a software toolbox that is part of an architecture design process we have named "Emergent Design" The toolbox incorporates concepts of artificial life that allow architects to realize conceptual experiments in which the elements of an architectural scenario are endowed with agency and dynamic, spatial interaction. Elements of the scenario combine and interact spatially over time to result in an emergent design. We believe this use of ALife concepts in the design process of architecture to be both novel and powerful


The methodology termed scanning transmission electron microscopy in scanning electron microscopy (STEM-in-SEM) has been used in this work to study the uptake of citrate stabilized gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) (average particle sizes of 23.5 ± 4.0 nm) into tissue samples upon in vitro exposure of the dissected gills of the Ruditapes philippinarum marine bivalve to the nanoparticle suspensions. The STEM-in-SEM methodology has been optimized for achieving optimum resolution under SEM low voltage operating conditions (20-30 kV). Based on scanning microscope assessments and resolution testing (SMART), resolutions well below 10 nm were appropriately achieved by working at magnifications over 100k×, with experimental sample thickness between 300 and 200 nm. These relatively thick slices appear to be stable under the beam and help avoid NP displacement during cutting. We herein show that both localizing of the internalized nanoparticles and imaging of ultrastructural disturbances in gill tissues are strongly accessible due to the improved resolution, even at sample thicknesses higher than those normally employed in standard TEM techniques at higher voltages. Ultrastructural imaging of bio-nano features in bioaccumulation experiments have been demonstrated in this study.


Partition and entropy of partitions in quantum logic are introduced and their properties are investigated.The results are generalized to the general case of T-norm and T-conorm.


We evaluate US Energy Information Agencies (EIA) forecasts of the world petroleum market, emphasising the importance of taking a multivariate perspective, considering asymmetric loss and allowing for time-variation. Forecasts for total demand, total supply, total stock withdrawals and the oil prices are biased, with biases that change over time and differ across variables. A loss function that takes into account asymmetry and interdependence can rationalise these biases. The implied asymmetric loss gives less weight to under-prediction of both demand and supply, while for oil prices, we document significant regime changes in the implied loss due to asymmetry. The EIA forecasts dominate a simple random walk benchmark when evaluated using symmetric and independent loss in the form of MSE statistical criteria. Yet, when allowing for asymmetry and interdependence that rationalize the EIA forecasts, the performance of the EIA forecasts worsens and is comparable to the random walk benchmark.


OBJECTIVE
To provide Canadian health care workers with evidence-based guidelines for universal counselling about HIV testing and the offering of such testing to all pregnant women.

OPTIONS
Universal counselling and offering of HIV testing to all pregnant women versus targeted testing of only pregnant women at high risk for HIV infection. Antiretroviral treatment protocols for HIV-positive mothers and their infants are discussed as the intervention to reduce mother-to-child transmission rates.

OUTCOMES
Main outcomes are mother-to-child HIV transmission rates and consequences of HIV testing on the mother and infant.

EVIDENCE
Articles published from January 1985 to March 1997 identified through a MEDLINE search; articles published in pertinent medical journals in 1996 and 1997 identified through a manual search; and abstracts presented at international HIV/AIDS conferences.

BENEFITS, HARMS AND COSTS
Early diagnosis of HIV infection in a pregnant woman optimizes her medical and psychosocial care, decreases the incidence of mother-to-child transmission and decreases the risk of horizontal transmission to sexual partners. New, third-generation HIV tests have reduced false-positive rates and thus diminished the harm of screening.

RECOMMENDATIONS
A screening strategy consisting of universal counselling and offering of HIV testing is recommended for all pregnant women in Canada (grade B recommendation). Targeted testing of only pregnant women at high risk for HIV infection fails to identify a substantial proportion of HIV-positive pregnant women and is therefore not recommended (grade D recommendation). Women who identify themselves as being at high risk and whose initial HIV test result is negative should be counselled about the reduction of high-risk behaviours and retested in 6 months (grade B recommendation). Treatment of seropositive women and infants with zidovudine to prevent mother-to-child transmission is recommended (grade A or B recommendation depending on gestational age and CD4 count).

VALIDATION
These guidelines are endorsed by the Canadian Pediatric AIDS Research Group and are in agreement with the recommendations of the Canadian Paediatric Society and the US Public Health Service Task Force.


The LHC-forward experiment (LHCf), located at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), is designed to measure the production cross section of neutral particles in the very-forward region, covering the pseudorapidity region above 8.4 (up to zero-degree particles). By measuring the very-forward particle production rates at the highest energy possible at an accelerator, LHCf will provide fundamental informations to improve phenomenological hadronic interaction models used in the simulation of air-showers induced by ultra-high-energy cosmic rays in the atmosphere. The experiment consists of two small independent detectors placed 140 metres away from the ATLAS interaction point (IP1), on opposite sides. Each detector is made of two sampling and position sensitive calorimeters. This contribution will focus on the Run II physics results of LHCf in proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV. At first the photon energy spectrum will be presented and compared with the predictions of several hadronic interaction models. The advantages of the ATLAS-LHCf combined analysis will then be discussed and the preliminary spectrum of very-forward photons produced in diffractive collisions (tagged by ATLAS) will be shown together with models predictions. The preliminary Feynman-x and transverse momentum spectrum of 𝜋 0 , and the Feynman-x spectrum of 𝜂 will also be presented. Photons and 𝜋 0 production cross section provides important information about the electromagnetic component of an air-shower, while 𝜂 measurements give the possibility to probe the strange-quark related contribution. Finally, the neutron energy spectrum measured in several pseudorapidity regions will be shown and compared with the predictions of various hadronic interaction models. From these measurements the average inelasticity of the collisions, which strongly affects the development of an air-shower, has also been extracted.


Dancers undergo specific activity-dependent neuromuscular adaptations following long-term training that allow them to develop the refined motor skills required for success in dance. The spinal stretch reflex circuit has demonstrated specific adaptations following prolonged dance training. Adaptations in the spinal stretch reflex can be studied using H-reflex methodology, first described by Paul Hoffmann in 1910. This article discusses H-reflex methodology and presents data that examine the neural mechanisms that contribute to adaptations in the spinal stretch reflex with dance training. Two groups of subjects, modern dancers (N = 5) and untrained controls (N = 5), were tested. On one-half of the trials common peronal nerve (CPN) conditioning of the soleus H-reflex was used to assess one spinal mechanism, pre-synaptic inhibition; the other half tested the soleus H-reflex only (unconditioned). The dependent variables were the Hmax/Mmax ratios, unconditioned and with CPN conditioning, expressed as percent values. The results revealed three main findings: 1. Modern dancers had smaller Hmax/Mmax ratios than control subjects; 2. The Hmax/ Mmax ratio was smaller in standing posture than in prone among both dancers and controls; and 3. Pre-synaptic inhibition was not different between dancers and controls in standing. In conclusion, modern dancers have smaller H-reflexes than untrained controls, but pre-synaptic inhibition does not appear to explain this difference.


Introduction Sacral nerve stimulation testing (TSNS) for chronic constipation is not accurately predictive of a long-term response1. The decision to implant a permanent device relies on these results. Aims/Background We recognised that the testing stimulator was an analogue device with potentially inaccurate dial settings. We sought verification of the output waveform. Method 19 test stimulators were connected to a cross-calibrated oscilloscope. The output Frequency (f), and Pulse Width (pw) of the waveforms generated were measured according to: run 1) the physician's best attempt to set the dials correctly (pw=210 µ Sec, f=14 Hz), and run 2) the closest dial increment to these settings (pw=200 µ Sec, f=10 Hz). Output Voltage (V) was measured in run 3 at dial increments of 0V, 1V, 2V, 5V, and 10V. Results We assumed an acceptable margin of error of 20% in runs 1 and 2, and 0.5V in run 3. There was a marked range of frequency values; run 1) 10.6 to 29.0 Hz (26% failed), and run 2) 7.9 to 13.0 Hz (11% failed). Findings for pulse width were similarly variable; run 1) 242 to 326 µ Sec (89% failed), and run 2)215 to 274 µ Sec (63% failed). All devices had a residual positive voltage at zero(range:0.29 to 1.00V), and the failure rates at 0,1,2,5 and 10V were 53%, 100%, 100%, 68% and 47% respectively. Conclusion All fields of clinical practice and research have their instrumentation which requires calibration to provide verifiable readings. Failure to calibrate during TSNS results in patients receiving variable stimulation, potentially reducing the clarity of research findings, and may be a factor in the poor predictive power of testing in chronic constipation.


The binding of ionic and nonionic, nondenaturing detergents to cytochrome c oxidase has been examined. All bind and displace part but not all of the phospholipid that is associated with the enzyme after isolation. From 6 to 10 phospholipid molecules, depending on the detergent used, do not exchange and these are mostly diphosphatidylglycerol molecules as first shown by Awasthi et al. ((1971) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 226, 42). The binding of Triton X-100 and deoxycholate to the cytochrome c oxidase complex has been studied in detail. Both bind to the enzyme above their critical micelle concentrations: Triton X-100 in the amount of 180 +/- 10 molecules per complex and deoxycholate in the amount of 80 +/- 4 molecules per complex. In nonionic detergents, cytochrome c oxidase exists as a dimer (4 heme complex). The enzyme is dissociated into the monomer or heme aa3 complex by delipidation in bile salts. Activity measurements in different detergents suggest that cytochrome c oxidase requires a flexible, hydrophobic environment for maximal activity and that the dimer or 4 heme complex may be the active species.


error is not a major problem with the data on alcohol consumption. Furthermore, as none of the potential confounders other than cigarette smoking had any consistent effect on the odds ratios these other factors are unlikely to be important confounders despite inevitable measurement bias. The hypertension variable included in the analyses related to drug treatment, not the actual blood pressure, and was included because people being treated for hypertension mav have changed their alcohol consumption after the hypertension was diagnosed. In this study controlling for antihypertensive treatment had no consistent effect on the odds ratios. There is a strong social class association with cigarette smoking in New Zealand,4 and this, not selection bias, explains most of the social class association with coronary heart disease in our study. Professor A G Shaper and colleagues suggest that changes in alcohol consumption may have occurred before the period we specifically examined. This is irrelevant because we categorised current non-drinkers on the basis of lifetime drinking behaviour. The reliability of case-control studies depends on the design and conduct of the specific study. The validation studies we conducted were more extensive than those in most previous reports. Furthermore, despite the potential susceptibility of case-control studies to many biases they have the advantage of assessing both exposure and confounders close to the time of the outcome of interest and therefore may provide more accurate information than cohort studies entailing assessment of exposure often years before a disease event occurs. The issue of"more radical" exclusion criteria for prevalent cardiovascular disease is also dealt with in our paper. We report additional analyses restricted to people without current self reported medical problems, which show the same results. It would be inappropriate to evaluate the data presented in tables II and III statistically as these are raw figures. The statement that a complete lack of a dose response is biologically implausible is not only a weak argument but also false. We suggest a biologically plausible mechanism for the relation observed, although the study did not specifically examine biological mechanisms. As most of the participants drinking less than four units a week drank more than once a week the combination of a small high density lipoprotein effect and a haemostatic effect could account for the protective association observed in this group. Finally, our findings are consistent with those of most cohort studies that have examined this issue.'" The extremely high proportion of former drinkers in the non-drinking group in the British regional heart study conducted by Shaper et al5 suggests that their findings cannot be generalised. The weight of evidence suggests that the migration theory proposed by Shaper et al is wrong.


The final of the 2015 World Championship of League of Legends, a fantasy-themed, real-time strategy videogame, is being streamed worldwide by the BBC. Like the most popular of sporting occasions such as football tournaments and the Olympic Games, video gaming tournaments attract thousands of spectators to arenas and millions more watching live broadcasts. So how did videogames cross from being a bedroom activity to a highly competitive tournament sport with serious prizes to match?


With the planned introduction of Diagnosis related groups (DRG) in the German in-patient reimbursement system an economic brake will be put on the hospitals. The upcoming expected growth of the older German population and the ongoing process of better diagnostic and therapeutic procedures leads to a gap between costs and resources in the established health care system. With the introduction of the DRGs starts a process of one payment for one main diagnosis in hospital care. This requires a better resource control and leads to a tightrope walk between medical and economic aspects. The short time consequences result in great efforts of correct coding of diagnoses and procedures, as a survival strategy for surgical departments. More or less are new structures necessary, the development of "clinical pathways" and the increase or decrease of capacities will become the main tasks in the next years.


Porous hydroxyapatite (HA) ceramic implants have attracted attention in bone tissue engineering due to their excellent bioactivity and biocompatibility due to their chemical similarity with the mineral component of natural bone. Unfortunately, HA when is formed into porous structures exhibits very low compression strength. In this study, fabrication of porous HA ceramic scaffolds containing HA fibers is presented. The primary aim of the study is to improve mechanical properties of the scaffold by introducing the fiber with uniform component relative to the scaffold. Scanning electron microscopy was used to observe the surface morphology and pore size of the scaffold. X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used to detect the phase composition and crystallinity of the scaffold. The compressive strength was determined using a universal material test machine. The results and the characterizations demonstrate the addition of HA fiber could enhance the uniformity of mechanical properties among samples and also the strength for a given open porosity.