The frequency with which Escherichia coli mutated to resist a series of ten 4-quinolone antibacterials was studied. It was found that the mutation frequency could not be predicted from the potency of the drugs against sensitive bacteria. The mutation rates were lowest with ofloxacin, norfloxacin and ciprofloxacin. No mutants were observed with ofloxacin while less mutants were observed with norfloxacin than with ciprofloxacin, despite the latter possessing greatest activity against susceptible bacteria. The mutation frequencies observed with nalidixic acid, cinoxacin, pipemidic acid, flumequine, rosoxacin, oxolinic acid, and enoxacin were much higher than those observed with the three 4-quinolones mentioned earlier. When the sensitivities of the mutants to 4-quinolones were investigated, it was again found that the potency of each 4-quinolone against sensitive bacteria did not correlate with the levels of resistance of mutants to that drug. However, when the relative activities of the 4-quinolones against the mutants were investigated, it was found that no mutant isolated resisted a concentration exceeding the peak serum levels of ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin or ofloxacin. Although some mutants exhibited more resistance than the maximum attainable serum levels of the other 4-quinolones, the sensitivity of all the mutants fell well within the urine levels of pipemidic acid, flumequine, rosoxacin, oxolinic acid, enoxacin, norfloxacin, ofloxacin, and ciprofloxacin.


In order to clarify the aging behavior in ultrafine grained (UFG) Al alloys, a commercial Al-Mg-Si alloy was severely deformed by accumulative roll-bonding (ARB) process and subsequently aged at 100°C or 170°C. The age-hardening behavior and microstructure change during aging were investigated. At 170 °C, age-hardening was observed in solution treated (ST) specimens, but solution-treated and ARB-processed specimens were not hardened by aging. On the other hand, the hardness of the both ST specimen and ARB-processed specimen increased by aging at 100°C. From TEM observation, it was found that the ARB- processed specimen had an ultrafine lamellar boundary structure and the structure was kept during aging at 170°C and 100°C. In the ST specimen aged at 170°C, fine precipitates were observed within coarse grains. In the specimen ARB-processed and subsequently aged at 170°C, coarser precipitates were observed within ultrafine grains and on grain boundaries. It was considered that the reason why the hardness of the specimens ARB-processed and subsequently aged did not increase was coarsening of precipitates. In the specimens aged at 100°C, obvious precipitates were not observed, but clusters Mg and Si seemed to form during the aging, leading to the increase in the hardness of the specimen. From the results, it was suggested that aging at low temperatures could improve mechanical properties of Al alloys through combining grain refinement and precipitation hardening.


The capacity increases promised by multi-input multi-output (MIMO) systems usually come with requirements in regard to channel knowledge. We study the capacity of a MIMO scheme with perfect channel state information (CSI) at the receiver side where the transmitter has only a quantized version of the CSI due to a limited rate feedback channel. Random vector quantization is investigated along with a reduced number of precoders. It is found out that capacity losses are quite tolerable even in the case of small number of bits per quantized precoder.


The purpose of this thesis was to explore the role of exercise induced blood flow
haemodynamics in the cardiovascular adaptations associated with isometric exercise
training, with focus on resting blood pressure adjustment in normotensive participants.
Using a cross-sectional study, it was identified that significant relationships were
present between (i) blood flow, (ii) shear stress, and (iii) shear pattern responses
(measured in the femoral artery), during and immediately following isometric bilateral
leg extension exercise of increasing intensity. Based on these findings, it was feasible to
suggest that the haemodynamic response to high intensities of acute isometric exercise
might provide a physiological challenge to the cardiovascular system, that upon
repeated exposure via isometric exercise training, may induce cardiovascular adaptation
and resting blood pressure reductions. Subsequent to this, a randomised controlled trial
established that performing isometric exercise training to a 'high haemodynamic
stimulus' did not induce significantly greater adaptation in resting blood pressure than
when performing isometric exercise training to a 'low haemodynamic stimulus' or
control. When the training group (high and low combined) were compared to the
control, significant reductions in resting blood pressure were observed. Furthermore,
non-invasive cardiovascular variables that were considered as possible physiological
mechanisms for resting blood pressure adaptation following isometric exercise training
did not correlate with within group resting blood pressure changes. Whilst these
findings suggest that a haemodynamic challenge may not be the primary stimulus
responsible for inducing resting blood pressure adaptation following isometric exercise
training, these results do demonstrate the effectiveness of isometric exercise training for
potential health gains via reductions in resting blood pressure in normotensives.
Importantly, these findings have progressed the current understanding surrounding
isometric exercise training induced resting blood pressure reductions and will allow
future research to narrow their focus upon other physiological variables that may be the
stimuli for blood pressure adaptation.


This article outlines a theory of world literary reading that takes language and the making of boundaries between languages as its point of departure. A consequence of our discussion is that world literature can be explored as uneven translingual events that make linguistic tensions manifest either at the micro level of the individual text or at the macro level of publication and circulation—or both. Two case studies exemplify this. The first concerns an episode in the institutionalization of Shakespeare as a global canonical figure in 1916, with a specific focus on the South African writer Sol Plaatje's Setswana contribution to A Book of Homage to Shakespeare. The second case discusses how Edwidge Danticat's novel The Farming of Bones (1998) evokes the bodily and affective charge of boundary-making by troubling the border between Haitian and Dominican speech.


Abstract 1516 Background: Front-line combination of imatinib with conventional chemotherapy has demonstrated an improved complete remission (CR) rate, an increased transplantation proceeding rate with CR, and a better survival in adults with Ph+ ALL. However, in the light of disease aggressiveness and recurrence, mainly as a result of the outgrowth of leukemic subclones with imatinib-resistant mutations, an improved strategy to induce more effective leukemic cell clearance is clearly needed. Dasatinib, a potent dual BCR-ABL/SRC family kinase inhibitor, has been shown to be effective in patients with imatinib-resistant chronic myeloid leukemia and Ph+ ALL. Methods: We present the first interim results of the Korean prospective phase II study protocol designed to evaluate the clinical efficacy of first-line dasatinib plus conventional chemotherapy for adults with newly diagnosed Ph+ ALL. This study is registered at www.ClinicalTrials.gov as NCT01004497. The protocol is designed for 51 patients, and recruitment started in March, 2010. The protocol enrolls patients (15–65 years) who receive dasatinib (100 mg once daily for 4 weeks) as an alternative schedule after each conventional chemotherapy course (alternating modified hyper-CVAD and high-dose cytarabine/mitoxantrone). Patients in CR who have a suitable related/unrelated donor undergo allogeneic transplantation as early as possible (depending on the speed of coordination process). Patients without a donor continue to receive dasatinib plus conventional chemotherapy (up to 4 courses; depending on the patient9s tolerability) followed by dasatinib maintenance therapy (100 mg once daily for up to 2 years). Minimal residual disease monitoring for BCR-ABL transcript is centrally evaluated by real-time quantitative PCR (4.5 log sensitivity) through handling of bone marrow samples from all patients (Research Institute of Molecular Genetics, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea). Results: A total of 36 patients have been enrolled to date. Of these, 3 patients are receiving the first dasatinib cycle (too early); 3 patients died before starting the first dasatinib cycle from infections. Thus, 30 patients are evaluable for assessment of response to dasatinib plus conventional chemotherapy. Median age was 47 years (range, 19 to 64 years). Karyotype analysis revealed additional chromosomal changes in 18 (60%) of the 30 patients. Twenty patients (67%) had m-BCR transcript. All patients (100%) have achieved CR with a decrease in the minimal residual disease by the first dasatinib cycle, and of these, 13 patients (43%) have achieved major molecular response [MMR; including 5 complete molecular response (CMR4.5)]. By the second dasatinib cycle, 25 patients (83%) have achieved MMR (including 11 CMR4.5). So far, no dasatinib-related serious adverse events (≥grade 3 toxicity) have been observed. Twenty-four (80%) of the 30 patients have undergone allogeneic transplantation in CR; 6 patients are receiving continuous dasatinib plus conventional chemotherapy in CR. With a median follow-up duration of 10 months (range, 5 to 17 months), 25 patients are at present alive in continuous CR, and 4 patients have died (2 infections during consolidation chemotherapy, 2 transplant-related complications). Only 1 patient who failed to achieve MMR has relapsed at 11 months from diagnosis (at 5 months after allogeneic transplantation). The estimated probabilities of disease-free survival and overall survival at 1 year were 76% and 83%, respectively. Conclusions: Our interim analysis indicates that first-line combination of dasatinib with conventional chemotherapy appears to be effective in achieving a good quality of molecular response (MMR/CMR4.5) in adults with Ph+ ALL. Whether this would translate to an improved long-term survival remains to be investigated. Disclosures: Lee:Bristol Myers Squibb: Honoraria, Research Funding. Kim:Bristol Myers Squibb: Honoraria, Research Funding.


Measuring the similarity between three-dimensional (3-D) objects is a challenging problem, with applications in computer vision, molecular biology, computer graphics, and many other areas. This paper describes a novel method for 3-D model content-based search based on the 3-D Generalized Radon Transform and a querying by-3-D-model approach. A set of descriptor vectors is extracted using the Radial Integration Transform (RIT) and the Spherical Integration Transform (SIT), which represent significant shape characteristics. After the proper alignment of the models, descriptor vectors are produced which are invariant in terms of translation, scaling and rotation. Experiments were performed using three different databases and comparing the proposed method with those most commonly cited in the literature. Experimental results show that the proposed method is adequately satisfactory in terms of both precision versus recall and time needed for retrieval, and that it can be used for 3-D model search and retrieval in a highly efficient manner.


Abstract West Sole is located in the Sole Pit area of the Southern North Sea Permian Basin in UK Block 48/6. The field was discovered in 1965 and was the first commercial discovery in the UK Continental Shelf. Gas Production commenced in 1967. Initial reserves are 1.873 TCF of which 1.335 TCF had been produced by the end of 1989. Gas is trapped in aeolian sandstones of the Permian Lower Leman Sandstone Formation. Three depositional facies are recognized, comprising aeolian dune, fluvial and sabkha. The aeolian dune facies form the principal reservoir sandstones, in units up to 40 m (131 ft) thick. However, permeability is reduced due to pervasive illite cementation, such that it averages 3 md in the dune sandstones. Productivity is enhanced in the southern part of the field by 'open' gas-filled fractures, generated during the Alpine inversion. The trap was also amplified at this stage and comprises a faulted inversion anticline trending NW-SE. The source rock is the Westphalian Coal Measures, lying directly beneath the reservoir.


Pain in the pubic symphysis is of significance, especially in high-performance sports. Pelvic torsion, possibly caused by muscular imbalances, is discussed as a pathogenic mechanism. This study examined a possible interrelationship between the maximum torques of quadriceps femoris and hamstrings and the spatial positioning of the hemi-pelvises, as well as the tenderness to palpation of the pubic symphysis. The three-dimensional pelvic contour of 26 pain free adolescents (age 16.0 ± 0.8 years, weight 66.3 ± 9.9 kg, height 176.2 ± 6.0 cm) was registered by means of an 3D optical system and the torsion of both hemi-pelvises against each other was calculated based on a simplified geometrical model. Tenderness on palpation of the pubic symphysis was assessed by means of a visual analogue scale, and isometric torques of knee extensors and flexors were measured for both legs. The torque ratio between knee extensors and flexors was calculated for both sides, as was the crossed torque ratio between the two legs. On the basis of a MANOVA, possible significant differences in torques and torque ratios between subgroups with lower and higher pelvic torsion were analyzed. The crossed torque ratio (F = 19.55, p < 0.001, partial η2 = 0.453) and the tenderness to palpation of the pubic symphysis (F = 10.72, p = 0.003, partial η2 = 0.309) were significantly higher in the subgroup with higher pelvic torsion. The results indicate the crossed torque ratio of knee flexors and extensors as a potential biomechanical-pathogenic mechanism to be considered in the primary prevention and diagnosis of symphyseal pain.


Amphibians are in global decline, and anthropogenic activities are known leading causes of their demise. Thus the interaction between agriculture and amphibian health has been examined for decades. Many facets of amphibian physiology and ecology place them at high risk among the nontarget organisms affected by agricultural byproducts. Research has shown that many chemicals and fertilizers affect amphibian growth, reproduction, and survival. The impacts differ based on the type of agricultural byproduct (e.g., chemical pesticide or nutrient‐heavy fertilizer) and amphibian species, but the effects are usually negative. However, minimal research exists on how organic biopesticides interact with amphibian populations. Biopesticides utilize insecticidal bacteria as the active ingredient in lieu of synthetic chemicals. The inert ingredients present in biopesticide commercial products are considered safe to nontarget organisms. The present study tested the impacts of a commercial biopesticide on the survival of amphibian embryos and larvae. We found that expected environmental concentrations of the microbial biopesticide Monterrey B.t. did not significantly reduce survival in embryos or larvae. However, the higher doses used to assess threshold toxicity levels caused significant mortality. Our data suggest that biopesticides are not directly harmful to amphibian embryos or larvae in concentrations regularly applied for pest control. Environ Toxicol Chem 2020;39:155–161. © 2019 SETAC


In the "Sarawak Museum Journal," volume V (1949), pages 156-166,I gave a revised account of the genus Heterogonium Presl, based on specimens in the Singapore herbarium.Dr M. A.Donk wrote subsequently pointing out that specimens at Bogor (Buitenzorg) add materially to the information contained in that paper.The present paper gives the result of a study of the Bogor specimens.I am glad to express my gratitude to Dr Donk for calling my attention to species which I had overlooked when searching literature on Malaysian ferns for indications of affinity to Heterogonium. The Bogor material includes the type specimens of Acrostichum teysmannianum Bak.,Phegopteris schizoloma v. A. v. R. Dryopteris sagenoides forma contracta v. A. v. R.,Polybotrya nieuwenhuisii Racib.and Polybotrya nieuwenhuisii var. brooksii v. A. v. R.,also many sheets of H. giganteum, and material of H.sagenoides from a wider geographic range than I had previously seen.Summarizing the results of the present paper,I have united H.nieuwenhuisii and H. stenosemioides of my former paper,and have also united H.saxicola with H. giganteum.Further, I now recognize a second exindusiate species allied to H.sagenoides; but the variation in pubescence among exindusiate specimens, as within the species H.sagenoides proper,is very considerable,and I find it very difficult to draw specific limits. It is likely that there are local races, but much more field work in many localities is necessary before one can speak with certainty about this or define their status taxonomically. One interesting fact is that no exindusiate specimens of this alliance have been found in the Malay Peninsula, whereas Peninsular collections of indusiate H. sagenoides are more abundant than from any other area.It is especially the variation in pubescence among specimens of H.sagenoides,and the lack of clear-cut varieties or subspecies within the Malay Peninsula, that deters me from distinguishing more species outside the Peninsula, based on few specimens.Another generalization based on many specimens is that fertile fronds are always much less hairy on the lower surface than sterile fronds of the same plant.As regards another kind of character, namely venation,I have noted that fronds of immature plants may not show the low


Hypertension is poorly controlled in most patients. The control rate, defined as a systolic blood pressure (SBP) < 140 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) < 90 mmHg, is 27% in the USA, despite data documenting the reduction of cardiovascular events by treating diastolic hypertension and isolated systolic hypertension. Control rate is even lower for patients with renal insufficiency and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Thus, monotherapy is unlikely to achieve blood pressure control. Supported by the 6th Joint National Committee Report (JNC VI), interest has been sparked in the use of fixed low-dose combination drugs as first-line treatment of hypertension. The rationale is to enhance hypertension control by using drugs that are additive while avoiding complex regimens that result in non-compliance. When low doses of two drugs are used, adverse drug reactions are fewer compared with the maximal dose of each drug tested separately. Multifactorial trials document the efficacy of hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) 6.25 mg in combination with bisoprolol 2.5-10 mg once daily. DBP control rates have been 64-77% and equal to or superior to HCTZ 25 mg once daily, amlodipine 2.5-10 mg once daily, enalapril 5-40 mg once daily or losartan 50-100 mg and losartan 50 mg with 12.5 mg HCTZ once daily. This low-dose combination has a side-effect profile similar to placebo. Erectile dysfunction and hypokalaemia are uncommon. Fixed-dose combination antihypertensive drugs simplify dosing regimens, improve compliance, improve hypertension control, decrease dose-dependent side-effects, and reduce cost as the first-line treatment of hypertension.


This study investigated whether attachment-related anxiety and attachment-related avoidance are significant predictors of coping strategies in relation to memories of coping with partner infidelity. Four hundred and fifteen participants who had the experience of a romantic partner engaging in infidelity completed questionnaires measuring their attachment style and their use of eight cognitive and behavioural coping strategies. Of the total participants, 231 who had completed all of the study's measures and met the research inclusion criteria were included within the preliminary and main analyses. The data was analysed using a series of separate hierarchical multiple linear regressions. Individuals with high attachment avoidance scores engaged in less seeking social support and confrontive strategies, and in more distancing strategies to cope with partner infidelity. Alternatively, individuals with high attachment anxiety engaged in more accepting responsibility and escape avoidance strategies, and less positive reappraisal strategies to cope with partner infidelity. These findings advocate potential therapeutic interventions for individuals coping with partner infidelity, including helping clients understand the ineffective coping mechanisms that arise from their attachment patterns and supporting them in challenging their cognitions and adopting more effective methods of coping with partner infidelity. Although the study was able to predict the types of coping strategies insecurely attached individuals are likely to use when coping with a partner's infidelity, it did not directly focus on the impact this had on participants' psychological distress. Future research using mediator analyses could offer interesting information into the complex relationship between attachment, coping, and psychological distress, and shed light on whether specific strategies may increase an individual's vulnerability of developing mental health difficulties in response to a partner's infidelity.


The changes in the gut microbiome play an important role in the promoting effects of antibiotics, such as tylosin, to the health, and productivity of farm animals. Microbial metabolites are expected to be key mediators between antibiotics-induced microbiome changes and growth-promoting effects. The objective of this study was to extend the identification of tylosin-responsive microbes to the identification of tylosin-responsive metabolites in growing pigs. The feeding trial was conducted on a commercial farm using two pens of pigs fed diets with and without tylosin (40 mg/kg of diet). Fecal samples were collected from 10 pigs per pen at weeks 10, 13, 16, 19, and 22 of age, and subsequently analyzed using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis. The multivariate model of LC-MS data showed that time-dependent changes occurred in the fecal metabolome of both control and tylosin-treated pigs. More importantly, the metabolomic profiles were similar between the tylosin treatment and control groups in weeks 10 and 22, but diverged during weeks 13–19. Subsequent analyses of the fecal metabolites contributing to the separation of two groups of pigs showed that hyodeoxycholic acid (HDCA), together with tylosin and its metabolites in feces, was greatly increased during weeks 13–19 (P < 0.05) in the group of pigs fed tylosin. The integration of current metabolomics data and the microbiome data from a previous study revealed the consistency between HDCA and a specific genus of microbes in the Clostridia family. Further studies are required to determine the causative relations between tylosin-elicited changes in HDCA and the microbiome as well as the role of HDCA in the growth promoting effects of tylosin.


Three different bias strategies aimed to reduce the effect of tuning on either the differential input range or the common-mode range of triode-region CMOS transconductors are presented. The method is applied to an original transconductor topology that is optimized to produce ultralow Gm values. A prototype circuit, which was designed with the 0.35-mum bipolar-CMOS-DMOS (BCD6) process of STMicroelectronics, is presented. The effectiveness and limitations of the method are characterized by means of electrical simulations


Edge operators based on gray-scale morphologic operations are introduced. These operators can be efficiently implemented in near real time machine vision systems which have special hardware support for gray-scale morphologic operations. The simplest morphologic edge detectors are the dilation residue and erosion residue operators. The underlying motivation for these and some of their combinations are discussed and justified. Finally, the blur-minimum morphologic edge operator is defined. Its inherent noise sensitivity is less than the dilation or the erosion residue operators. Some experimental results are provided to show the validity of these morphologic operators. When compared with the enhancement/thresholding edge detectors and the cubic facet second derivative zero-crossing edge operator, the results show that all the edge operators have similar performance when the noise is small. However, as the noise increases, the second derivative zero-crossing edge operator and the blur-minimum morphologic edge operator have much better performance than the rest of the operators. The advantage of the blur-minimum edge operator is that it is less computationally complex than the facet edge operator.


Standard methods for risk assessments resulting from human exposures to mixed radiation fields in Space consisting of different particle types and energies rely upon quality factors. These are generally defined as a function of linear energy transfer (LET) and are assumed to be proportional to the risk. In this approach, it is further assumed that the risks for single exposures from each of the radiation types add linearly. Although risks of cancer from acute exposures to photon radiations have been measured in humans, quality factors for protons and ions of heavier atomic mass are generally inferred from animal and/or cellular data. Because only a small amount of data exists for such particles, this group has been examining tumourigenesis initiated by energetic protons and iron ions. In this study, 741 female Sprague–Dawley rats were irradiated or sham irradiated at approximately 60 days of age with 250 MeV protons, 1 GeV/nucleon iron ions or both protons and iron ions. The results suggest that the risk of mammary tumours in the rats sequentially irradiated with 1 GeV/nucleon 56Fe ions and 250 MeV protons is less than additive. These data in conjunction with earlier results further suggest that risk assessments in terms of only mean LETs of the primary cosmic rays may be insufficient to accurately evaluate the relative risks of each type of particle in a radiation field of mixed radiation qualities.


ABSTRACT The research reported in this paper investigated the effects of semantic relatedness of words (closely related vs. distantly related) and morpheme type (free morpheme vs. bound morpheme) on young Chinese children's homophone awareness, an aspect of morphological awareness, in two experiments. The first experiment was a cross-sectional study including 39 children in a beginning kindergarten class, 39 children in an intermediate kindergarten class, and 36 children in a senior kindergarten class. The second experiment was a 7-month longitudinal study involving 43 first graders and 50 second graders at the beginning of the study. In both experiments, the children judged whether orally presented words shared the same morpheme or contained homophonous morphemes. The results suggest that homophone awareness emerges in Chinese children in the kindergarten years. Children's morpheme identification is facilitated by the semantic proximity of words that share a morpheme, and awareness of free morphemes is developed before that of bound morphemes. Furthermore, although semantic relatedness is the most prominent factor in kindergarten, its effect varies as a function of morpheme type in the early primary grades. Our research sheds light on the developmental course of morphological awareness and the factors that influence it.


Traveltimes are essential for seismic applications ranging from imaging to tomography. Traveltime computations in anisotropic media, which are better representative of the true Earth, require solving the anisotropic eikonal equation. Numerical techniques to solve the anisotropic eikonal equation are known to suffer from instability and increased computational cost compared to the isotropic case. Here, we employ the emerging paradigm of physics-informed neural networks to solve the anisotropic qP-wave eikonal equation. By minimizing a loss function formed by imposing the validity of the eikonal equation, we train a neural network to produce traveltime solutions that are consistent with the underlying partial differential equation. We observe considerably higher accuracy compared to the first-order finite-difference solution using the fast sweeping method. We also show that once the network is trained for a particular source location in a given anisotropic model, the traveltimes for a new source location and/or an updated model can be computed much more efficiently using the pre-trained network. This feature is particularly attractive as it can speed up seismic imaging and inversion applications significantly.


High oxophilic d-block compounds of dry cell based manganese materials such as MnO2, Mn3O4, and ZnxMn3O4􀀀x have excellent electrocatalytic property in oxygen evolution reaction (OER). To seek a way for disposing these dry cell materials, which are unlike rechargeable batteries, these discharged cells result in environmental hazards. Here we optimized these manganese oxides for an energy related applications, particularly for OER. With this aim, we have examined electrocatalytic behavior of both used and fresh dry cells in OER. We have observed that the used dry cell material exhibited 10 mA. cm􀀀2 at an overpotential of 525 mV but fresh dry cell needed 100 mV higher overpotential to achieve same current density. The nature of these fresh and used materials have been analyzed using XRD, SEM, TGA, Raman spectra, FT-IR and contact angle experiments. The higher activity of used dry cell could be ascribed to the generation of highly active Mn3O4 from MnO2 and graphene oxide while discharging conditions.


Epidemiological data clearly indicate a link between chronic hepatitis C (CHC) and disturbed glucose homeostasis. The prevalences of both type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and insulin resistance (IR) are higher among those chronically infected with hepatitis C when compared with the general population and those with other causes of chronic liver disease. Both IR and diabetes are associated with adverse outcomes across all stages of CHC including the liver transplant population. The adverse effects that directly influence patient outcome are reduced responsiveness to antiviral therapy, more rapid progression of fibrosis to cirrhosis and a higher incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma. Although both viral and host factors are known to contribute to IR (and therefore the risk of T2DM), there is a paucity of evidence to support interventions targeting IR with pharmacotherapy or lifestyle intervention. The purpose of this review is to examine the impact of abnormalities of glucose homeostasis in CHC, and in so doing, to raise a number of questions. How do we identify those at risk of diabetes in CHC? Can we reduce the incidence of hepatoma and reduce transplant‐related morbidity and mortality by preventing or treating diabetes? Can we improve the response to antiviral therapy by pretreating IR and T2DM in treatment candidates? Ultimately, can we cure two diseases, diabetes and CHC, with one treatment?


In this paper, an enhanced CAD/CAM system for simulating 3-axis milling of complex parts is proposed. The system consists of the conventional CAD/CAM system enhanced with a milling process simulator. The latter includes a geometric module and a physical module. The geometric simulator integrates solid, surface and curve modelling to accurately represent the geometric entities involved in the milling simulation and extract the geometric information required for predicting different process parameters. The physical simulator is composed of force models for flat and ball end mills which compute instantaneous cutting forces. The applicability of the approach is demonstrated for the case of 3-axis milling using a ball end tool. The validity is shown by predicting cutting forces and comparing them with experimental measurements. This system can be used to verify and optimize NC codes, thus contributing to improving the reliability, accuracy, and productivity of NC machining.


Normalization methods are essential components in convolutional neural networks (CNNs). They either standardize or whiten data using statistics estimated in predefined sets of pixels. Unlike existing works that design normalization techniques for specific tasks, we propose Switchable Whitening (SW), which provides a general form unifying different whitening methods as well as standardization methods. SW learns to switch among these operations in an end-to-end manner. It has several advantages. First, SW adaptively selects appropriate whitening or standardization statistics for different tasks (see Fig.1), making it well suited for a wide range of tasks without manual design. Second, by integrating benefits of different normalizers, SW shows consistent improvements over its counterparts in various challenging benchmarks. Third, SW serves as a useful tool for understanding the characteristics of whitening and standardization techniques. We show that SW outperforms other alternatives on image classification (CIFAR-10/100, ImageNet), semantic segmentation (ADE20K, Cityscapes), domain adaptation (GTA5, Cityscapes), and image style transfer (COCO). For example, without bells and whistles, we achieve state-of-the-art performance with 45.33% mIoU on the ADE20K dataset.


Introduction. African swine fever virus (ASF) is a large, enveloped virus with an icosahedral capsid morphology and a double-stranded DNA genome ranging in size from 170 to 190 kb. The replication cycle proceeds in two phases, the early phase lasting 46 hours and the late 820 hours after infection. The adaptation of the ASF virus to growth in continuous cell lines makes efficient and reliable genetic analysis and more accurate interpretation of its results.
Objective. Adaptation of a new isolate of the ASF virus to growth in a continuous cell line by the method of accelerated passages and preliminary genetic analysis of the resulting strain.
Materials and methods. For virus isolation and passaging of the ASF virus, a porcine leukocyte cell culture (PL) and continuous cell cultures of porcine origin (ST, PK, PPK-66b) were used with Eagle MEM and HLA essential media with 10% porcine or fetal serum.
Results. The article presents data on the isolation and analysis of the changes in the reproductive properties of a new African swine fever (ASF) virus isolate in the process of adaptation to growth in a continuous piglet kidney cell culture clone b (PPK-66b). The current state of the problem of cultivation of the ASF virus, the features of its reproduction, and the basis of the genetic differentiation of its isolates are described in detail. Understanding the uniqueness of the nature of the ASF virus determined the approaches to the processes of its cultivation and adaptation. In this regard, the results of studies of cultural properties, and analysis of the nucleotide sequence of 6 genes of the new isolate, as well as phylogenetic analysis of these genes with already known strains and isolates of the ASF virus are presented.
Conclusion. A new strain obtained in the process of cell adaptation of ASVF/Znaury/PPK-23 ASF virus by the accelerated passaging method reaches a high level of reproduction in 72 hours with an accumulation titer of 7.07 lg HAdE50/cm3. Primary genetic analysis allowed to establish the main phylogenetic relationships of the newly isolated strain with previously known variants of the current ASF panzootic.


The promoter for a tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) sesquiterpene cyclase gene, a key regulatory step in sesquiterpene phytoalexin biosynthesis, has been analyzed. The EAS4 promoter was fused to the [beta]-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter gene, and the temporal and spatial expression patterns of GUS activity were examined in stably transformed plants and in transient expression assays using electroporated protoplasts of tobacco. No GUS activity was observed in any tissues under normal growth conditions. A low level of GUS activity was detected in wounded leaf, root, and stem tissues, whereas a much higher level was observed when these tissues were challenged with elicitors or microbial pathogens. The GUS expression pattern directed by the EAS4 promoter was identical to the induction patterns observed for the endogenous sesquiterpene cyclase genes. Neither exogenous salicylic acid nor methyl jasmonate induced GUS expression; and H2O2 induced GUS expression to only a limited extent. Although the EAS4 promoter contains cis-sequences resembling previously identified transcriptional control motifs, other cis-sequences important for quantitative and qualitative gene expression were identified by deletion and gain-of-function analyses. The EAS4 promoter differs from previously described pathogen-/elicitor-inducible promoters because it only supports inducible gene expression and directs unique spatial expression patterns.


As part of an ongoing project to unify the treatment of symmetric lenses (of various kinds) as equivalence classes of spans of asymmetric lenses (of corresponding kinds) we relate the symmetric delta lenses of Diskin et al, with spans of asymmetric delta lenses. Because delta lenses are based on state spaces which are categories rather than sets there is further structure that needs to be accounted for and one of the main findings in this paper is that the required equivalence relation among spans is compatible with, but coarser than, the one expected. The main result is an isomorphism of categories between a category whose morphisms are equivalence classes of symmetric delta lenses (here called fb-lenses) and the category of spans of delta lenses modulo the new equivalence.


ABSTRACT This paper tells the tale of an adventure in teaching an interdisciplinary course about visual perception, combining visual art and vision science, called "Making Visual Illusions." The authors co-taught a course that brought together the hands-on methods of the art studio and the science laboratory, using visual illusions as a theme to guide student explorations. One unexpected issue that arose was the time needed to discuss basic concepts and the connections between fields in order to communicate the deeper ideas the students needed to learn. This paper explores aspects of the course that worked well and makes suggestions for improvement.


In this paper we propose a new vision-based robot control approach halfway between the classical position-based and image-based visual servoings. It allows to avoid their respective disadvantages. The homography between some planar feature points extracted from two images (corresponding to the current and desired camera poses) is computed at each iteration. Then, an approximate partial-pose, where the translational term is known only up to a scale factor, is deduced, from which can be designed a closed-loop control law controlling the six camera DOF. Contrarily to the position-based visual servoing, our scheme does not need any geometric 3D model of the object. Furthermore and contrarily to the image-based visual servoing, our approach ensures the convergence of the control law in all the task space.


Data warehousing is a generally accepted method of providing corporate decision support. Today, the majority of information in these warehouses originates from sources within a company, although changes often occur from the outside. Companies need to look outside their enterprises for valuable information, increasing their knowledge of customers, suppliers, competitors etc. The largest and most frequently accessed information source today is the Web, which holds more and more useful business information. Today, the Web primarily relies on HTML, making mechanical extraction of information a difficult task. In the near future, XML is expected to replace HTML as the language of the Web, bringing more structure and content focus. One problem when considering XML-sources in a data warehouse context is their lack of update awareness capabilities, which restricts eligible data warehouse maintenance policies. In this work, we wrap XML-sources in order to provide update awareness capabilities. We have implemented a wrapper prototype that provides update awareness capabilities for autonomous XML-sources, especially change awareness, change activeness, and delta awareness. The prototype wrapper complies with recommendations and working drafts proposed by W3C, thereby being compliant with most off-the-shelf XML tools. In particular, change information produced by the wrapper is based on methods defined by the DOM, implying that any DOM-compliant software, including most off-the-shelf XML processing tools, can be used to incorporate identified changes in a source into an older version of it. For the delta awareness capability we have investigated the possibility of using change detection algorithms proposed for semi-structured data. We have identified similarities and differences between XML and semi-structured data, which affect delta awareness for XML-sources. As a result of this effort, we propose an algorithm for change detection in XML-sources. We also propose matching criteria for XML-documents, to which the documents have to conform to be subject to change awareness extension.


The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between selected corporate governance mechanisms and the degree of earnings management of Sri Lankan listed companies. The study was carried out by using quantitative methodology and using secondary data primarily obtained through published annual reports of 175 non-financial companies listed in the Colombo Stock Exchange during 2017 to 2019. The study examined the relationship between eight selected corporate governance characteristics and level of earnings management which measured through discretionary accruals. Empirical results of the study reveal a noteworthy positive relation between frequency of audit committee meetings and earnings management. This finding is contrary to the results of most previous studies. The remaining corporate governance characteristics are not having a significant impact on the level of earnings management. This study adds some new evidence on the relationship between selected corporate governance mechanisms and the degree of earnings management of Sri Lankan listed companies as it used data of post implementation period of new Code of Best Practice of Corporate Governance 2017. Findings of the present study differ from available limited studies on the relationship between corporate governance and earnings management in Sri Lankan context as previous studies reported inconclusive relationships whereas the present study established at least one conclusive relationship between frequency of audit committee meetings and earnings management .


A detailed micromorphological analysis of the labellum was carried out using both light and scanning electron microscopy on 14 genera (Anacamptis, Cephalanthera, Coeloglossum, Dactylorhiza, Gymnadenia, Himantoglossum, Limodorum, Neottia, Orchis, Ophrys, Platanthera, Serapias, Spiranthes, and Steveniella) of Orchidaceae in Turkey. In the samples, various epidermal features were identified in the spur that developmentally are invaginations of the labellum and the adaxial surface of the labellum. Typical secretory cells and inclusions such as starch or calcium oxalate crystals of different sizes and shapes were found within the structure of individuals. In many genera, characteristically shaped secretory trichomes and papillae were concentrated at the base part close to the gynostemium or the distal part of the labellum and on all surfaces of the spur. In the genus Ophrys, the labellum surface was covered with many hairs. Furthermore, the labellum surface striation varied among the orchid genera. UPGMA of cluster analysis was used to evaluate the morphological and micromorphological features of the labellum and spur among the analyzed taxa.


Poly(A)-specific ribonuclease (PARN) is a deadenylase that degrades the poly(A) tail of eukaryotic mRNA. PARN also interacts with the 5'-cap structure of the mRNA. The binding of the cap structure enhances the deadenylation rate. PARN has previously been described as a dimer. We have studied PARN with size exclusion chromatography to investigate the oligomeric composition and revealed oligomeric compositions of PARN that are larger than dimeric PARN. Deadenylation assays have been used to measure the cap stimulated activity of PARN. The deadenylation assays showed that the cap stimulated activity of PARN correlated with the abundance of oligomers corresponding in size to tetrameric PARN. We present a model for tetrameric PARN and propose a mechanistic model for how the cap stimulates PARN mediated deadenylation.


In May 2013, the Coalition Government introduced a Bill which if passed will streamline the tools available to tackle anti-social behaviour. One of their proposals is to replace the controversial anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) with what is termed an Injunction to Prevent Nuisance and Annoyance (IPNA). Although designed to tackle criminal and sub-criminal behaviour, this new intervention will be a purely civil order replacing the civil-criminal hybrid ASBO. This article explores some of the more troubling aspects of this part of the Bill including its expansive definition of anti-social behaviour, the avoidance of due process protections, the extensive restrictions that respondents may face and the likely impact of its use on young people. With legislation presently under Parliamentary scrutiny, this article calls for amendments to avoid the most problematic aspects of the ASBO being not just replicated but amplified.


This paper argues that the judicial review of private party antitrust claims predicated upon market-based tariffs, filed with a regulatory agency, should not be precluded by the filed rate doctrine (an antitrust doctrine that prevents challenge of electricity rates once they have been filed with, and approved by, the regulatory agency). The paper analogizes the filed rate doctrine with the notion of agency inaction in administrative law. Applying the Heckler test to the specifics of a case study leads to the general conclusion that there is a strong case for making all agency market-based tariff approval decisions presumptively reviewable in spite of the filed rate doctrine. The case study utilized is the California's electricity crisis of 2000-2001 and FERC's mismanagement thereof, its aftermath, and the subsequent private antitrust claims. Acknowledgement: Many thanks to Professor Jim Rossi, whose work inspired and guided this study.


The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework that can be used by agricultural leaders, administrators, policy makers, and seed program managers to (1) understand key factors affecting seed system development; and (2) compare organizational and institutional strategies for increasing seed system effectiveness. A literature review of recent studies on seed system development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) was undertaken to achieve these objectives. The studies reviewed included published and unpublished reports, monographs, and case studies.


: We have described a case of maternal primary aldosteronism in which there is virilization of the female offspring. The most common causes of virilization are considered unlikely on the basis of clinical and laboratory data. The report illustrates the exacerbation of aldosteronism that occurs postpartum and emphasizes a conservative approach to intravenous potassium therapy during delivery.


In this study, a numerical model is developed using the Finite Difference Method to determine the response of sandy seabed under different loading conditions. The quasi- dynamic (u-w-p) model is presented detailed in this paper. In u-w-p model, acceleration, velocity, and displacement terms are considered different for both solid and fluid phases. u- w-p model has considered sophisticated and general condition of seabed motion. The governing equations of the model are deduced from constitutive law and conservation law under certain assumptions. In the model, numerical solutions are developed by using the finite difference method (FDM) both in 1-D with finite seabed depth and 2-D with infinite seabed depth. Three major factors (pore water pressure, effective stress and shear stress) are assessed from the proposed models. The results show that both the effective stress and the pore water pressure vary according to the depth. When the excess pore pressures are increasing, the surface settlement of seabed can be observed. Hydraulic flow is downward at the crest o and upward below the trough of the sea wave. Thus, liquefaction depths below the crest are obviously higher than the liquefaction depth below the trough of wave. However, the liquefaction occurs between phase angles of p/2 and 3p/2, instead of just under the wave crest, which indicates the existence of phase lags under wave actions. Unlike the variation of pore water pressure, the change of shear stress is relatively linear to the wave propagation. The proposed model will provide a better understanding of the mechanism of soil-wave interaction.


Background The Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Score (ASDAS) is a new Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society (ASAS) and Outcomes in Rheumatology (OMERACT)-endorsed measure of disease activity in axial spondyloarthritis (SpA). The ASDAS preferred formula includes C-reactive protein (CRP) and the alternative formula includes erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR). It was recommended that when conventional CRP values are below the threshold of detection, half of the threshold value should be used (eg, if the limit of detection is 5 mg/l, a value of 2.5 should be used).[1] This recommendation requires additional testing and validation in independent cohorts. Furthermore, the agreement between ASDAS-CRP and ASDAS-ESR requires further investigation. Objectives Our primary aim was to investigate the best method to calculate ASDAS-CRP when the conventional CRP value is below the threshold of detection. Our secondary aim was to assess the level of agreement between ASDAS-CRP and ASDAS-ESR. Methods Baseline data from the Devenir des Spondylarthropathies Indifferenciees Recentes (DESIR) cohort was used. Two hundred and sixty patients fulfilling the ASAS classification criteria for axial SpA with a conventional CRP value below the threshold of detection (5 mg/l) were selected. High sensitivity CRP (hsCRP) was measured by particle-enhanced immunoturbidimetry and ASDAS-hsCRP was used as the gold-standard. ASDAS-CRP was calculated using three different options for the conventional CRP value: 1) the threshold value (ASDAS-CRP(5)), 2) half of the threshold value (ASDAS-CRP(2.5)), and 3) zero value (ASDAS-CRP(0)). ASDAS-ESR was also calculated. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and the Bland-Altman technique were used to investigate agreement between formulae. ASDAS disease activity states were derived and agreement was studied using the weighted kappa statistics. Results ASDAS-hsCRP and ASDAS-ESR were available in 257 and 246 patients, respectively. Agreement between ASDAS-hsCRP and ASDAS-CRP(2.5) was good, while only moderate with ASDAS-CRP(0) and -CRP(5). Agreement between ASDAS-hsCRP and ASDAS-ESR was also good (table). When using ASDAS-CRP(2.5), this classified a slightly higher degree of disease activity than ASDAS-hsCRP but disagreement was mainly in lower disease activity states (inactive disease – moderate disease activity), a shift that has less therapeutic implications than the shift between moderate and high disease activity (table). Conclusions When conventional CRP values are below the threshold of detection and hsCRP is not available, half of the threshold value of the CRP should be used to calculate ASDAS-CRP. There is also good agreement between ASDAS-hsCRP and ASDAS-ESR; however, formulae are not interchangeable. References Machado et al. Ann Rheum Dis. 2011 Jan;70(1):47-53. Acknowledgements An unrestricted grant from Wyeth Pharmaceuticals was allocated for the first 5 years of the follow-up of the recruited patients. Disclosure of Interest None declared DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.1095


Hydraulic tomography is a cost‐effective technique for characterizing the heterogeneity of hydraulic parameters in the subsurface. During hydraulic tomography surveys a large number of hydraulic heads (i.e., aquifer responses) are collected from a series of pumping or injection tests in an aquifer. These responses are then used to interpret the spatial distribution of hydraulic parameters of the aquifer using inverse modeling. In this study, we developed an efficient sequential successive linear estimator (SSLE) for interpreting data from transient hydraulic tomography to estimate three‐dimensional hydraulic conductivity and specific storage fields of aquifers. We first explored this estimator for transient hydraulic tomography in a hypothetical one‐dimensional aquifer. Results show that during a pumping test, transient heads are highly correlated with specific storage at early time but with hydraulic conductivity at late time. Therefore reliable estimates of both hydraulic conductivity and specific storage must exploit the head data at both early and late times. Our study also shows that the transient heads are highly correlated over time, implying only infrequent head measurements are needed during the estimation. Applying this sampling strategy to a well‐posed problem, we show that our SSLE can produce accurate estimates of both hydraulic conductivity and specific storage fields. The benefit of hydraulic tomography for ill‐posed problems is then demonstrated. Finally, to affirm the robustness of our SSLE approach, we apply the SSLE approach to a hypothetical three‐dimensional heterogeneous aquifer.


Objective: To evaluate the influence of parenting intervention on maternal responsiveness and infant neurobehavioural development following a very premature birth. Design: Cluster-randomised controlled trial, with a crossover design and three-month washout period. Setting: Six neonatal intensive care units. Patients: Infants born <32 weeks' gestation. Intervention: The Parent Baby Interaction Programme (PBIP) is a supportive, educational intervention delivered by research nurses in the neonatal intensive care unit, with optional home follow-up for up to six weeks after discharge. Main outcome measures: Parenting stress at 3 months adjusted age, as measured by the Parenting Stress Index (PSI). Other outcomes included the Neurobehavioural Assessment of the Preterm Infant (NAPI) and maternal interaction as assessed by the Nursing Child Assessment Teaching Scale (NCATS) and the responsivity subscale for Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME). Results: 112 infants were recruited in the intervention phases and 121 in the control phases. Mean standardised NAPI scores at 35 weeks did not differ between the PBIP and control groups. Both groups had low but similar NCATS caregiver scores before discharge (36.6 in the PBIP group and 37.4 in control, adjusted mean difference −0.7, 95% CI −2.7 to 1.4). At three months, adjusted age mean PSI scores for the PBIP group were 71.9 compared with 67.1 for controls (adjusted mean difference 3.8, 95% CI −4.7 to 12.4). NCATS scores and HOME responsivity scores were similarly distributed between the groups. Conclusion: This early, nurse-delivered, parent-focused interaction programme intervention had no measurable effects on short-term infant neurobehavioural function, mother–child interaction or parenting stresses.


The Lanczos method for solving systems of linear equations is implemented by using some recurrence relationships between polynomials of a family of formal orthogonal polynomials or between those of two adjacent families of formal orthogonal polynomials. A division by zero can occur in these relations, thus producing a breakdown in the algorithm which has to be stopped. In this paper, three strategies to avoid this drawback are discussed: the MRZ and its variants, the normalized and unnormalized BIORES algorithm and the composite step biconjugate algorithm. We prove that all these algorithms can be derived from a unified framework; in fact, we give a formalism for finding all the recurrence relationships used in these algorithms, which shows that the three strategies use the same techniques.


Abstract Hydrilla is one of the most serious aquatic weed problems in the United States, and fluridone is the only U.S. Environment Protection Agency (USEPA)–approved herbicide that provides relatively long-term systemic control. Recently, hydrilla biotypes with varying levels of fluridone resistance have been documented in Florida. One susceptible and five fluridone-resistant biotypes of hydrilla varying in resistance levels were maintained in 950-L tanks under ambient sunlight and day-length conditions from September 2004 to September 2005 in absence of fluridone. Because fluridone is an inhibitor of the enzyme phytoene desaturase (PDS), the gene for PDS (pds) was cloned from fluridone-susceptible and -resistant hydrilla biotypes. Somatic mutations in amino acid 304 of hydrilla PDS are known to confer herbicide resistance. We determined pds sequence from these hydrilla biotypes at planting and 12-mo after planting. Two independent mutations at the arginine 304 codon of pds were found in the resistant hydrilla plants. The codon usage for arginine 304 is CGT, and a single point mutation yielding either serine (AGT) or histidine (CAT) was identified in different resistant hydrilla biotypes. There were no differences at codon 304 in the PDS protein of any hydrilla biotype 12-mo after planting. Several other mutations were also found in resistant pds alleles, though their possible role in herbicide resistance is unclear. Nomenclature: Fluridone; hydrilla, Hydrilla verticillata (L.f.) Royle HYLLI


The Joker both fascinates and repels us. From his origin in Detective Comics in 1940, the Joker has committed obscene crimes, some of the worst the Batman universe has ever known. Conversely fans have made him the topic of erotic and pornographic "fan fiction." Speculation about the Joker abounds; some fans have even claimed that the Joker is "queer coded." This work explores various popular claims about the Joker, and delves into the history of comic books and of other popular media from a semiotic viewpoint to understand "The Clown Prince of Crime" in the contexts in which he existed to understand his evolution. From his roots as a "typical hoodlum," The Joker even starred in his own eponymous comic book series and he was recently featured in a non-canonical movie. This work examines what it is about the Joker which fascinates us.


Background
Vitamin D supplementation is proposed as a potential treatment strategy to counteract functional decline in older adults. However, data from randomized trials are either limited or inconsistent.

Objective
This study investigated the effect of daily supplementation with 25-hydroxycholecalciferol [25(OH)D3] or cholecalciferol (vitamin D3) on muscle strength and physical performance in older adults.

Methods
This was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 6 mo including 78 prefrail or frail (according to the Fried criteria), community-dwelling older adults (n = 43 men) aged ≥65 y, with a baseline 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] concentration between 20 and 50 nmol/L. Participants were supplemented daily with 10 µg 25(OH)D3, 20 µg vitamin D3, or a placebo capsule. Serum 25(OH)D was measured by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The primary outcome was maximal isometric knee-extension strength (Biodex System 4); secondary outcomes included knee-flexion and hand grip strength, Short-Physical Performance Battery score, Timed Up and Go score, postural sway, muscle mass (dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry), and muscle fiber type and size.

Results
The mean baseline serum 25(OH)D concentration was 37.7 nmol/L (95% CI: 35.4, 39.9 nmol/L). After 6 mo of supplementation, concentrations increased to 98.7 nmol/L (95% CI: 93.1, 104.4 nmol/L) in the 25(OH)D3 group and to 72.0 nmol/L (95% CI: 66.1, 77.8 nmol/L) in the vitamin D3 group, compared with 47.5 nmol/L (95% CI: 41.8, 53.3 nmol/L) in the placebo group (P-interaction < 0.01). Knee-extension strength did not significantly change in the 25(OH)D3 group (5.9 Nm; 95% CI: -6.2, 18.0 Nm), in the vitamin D3 group (5.5 Nm; 95% CI: -6.8, 17.8 Nm), or in the placebo group (1.8 Nm; 95% CI: -10.7, 14.4 Nm) (P-interaction = 0.74). Furthermore, mean changes in physical performance tests, muscle mass, and muscle fiber type and size did not differ between the groups.

Conclusion
Increasing the serum 25(OH)D concentration over a period of 6 mo did not significantly change muscle strength and physical performance in prefrail and frail older adults. This trial was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as NCT02349282.


ABSTRACT Fan, R.; Wei, H., and Zhao, L., 2016. Linking suspended particulate material characteristics to the plankton distribution in summer in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea. Identifying particle characteristics through in situ observations can be beneficial for understanding local sediment dynamics. This study analyzed the suspended particulate material (SPM) characteristics in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea, as well as the hydrological structure and chlorophyll a (Chl a) concentration in summer during a cruise conducted from 16 August 2013 to 31 August 2013. This study identifies two significant particle size (PS) peaks ranging between approximately 12 < diameter (d) < 63 and 280 < d < 390 μm, defined as small and large particles, respectively, by using the SPM PS spectrum. In the surface layer, the main part of small SPMs is composed of phytoplankton, whereas large SPMs are primarily dominated by mesozooplankton. High concentrations of SPM in the surface layer located on Subei Shoal and off the Changjiang River estuary overlap with the high Chl a concentration. High total SPM concentrations, maximum levels of Chl a, and large particle concentrations were observed in the pycnocline in the central Yellow Sea and at the middle shelf of the East China Sea. The high SPM subsurface concentration is primarily influenced by plankton, particularly mesozooplankton. Small particles are dominant in the bottom layer and consist mainly of inorganic particulate matter.


This study estimates the number of technology companies fromed by Stanford graduates and faculty in the San Francisco Bay Area. It finds that 9% of all graduates (and about 22% of technical graduates and a similar fraction of science and technology faculty) have formed high-tech companies, with about 1,900 companies currently active. Those companies employ 138,000 people locally, approximately 37% of local high-tech employment. A model combining survival rates, lags between graduation and entrepreneurship, and a growing pool of graduates,


Perception of temporal patterns is critical for speech, movement, and music. In the auditory domain, perception of a regular pulse, or beat, within a sequence of temporal intervals is associated with basal ganglia activity. Two alternative accounts of this striatal activity are possible: "searching" for temporal regularity in early stimulus processing stages or "prediction' of the timing of future tones after the beat is found (relying on continuation of an internally generated beat). To resolve between these accounts, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate different stages of beat perception. Participants heard a series of beat and nonbeat (irregular) monotone sequences. For each sequence, the preceding sequence provided a temporal beat context for the following sequence. Beat sequences were preceded by nonbeat sequences, requiring the beat to be found anew ("beat finding" condition), or by beat sequences with the same beat rate ("beat continuation"), or a different rate ("beat adjustment"). Detection of regularity is highest during beat finding, whereas generation and prediction are highest during beat continuation. We found the greatest striatal activity for beat continuation, less for beat adjustment, and the least for beat finding. Thus, the basal ganglia's response profile suggests a role in beat prediction, not in beat finding.


Introduction: Sexism and misogyny remains an ongoing threat to optimal health and medical services. An important factor in health and medical services is the education and training pipeline into these careers. A substantial body of literature demonstrates the impacts of sexism in third-level education and training institutions developing future health service staff. Athena SWAN accreditation is a benchmark designed to counter such institutional and individual sexist practices in education settings to foster equality. In recent years the Athena SWAN process has expanded to include professional and administrative staff, as well as academics. This process has also evolved to move beyond a narrow focus on gender, to also include other crucial issues such as race, sexuality and gender identity.
Methods: This examination is based on the author's role as a participant observer and critiques the Athena SWAN process in an Institute of Technology in Ireland.
Results: This examination identifies a substantial number of deficits in the Athena SWAN process, as well as also identifying institutional resistance strategies to such gender equality work.
Conclusion: The current Athena SWAN process in Ireland is critically flawed. Suggested strategies for those engaged in such work into the future are outlined.


This article investigates the extent to which the Romanian Constitution has provided for adequate means to enhance women's equal citizenship in its first twenty-five years of existence. Taking as its starting point Simone de Beauvoir's thought, encompassed in the idea that gender inequality is derived from defining women as 'the Others' or as totally opposite to men, the article shows that since its adoption in 1991, the Romanian Constitution began to depart from the stereotypical and antagonistic understanding of women and men's roles in society that Romania had inherited from its Socialist past. In 2003, when the Constitution was reviewed for Romania's EU and NATO accession, the requirement that only men should serve in the military was replaced with the guarantee of equal opportunities for men and women to occupy public, civil or military positions. Meanwhile, the Constitutional Court inched toward being an active actor in advancing gender equality. For example, in 2005 the Court held that allowing only women in the military, but not men in the same position, to take parental leave was unconstitutional and, in that same year, it gave women's reproductive rights a rather liberal interpretation. However, this article argues that the developments that have taken place have not been progressive enough. The Constitution still provides only for paid maternity leave, provides special working conditions only for women, does not explicitly mention the protection of reproductive autonomy, does not connect bodily rights with equality but with privacy, and lacks clarity on the admissibility of measures – such as gender quotas – to promote more women into the public sphere.


The last three decades have provided opportunities to explore the potential of treating malignant diseases with antibodies or other targeting molecules labelled with nuclides. While considerable advances have been reported, there is still a significant amount of work left to accomplish before our ambitions can be achieved. It now seems timely to review the accomplishments achieved to date and to clarify the challenges that remain. The choice of radionuclide, the conjugation procedure employed, and the selection of suitable targets were early issues that were faced by our field that still persist, however we can now tackle these obstacles with significantly better insight. The expanding array of new targeting molecules (recombinant antibodies, peptides and agents based upon alternate scaffolds) may increase the therapeutic efficacy or even modify the radiation sensitivity of the targeted tumor cell. The title of this book "Targeted Radionuclide Tumour Therapy – Biological Aspects" was selected to reinforce the concept that a major focus of this volume was devoted to understanding the biological effects of targeting and radiation. These important issues have not previously been the primary focus in this context. Furthermore, our rapidly expanding knowledge of different types of cell death and the increasingly likely existence of cancer stem cells suggests to us that even more efficient approaches in targeting might be possible in the future. The development of targeted therapy is a true multidisciplinary enterprise involving physician scientists from the fields of nuclear medicine, radiation therapy, diagnostic radiology, surgery, gynaecology, pathology and medical oncology/haematology. It also involves many preclinical scientists working with experimental animal models, immunochemistry, recombinant antibody technologies, radiochemistry, radiation physics (dosimetry) and basic cell biology including the study of cell signalling pathways and the mechanisms of cellular death. Certainly several challenges remain in bringing targeted therapy into mainstream of treatment modalities, but in many of the chapters significant improvements in targeting efficiency are observed and may indicate future efficacy and acceptance, maybe not as a single treatment modality, but in combination with other strategies. It is the ambition of the editors to enable, with this volume, deeper insights in the process of improving targeted therapy for this diverse group of scientists. Clearly, some of the obstacles to gaining wider clinical acceptance might partly be related to this necessity of multidisciplinary collaborations. A number of disciplines, many of them mentioned above, have to both collaborate and coordinate with each other in order to control the chain of judgement necessary for the treatment of each patient. All these requirements may not always be available or easy to accomplish. This is a management paradigm shift, which usually would take some time. However, we hope that the chapters in this book will convince you, the reader, that a critical mass of knowledge regarding how to effectively use targeted radionuclide therapy has been accumulated. We believe, and hope that you will agree, that the time now has come when targeted therapy can soon be added to standard oncology treatment regimens.


The Photo Injector Test facility at DESY, Zeuthen site (PITZ) focuses on testing, characterizing and optimizing high brightness electron sources for free electron lasers. Among various diagnostic tools installed at PITZ, the tomography module is used to reconstruct the transverse phase-space distribution of the electron beam by captur-ing its projections while rotating in the normalized phase space. This technique can resolve the two transverse planes simultaneously with an improved signal-to-noise ratio, al-lowing measurements of individual bunches within a bunch train with kicker magnets. The low emittance, high charge density and moderate energy of the electron bunch at PITZ contribute to significant space-charge forces which induce mismatches to the reconstruction procedure. This study investigates how the phase-space transformations and thus the reconstruction result are affected when considering linear and non-linear self-fields along the tomography section for the design Twiss parameters. The described analysis proposes a preliminary approach for including the effect of space charge in the tomographic reconstruction at PITZ.


These days urbanization in the global south is taking place at an alarming rate. There is high rate of expansion to the existing metropolitan areas. New urban centres which are secondary and smaller in size are also coming to the fore. Rural villages, getting promoted to middle sized urban cores. The question may be is: what triggers this fast urbanization? Population growth, rural to urban migrations, location of influential industries and institutions are some to be listed. Over the last three decades, rate of urban growth has significantly increased in Ethiopia though it still remains one of the least urbanized in East Africa.In this research will be examined impacts of a new university's establishment on changes in urban growth patterns, land use transformations and livelihood options. Whenever, there is a new institution established, be it educational or industry then there would be changes to the built environment near its location. It will bring in economic significance; changes the urban fabric, affects the social structure be it negative or positive; and ultimately becomes an agent for the changes. This was the hypothesis at hand and the research was then conducted to verify the claim then. Appropriate site chosen was a secondary town from Ethiopia.It is noticed through this research that there are intended and unintended outcomes resulted from establishment of the university. Among the intended ones: high level of accessibility of education, job and economic opportunities, new livelihood options for local communities, creation of new urban node possibly serving as a growing potential. Among the unintended list are the changes in land values, rises of housing rents leading to displacement of low incomers who cannot cope. There is also recorded a change in land uses from purely residential to mixed commercial zone, from rural agricultural land to urban zone.


For centuries, Africa's Upper Guinea Coast region has been the site of regional and global interactions, with societies from different parts of the African continent and beyond engaging in economic trade, cultural exchange and various forms of conflict. This book provides a wide-ranging look at how such encounters have continued into the present day, identifying the disruptions and continuities in religion, language, economics and various other social phenomena. These accounts show a region that, while still grappling with the legacies of colonialism and the slave trade, is both shaped by and an important actor within ever-denser global networks, exhibiting consistent transformation and creative adaptation.


We present CFSO3, an optimization heuristic within the class of the swarm intelligence, based on a synergy among three different features of the Continuous Flock-of-Starlings Optimization. One of the main novelties is that this optimizer is no more a classical numerical algorithm since it now can be seen as a continuous dynamic system, which can be treated by using all the mathematical instruments available for managing state equations. In addition, CFSO3 allows passing from stochastic approaches to supervised deterministic ones since the random updating of parameters, a typical feature for numerical swam-based optimization algorithms, is now fully substituted by a supervised strategy: in CFSO3 the tuning of parameters is a priori designed for obtaining both exploration and exploitation. Indeed the exploration, that is, the escaping from a local minimum, as well as the convergence and the refinement to a solution can be designed simply by managing the eigenvalues of the CFSO state equations. Virtually in CFSO3, just the initial values of positions and velocities of the swarm members have to be randomly assigned. Both standard and parallel versions of CFSO3 together with validations on classical benchmarks are presented.


Gross and histopathological lesions in farmed Atlantic salmon Salmo salar L. immunized by intraperitoneal injections of oil-adjuvanted vaccines are reported. A few fish farms report serious side effects leading to poor feed uptake and conversion, retarded growth and downgrading at slaughtering due to severe adhesions between abdominal organs and body wall. The lesions consist of granulomatous tissue adhering to and embedding different visceral organs in such a way that normal functions may become severely affected. Histologically, the tissue is characterized by granulomas embedded in a fibrous granulation tissue with high numbers of eosinophilic granule cells. Possible explanations for the occurrence of severe lesions at some farms are discussed.


The paper is a literature review concerning the compounds able to two-photon absorption of radiation. The mechanism of two-photon processes is described as well as the conditions the effective initiators must fulfill. The examples of initiators from each group of compounds used in polymerizations initiated with two-photon absorption were presented. The applications and the advantages of two-photon initiators have been discussed.


Objective: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to identify stressors nursing students experience and examine the impact of stress on quality of life. A secondary aim was to identify coping mechanisms nursing students use to manage stress and to explore the effectiveness of these coping strategies.Methods: Purposive and snowball sampling were used to recruit eight students from a baccalaureate nursing program in the southeastern United States. One on one interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview guide. Data were analyzed using Colaizzi's method of data analysis.Results: Three themes emerged and were identified as (a) the Culture of Nursing School, (b) Nursing School Impacts Quality of Life, and (c) Emotion-Focused Coping. The sub-themes identified with Nursing School Impacts Quality of Life included Personal Lives Altered and Fear of Failure. Within Emotion-Focused Coping emerged two subthemes, Misery Loves Company and Light at the End of the Tunnel.Conclusions: The present study sheds light on the stressors nursing students experience Many students feel unprepared and become occupied with the fear of failure, which interferes with concentration and academic performance. Stressful situations in nursing school are unavoidable, therefore students must develop effective coping strategies. Faculty need to incorporate coping education into the curriculum to produce resilient, successful nurses. Fostering adaptive coping strategies may help decrease burnout and improve physical and mental wellbeing in nursing students.


Sarcopenia is a syndrome characterized by a gradual loss and generalized skeletal muscle mass and strength at risk for adverse outcomes such as physical disability, poor quality of life and mortality. It has several contributing factors: the aging process throughout life, influences on development in the early stages of life, eating sub optimal, bed rest or sedentary lifestyle, chronic diseases and certain drug treatments. Sarcopenia represents a deterioration of health status with a high personal cost: mobility disorders, increased risk of falls and fractures, impaired ability to perform everyday activities, disability, loss of independence and increased risk of death. The strength training is currently one of the most effective methods for combating sarcopenia by stimulating hypertrophy and increase strength. The strength training programs in older people themselves are probably one of the most effective preventive measures to delay the onset of sarcopenia. In this literature review different factors related sarcopenia and strength training as a preventive method is analyzed.


Sir We have read with interest Blazeby's article on recruitment of patients into randomized clinical trials (RCTs) in surgery. The article reports on two randomized trials in surgery, the ProtecT trial and the ROSSINI trial; it praises the high level of recruitment of patients into these trials, and concludes that the trials will show that 'RCTs in surgery can be conducted and completed'. We believe strongly that randomized trials should be performed where they are feasible and likely to provide the highest level of evidence. These randomized trials should be designed and conducted to yield optimal recruitment rates, for which Blazeby provides us with very helpful advice. However, the current examples of successful trials are not representative of the many types of surgical intervention for which it is often much more problematic to perform an RCT. The ProtecT trial deals with cancer treatment with a primary outcome at 10year follow-up. Cancer treatment and research profits highly from the good administrative infrastructure and large databases, characteristics that are lacking in most surgical areas. For this trial, we will have to wait for the final followup and crossover rates. The ROSSINI trial deals with an add-on procedure for prevention of wound infections, while the primary surgical intervention remains untouched. Thus this trial is not concerned with the primary surgical intervention. We would like to point out that neither trial has yet been completed. Enrolment in the ProtecT trial is reported to have risen from 30 to 65 per cent. This has to be encouraged, but it remains uncertain what the final recruitment rate will be, and whether 65 per cent is an acceptable response rate at all. For the ROSSINI trial no recruitment rate is actually reported. Although the RCT is generally considered the highest level of evidence, in surgical practice this may not always be true. Compared with pharmaceutical RCTs, the randomization process in surgical trials is cumbersome and creates an artificial situation that may deviate from 'normal' clinical practice. This situation carries the risk of performance bias, as the surgical team is often more experienced with one of the techniques. Furthermore, patients may refuse to be subject to experimentation or show preference for the 'new' technique either by going to other clinics or crossing over during the study. This is possibly due to the widespread availability of surgical techniques and devices only after publication of the technique or receiving the CE mark. Among other factors, this has resulted in low recruitment rates and a high rate of crossover in recently published high-quality surgical trials, such as the vertebroplasty trials1,2 and the SPORTS trial3. Besides the problem of performance bias and selection bias, adequate blinding is another major difficulty and impossible for many surgical interventions that do not ethically or technically allow sham procedures. Finally, even in the fortunate situation that an RCT is adequately powered, the sample size may be too low to detect differences in complications, as it is calculated to answer only one primary effectiveness question usually within a limited time frame. Therefore, long-term adverse effects in particular remain undetected. Many of the above disadvantages may be circumvented by conducting large prospective registry studies. Such studies allow comparison of usual care or 'schools'. Each surgeon can perform at their best skills level in the clinical setting where this treatment has been optimized. Performance bias and thus care provider bias is then less of an issue. Another advantage is that the large sample sizes can reveal rare but serious complications and provide an estimate of clinical outcome, especially in the long term in the general treated population. An example of the success of this rationale can be found in the prosthesis survival studies that used the Swedish arthroplasty registries. This and other observational designs should be pursued. To improve comparability, clinical (or surgeon) equipoise4 can be used to confirm suitability of both techniques. Blazeby concludes that the ProtecT and ROSSINI trials show that 'RCTs in surgery can be conducted and completed'. We believe that this general conclusion cannot be drawn from these specific trials, which have not even been completed. On the contrary, we believe that for many surgical questions it is impossible to gain unbiased answers by conducting an RCT. Other trial designs may be preferable for studying the effect of surgery, considering the right, innovative and creative methodological choices. W. C. H. Jacobs1, M. C. Kruyt2 and F. C. Oner2 1Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, and 2University Medical Centre Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands (e-mail: email@example.com) DOI: 10.1002/bjs.8851


STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Issues regarding the use of composite preheating need to be investigated so that the clinician will better understand the variables associated with this method.

PURPOSE
To examine the multiple aspects of use of a commercial composite preheating device (Calset, AdDent Inc., Danbury, CT, USA).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Temperature values of three heating units and composite compules were obtained using a K-type thermocouple and were recorded digitally in real time. The following parameters were measured: maximum heater and composite temperature and its stability upon storage, composite temperature change when removed from the heater and injected, the effect of delivery system on ejected composite temperature, and the effect of repeated and extended preheating on composite monomer conversion (using infrared spectroscopy). Monomer conversion was measured after repeated composite cycling (from room temperature [RT] to 60 degrees C, 10x) or extended preheating (24 hours at 60 degrees C), and values were compared with composite maintained at RT (control group). Among test parameters, data (N=5 for each parameter) were analyzed using Student's t-test, analysis of variance, and the Tukey-Kramer post-hoc test where appropriate (alpha=0.05).

RESULTS/CONCLUSIONS
Two of the three tested units achieved the stated preset temperatures. Composite attained temperature values close to the heating unit. Composite temperature drop upon removal from the heater was dramatic: within 2 minutes a 50% temperature drop was noted. Heating the compule while preloaded in the syringe provided higher delivery temperatures than heating the compule separately (p < 0.00). Optimum results were achieved when preheated composite was dispensed and used as quickly as possible. Neither repeated nor extended preheating of composite significantly affected monomer conversion.

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Preheating composite has potential benefits, but should be used with knowledge of its limitations. Reheating of unused composite does not affect its degree of conversion, thus decreasing material waste. Heating of the composite preloaded in the delivery syringe enhances the temperature of extruded composite.


Background The earliest brain changes in Huntington's disease (HD) are characterised by loss of caudate volume and surrounding white matter occurring early in the premanifest stage, with more extensive loss seen in manifest disease. Consistent with this, diffusion tractography reveals loss of structural connectivity between the basal ganglia and cortex. Aims We sought to reveal how structural connectivity loss affects brain networks and how these changes relate to the clinical deficits seen in the premanifest and manifest stages of HD. Methods Using diffusion tractography and graph theoretical analysis we constructed brain networks for 38 manifest HD individuals, 50 premanifest individuals and 47 healthy controls. Network segregation and integration were assessed using clustering coefficient and average path length respectively. Changes in connectivity to brain regions were assessed using degree. Correlations were performed between graph theory metrics and cognitive and motor variables. Results Premanifest HD showed increased network segregation compared to controls, while manifest HD revealed increased segregation and loss of network integration compared to both premanifest and controls. Reduced degree was seen in the caudate bilaterally and left anterior cingulate in premanifest HD compared to controls, while numerous regions showed a reduction in degree in manifest disease compared to controls. Unified HD rating scale total motor score, emotion recognition and indirect circle tracing correlated with degree (predominantly in the frontal regions), clustering coefficient and average path length. Conclusions Breakdown of the structural brain network occurs in premanifest HD, and to a greater extent in manifest HD. These changes relate to the cognitive and motor deficits seen early in the disease.


A new approach considering CO2 air pollution constraints in the long-term generation mix is proposed under uncertain circumstances. CO2 emission of electricity system industry has over thirty percent of total emission quantity in the world. The CO2 emission in coal power plant competitive with nuclear power plant is very severe. The air pollution in coal is requiring LNG or new environmental type generation system (wind power, solar power tidal power et al.) instead of coal power plant, despite the new generation systems ask for very high construction cost. A characteristic feature of the presented approach in this paper is what effects give the air pollution constraints in long term best generation mix. Best generation mix problem is formulated by linear programming with fuel and construction cost minimization with load growth, reliability (reserve margin rate) and air pollution constraints. The proposed method accommodates the operation of pumped-storage generator. It was assumed in this study that the construction planning of the hydro power plants is given separately from the other generation plans. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by applying to the best generation mix problem of KEPCO-system, which contains nuclear, coal, LNG, oil and pumped-storage hydro plant in multi-years.


Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History (Cambridge 2009) offers a theory of the evolution of the modern state and an even more ambitious framework "for interpreting recorded human history." The book raises fundamental questions about the political structuring of violence, the functions of the rule of law, and the establishment and maintenance of political order. In doing so, it speaks to a range of political scientists from a variety of methodological and subfield perspectives. We have thus invited four prominent political science scholars of violence and politics to comment on the book: Jack Snyder, Caroline Hartzell, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and Larry Diamond.


The morphology, chemical, and mineralogical composition of subsurface filamentous fabrics (SFF) from the Deccan Volcanic Province (DVP) were investigated to determine the origin of these spectacular aggregates. SFF occur in a wide variety of morphologies ranging from pseudo-stalactites to irregular fabrics and are classified as SFFIr (irregular) or SFFMa (matted). The SFF samples exhibit a thread-like (or filament-like) center from which mineral precipitation starts to form the final macroscopic morphologies. Detailed investigations revealed organic material (fungal chitin) in the innermost filamentous core, which may have acted as an initial nucleus for the mineralization processes. The morphometric characteristics of certain filamentous fabrics are very similar to those of microbial filaments and the fabrics formed from them but are clearly distinct from similar types of non-biological precipitates (fibrous minerals, speleothems, and "chemical gardens"). These features indicate that the filamentous cores might be products of microbial communities that were active in the basaltic cavities. The SFF cross-sections display similar concentric layers of the mineral succession and reach thicknesses of several centimeters with spectacular lengths up to 100 cm and constant diameters. The typical mineralization sequence points to temporal variation in the chemical composition of the mineralizing fluids from Fe(Mg)-rich (Fe-oxides/-hydroxides, Fe-rich sheet silicates such as celadonite and di-/tri-smectite) to Ca-dominated (Ca-rich zeolites) and finally pure SiO2 (opal-CT, chalcedony, and macro-crystalline quartz). Assuming biological activity at least during the early mineralization processes, circumneutral pH conditions and maximum temperatures of 100–120 °C were supposed. The formation of filamentous cores including Fe-bearing phyllosilicates probably occurred near the surface after cooling of the lava, where the elements necessary for mineral formation (i.e., Si, Mg, Al, Fe) were released during alteration of the volcanic host rocks by percolating fluids.


A coherent CO2 lidar system has been modified to record various states of polarization of the backscattered radiation. Methods for measuring the degree of polarization in the backscattered radiation as well as the optical thickness of clouds are described and demonstrated successfully.


In the surface machining of brittle materials, there exists a transition from brittle to ductile modes when the depth of cut is reduced below a critical size using ultrafine abrasive grains. Vitrified grinding wheels containing ultrafine abrasives in the sub-micrometer to nanometer range were fabricated by mechanochemically milling nanoabrasive particles and subsequent viscous sintering of abrasive-binder composites. The grinding characteristics of the nanoabrasive grinding wheels were evaluated for the fine grinding of silicon wafers in terms of a variety of variables. Preliminary wafer grinding results are presented on material removal rate and surface quality of silicon wafers.


Aim: A simple, precise and accurate RP-HPLC method with UV-Visible detector has been developed and subsequently validated for the simultaneous determination of propranolol hydrochloride (PRP) and flunarizine dihydrochloride (FLU) in their combined dosage formulation. Materials and Methods: The separation was based on the use of a Kromasil C8 analytical column (150 × 4.6 mm, i.d., 5 μm). The mobile phase consisted of a mixture of 70 volumes of methanol and 30 volumes of 10 mM phosphate buffer (pH 3.8). The separation was carried out at 40°C temperature with a flow rate of 0.8 ml/ min. Result and Conclusion: Quantitation was achieved with UV detection at 242 nm, with linear calibration curves at concentration ranges of 32-72 μg/ml for PRP and 8-18 μg/ml for FLU. The recoveries obtained were 98.97-101.10% and 98.86-102.27% for PRP and FLU, respectively. The method was validated according to the ICH guidelines in terms of linearity, accuracy, precision, specificity, robustness, limits of detection, limit of quantitation, and system suitability of analytical method validation.


The portfolios have proven effective in university education when they show certain prerequisites, for instance, the ratio. The specialized literature agrees to notice that even existing some conditions, it is not a generalized methodology at universities. In the new grades and knowledge areas is found the subject of external practices that would be able to show conditions for using the portfolios. Whereas, there are some questions in the educational area: What conditions exist for the use of the portfolios in the Practicum of the education grades in Spain? What level of utilization are evident? What problems of understanding, the students express about the documentation of evidences in portfolios? The research performs a mixed methodology: a first quantitative study with descriptive methodology, interview to 31 coordinators of Practicum of all grades in 10 (20%) Faculty of Education, along with a qualitative study and content analysis of 256 Practicum guides of all grades of 36 (72%) Faculties of Education of public universities in Spain. A second case study, perform a content analysis of 592 annotations of 212 students to show and evaluate the evidences in ePortfolios of the Practicum of the degree of Pedagogy. The results reveal that there are 11 students per tutor 2,88h medium for tutoring and assess ePortfolios. Being mail (between 37.77% and 46.66%) followed by the platforms most used technologies. The eRubricas and video annotations help document the evidence, however, students still show difficulties in some competences.


: The effect of elevated temperature shocks (ETS) on anaphase chromosome movements and spindle structure was studied in lung epithelial cells cultured from the newt Taricha granulosa granulosa. Mitosis proceeds normally up to temperatures of 31--32 degrees C. At slightly higher temperatures (33--34 degrees C) anaphase is desynchronized while still higher temperatures (35--36 degrees C) arrest chromosome movements. The desynchronization of chromosome movement is related on the ultrastructural level to the re-arrangement of kinetochore fibre microtubules (Mts) into hexagonally packed structures, and with the disappearance of non-kinetochore Mts. During desynchronized movement the distance a chromosome travels depends on the structure of its kinetochore fibre: those which have divergent kinetochore fibre Mts approach the poles, while those with hexagonally packed kinetochore fibre Mts do not. The data provide evidence concerning the anchorage of Mts and demonstrate that normal anaphase chromosome movements are functionally related both to the rearrangement of kinetochore Mts and to Mt disassembly.