A cobalt-catalysed C–H allylation of aromatic and heteroaromatic compounds with vinylaziridines is described. This transformation occurring under mild reaction conditions proceeds through C–H activation, carbon–carbon double bond insertion and β-nitrogen elimination. Its scope and limitations have been investigated and a synthetic application of products has been achieved.


Eigenstate-preserving multi-qubit parity measurements lie at the heart of stabilizer quantum error correction, which is a promising approach to mitigate the problem of decoherence in quantum computers. In this work we explore a high-fidelity, eigenstate-preserving parity readout for superconducting qubits dispersively coupled to a microwave resonator, where the parity bit is encoded in the amplitude of a coherent state of the resonator. Detecting photons emitted by the resonator via a current biased Josephson junction yields information about the parity bit. We analyse theoretically the measurement back-action in the limit of a strongly coupled fast detector and show that in general such a parity measurement, while approximately Quantum Non-Demolition (QND) is not eigenstate-preserving. To remediate this shortcoming we propose a simple dynamical decoupling technique during photon detection, which greatly reduces decoherence within a given parity subspace. Furthermore, by applying a sequence of fast displacement operations interleaved with the dynamical decoupling pulses, the natural bias of this binary detector can be efficiently suppressed. Finally, we introduce the concept of a heralded parity measurement, where a detector click guarantees successful multi-qubit parity detection even for finite detection efficiency.


The competitiveness of an economy increasingly depends on its ability to innovate. Theory suggests that innovation makes an important contribution to growth both at the firm level and at the national level. Innovative economies that deliver new differentiated products and services and/or develop more efficient production processes are often more productive, more resilient and adaptable in the face of adversity and change, and better able to support higher living standards and thus greater well-being. However, because knowledge is a public good, without government support, private agents are likely to underinvest in R&D, as it usually leads to higher social returns than private ones. In this context, it is strategically important to use public funds to promote innovative activity in firms to achieve the optimal level of R&D investment. Since 2000, indirect public support through tax credits has become more prominent and is currently the main form of public R&D support for most OECD countries. This paper evaluates the impact of SIFIDE, the Portuguese system of tax incentives to corporate R&D investment, on firms' behaviour. The results show the effectiveness of SIFIDE in promoting investment in R&D, both through the impact of the program on intangible investment and on R&D staff.


This paper describes a real time generation and correlation of Costas array FM code pulse compression using Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) for implementation, which provides the flexibility, reconfigure ability and reprogram ability. This implementation contains two parts, the first Part, to generate. Number of frequency sequences, which can use as Costas, where, this part was built in transmitter side. The second part of implementatio n contains three stages in the receiver side; range determination, correlation and Doppler measurement to the replica of Tx-signal. The tested work was taken for eight digits and two cases of frequency shift (1&2) with an eight time shift for each one. This implementation was built by using VHDL editor for Spartan-3 with IC XC3S200. The clock is 20nsec and can use less than that time.


The purpose of this study was to identify and analyze the service-learning needs of the not-for-profit organizations in the La Crosse area. Additionally, the study intended to determine the understanding about service-learning within these organizations and possible application within the administrative assistant program. Data was collected from 14 not-for-profit organizations, with 71.4% of the respondents reporting having experienced service-learning activity previously. The study sought to determine whether the not-for-profit organizations had an understanding of the components involved with a service-learning activity. The results of the organization's belief of the service-learning component were consistently high with the highest mean ratings for "providing evaluation of activity" (3.43), "meeting community needs" (3.36), and "teaching civic responsibility" (3.29), and the responses were tightly clustered around the means with a standard deviation of .65, .75, and .83, respectively. Conversely, the results of the organization's involvement level were also consistently high. The same components as in the organization's belief received high ratings for "providing evaluation of activity" with a rating of 3.50, "meeting community needs" with a rating of 3.43, and "teaching civic responsibility" with a rating of 3.43; the same tight clustering resulted around the means with standard deviation of .65, .65, and .76, respectively. A total of 78.6% of the respondents would be interested in a service-learning activity involving the administrative assistant program at Western. The results indicate that 71.5% of the respondents would be able to accommodate one or two students per week up to 25 hours per week. The Graduate School University of Wisconsin Stout Menomonie, WI


Congenital Rubella is the dramatic consequence of rubella during gestation. A combined strategy of Measles and Rubella universal vaccination on children and selective vaccination of susceptible women has been shown effective in the elimination of congenital rubella requiring an incidence of <1 case of CRS per 100,000 live births. Verification processes of rubella elimination require that physicians early and appropriately diagnose all cases of congenital rubella, including those unpatent at birth. The paper highlights clinical and laboratory aspects channeling diagnosis of congenital rubella infection or syndrome even after the first year of life, and the short- and long-term management criteria.


Novel, integrable three-dimensional micro-optical elements have been realized by surface micromachining technology. Rotatable mirrors, lenses and beam-splitters standing perpendicular to the substrate are demonstrated. The optical elements are precisely hold at 90" angle to the substrate by side latches. The Si substrate serves as a "micro-optical bench" on which monolithic micro-optical systems consisting of movable and static micro-mirrors, lenses and other components are constructed. The optical system is pre-aligned by photolithography. This technology offers a new approach to free-space integrated optics and low-cost optical packaging.


In 1996, in the Donovan Technical Library, Fort Benning, Georgia, I found some microfilm rolls half a century old. They contained the US 37th Infantry Division's daily unit operational summaries for April and May 1945, the time during which the Ohio National Guardsmen pushed north from Manila to Baguio in the Philippines. Many summary entries were signed "R.A. Ramsey, Lt Col, G-3"-- my father. Having already published On Law and Country, Dad's biography and edited papers, I scrolled hastily through the old film to see if I had made any errors or noteworthy omissions.1 Not long afterward, John Ohl of Mesa Community College, Arizona, came to Fort Benning to do research on his biography of Major General (MG) Robert S. Beightler. Beightler successfully commanded the 37th "Buckeye" Division from its 1940 federalization through its demobilization in December 1945.2 When I received Ohl's final manuscript in early 2000 for comment, I was fortuitously aided by a review copy of Robert Ross Smith's classic, Triumph in the Philippines.3 The complementary books reveal aspects of World War II not previously evaluated and highlight events and relationships that could occur again during the 21 st century. In his book, Ohl shows how honest biography can make for page-- snapping reader interest without having to collaborate with "enhancement hacks." Beightler, a successful Ohio highway and construction engineer, had a sense of public service. Cast in the mold of the 19thcentury US military engineers who tamed the frontier, Beightler studied Army tactics and organization and even attended the US Army War College, a rare thing for citizen soldiers. Appointed Commanding General, 37th Infantry Division, Ohio National Guard (NG), over several senior candidates who had more political clout, Beightler was diplomatic but tough. Mobilized to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, Beightler drove the Ohio Guardsmen through conversion to the triangular division and the famed Louisiana Maneuver of 1941. Shipped to Indian Town Gap, Pennsylvania, for European deployment, then suddenly diverted to the Pacific Theater, the 37th did extensive jungle training on New Georgia, where Beightler quietly relieved and sent home the last politically appointed, incompetent officers. On Bougainville in the Solomons, the 37th Division was a major land force fighting under MG Oscar W. Griswold's legendary 14th Corps. When the time came for the Luzon invasion, the 14th Corps was General Walter Krueger's 6th Army's main effort. Beightler's 37th Division was the Sunday-punch force that recaptured Manila, forcing the crossing of the Pasig River and the low-- casualty recapture of the Spanish Intramuros "Walled City," where fanatical Japanese defenders held internees as human shields and hostages against attack. When the 14th Corps turned northward to conquer northern Luzon, Beightler was faced with huge leadership challenges. Combat had ended in Europe, and no one knew of the impending use of two atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Bluntly put, no soldier in any war is enthralled with the idea of being the last casualty of an enemy who is obviously losing. Still, the 37th fought strongly until war's end. Beightler remained in the Philippines until his Ohioans were assured of transport home. At a speech before his heavily decorated veterans on a cold night in late December 1945, in Columbus, Ohio, he thrilled my 10-year-old heart. Beightler was one of only two NG flag officers integrated into the Regular Army in grade because of their fabulous combat records. At that time, Regular Army officers were taking two-grade cuts in rank to remain aboard. Beightler's biography is filled with vignettes showing the delicate line an officer must walk in the shadow of Cincinnatus, the legendary Roman militia hero that George Washington and the founding fathers admired. Ohl also shows how militia or citizen forces can only succeed if an officer of Beightler's no-nonsense commitment to training, maneuvers and personnel decisions based on military ability instead of political backing commands them. …


Nowadays, mainstream natural language processing (NLP) is empowered by pre-trained language models. In the biomedical domain, only models pre-trained with anonymized data have been published. This policy is accept-able, but there are two questions: Can the privacy policy of language models be different from that of data? What happens if private language models are accidentally made public? We empirically evaluated the privacy risk of language models, using several BERT models pre-trained with MIMIC-III corpus in different data anonymity and corpus sizes. We simulated model inversion attacks to obtain the clinical information of target individuals, whose full names are already known to attackers. The BERT models were probably low-risk because the Top-100 accuracy of each attack was far below expected by chance. Moreover, most privacy leakage situations have several common primary factors; therefore, we formal-ized various privacy leakage scenarios under a universal novel framework named Knowledge, Anonymization, Resource, and Target (KART) framework. The KART framework helps parameterize complex privacy leakage scenarios and simplifies the comprehensive evaluation. Since the concept of the KART framework is domain agnostic, it can contribute to the establishment of privacy guidelines of language models beyond the biomedical domain.


To systematically review the ankle injury epidemiology among dancers. Design: Systematic review. Data sources: MEDLINE, PEDro, Google Scholar, PubMed databases were searched from their inceptions to 17th of March, 2021. Reference lists of identified studies were hand-searched for additional relevant studies. The guideline for Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) was adopted for this review. Inclusion criteria: Prospective or retrospective studies that reported musculoskeletal injury findings in a dance population, studies that reported only ankle injuries with prevalence percentage, or the incidence rate among the surveyed dancers or provided sufficient data from which these injuries were calculated. The qualities of the included studies were assessed using 11 criteria adapted from STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines. Results: 56 studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria. A weighted prevalence of 69.7% ankle sprain was found in this review. Ankle sprain, Achilles tendonitis, strain and anterior impingement syndromes were the most common ankle injuries in dance. The causes /mechanisms of the injuries included among others, falls from extremely planter-flexed position from pointe works, and poor landing techniques from jumps. Conclusion: The prevalence of ankle injuries in dance is high, the majority of studies on injuries in dance are retrospective in design and there is inadequate involvement of qualified medical personnel in dance. Recommendation: More prospective studies on dance injuries are needed and injury preventions guidelines should be introduced and emphasized at all times in dance.


Writing and collecting song texts. a creative practice in everyday lifeIn the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, many young men and women collected song texts in notebooks, copying printed texts or texts in other persons' notebooks. Personal songbooks, as these artefacts have been called in the scholarly literature, are documents that can tell essential things about the writers. This article takes its starting point from two personal songbooks, created and used in Southern Sweden in the middle of the 19th cen- tury. actually, one of the books contains only handwritten texts, while the other one contains both handwritten texts and so-called broadsheets. It is obvious that these books are the result of an interest in collecting texts, and this circum- stance is the basis for a discussion about collecting song texts. Often, writing and collecting song texts was done together with friends of the same age. It was a moment of social meaning, at the same time a possibility for the writer to express indirectly his or her identity, at least a facet of it. Further, it is argued that collecting song texts was a creative practice, even if the song texts were copied with all their details. But the writers selected the texts themselves and gave them new meanings in the notebook, where they were placed in other con- texts than earlier. Moreover, the writers brought the texts from a public sphere to a private domain, which also can be regarded as a kind of creative practice. In a personal songbook, a song text was under certain control, and the writer could also consider the collected text as a private property. To sum up, writing and collecting contributed to connecting the writer to the world, continuously developing his or her identity.


Taking the DTU 10 MW braceless semi-submersible floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) as the research object, an ideal tuned mass damper (TMD) installed in platform of the 10 MW semi-submersible FOWT is investigated to dynamically compensate the vibrations and reduce the structural loads. Considering the hydrodynamic and mooring effects, a simplified model of FOWT with four degrees of freedom (DOFs) including platform surge, pitch, tower fore-aft bending and TMD translation is established according to the D'Alembert's principle. Then, based on the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm, the unknown parameters related to the simplified model are estimated. Compared with results from FAST-SC, the simplified dynamic model is validated. Furthermore, the response surface method and genetic algorithm (GA) are used to determine the optimized TMD parameter. Finally, the fully coupled time-domain simulation of the FOWT with active TMD subjected to environmental loadings is conducted by using FAST-SC, and the effect of the TMD on the load reduction of the 10 MW braceless semi-submersible FOWT is analyzed. The study provides a feasible method for the structural control of the ultra-large semi-submersible FOWTs.


We firstly measure the contribution of worker flows across employment, unemployment, and non-participation to the change in unemployment in eleven EU countries during the period 2006-2012, paying special attention to which socio-demographic groups in each of the countries were most affected by job creation and job destruction during the crisis. We find that age, to a greater extent than educational attainment, is the main determinant of flows from employment into unemployment, particularly in those countries where unemployment increased most. Secondly, we highlight some institutional features of the labour market (employment protection legislation, unemployment insurance and the incidence of active labour market policies) that help explain the cross-country differences in flows between employment and unemployment and in their socio-demographic composition. Finally, we examine whether the crisis has led to some employment reallocation across sectors, finding that, so far, there is no clear evidence in favour of cleansing effects.


Since they promote separation from national frameworks, independentist parties are easily labelled as anti-system parties. This contribution shows how a study of party dynamics in three Western Mediterranean island jurisdictions (Sardinia, Balearic Islands, and Corsica) leads to a rather different conceptualisation of their nature and influence. Political parties favouring independence are still likely to influence other political parties and the political system as a whole. They do so mainly by adopting various, often ambiguous, accommodative strategies, which relate to their difficulty in attaining and/or maintaining a significant party status and electoral presence. Above all, the independentist parties' influence is highly variable, especially in relation to their closest rivals, and can only be evaluated by taking into consideration external factors, such as state organisation. Thus, one needs to examine the independentist parties' political interactions and influence on policies, and not just their teleological and ideological positioning.


Tumours show an increased interstitial fluid pressure, which correlates with various pathophysiological features. Moreover, interstitial fluid pressure is a prognostic factor for cervical and lung cancer. However, there have been no reports on the usefulness of measuring interstitial fluid pressure in thymic epithelial tumours. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the relationship between interstitial fluid pressure and the clinicopathological characteristics of thymic epithelial tumours. Interstitial fluid pressure was prospectively measured at the centre of the tumour using a 1-Fr Mikro-Tip sensor catheter in 44 patients with thymic epithelial tumours, 40 with thymomas and 4 with thymic carcinomas. Data from these 44 patients were analysed for correlations between interstitial fluid pressure and clinicopathological and demographic factors including sex, age, tumour size, World Health Organization histological subtypes, myasthenia gravis, capsular invasion, mediastinal pleura invasion, lung invasion, pericardium invasion, dissemination, Masaoka-Koga stage, maximal standardized uptake value and recurrence-free survival (RFS). The mean interstitial fluid pressure was 11.3 mmHg; interstitial fluid pressure was significantly correlated with maximal standardized uptake value, lung invasion, dissemination and Masaoka-Koga stage. Low interstitial fluid pressure (≤14 mmHg) showed a tendency for better RFS compared with high interstitial pressure (P = 0.053). Lung invasion, dissemination and Masaoka-Koga stage were correlated with RFS in univariable analysis; lung invasion was selected as an independent prognostic factor in multivariable analysis. On the basis of these results, interstitial fluid pressure of thymic epithelial tumours has been shown to correlate with their clinicopathological features.


The main focus of higher education nowadays is no longer the educator or the educatee, but the educational unit which is usually made up of trainers, trainees, methods, context(s). All these elements contribute to the actual level of competence that defines and describes today's and tomorrow's professionals. The strong link between providers of education and educatees lies within the methods used in courses, but also in the educational context, which relies upon the current social and cultural reality. This is where efficient marketing tools intervene and may even change the course of action. Marketing tools can even be found prior to the course design, as research surveys can highlight and even assign various stages or items which must be included or left out of the content. They can also serve as a means of assessment of the course and/or trainees. This way, online mobile learning, gamification, social media, augmented reality become the partners of all participants in the educational process. We consider this a win-win situation for the actors who are involved in the program (providers, direct beneficiaries, indirect beneficiaries). Teachers can observe the reactions and other forms of feedback sooner than ever before, and students can acquire and practice new competences in an interactive way. The focus in our current initiative is the development and further use of modern educational strategies and methods in Romania while using modern tools to gain the interest and awareness of educators and (potential) students in a variety of fields or even highly specialized subfields.


Needle samples of six provenances each of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. var. latifolia) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.), originating from latitudes 55 to 68 degrees N in western Canada and northern Sweden, were collected during the autumn and subjected to freezing temperatures in the range of -8 to -29 degrees C on three occasions in September and October. Needle injury was assessed by two different methods: visual assessment and chlorophyll a fluorescence. Chlorophyll a fluorescence data showed a highly significant correlation with the visual assessments of injury, indicating that the technique can be used as a simple, non-destructive and objective measure for rapid detection of freezing injury and for ranking of needle materials with respect to development of cold acclimation. The analyses showed that, during the autumn, lodgepole pine needles were more hardy and acclimated to low temperatures earlier than Scots pine needles.


We experimentally demonstrate all-optical steering of arrays of dark spatial solitons. The arrays are generated by two intersecting plane waves in the regime of adiabatic amplification in a Kerr-like medium. The steering is achieved by changing the relative intensities of the beams. In addition, we show that beams guided in the soliton channels can also be scanned.


The plates used as structural elements in the field of aerospace, naval and civil engineering take different shapes due to their functional and structural requirements as well as aesthetic considerations. In this paper, finite element dynamic analysis of different complicated shaped thin plates is presented. In the formulation, the arbitrary planform of the whole plate is mapped into a square domain where a cubic serendipity shape function is used to represent the complicated geometry and an ACM plate bending element is considered for the displacement function. This element is capable to model different geometries just like isoparametric element without the shear locking problem and generation of spurious mechanisms which is inherent in the isoparametric formulation. Keyword— Plate Bending, Finite Element Method, Thin Plate, Dynamic Analysis.


The effect of subcooling on bubble waiting time and growth time for water boilng on a copper surface was examined in conjunction with measurements obtained over a range of subcooling from 0 to 15/sup 0/C and three different levels of heat flux 166, 228, and 291 kW/m/sup 2/. The growth-time data was successfully correlated with a model that combined the bubble growth theory of Mikic Rohsenow, and Griffith with the bubble departure diameter relationship of Staniszewski, thereby establishing confidence in the measuring procedure. The waiting time data agreed with the predictions of the Han and Griffith waiting time theory at lower levels of subcooling but then showed a behavior contrary to that predicted for higher levels of subcooling.


Abstract The genus Oligoxystre was originally established in 1924 for O. auratum Vellard 1924 from southern state of Goiás, Central Brazil. Today, the genus includes seven species: O. auratum, O. caatinga Guadanucci 2007, O. bolivianum (Vol 2001), O. tucuruiense Guadanucci 2007, O. rufoniger Guadanucci 2007, O. dominguense Guadanucci 2007, and O. diamantinensis Bertani et al. 2009. Oligoxystre mineirum new species, from the Atlantic forest domain is described here. The cladistic analysis resulted in a single tree: (O.caatinga (O.mineirum ((O.tucuruiense+O.rufoniger) (O.diamantinensis (O.bolivianum +O.dominguense))))). According to the area cladogram obtained, it is possible to draw the following conclusions: the origin of the Cerrado fauna is monophyletic; the occurrence of two sympatric species in Caatinga is due to different events; and the diversity of Oligoxystre in Serra do Espinhaço (O. rufoniger, O. diamantinensis and O. mineirum) is probably the result of the contact of the typical fauna of each bioma (Cerrado, Caatinga and Atlantic Forest).


Sexual and gender minorities assigned female at birth (i.e., sexual minority women, transgender men, and gender diverse [SMW TGD] individuals) experience disproportionately high rates of anxiety, depression, and substance use problems. Romantic relationship involvement has been shown to be beneficial to mental health and substance use among sexual and gender minorities. However, few studies have explored the impact of relationship quality on mental health, or if high relationship quality can reduce the negative impact of minority stress on well-being in this population. The present study examined within-persons associations of romantic relationship quality with symptoms of anxiety and depression, and alcohol and cannabis use problems among SMW TGD individuals in romantic relationships, and tested relationship quality as a moderator of associations of minority stress with mental health and substance use. Participants were 213 SMW TGD individuals (mean age: 20.63; 70.9% cisgender women, 7.5% transgender men, and 19.2% gender diverse). Within-persons, higher relationship quality was associated with better mental health and substance use outcomes. Relationship quality at the between-persons level moderated the within-persons association of internalized heterosexism with depression, and of microaggressions with cannabis use problems. No other interaction effects were significant. The within-persons associations found in this study lend important support to relationship interventions based on theories that improvements in romantic relationship quality will result in improved well-being over time. Results can inform relationship education interventions to reduce mental health and substance use disparities in SMW TGD communities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).


The Brazilian model for power generation presents very particular characteristics when compared to other countries in the world. Its great hydropower units allowed the country to indiscriminately use electricity for obtaining heat. However, this electricity can now be replaced by different energy sources of chemical origin. This research aimed to identify the distortion in the Brazilian energy mix, as well as to assess the potential for primary energy saving bound to be obtained by replacing electricity by final energy transformed into useful energy through combustion, instead of orienting it to electric power generation. Estimations were conducted on the replacement of electricity by natural gas in thermal end-uses of the different consumer sectors. Moreover, a comparative analysis was conducted on the energy mixes among the different countries in the world, concerning useful energy in the form of heat, so as to estimate the electric power percentage that could be replaced in Brazil and the amount of energy destined to an equivalent combustion chemical reaction. The possible environmental gains deriving from such a replacement were also analyzed. The results obtained show the relevance of the theme and the impact that could be attained by the rational use of energy.


The PerFactory prototyping machine manufactured by EnvisionTec GMBH uses the photo polymerisation principle. Unlike SLA, it uses light instead of high cost laser, which makes it commercially attractive. The strength of material is major issue while exploring possible direct use of prototypes as component. This paper attempts to set-up and validate Finite Element Analysis (FEA) work in 'COSMOS' software for prototyping process. This can be used later on for stress analysis of other prototypes made using the PerFactory process. Material data were obtained by tensile tests of specimens considering its directional properties relating to interlayer adhesion. Results of FEA were validated against photo-elastic analysis and physical test of various shaped prototypes.


Objective: To compare the effectiveness and safety of the triple combination Phlogenzym (rutoside, bromelain, and trypsin) with double combinations, the single substances, and placebo. Design: Multinational, multicentre, double blind, randomised, parallel group design with eight groups structured according to a factorial design. Setting: Orthopaedic surgery and emergency departments in 27 European hospitals. Participants: A total of 721 patients aged 16–53 years presenting with acute unilateral sprain of the lateral ankle joint. Primary efficacy criteria: (a) Pain on walking one or two steps, as defined by the patient on a visual analogue scale. (b) The range of motion, as measured by the investigator and expressed as a sum of flexion and extension. (c) The volume of the injured ankle measured with a volometer. Results: At the primary end point at seven days, the greatest reduction in pain was in the bromelain/trypsin group (73.7%). The Phlogenzym group showed a median reduction of 60.3%, and the placebo group showed a median reduction of 73.3%. The largest increase in range of motion (median) was in the placebo group (60% change from baseline). The Phlogenzym group showed a median increase of 42.9%. The biggest decrease in swelling was in the trypsin group (3.9% change from baseline). The Phlogenzym group showed a −2.30% change from baseline and the placebo group a −2.90% change. In the subgroup analysis of patients who did not use a Caligamed brace, Phlogenzym was superior to placebo for the summarising directional test of the primary efficacy criteria (MW  =  0.621; LB-CI 0.496; p  =  0.029; one sided Wei-Lachin procedure). The vast majority of doctors and patients rated the tolerability of all treatments tested as very good or at least good. Conclusions: Phlogenzym was not found to be superior to the three two-drug combinations, the three single substances, or placebo for treatment of patients with acute unilateral sprain of the lateral ankle joint. The small subgroup of patients treated without the support of a Caligamed brace showed evidence of superiority of Phlogenzym over placebo. Further research is warranted to study this effect of Phlogenzym in patients treated without ankle support.


Background & Aims: Amputation of a body part is a "life-changing event". Amputation affects almost all aspects of an individual's life. Many issues arise following the loss of all or part of a person's limb(s). Disability as a consequence of amputation has a devastating effect on the quality of life of the disabled people . The aim of this study was to investigate the factors associated with quality of life in people with lower limb amputations Material & Methods: It was a descriptive, cross-sectional study. The study population consisited of all above 18 years refferd to the rehabilitation center of Tehran during 2008 who had lost part or all of their lower limb due to disease or accident.Data was collected by the Short Form 36 Item Health Survey Questionner (SF36),and a researcher made tool ,and analyzed using SPSS-PC(v.12). Results: The score of the quality of life of most study sample (%59/2) was 34-46. The mean and standard deviation of total quality of life was 55.02±17.226. there were a significant relationship between the quality of life and the samol's age, marital status, number of children, education, job status ( before and after amputation), financial status, residence, the status of residence, type of insurance, type of home, the amputated limb, the level of amputation, the time after amputation, using prosthesis, use of assistive devices, and the reson for amputation (P<0/05). The regression analysis revealed that the factors associated with quality of life in order of importance were using prosthesis, financial status, the reson for amputation, and the number of children. Conclusions: Identification of these factors for consultation, planning and implementing appropriatemhealth policies to improve quality of life of these individuals is recommended.


Efficient bit stream adaptation and resilience to packet losses are two critical requirements in scalable video coding for transmission over packet-lossy networks. Various scalable layers have highly distinct importance, measured by their contribution to the overall video quality. This distinction is especially more significant in the scalable H.264/advanced video coding (AVC) video, due to the employed prediction hierarchy and the drift propagation when quality refinements are missing. Therefore, efficient bit stream adaptation and unequal protection of these layers are of special interest in the scalable H.264/AVC video. This paper proposes an algorithm to accurately estimate the overall distortion of decoder reconstructed frames due to enhancement layer truncation, drift/error propagation, and error concealment in the scalable H.264/AVC video. The method recursively computes the total decoder expected distortion at the picture-level for each layer in the prediction hierarchy. This ensures low computational cost since it bypasses highly complex pixel-level motion compensation operations. Simulation results show an accurate distortion estimation at various channel loss rates. The estimate is further integrated into a cross-layer optimization framework for optimized bit extraction and content-aware channel rate allocation. Experimental results demonstrate that precise distortion estimation enables our proposed transmission system to achieve a significantly higher average video peak signal-to-noise ratio compared to a conventional content independent system.


Due to the multiple pathogens of Alzheimer's disease, multitarget-directed ligand (MTDL) design has been highly regarded in recent years. MTDLs are used to control several pathogens at the same time. The main objective of this research is to provide an appropriate MTDL for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Due to the high importance of cholinesterase inhibition, chelating metal ions and collecting free radicals in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, we used bis(7)tacrine as an efficient inhibitor of cholinesterase and S-allylcysteine as an excellent free radical scavenger and metal chelator. Accordingly, the heptamethylene linker of bis(7)tacrine was replaced with the structure of S-allylcysteine, leading to bis(7)tacrine-SAC. Performances of the designed ligand as a new potential multitarget-directed ligand (MTDL) have been theoretically studied. Antioxidant and chelating properties of bis(7)tacrine-SAC have been investigated using density functional theory (DFT). On the other hand, the ability of the proposed ligand to inhibit cholinesterase enzymes (AChE and BChE) has been examined by employing molecular dynamics simulations. The free energies for both enzymes in complexes with the designed ligand were also extracted. In this study we demonstrated that combination of bis(7)tacrine with S-allylcysteine presents a promising multitarget-directed ligand for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. This ligand can not only inhibit the cholinesterase enzymes very well but also acts as an efficient antioxidant and metal scavenger. The results of quantum mechanics calculations, molecular docking, MD simulation and binding free energy calculations corroborate that bis(7)tacrine-SAC can simultaneously target some of the most important pathogens of Alzheimer's disease. In general, the obtained results show this ligand can be introduced as a worthwhile candidate for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, although more accurate investigation using experimental methods is essential.


The gradual discovery that late Neoproterozoic ice sheets extended to sea level near the equator poses a palaeoenvironmental conundrum. Was the Earth's orbital obliquity > 60° (making the tropics colder than the poles) for 4.0 billion years following the lunar‐forming impact, or did climate cool globally for some reason to the point at which runaway ice‐albedo feedback created a `snowball' Earth? The high‐obliquity hypothesis does not account for major features of the Neoproterozoic glacial record such as the abrupt onsets and terminations of discrete glacial events, their close association with large (> 10‰) negative δ13C shifts in seawater proxies, the deposition of strange carbonate layers (`cap carbonates') globally during post‐glacial sea‐level rise, and the return of large sedimentary iron formations, after a 1.1 billion year hiatus, exclusively during glacial events. A snowball event, on the other hand, should begin and end abruptly, particularly at lower latitudes. It should last for millions of years, because outgassing must amass an intense greenhouse in order to overcome the ice albedo. A largely ice‐covered ocean should become anoxic and reduced iron should be widely transported in solution and precipitated as iron formation wherever oxygenic photosynthesis occurred, or upon deglaciation. The intense greenhouse ensures a transient post‐glacial regime of enhanced carbonate and silicate weathering, which should drive a flux of alkalinity that could quantitatively account for the world‐wide occurrence of cap carbonates. The resulting high rates of carbonate sedimentation, coupled with the kinetic isotope effect of transferring the CO2 burden to the ocean, should drive down the δ13C of seawater, as is observed. If cap carbonates are the `smoke' of a snowball Earth, what was the `gun'? In proposing the original Neoproterozoic snowball Earth hypothesis, Joe Kirschvink postulated that an unusual preponderance of land masses in the middle and low latitudes, consistent with palaeomagnetic evidence, set the stage for snowball events by raising the planetary albedo. Others had pointed out that silicate weathering would most likely be enhanced if many continents were in the tropics, resulting in lower atmospheric CO2 and a colder climate. Negative δ13C shifts of 10–20‰ precede glaciation in many regions, giving rise to speculation that the climate was destabilized by a growing dependency on greenhouse methane, stemming ultimately from the same unusual continental distribution. Given the existing palaeomagnetic, geochemical and geological evidence for late Neoproterozoic climatic shocks without parallel in the Phanerozoic, it seems inevitable that the history of life was impacted, perhaps profoundly so.


Here we report the synthesis of novel poly(3-alkyl-2,5-selenylenevinylene)s (PSV) by the polymerization of 2,5-dibromo-3-alkylselenophene and (E)-1,2-bis(tributylstannyl)ethylene under microwave-assisted Stille coupling conditions. Polymers containing hexyl and decyl side chains were prepared. The decyl-substituted polymer exhibited good solubility in common organic solvents, and 1H NMR analysis indicated a side-chain regioregularity in excess of 90%. The polymer exhibits an absorption maxima at 621 nm in solution, with a significant red shift in absorption upon film formation. Thin film transistors fabricated from PSV exhibited hole carrier mobilities up to 0.01 cm2/(V s). The polymer displayed balanced ambipolar performance when hydroxyl free organic dielectrics were used as the gate insulator.


This study aims to find theoretically the model of the Baduy community kinship system in anticipating changes in the social environment. The process of inheriting the value of the kinship system so far has the values of local wisdom and can anticipate changes in the social environment and minimize the potential for conflict among members of the community. This research is based on the qualitative approach principle, considering the problem under study describes the socialistic condition of naturalistic culture. The results showed that the Baduy community through its adat institutions sought to maintain a kinship system that had been going on for several generations in the past, in the midst of relatively fast social changes. The marriage system of Baduy people uses endogamy and monogamous patterns. Based on the pattern of endogamy, then the bride must come from fellow Baduy Dalam or fellow Baduy Luar. If there is a marriage between the women Baduy Dalam with the Baduy Luar, Baduy Dalam women must live in the Baduy Luar, or Baduy Luar men must stay in Baduy Dalam. Likewise with Baduy Luar woman who married a man outside Baduy then he must get out of the Baduy settlement and vice versa. Although members of Baduy community who are married to Baduy outsiders are prohibited to live in the Baduy area, but the influence is still felt on the social changes of the Baduy community itself. The kinship system became more widespread with relatives outside Baduy and gave birth to a less intensive interaction system if still allowed to live in Baduy. The gap between kinship causes separated members to gain a new cultural value system from the outside that is gradually absorbed in the cultural values of Baduy. Based on the results of the study can be concluded that the social changes that occur can affect the order of value Baduy community that has been embraced for generations. Along with the increase of population, the mechanism of the kinship system is increasingly tightened by banning members of the Baduy community who married with outsiders Baduy not to be affected by ideas or ideas of changes such as those that occur outside the Baduy community.


This Article focuses on the Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) approach in criminology, which expands the crime reduction role well beyond the justice system. SCP sees criminal law in a more restrictive sense, as only part of the anticrime effort in governance. We examine the "general" and "specific" responses to crime problems in the SCP approach. Our review demonstrates that the most serious barrier to converting SCP techniques into policy remains the gap that exists between problem identification and problem response. We discuss past large-scale SCP interventions and explore the complex links between them and SCP's better known specificity and piecemeal approach. We develop a graded framework for selecting responses that acknowledge the local, political, and organizational issues involved in identifying and choosing them. This framework determines when SCP interventions and policies can be crafted on the macro level to eliminate or greatly reduce the problem everywhere, and when interventions should be limited to a piecemeal, local approach to eliminate only the specific problem. Finally, we situate this analysis within the general context of the relationship between science and policy, noting the challenges in converting scientific observations into broad social policy and the expansion of crime control beyond criminal justice into the realm of government regulation and partnerships with nongovernmental agencies.


In this paper a procedure for the global optimization of mid-infrared GaAs/AlGaAs quantum cascade lasers that relies on the method of simulated annealing is presented. We propose a double longitudinal optical phonon resonance design obtained via a ladder of three states, with subsequent pairs separated by optical phonon energy. Addition of an extra level decreases the lower laser level population by enabling an efficient extraction into the injector region. The output characteristics of the optimized structures are calculated using the full self–consistent rate equation model, which includes all of the relevant scattering mechanisms. We also presented the experimentally measured output characteristics of an initial device, which are in agreement with the numerically calculated values, confirming the good design capabilities of the applied procedure.


Aim: It is well known that hypothyroidism is associated with poorer quality of life. Still, there are more studies nowadays that also report low health-related quality of life (HRQol), more depression, and anxiety in euthyroid Hashimoto thyroiditis (HT). We hypothesized that autoimmunity itself is associated with low HRQoL and a high prevalence of mood disorders in euthyroid HT. Patients and methods: We examined 130 euthyroid patients with HT (90% females) and 111 matched euthyroid, healthy controls. The groups were subdivided per age: 20-49 yrs. and 50 years. We conducted a cross-sectional analysis. We took blood samples for thyroid hormone levels and thyroid autoantibodies. We examined HRQoL via the health questionnaire (SF-36) short-form version 1 and the presence and degree of mood disorders with the Hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) questionnaire. Significant associations between variables were examined with ANOVA analysis and partial correlations. Results: Patients were significantly more depressed than control subjects (p 0.001), and have had more anxiousness, but only in the younger group (p 0.05). Quality of life was significantly better in the older control group comparing to patients with Hashimoto (p 0.01). The overall SF-36 score was in a significant negative correlation with antibodies (TPOAb, TgAb). Depression was positively associated with TSH and TPOAb levels. Conclusion:  Our study indicated that euthyroid patients with HT had worse HRQoL and showed more symptoms of anxiety and depression. We also have found that levels of thyroid antibodies were crucial in terms of neuropsychological wellbeing. More studies with longitudinal observations could explain a possible causal relationship.


Neutral endopeptidase 24.11 (NEP) is identical to CD10, which is a differentiation antigen for early B-lymphoid progenitors in the B-cell differentiation pathway. This ectoenzyme is known to have a key role in the control of growth, differentiation, and signal transduction of many cellular systems by regulating bioactive peptides and cytokines. Recently, we demonstrated that NEP/CD10 is upregulated during forskolin-induced choriocarcinoma cell differentiation, suggesting that NEP/CD10 is a trophoblast differentiation marker. The purpose of this study was to clarify the enhancement of NEP/CD10 expression and its signal transduction pathway during phorbol ester (PMA)-induced differentiation of BeWo choriocarcinoma cells. PMA-induced differentiation of BeWo cells was confirmed by morphological change and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) secretion, which was completely blocked by a protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitor, Bisindolylmaleimide I (Bis I). On immunoblot analysis, PMA enhanced NEP/CD10 expression in a dose- and time-dependent manner, which was completely abolished by Bis I and a mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) kinase (MEK) inhibitor, PD98059. PMA also induced phosphorylation of p44/p42 extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK) 1 and 2. These observations indicated that activation of PKC by PMA induced differentiation of BeWo cells, and that PMA activated MAPK/ERK, which resulted in the enhancement of NEP/CD10 expression. Furthermore, immunocytochemical analysis showed that NEP/CD10 expression was detected on the membranes of PMA-treated differentiated BeWo cells. In summary, we demonstrated that NEP/CD10 was enhanced during PMA-induced differentiation of BeWo choriocarcinoma cells through a PKC-dependent MEK/ERK signalling pathway. Our findings also suggest that NEP/CD10 may play a functional role in the process of trophoblast differentiation.


Laboratory and clinical studies were performed on a new semisynthetic cephalosporin, cefamandole (CMD), and following results were obtained. (1) Serum concentrations and urinary recovery rates of CMD were determined after an intravenous administration of CMD 30 mg/kg in 13 children with normal renal function. In 5 of 13 children, mean serum levels after a one shot intravenous injection were 112.5 micrograms/ml at 15 minutes, 52.2 micrograms/ml at 30 minutes, 23.3 micrograms/ml at 1 hour, 4.9 micrograms/ml at 2 hours and trace at 4 hours. In other 5 children, mean serum levels after drip infusion for 1 hour were 78 micrograms/ml at 30 minutes, 59 micrograms/ml at 1 hour, 9.8 micrograms/ml at 2 hours and trace at 4 hours, after the onset of drip infusion. In the remaining 3 children who received CMD by drip infusion for 2 hours, mean serum levels were 24.3 micrograms/ml at 30 minutes, 35.3 micrograms/ml at 1 hour, 30.2 micrograms/ml at 2 hours, 5.3 micrograms/ml at 3 hours and 1.5 micrograms/ml at 4 hours after the onset of drip infusion. Urinary recovery rates in 5 children were 154.7%, 98.3%, 93.2%, 111.8% and 66.9%, respectively, during 8 hours. (2) CMD was administered to 40 patients with various infections (acute U.T.I. 8, acute angina lacunaris; 2, acute bronchitis; 5, cervical purulent lymphadenitis; 2, post-measles bronchopneumonia; 3, acute bronchopneumonia; 18, pyothorax; 2, S.S.S. syndrome; 1) by one-shot intravenous injection at a dose of 40-120 mg/kg per day. The clinical efficacy rate was 92.5% and bacteriological efficacy rate was 79.2%. (3) As the side effect of CMD, eosinophilia was observed in 1 case, rash and elevation of GOT and GPT in 1 case, and proteinuria in 1 case.


The effect of commercial heat treatment on physical and mechanical properties of compression wood (CW) and opposite wood (OW) of black pine (Pinus nigra Arnold) was investigated. Black pine logs containing CW were cut parallel to the pith and separated into CW and OW sections. A commercial heat treatment process was applied to pine lumber at 180 and 210 oC for 3 hours. Water absorption (WA), contact angle (CA), swelling, modulus of rupture (MOR), modulus of elasticity (MOE), and impact bending strength (IBS) were measured. The results showed that heat treatment decreased water absorption and swelling of the CW and OW of black pine. Heat treatment at 210 °C temperature decreased the longitudinal swelling of CW by 51.4%. Higher immersion time lowered the effect of heat treatment on the WA values. The CA values of the CW and OW increased due to heat treatment. Heat treatment reduced the MOR, MOE, and IBS values. The results indicated that MOR, MOE, and CA values were highly affected in the CW; on the other hand, the IBS value was highly affected in the OW by heat treatment compared to control groups. The results indicate that heat-stabilized CW can be used more widely and effectively in the forest products industry.


Since the 21st century, the rapid development of computer network technology has driven the new changes of all industries, of which institutes of higher education are the first to be affected, and a new revolution of methods of teaching and model of teaching has been started, namely, the wide application of modern educational technology. However, the new type model of teaching has suffered certain restrictions in the process of spread and exploitation due to the limitation of network access, and has not been fully utilized, which causes an unsatisfactory teaching effect. The expansion of network cabling requires a certain degree of economic strength, which is just generally deficient in all institutes of higher education. If depending on the wireless network infrastructure, we can connect variety of modern educational methods and network together under the premise of low cost investment so as to give full play to their important roles in teaching and create new mode of teaching for all institutes of higher education.


Found approximately in the geographic middle of New Mexico, Socorro County is an agricultural community that relies on the Rio Grande as the major source of water for irrigation. The Rio Grande is used throughout the region for agricultural, industrial, domestic-municipal consumption, recreation and riparian vegetation, as well as for the protection of endangered species found in the environment. Salinity, a concern for all users, has been studied throughout the Rio Grande from Colorado to the Mexico border. Previous research suggests that salinity may increase through irrigation practices, municipal and industrial uses, evapotranspiration, climatic changes, and natural geologic processes and weathering of minerals. This study examines salinity variability in river and irrigation water through the Socorro region, from late February to November; within the time that irrigation water is diverted by the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, and delivered to agricultural lands through a series of canals and diversions. The study reach extends from the San Acacia Diversion Dam, north of Socorro, where irrigation for agriculture is supplied by the surface and groundwater return flows from the Unit 7 Drain and runs south for approximately 44 kilometers to San Antonio, NM, near the Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. The Low Flow Conveyance Channel (LFCC) is found directly west of the river and is hydrologically connected through ground water seepage to the river in areas where the river bed is higher than the valley floor, and through diversions to the drain and irrigation systems. The Riverside drain is found west of the LFCC, between the irrigation canals and farms, and LFCC, drawing off excess water from agricultural fields. Salinity of the Rio Grande, LFCC, drains, and the irrigation canal flows were measured semi-monthly, both preseason and throughout the irrigation season from February 28 to November 10, 2011. Regional flows of the Rio Grande, within the Socorro region between San Acacia and San Antonio, NM, were compared to associated salinity within this time frame. Seasonality accounted for the greatest salinity variations. Electroconductivity (EC), as well as alkalinity, in general, rose over time along the study reach. For example, the EC at any given point in early spring (April 18) was between 590 and 861 μs/cm, while by the later part of the irrigation season ranged from 812 and 967 μs/cm (October 28). During the same time period, the alkalinity of samples (as CaCO3) ranged from 105-156 mg/L (April 18) to 176-209 mg/L (October 28). As expected, in most cases, salinity increased further south down river. Alkalinity and streamflow showed a positive correlation. Salinity increased in the river and associated channels when there was less streamflow. The salinity of the Rio Grande at San Acacia on April 7 was 537 μs/cm compared to San Antonio at 605 μs/cm on the same day. In addition, irrigation water, in general, had higher EC and alkalinity than the Rio Grande, except for periods in late summer when the river was at its lowest stream flow or had not flow at all. For instance San Antonio irrigation was higher over the course of the season (average 868 μs/cm), than the river water EC average (715 μs/cm) at San Antonio. The major ions were primarily calcium and sodium cations and carbonate, and to a lesser degree sulfate, anions. The river and irrigation samples showed similar ionic compositions through time, while the drain and LFCC water samples showed less calcium and sodium carbonates.


The rural communities of the North American Great Plains are experiencing fundamental economic and social changes that threaten their very existence. While local projects offer hope for survival, many commt:ni'ies lack the knowledge needed to envision and evaluate their possible futures. As a consequence, communities may pursue survival strategies that offer short-term solutions but condemn the town's long-term sustainability. This paper details an anticipatory and participatory planning process for a "learning community." The process assumes the presence of a community development professional whose role is primarily that of an educator who helps to develop the community's capacity to plan for itself. The process is essentially a systems analysis, problem-solving approach that may be described as "community self-actualization." Cpmmunity design alternatives are created using organizational development techniques hat focus on small-group learning activities. Techniques include transcendental imaging, futuring activities that anticipate possible effects of participant choices, and the development of consensus goals. The learning community then embarks on a self-study based on sociocultural, economic, and environmental aspects of sustainability. The previously generated community alternatives are evaluated on the basis of sustainability checklists. Multicommunity collaboration is explored and encouraged. The plan for the preferred future of each of the community's elements is officially adopted, followed by implementation and monitoring activities. Contains 26 references, a chart of the learning community process, and an example from an environmental checklist. (Author/SV)


The InGaP-Plus™ BiFET technology has been developed at ANADIGICS for high volume production of commercial MMICs. The vertical integration of the InGaP HBT and the pHEMT on the same 6 inch GaAs epitaxial wafer allows independent optimization of each device for a given application. This is possible since the only shared epitaxial layer among those of the HBT and pHEMT structure is a heavily n-doped layer located between the HBT and the FET structure. Otherwise, the process flow has been developed to minimize cost and maximize yield. The InGaP-Plus™ BiFET technology allows greater integration of the various dc and rf functions required in front end modules on a single chip.


We studied the effects of hypophosphatemia on diaphragmatic function in eight patients with acute respiratory failure who were artificially ventilated. Their mean serum phosphorus level was 0.55 +/- 0.18 mmol per liter (normal value, 1.20 +/- 0.10). The contractile properties of the diaphragm were assessed by measuring the transdiaphragmatic pressure generated at functional residual capacity during bilateral supramaximal electrical stimulation of the phrenic nerves. Diaphragmatic function was evaluated in each patient before and after correction of hypophosphatemia, which was achieved by administration of 10 mmol of phosphorus (as KH2PO4) as a continuous infusion for four hours. After phosphate infusion, the mean serum phosphorus level increased significantly (1.33 +/- 0.21 mmol per liter, P less than 0.0001). The increase in serum phosphorus was accompanied by a marked increase in the transdiaphragmatic pressure after phrenic stimulation (17.25 +/- 6.5 cm H2O as compared with 9.75 +/- 3.8 before phosphate infusion, P less than 0.001). Changes in the serum phosphorus level and transdiaphragmatic pressure were well correlated (r = 0.73). These results strongly suggest that hypophosphatemia impairs the contractile properties of the diaphragm during acute respiratory failure, and they emphasize the importance of maintaining normal serum inorganic phosphate levels in such patients.


Personalized medicine is defined as "a model of healthcare that is predictive, personalized, preventive, and participator" and has very broad content. With the rapid development of high-throughput technologies, an explosive accumulation of biological information is collected from multiple layers of biological processes, including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabonomics, and interactomics (omics). Implementing integrative analysis of these multiple omics data is the best way of deriving systematical and comprehensive views of living organisms, achieving better understanding of disease mechanisms, and finding operable personalized health treatments. With the help of computational methods, research in the field of biology and biomedicine has gained tremendous benefits over the past few decades. In the new era of personalized medicine, we will rely more on the assistance of computational analysis. In this paper, we briefly review the generation of multiple omics and their basic characteristics. And then the challenges and opportunities for computational analysis are discussed and some state-of-art analysis methods that were recently proposed by peers for integrative analysis of multiple omics data are reviewed. We foresee that further integrated omics data platform and computational tools would help to translate the biological knowledge to clinical usage and accelerate development of personalized medicine.


Agile manufacturing systems can benefit significantly from a database support. This paper describes AMDS, an agile manufacturing database system designed for capturing and manipulating the operational data of a manufacturing cell. AMDS is a continuous data-gathering real-time DBMS, and it can be logged either locally or remotely and used for off-line analysis as well. The temporal operational data obtained is used for performance and reliability analysis, high-level summary report generation, real-time monitoring and active interaction. This paper gives an overview of AMDS and its real-time features.


Questions inevitably arise about the concurrent competence and complementary nature of an international tribunal and national courts, and about cooperation between them. Those questions may well apply to any State on earth because, by virtue of the principle of universal competence, many crimes which international tribunals are competent to try may also be tried by any State irrespective of the place where they are committed or the nationality of the perpetrator.


We have developed a new surface treatment, Mgbright, which produces a luster on AZ31 magnesium alloy surfaces. The treatment consists of a chemical process and a coating process, and the primary characteristics are that of developing a luster on AZ31 magnesium alloy and imparting a high resistance to corrosion. When Mgbright was applied, the value of surface roughness, Ra, required for developing luster was 1.5 µm. As the target Ra value of press-formed articles was set to less than 1.5 µm, mass-production press-forming was tested by means of the 100,000 times square-cup drawing method, and the target was achieved. We applied the Mgbright treatment techniques and the square-cup drawing test, and produced a laptop computer chassis.


In response to gravitational stresses, angiosperm trees form tension wood in the upper sides of branches and leaning stems in which cellulose content is higher, microfibrils are typically aligned closely with the fibre axis and the fibres often have a thick inner gelatinous cell wall layer (G-layer). Gene expression was studied in Eucalyptus nitens branches oriented at 45 degrees using microarrays containing 4900 xylem cDNAs, and wood fibre characteristics revealed by X-ray diffraction, chemical and histochemical methods. Xylem fibres in tension wood (upper branch) had a low microfibril angle, contained few fibres with G-layers and had higher cellulose and decreased Klason lignin compared with lower branch wood. Expression of two closely related fasciclin-like arabinogalactan proteins and a beta-tubulin was inversely correlated with microfibril angle in upper and lower xylem from branches. Structural and chemical modifications throughout the secondary cell walls of fibres sufficient to resist tension forces in branches can occur in the absence of G-layer enriched fibres and some important genes involved in responses to gravitational stress in eucalypt xylem are identified.


Background: Lower education is associated with a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD). Years of education and measures of general intellectual function (IQ) are highly correlated. It is important to determine whether there is a relationship between education and AD outcomes that is independent of IQ. Objective: To test the hypothesis that premorbid IQ is a stronger predictor of cognitive decline, global progression, and overall survival, than education in patients with AD. Methods: The study included 478 probable AD patients (322 women and 156 men, mean age 74.5 years) followed in a large AD referral center for a mean of 3.2 years. Eligible participants had a baseline estimate of premorbid IQ using the American version of the Nelson Adult Reading Test (AMNART) and at least one follow-up visit with complete neuropsychological assessment. We used random effects linear regression analysis, and Cox proportional hazards analysis to determine whether or not education and/or premorbid IQ were independently associated with cognitive decline, global progression of AD, and survival. Results: When the baseline AMNART score was included in regression models along with education and other demographic variables, AMNART score, but not education, was associated with a higher baseline score and slower rate of decline in MMSE and ADAS-Cog scores, and the Clinical Dementia Rating sum of boxes score. Neither higher premorbid IQ nor higher education was associated with longer survival. Conclusions: We conclude that a baseline AMNART score is a better predictor of cognitive change in AD than education, but neither variable is associated with survival after diagnosis.


Cancer cells generally present a higher demand for iron, which plays crucial roles in tumor progression and metastasis. This iron addiction provides opportunities to develop broad spectrum anticancer drugs that target iron metabolism. In this context, prochelation approaches are investigated to release metal-binding compounds under specific conditions, thereby limiting off-target toxicity. Here, we demonstrate a prochelation strategy inspired by the bioreduction of tetrazolium cations widely employed to assess the viability of mammalian cells. We designed a series of tetrazolium-based compounds for the intracellular release of metal-binding formazan ligands. The combination of reduction potentials appropriate for intracellular reduction and an N-pyridyl donor on the formazan scaffold led to two effective prochelators. The reduced formazans bind as tridentate ligands and stabilize low-spin Fe(II) centers in complexes of 2:1 ligand-to-metal stoichiometry. The tetrazolium salts are stable in blood serum for over 24 h, and antiproliferative activities at micromolar levels were recorded in a panel of cancer cell lines. Additional assays confirmed the intracellular activation of the prochelators and their ability to affect cell cycle progression, induce apoptotic death, and interfere with iron availability. Demonstrating the role of iron in their intracellular effects, the prochelators impacted the expression levels of key iron regulators (i.e., transferrin receptor 1 and ferritin), and iron supplementation mitigated their cytotoxicity. Overall, this work introduces the tetrazolium core as a platform to build prochelators that can be tuned for activation in the reducing environment of cancer cells and produce antiproliferative formazan chelators that interfere with cellular iron homeostasis.


In an effort to measure the influence of an immersive recruitment event, we sought to evaluate high school students' perceptions toward university climate before and after engaging in a day-long event hosted as part of National Teach Ag Day. The Inviting School Survey-Revised (ISS-R) was administered via paper and pencil when the students arrived and again at the conclusion of the event. Pre-test scores indicated students had favorable opinions of all aspects of [University's] climate factors before attending the event; however, mean scores were consistently higher on the post-test than on the pretest for all school climate factor areas. We recommend agricultural education departments explore the possibility of implementing a similar immersive recruitment event tailored specifically for agricultural education students. Further, we recommend future research use experimental methods and larger sample sizes to expand the generalizability of these findings.


Emotion Recognition is probably one of the biggest challenges engineers are facing now. With ongoing development and demand of man - machine interface it has been very necessary to implement emotion recognition. But emotion not being standardized or quantifiable, it is very difficult to classify. Again the lack of proper benchmark for differentiating between various emotions makes it a more difficult challenge. Again the outcome of emotions can be noticed in EEG signals - which again are very hard to classify. According to biomedical science, the EEG data can be classified in not amplitude domain, but in frequency domain - thus making the work more challenging. This projects uses machine learning with other statistical variations like PCA to find the benchmark for emotions of persons having similar behavioural characteristics and classify the emotions. The first stage of the work was detection of Epilepsy and classify the signals into epileptic and non-epileptic.This task hes been achieved by using conventional statistical moments like mean and variance. On a later stage machine learning was applied to classify. The later part of work was to use nonlinear SVM and get emotion data for training and classification. A number of emotions like valence, arousal, dominance etc. Further the non-linear classification algorithm was tested on several dataset. The final stage of work includes HDL coding for implemetation of non-linear SVM.


Nanoparticles of chromium oxide (Cr2O3) are widely used in many fields serving as catalysts, wear resistance materials, and advanced colorants. For the first time, we have reported the solvent free synthesis of Cr2O3 nanoparticles via microwave irradiation followed by calcinations at 200, 400, 600 and 800°C for 1h. The influence of calcination temperature on the particle size, microstructure and morphology was examined by Xray diffraction, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), Elemental compositions have been estimated by energy dispersive X-ray Absorption EDAX and thermo gravimetrv analysis (TGA-DTA). The average particle size of the synthesized Cr2O3 nanoparticles is calculated using the Scherrer's formula and found to be of less than 60 nm and is compared with Williamson Hall method . It is found that the molar ratio 1:3 is considered to be the best proportion to synthesis Cr2O3 nanoparticles. These results also indicate that there is an improvement in the crystallinity of Cr2O3 nanoparticles with the increase in the annealing temperature. As the process is simple and low-cost, it has the potential to be produced on a large scale.


We explore the use of estimating equations for efficient statistical inference in case of missing data. We propose a semiparametric efficient empirical likelihood approach, and show that the empirical likelihood ratio statistic and its profile counterpart asymptotically follow central chi-square distributions when evaluated at the true parameter. The theoretical properties and practical performance of our approach are demonstrated through numerical simulations and data analysis. Copyright 2012, Oxford University Press.


This article describes the collection and analysis of a Swedish database of spontaneous and unconstrained children–machine dialogues. The Swedish NICE corpus consists of spoken dialogues between children aged 8 to 15 and embodied fairytale characters in a computer game scenario. Compared to previously collected corpora of children's computer-directed speech, the Swedish NICE corpus contains extended interactions, including three-party conversation, in which the young users used spoken dialogue as the primary means of progression in the game.


Understanding the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of invasive plant species from the affected communities' perspectives is essential to design and plan sustainable control and prevention strategies. Hence, understanding the socio-economic and environmental impacts in the infested and susceptible areas such as Bale zone is very crucial. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess socio-economic impacts of in lowlands of Bale zone, Southeastern Ethiopia. House hold survey, focus group discussion and key informant interview to understand socio-economic and environmental impacts invasive plant species were used. Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) (v. 20) was used for data collection. The results showed that a total of 12 invasive plant species were recorded, and of which Parthenium hysterophorus, Xanthium strumarium, Argemone ochroleuca, Ceasalpinia spp, Acacia bussie, Acacia mellifera, Acacia seyal and Acacia tortolis were highly distributed in the study areas. Respondents reported that heavy infestation of invasive plant species were found on the roadsides followed by arable land.  The invasive plant species has also certain economic and ecological benefits. The local communities blame the invasive plant species for their negative impacts on biodiversity, degrading ecosystems, livestock and livestock products, crops, animal and human health. The study result showed that the local community utilizes chemical, mechanical and biological methods to reduce and control the impacts even though the percent of households that were trying to control is very low. Community perception showed the invasive plants species infesting grazing lands, crop lands, road sides, frosts and settlement areas. However, much has not been done to alert the local people on the danger of environmental impacts on biodiversity, agriculture and health. The menace of the species is increasing at an alarming rate, thus control methods have to be designed to stop further spreading into Bale Mountain National Parks.

 Key words: Environmental impacts, invasive alien species, socio-economic impacts, Southeast Ethiopia.


The PPIs are the most effective therapy to suppress gastric acid secretion. These agents decrease acid secretion by inhibiting parietal cell proton pumps. From chemical and pharmacodynamic points of view, subtle differences that exist among the PPIs may influence clinical activity.


ABSTRACT. We describe a new species of the hylid frog genus Scinax from the Peruvian Upper Amazonian Lowlands (area of Iquitos, Region Loreto, Peru). The new species belongs to the Scinax ruber clade and differs from all its members by having the dorsal skin slightly to coarsely shagreen, by lacking conspicuous ulnar and tarsal tubercles, and in life by having a distinct light olive-green coloration on dorsum, bright yellow flanks with distinct black spots, black posterior surfaces of thighs, and gold to bronze iris.


The p63 gene is a member of the p53 family that plays a role in cell differentiation, development and carcinogenesis. The relationship between p63 expression and the prognosis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) remains unknown. The present study examines the clinical impact of p63 in patients with ESCC. Resected specimens from 180 patients with ESCC were immunostained for p63 and p53. After establishing a cut-off value for p63 expression, we statistically examined its clinical impact and relationship to p53 expression. At a 50% cut-off value for p63 expression, the 5-year overall survival was significantly longer in p63-positive (46.4%) than -negative patients (11.1%, p=0.05). Among the 180 ESCC patients, 171 (95.0%) were p63 immunoreactive and only 9 (5.0%) were negative. The correlation between p63 status and clinicopathological parameters was not significant, although p63-negativity tended to correlate with distant metastasis (p=0.06) and clinical stage (p=0.08). Univariate analysis demonstrated significant correlations between patient survival and tumor diameter, depth of invasion, lymphatic invasion, vascular invasion, lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis. The survival of patients who did not express p63 and p53 was obviously unfavorable (p=0.03). Multivariate analysis revealed that only lymph node metastasis was a critical independent prognostic marker for overall survival (p=0.0015). Expression of p63 was not an independent prognostic factor for overall survival in this study (p=0.69). These data suggest that, although a reduced expression of p63 is infrequent, it has a prognostic impact upon patients with ESCC.


A guide consisting of video tutorials, database links, and other resources intended to help you find the best resources for this course.


Universities have identified the internationalisation of the curriculum as an integral part of higher education. The aim is to prepare students to perform professionally and socially in the global work environment. This ability has been described as 'cultural intelligence', enabling graduates to work positively and productively within culturally diverse work situations that may be very different to those they experience locally. In practical terms this involves engaging students and staff in international based experiences that allow for the exchange of expertise and cultural norms to enhance a common understanding of attitudes and behaviours affecting professional and social practices. In product design there is a discipline specific necessity to effectively communicate complex object ideas, detailed 3D specifications and aesthetic information with clients and manufacturers around the world and work collaboratively to ensure that the integrity of the design is maintained throughout its development. This may involve the designers going overseas but frequently it involves communicating via the web. This paper documents practical examples of introducing students to working with international partners (in this case manufacturers). It describes the commissioning of prototypes from a range of overseas suppliers by product design students, in different materials and using different processes. The student experiences and product outcomes are evaluated, identifying issues and implications for designing learning experiences, leading to practical recommendations on preparing the students to operate successfully in collaboration with overseas prototype production partners. The aim is to provide a contribution to the internationalisation of the design curriculum supporting the development of the 'cultural intelligence' of the graduate for global professional practice.


People make comprehension easier by predicting upcoming language. We might therefore expect prediction to occur during the extremely difficult task of simultaneous interpreting. This paper examines the theoretical and empirical foundations of this premise. It reviews accounts of prediction during comprehension in both monolinguals and bilinguals, and discusses these theories in light of experimental data (e.g., using the visual-world paradigm). It considers how these accounts may be applied to the unique and ecologically valid context of simultaneous interpreting, when two languages are used concurrently, one overtly engaging the comprehension system, and the other overtly engaging the production system. It then posits a role for the production system in prediction during comprehension and develops a theoretical framework for prediction-by-production in simultaneous interpreting that has implications for our understanding of prediction during language comprehension.


Sao Paulo harbors 231 mammal species until now. This is an estimate of its real diversity since many regions of the State continue poorly surveyed, and also reflects the lack of taxonomic work for certain mammal taxa. Nevertheless, our knowledge of the Sao Paulo mammals has increased in 20% in the last 12 years, especially in relation to bats and rodents. These new data are based in mammal inventories and also in the analysis of specimens housed in scientific collections associated with taxonomic revisions. We also know better about the mammal distribution in the distinct vegetation units present in the State, permitting us to divide the mammals in three distinct components: the most important one is the generalists, represented by species occurring in every landscape in the State, while the second one concentrates species inhabiting the open formations, and the third component the species associated with the forest formations. Besides, the number of studies dealing with the effect of fragmentation and the permeability of mammals in altered areas also has increased. Occurrence, abundance and vulnerability data were essential to raise strategies in order to choose priority areas and to indicate priority actions to conserve the mammals of the State, as well as to classify the species in the different proposed threaten categories, culminating in the List of the Threaten Species of the Sao Paulo State. However, there are many points yet poorly developed or poorly known, such as the limited number of zoological samples, and the lack of information about the ecology and natural history of many species, respectively. It's extremely important that we increase our samples in the scientific collections, especially in areas of Dense Ombrofilous Forests, in the Cerrado fragments, as well as in central and western areas of the State that continue poorly surveyed. The objective is to produce more taxonomic work in several mammalian groups, and also studies focusing in the phylogeography and in the population genetics in order to effectively diagnose the mammal richness of the State, as well as the evolutionary processes responsible for this diversification. Additionally, ecological data accompanying this information is needed in order to evaluate the conservation status of the Sao Paulo mammals to decide about the better strategies to manage and conserve these mammals. Keywords: mammals, biodiversity of the State of Sao Paulo, BIOTA/FAPESP Program.


A retrospective study investigated the epidemiologic characteristics of eclamptic patients seen at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Between January 1955 and June 1973, 194 patients were discharged from our hospital with the diagnosis of eclampsia. Although our incidence of severe forms of toxemia of pregnancy has decreased from 6.8 per 1,000 deliveries from 1955 to 1960 to 4.8 per 1,000 deliveries from 1970 to 1973, it is still three times higher than for the United States overall. Our patients generally were young, unmarried, and without adequate prenatal care. Primary therapy for severe preeclampsia and eclampsia consists of bed rest and administration of magnesium sulfate until stable, and then delivery. Therapy for the eclamptic patient includes control of the convulsions, administration of magnesium sulfate, and delivery when the patient's condition has stabilized. Antihypertensives and diuretics are used for cardiovascular indications.


This paper describes the considerations taken in designing cost effective embedded processor development kits to support the take-home self-practice pedagogical strategy. Since each student is issued with such a take-home development kit, special design considerations were given to the choice of processor, the on-board peripheral support, the mode of software development and the development tool support. Two embedded processor development platforms of different complexity are described. One is an 8051 based kit and the other is based on the ARM RISC processor.


The quality of ink-jet printing depends to a large extent on the technical characteristics of the selected equipment and the surface properties of the printed substrates. It is known that for digital printing it is necessary to use expensive paper with a special coating that determines the degree of gloss of the surface. Therefore, ordinary offset papers before ink-jet printing are covered with primers that ensure good fixation of pigment ink or dye on paper, a wide field of color coverage, characteristic gloss, which generally contribute to high quality of imprints. As you can see, the type of the substrate and the state of its surface has a very great influence on the quality of the imprints. Result of the research, it has been confirmed that not only expensive paper of a special purpose can be used for a drop ink-jet digital printing. High-quality color imprints can also be obtained on ordinary offset and coated paper, coated before printing with special primers based on interpolymeric complexes of polyvinyl alcohol, which will provide sufficient optical density, contrast of images, and expand the possibilities of digital ink-jet printing.


In this paper we describe the use of gigapixel imagery at the Sanctuary of the Great Gods, an archaeological site on the island of Samothrace, Greece. The Sanctuary was the home of a secret cult that was a particular favorite of Macedonian royalty during the 4 and 3 centuries BC. Despite the lack of any current structures remaining erect, the dozen buildings are remarkably well preserved and are spectacular examples of classical Greek architecture. We are employing a number of sophisticated advanced visualization tools, including a 3-D reconstruction of the site, computer-animated fly-throughs, and an interactive map. We have undertaken a topographic survey and are integrating georeferenced GigaPans into a geographic information system (GIS). This system will allow us to return to the site in future years, capturing the same scene, thus better informing the upcoming site management plan and allowing us to observe change over time.


Abstract Optical-fiber-based, hollow-core waveguides (HCWs) have opened up many new applications in laser surgery, gas sensors, and non-linear optics. Chip-scale HCWs are desirable because they are compact, light-weight and can be integrated with other devices into systems-on-a-chip. However, their progress has been hindered by the lack of a low loss waveguide architecture. Here, a completely new waveguiding concept is demonstrated using two planar, parallel, silicon-on-insulator wafers with high-contrast subwavelength gratings to reflect light in-between. We report a record low optical loss of 0.37 dB/cm for a 9-μm waveguide, mode-matched to a single mode fiber. Two-dimensional light confinement is experimentally realized without sidewalls in the HCWs, which is promising for ultrafast sensing response with nearly instantaneous flow of gases or fluids. This unique waveguide geometry establishes an entirely new scheme for low-cost chip-scale sensor arrays and lab-on-a-chip applications.


An appraisal of the deterrence concept as a policy of the United States. Our deterrence to date has been weakened by the lack of a comprehensive, positive political strategy. Only by conducting a sustained political-ideological offensive against the weaknesses of the Communist system can the United States keep her foes off balance and prevent their constant encroachments in the free world.


Abstract. Long-term trends of dissolved silicon (Si) concentrations in five glacial lakes in the Bohemian Forest, Czech Republic, recovering from acidification show higher mobility of Si from the soil to surface waters despite lower atmospheric deposition of acids. Si increased by 0.95 to 1.95 µmol yr-1 (36 to 51%) from 1986-2004 and with increasing pH. A change in soil solution conditions because of a sharp decrease in acidic deposition has led to marked decline in Al mobility and to considerable decreases in dissolved Al, especially Al3+. The increase in Si may be related to: (1) unblocking of the inhibitory effect of dissolved Al on weathering of aluminosilicates, (2) biogenic opal (phytoliths) dissolving faster, and/or (3) lower Si precipitation as secondary aluminosilicates in soil. The change in Al speciation on the dissolution rate of biogenic silica is critical. A lack of change in Si at sites outside central Europe may be explained by small or no decline in mobility of dissolved Al. The effect of a long-term increase in temperature was probably minor.


Massachusetts ranks 10th in the nation in numbers of reported AIDS cases. The state had 3,877 AIDS cases reported through June 1991. The Southeastern Massachusetts region consisting of 70 cities and towns totaling approximately 1,735 square miles has the second highest incidence of HIV infection of regions in the state. Total cumulative cases of full-blown AIDS in the region have numbered 406, approximately 14 percent of the state total. This article describes the experience of Southeastern Massachusetts Area Health Education Center, Inc. (SMAHEC) in implementing AIDS educational efforts.


Math word problems provide a natural abstraction to a range of natural language understanding problems that involve reasoning about quantities, such as interpreting election results, news about casualties, and the financial section of a newspaper. Units associated with the quantities often provide information that is essential to support this reasoning. This paper proposes a principled way to capture and reason about units and shows how it can benefit an arithmetic word problem solver. This paper presents the concept of Unit Dependency Graphs (UDGs), which provides a compact representation of the dependencies between units of numbers mentioned in a given problem. Inducing the UDG alleviates the brittleness of the unit extraction system and allows for a natural way to leverage domain knowledge about unit compatibility, for word problem solving. We introduce a decomposed model for inducing UDGs with minimal additional annotations, and use it to augment the expressions used in the arithmetic word problem solver of (Roy and Roth 2015) via a constrained inference framework. We show that introduction of UDGs reduces the error of the solver by over 10 %, surpassing all existing systems for solving arithmetic word problems. In addition, it also makes the system more robust to adaptation to new vocabulary and equation forms .


The objectives of this study were to define the role of smart traffic centers (STCs) in regional systems operations and to help identify performance measures for monitoring the performance of STCs in the scope of regional systems operations. Without proper measures of performance, it is difficult to determine if changes or additional resources could be employed to improve STC operations so as to enhance the performance of the regional transportation system. In this project, a general methodology was developed and applied to determine the role played by the Hampton Roads STC in regional systems operations in Virginia. A six-part framework for evaluating performance measures was developed. The findings of the study were generalized to the greatest extent possible to be applicable to other STCs in Virginia. It is expected that the recommended framework for developing measures of performance developed in this study will assist the Virginia Department of Transportation in documenting the benefits of the investment made in STCs and allow STC operators to identify areas where improvements can be made or resources need to be adjusted.


The normal-incidence reflectivity of a plasma generated on a solid surface by a very intense laser field is studied. We demonstrate that the reflected field has the form of trains of subfemtosecond pulses under suitable conditions. Particle-in-cell computations are presented and compared with a naive moving-mirror model. The physical origin of this behavior is discussed in terms of the relativistic motion of the electron plasma.


Recent studies have postulated that distinct regulatory cascades control myogenic differentiation in the head and the trunk. However, although the tissues and signaling molecules that induce skeletal myogenesis in the trunk have been identified, the source of the signals that trigger skeletal muscle formation in the head remain obscure. Here we show that although myogenesis in the trunk paraxial mesoderm is induced by Wnt signals from the dorsal neural tube, myogenesis in the cranial paraxial mesoderm is blocked by these same signals. In addition, BMP family members that are expressed in both the dorsal neural tube and surface ectoderm are also potent inhibitors of myogenesis in the cranial paraxial mesoderm. We provide evidence suggesting that skeletal myogenesis in the head is induced by the BMP inhibitors, Noggin and Gremlin, and the Wnt inhibitor, Frzb. These molecules are secreted by both cranial neural crest cells and by other tissues surrounding the cranial muscle anlagen. Our findings demonstrate that head muscle formation is locally repressed by Wnt and BMP signals and induced by antagonists of these signaling pathways secreted by adjacent tissues.


There is scientific consensus on the importance of breastfeeding for the present and future health of newborns, in high- and low-income settings alike. In the United States, improving breast milk access is a public health priority but analysis of secular trends are largely lacking. Here, we used data from the National Immunization Survey of the CDC, collected between 2003 and 2016, to illustrate the temporal trends and the spatial heterogeneity in breastfeeding. We also considered the effect sizes of two key determinants of breastfeeding rates. We show that, while access to breast milk both at birth and at 6 months old has steadily increased over the past decade, large spatial disparities still remain at the state level. We also find that, since 2009, the proportion of households below the poverty level has become the strongest predictor of breastfeeding rates. We argue that, because variations in breastfeeding rates are associated with socio-economic factors, public health policies advocating for breastfeeding are still needed in particular in underserved communities. This is key to reducing longer term health disparities in the U.S., and more generally in high-income countries.


Background Apart from systemic symptoms of viral infection parvovirus B19 (B19) could lead to acute and chronic arthropathy. It has been found in synovial tissue of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, sometimes, being associated with some forms of undifferentiated arthritis. Possibly, it could promote inflammation in various forms of arthritis. Objectives To determine the expression of B19 antigens in different compartments of synovial membrane; correlate these findings to the estimated synovitis score. Methods 7 RA and 54 osteoarthritis (OA) patients were enrolled in this study. nPCR was used to detect the presence of B19 genomic sequence in 61 samples of synovial tissue. PCR B19 positive tissue samples were immunohistochemically treated with the anti-B19 antibodies detecting B19 capsid proteins' VP1/VP2 expression estimated thereafter semiquantitatively. The intimal and subintimal layers of synovium as well as vasculature were estimated. Synovial inflammation was evaluated using synovitis score. Results 3 RA and 3 OA patients were PCR B19 tissue positive. B19 antigens' expression was observed in synovial lining, immune infiltrates and vascular endothelium. Correlation between B19 expression observed in synovial cells and inflammatory infiltrates' lymphocytes and macrophages was r=0.555 (p<0.0001) and r=0.793 (p<0.0001), respectively. Likewise, correlation between vascular endothelial B19 expression and synovial lymphocytic infiltrates was demonstrated r=0.616 (p<0.0001). Determined synovitis score varied from low up to intermediate revealing median value 2. Simultaneously, there was no correlation found between the synovitis score and B19 antigens' expression. Conclusions B19 capsid proteins' VP1/VP2 expression is detectable in different structural constituents of synovial membrane. Under conditions studied, the tissue expression of B19 antigens does not correlate with the inflammatory indices scored. Disclosure of Interest None declared


Abstract. Ensemble sea ice forecasts of the Arctic Ocean conducted with the Korea Meteorological Administration's coupled global seasonal forecast system (GloSea5) is verified. To investigate the temporal and spatial characteristics of the seasonal projection of Arctic sea ice extent and thickness, a set of ensemble potential predictability is assessed. It shows significance for all lead months except anomalous around East Siberian Sea, Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea during summer months. However, during the radipdly thawing and freezing season, initial states lose its predictability and increase uncertainties in the prediction. The probability skill metrics show the summer sea ice prediction which strongly depends on the sea ice thickness interacting with the accuracy of the snow depth. We found the forecast skill is determined primarily by the timing of sea ice drift (i.e., Beaufort Gyre and Transpolar drift) and sea ice formation by freshwater flux in the East Siberian Sea. Therefore, capturing the sea ice thickness state effectively is the key process for skillful estimation of Arctic sea ice. In spite of the uncertainties in atmospheric conditions, this system provides skillful Arctic seasonal sea ice extent predictions up to six months.