Plasmodium falciparum , the most deadly of the human malaria parasites, continues to ravage rural areas of the developing world. As
 Waters
 highlights in his Perspective, high-throughput technology is coming to the rescue with the publication here (
 Le Roch
 et al .) and elsewhere of the gene expression profiles (transcriptomes) of
 P. falciparum at different stages of its life cycle. These transcriptome data sets should contribute to identifying new targets for drug and vaccine development.


We herein report an example of pyroclastic density current avulsion on 14 June 2006 at Merapi, Indonesia. Four discrete series of multiple dome collapses led to the generation of four individual block-and-ash flows into Kali Gendol valley. All four pyroclastic density currents locally overflowed the channel margins to devastate cultivated terraces along each side of the box-shaped canyon while propagating as much as 2.2 km within adjacent tributaries. The largest destruction was caused by the second and third pyroclastic density currents. Both of these flows partially spilled out of the Gendol valley at a travel distance of 4.9 km, bypassing a sabo dam just upstream of the village of Kaliadem and leaving the village almost completely destroyed and buried by several meters of overbank deposits. The main mechanism of flow avulsion on June 14 was the overflow of up to 20 vol% of the dense, basal part of the pyroclastic density currents onto interfluves. The relative proportions of valley-escaped material increased dramatically in the succession of each of the four pyroclastic density currents. The main geometric parameters controlling flow avulsion and their critical values were quantified through high-resolution real-time kinetic–global positioning system (RTK-GPS) data of the pre-event topography for each of the 14 June flows. This case highlights the way in which a sabo dam can significantly increase the potential of flow avulsion. Key lessons are derived for the future hazard mitigation in valleys subject to volcanic mass flows. Flow-observational and geometric data are combined into a model to derive the kinematic characteristics of the basal, valley-ponding avalanche and the valley-escaping veneer flows, which are otherwise hidden by overriding clouds of elutriated ash.


We examine the impact of lead arrangers' reputation on the design of loan contracts such as spread and fees charged. Controlling for the non-randomness of the lender-borrower match (self-selection bias), we find that the reputation of top tier arrangers leads to higher spreads, and that top tier arrangers retain larger fractions of their loans in their syndicates. These larger spreads are especially pronounced for borrowers without credit rating that have the most to gain from the certification assumed by virtue of a loan contract with a top tier arranger. This certification channel differs from the one found in public markets, where certification leads to a reduced spread offered to the best clients. These differences between public and private markets can be explained by differences in the way they operate and are structured. Interestingly, the effect is strongest for transactions done after the changes in the banking regulations (including the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994) that led to significant consolidations in the banking industry, including among the largest commercial banks.


INTRODUCTION
Vascular access (VA) is the main difficulty in our hemodialysis Units and there is not adequate update data in our area.

PURPOSE
To describe the vascular access management models of the Autonomous Community of Madrid and to analyze the influence of the structured models in the final results.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Autonomous multicenter retrospective study. Models of VA monitoring, VA distribution 2007-2008, thrombosis rate, salvage surgery and preventive repair are reviewed. The centers are classified in three levels by the evaluation the Nephrology Departments make of their Surgery and Radiology Departments and the existence of protocols, and the ends are compared.

MAIN VARIABLES
Type distribution of VA. VA thrombosis rate, preventive repair and salvage surgery.

RESULTS
Data of 2.332 patients were reported from 35 out of 36 centers. Only 19 centers demonstrate database and annual evaluation of the results. Seventeen centers have multidisciplinary structured protocols. Forty-four point eight percent of the patients started dialysis by tunneled catheter (TC). Twenty-nine point five percent received dialysis by TC in December-08 vs 24.7% in December-07. Forty-four point seven percent of TC were considered final VA due to non-viable surgery, 27% are waiting for review or surgery more than 3 months. For rates study data from 27 centers (1.844 patients) were available. Native AVF and graft-AVF thrombosis rates were 10.13 and 39.91 respectively. Centers with better valued models confirmed better results in all markers: TC rates, 24.2 vs 34.1 %, p: 0.002; native AVF thrombosis rate 5.3 vs 10.7 %; native AVF preventive repair 14.5 vs 10.2%, p: 0.17; Graft- AVF thrombosis rate 19.8 vs 44.4%, p: 0.001; Graft-AVF preventive repair 83.2 vs 26.2, p < 0.001.They also have less patients with TC as a final option (32.2 vs 45.3) and less patients with TC waiting for review or surgery more than 3 months (2.8 vs 0).

LIMITS
Seventy-five percent of patients were reached for the analysis of thrombosis rate. Results are not necessarily extrapolated.

CONCLUSIONS
For the first time detailed data are available. TC use is elevated and increasing. Guidelines objectives are not achieved. The difference of results observed in different centers of the same public health area; make it necessary to reevaluate the various models of care and TC follow-up.


We review recent work concerned with lattice gas (LG) Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of the water meniscus formed between an atomic force microscope (AFM) tip and the surface in contact with the tip. Grand canonical MC simulations were performed to study the meniscus structure and capillary force, and this work allowed us to examine the mechanism of meniscus formation as a function of the tip–surface distance and humidity. It is found that the meniscus becomes unstable when it is narrower than the diameter of the tip–surface contact area. The calculations suggest that the ultimate size limit for a stable meniscus is five molecular diameters. We developed thermodynamic integration and perturbation methods to calculate the capillary force. The magnitude and humidity dependence of capillary force are significantly affected by the hydrophilicity of both the tip and surface. A mean field density functional theory (DFT) closely approximates the capillary forces calculated from the MC simulation. Changing the atomic scale roughness of the tip and surface drastically changes the capillary force. In particular, at low humidity, a slight roughening of the tip or surface leads to a drastic change in the force. The roughness effect persists even at 80% relative humidity. The capillary force is governed by the degree of confinement of the water and, therefore, increases as the free volume between the tip and surface decreases. The humidity dependence of the capillary force depends on the susceptibility of the meniscus width to tip retraction. For strongly hydrophilic tips at high humidity, the susceptibility is small so that the capillary force decreases as the humidity rises.


We carry out a first-principles theoretical study of the magnetically induced polarization in orthorhombic TbMnO3, a prototypical material in which a cycloidal-spin structure generates an electric polarization via the spin-orbit interaction. We compute both the electronic and the lattice-mediated contributions to the polarization and find that the latter is strongly dominant. We analyze the spin-orbit induced forces and lattice displacements from both atomic and mode-decomposition viewpoints, and show that a simple model based on nearest Mn-Mn neighbor Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions is not able to account fully for the results. The direction and magnitude of our computed polarization are in good agreement with experiment.


ABSTRACT The small antimicrobial peptide PAF26 (Ac-RKKWFW-NH2) has been identified by a combinatorial approach and shows preferential activity toward filamentous fungi. In this work, we investigated the mode of action and inhibitory effects of PAF26 on the fungus Penicillium digitatum. The dye Sytox Green was used to demonstrate that PAF26 induced cell permeation. However, microscopic observations showed that sub-MIC concentrations of PAF26 produced both alterations of hyphal morphology (such as altered polar growth and branching) and chitin deposition in areas of no detectable permeation. Analysis of dose-response curves of inhibition and permeation suggested that growth inhibition is not solely a consequence of permeation. In order to shed light on the mode of PAF26 action, its antifungal properties were compared with those of melittin, a well-known pore-forming peptide that kills through cytolysis. While the 50% inhibitory concentrations and MICs of the two peptides against P. digitatum mycelium were comparable, they differed markedly in their fungicidal activities toward conidia and their hemolytic activities toward human red blood cells. Kinetic studies showed that melittin quickly induced Penicillium cell permeation, while PAF26-induced Sytox Green uptake was significantly slower and less efficient. Therefore, the ultimate growth inhibition and morphological alterations induced by PAF26 for P. digitatum are not likely a result of conventional pore formation. Fluorescently labeled PAF26 was used to demonstrate its specific in vivo interaction and translocation inside germ tubes and hyphal cells, at concentrations as low as 0.3 μM (20 times below the MIC), at which no inhibitory, morphological, or permeation effects were observed. Interestingly, internalized PAF26 could bind to cellular RNAs, since in vitro nonspecific RNA binding activity of PAF26 was demonstrated by electrophoretic mobility shift assays. We propose that PAF26 is a short, de novo-designed penetratin-type peptide that has multiple detrimental effects on target fungi, which ultimately result in permeation and killing.


An equivalent filter bank structure for multiple model adaptive estimation (MMAE) is developed that uses the residual and state estimates from a single Kalman filter and linear transforms to produce equivalent residuals of a complete Kalman filter bank. The linear transforms, which are a function of the differences between the system models used by the various Kalman filters, are developed for modeling differences in the system input matrix, the output matrix, and the state transition matrix. The computational cost of this new structure is compared with the cost of the standard Kalman filter bank (SKFB) for each of these modeling differences. This structure is quite similar to the generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) structure, where the linear transforms can be used to compute the matched filters used in the GLR approach. This approach produces the best matched filters in the sense that they truly represent the time history of the residuals caused by a physically motivated failure model.


We report the case of a two-month-old immunocompetent girl affected by Staphylococcus aureus sepsis complicated with pneumonia and pleural effusion, spondylodiscitis and endophthalmitis treated with linezolid. She developed a S. aureus sepsis in the neonatal period antibiotically treated with clinical resolution. Ten days after therapy discontinuation, the infant experienced a new S. aureus sepsis complicated by pneumonia with pleural effusion. Due to the presence of dorsal swelling, a pulmonary computer tomography was performed that showed a dorsal D5-D6 spondylodiscitis. Since the sepsis was scarcely responsive to several appropriate antibiotics, we finally decided to treat the patient with linezolid. A few weeks after changing antibiotics, the child underwent an ophthalmologic visit. Due to the finding of ocular lesions, imaging examinations were performed. The diagnosis was compatible with retinoblastoma, such that the eye was enucleated. Nevertheless, histological and microbiological investigations did not confirm the tumour hypothesis, but revealed a S. aureus abscess with retinal detachment. The child completed antibiotic therapy with linezolid and was visited periodically at the Infectious Disease Unit for a follow-up. She underwent progressive resolution of discitis and did not present any further flare of sepsis. Nevertheless, she still has a replacement device in her right eye and a D5-D6 severe kyphosis with spinal fusion.


The last few years have witnessed an increased interest in incorporating physics-informed inductive bias in deep learning frameworks. In particular, a growing volume of literature has been exploring ways to enforce energy conservation while using neural networks for learning dynamics from observed time-series data. In this work, we present a comparative analysis of the energy-conserving neural networks - for example, deep Lagrangian network, Hamiltonian neural network, etc. - wherein the underlying physics is encoded in their computation graph. We focus on ten neural network models and explain the similarities and differences between the models. We compare their performance in 4 different physical systems. Our result highlights that using a high-dimensional coordinate system and then imposing restrictions via explicit constraints can lead to higher accuracy in the learned dynamics. We also point out the possibility of leveraging some of these energy-conserving models to design energy-based controllers.


Two goose megriviruses (W18 and HN56) were detected and sequenced. Both viruses possessed megrivirus-like genomic features, including unusually long genomes (9840 and 10 101 nt). W18 and HN56 were very similar to duck megrivirus (DMV) in the P2 and P3 regions, but much less similar in the P1 and 2A1 regions. HN56 may be a potential recombinant virus, with a distinct P1 region possibly originating from an unknown picornavirus. W18 may represent a novel type of DMV, showing a P1 sequence identity of 67 %. Similar levels (64-68 %) of P1 sequence identity were also displayed by melegrivirus A with W18 and DMV, demonstrating an equal genetic separation of the capsid region among W18, DMV and melegrivirus A. For the 2A1 region, the divergence among W18, HN56 and DMV was remarkable, involving point mutations and a long insertion/deletion. The present work contributes to the understanding of unique features and phylogeny of megriviruses.


Objectives A number of respiratory diseases could potentially benefit from gene
transfer to the lung, including cystic fibrosis, asthma and emphysema. Jet nebulisation,
the current standard for introducing gene therapy formulations into the lung, is
highly inefficient. While newer nebuliser technologies are under development, pressurised
metered dose inhalers (pMDIs) offer an alternative with potential advantages
of more efficacious and rapid administration. As both solution and suspension
pMDI formulations have drawbacks relating to stability and dose reproducibility, we aim to explore the potential of modifying a novel low-energy nanotechnology
process (Dickinson et al 2001) to prepare surfactant-coated plasmid DNA (pDNA)
nanoparticles for pulmonary gene delivery via a dispersion pMDI.
Methods Water-in-oil microemulsions containing pEGFP-N1 reporter plasmid
were prepared from sucrose solution (as cryoprotectant and aqueous phase), lecithin:
propan-2-ol (as stabilising surfactant) and iso-octane (as organic phase).
Resultant microemulsions were snap frozen in liquid nitrogen and lyophilised.
Excess surfactant was removed by repeated washes with iso-octane and centrifugation.
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and gel electrophoresis were used to
characterise surface morphology and deduce pDNA integrity, respectively.
Results A ternary phase diagram was constructed to identify optimised microemulsion
compositions (Figure 1). Microemulsions with a surfactant to water ratio
of 1.5 and above formed stable water in oil isotropic systems. Unstable biphasic
systems were formed when the surfactant to water ratio fell below 1.5. Optimised
formulations resulted in effective incorporation of pDNA into the aqueous pool of
reverse micelles. Controlled lyophilisation enabled the formation of novel surfactant-
coated pDNA nanoparticles. A qualitative analysis performed using gel
electrophoresis showed that the freeze-dried particles retained pDNA structural
integrity. SEM images conferred aggregates of DNA-cryoprotectant particles.
Conclusions Freeze-drying pDNA microemulsions produced surfactant coated
pDNA particles whilst successfully maintaining the integrity of the pDNA. The
nanotechnology process used offers the potential for the incorporation of pDNA
nanoparticles into pMDI systems for pulmonary delivery of gene vectors.


Abstract:Bertrand Russell's Scandinavian lecture tour in October 1935 has been largely undocumented because of the longstanding embargo on the tour correspondence Russell exchanged with Marjorie ("Peter") Spence, his lover and future third wife. These archival restrictions ended in 2009, and this paper presents annotated transcriptions of twenty letters sent by Russell to Peter during his trip to Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. The tour allowed Russell to test early versions of two important papers in his return to philosophy in the mid-1930s, and his meetings with Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in Copenhagen significantly enhanced his understanding of quantum mechanics. Additionally, these letters demonstrate the impact of the tour on Russell's political thought and his evolving views on fascism and pacifism, and they provide the first intimate picture of Russell's complex relationship with Peter.


We demonstrate numerically on large spin lattices that one can write skyrmions in a thin magnetic film with a magnetic dipole of a few tens of nanometer in size. Nucleation of non-chiral skyrmions as well as chiral skyrmions formed by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction has been investigated. Analytical model is developed that agrees with numerical results. It is shown that skyrmions can be written though a number of scenarios that depend on the experimental technique and parameters of the system. In one scenario, that branches into subscenarios of different topology, the magnetic dipole on approaching the film creates a skyrmion-antiskyrmion pair. As the dipole moves closer to the film it induces collapse of the antiskyrmion and creation of a non-zero topological charge due to the remaining skyrmion. In a different scenario the dipole moving parallel to the film nucleates a skyrmion at the boundary and then drags it inside the film. Possible implementations of these methods for writing topologically protected information in a magnetic film are discussed.


Objective This review summarizes the clinical features, diagnostic workup, and surgical treatment of laryngeal schwannoma with the aim of providing guidance for the management of this rare disease. The collated data allowed the statistical testing of several hypotheses, including the efficacy of endoscopic vs open surgical intervention and the usefulness of preoperative biopsy. Data Sources PubMed, Google Scholar, Cochrane, and SCOPUS. Review Methods Basic epidemiological and clinical presentation data were collated together with details of diagnostic image modality, lesion attributes, and the use of preoperative biopsy. Surgical approach to intervention and outcome was also collated and simple statistical analyses applied. Results The 60 original articles selected provided a combined cohort of 74 patients for review. The combined data revealed that schwannoma with pedunculated morphology were always safely removed by endoscopic resection regardless of size and should be treated as a separate entity. Of the nonpedunculated schwannoma, larger tumors were more likely to undergo an open approach, which in turn was associated with higher rates of tracheotomy and postoperative vocal fold paralysis. The small cohort did not reveal a significant association between surgery type and persistent disease. Interestingly, the data revealed a significant association between the use of incisional biopsy and persistent disease. Cases exhibiting extralaryngeal extension of the lesion were shown to exclusively belong to patients with neurofibromatosis/schwannomatosis syndromes. Conclusions Taken together, these findings suggest that incisional biopsy should be avoided, and given the benign nature of the pathology, the least invasive radical approach should be employed.


This paper examines how the interaction of social trust and institutions, such as land administration, affects household economic decisions in Vietnam. Using a panel dataset of rural households from 2008 to 2014, we show that negative consequences of the duration of land administration on credit access, agricultural investment, and land use rights have been mitigated in communes with higher level of trust. These results support the view that trust complements formal institutions.


Background and Objectives Migraine is common among people with multiple sclerosis (MS), but the reasons for this are unknown. We tested 3 hypothesized mechanisms for this observed comorbidity, including migraine is a risk factor of MS, genetic variants are shared between the conditions, and migraine is because of MS. Methods Data were from 2 sources: publicly available summary statistics from genome-wide association studies of MS (N = 115,748) and migraine (N = 375,752 and N = 361,141) and a case-control study of MS recruited from the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Health Plan (N = 1,991). For the latter participants, migraine status was ascertained using a validated electronic health record migraine probability algorithm or self-report. Using the public summary statistics, we used 2-sample Mendelian randomization to test whether a migraine genetic instrumental variable was associated with MS. We used linkage disequilibrium score regression and LOGODetect to ascertain whether MS and migraine shared genetic variants across the genome and regionally. Using the Northern California MS cohort, we used logistic regression to identify whether people with both MS and migraine had different odds of clinical characteristics (e.g., age at MS onset, Perceived Deficits Questionnaire, and depression) or MS-specific risk factors (e.g., body mass index, smoking status, and infectious mononucleosis status) compared with people with MS without migraine. Results We did not find evidence supporting migraine as a causal risk factor of MS (p = 0.29). We did, however, identify 4 major histocompatibility complex (MHC) loci shared between MS and migraine. Among the Northern California MS cohort, 774 (39%) experienced migraine. People with both MS and migraine from this cohort were more likely to ever smoke (odds ratio [OR] = 1.30, 95% CI: 1.08–1.57), have worse self-reported cognitive deficits (OR = 1.04, 95% CI: 1.02–1.06), and ever experience depression (OR = 1.48, 95% CI: 1.22–1.80). Discussion Our findings do not support migraine as a causal risk factor of MS. Several genetic variants, particularly in the MHC, may account for some of the overlap. It seems likely that migraine within the context of MS is because of MS. Identifying what increases the risk of migraine within MS might lead to an improved treatment and quality of life.


This paper uses Derrick Bell's interest convergence principle, which argues that whites will support racial justice efforts only if they believe they will see gains for themselves, to examine white philanthropic support of Black education in the postbellum South and in current school reforms. Using the concept of "bad" (or compromising) money to describe philanthropy's curtailment of Black self-determination and agency, this conceptual paper demonstrates how such philanthropy has promoted white capitalistic gain to the detriment of African American communities for decades. To build this claim, the author synthesizes key points from extant literature that address these topics. The paper links the application of the interest convergence principle to Black education issues of the past as a connection to and clarification of current market-based approaches said to remedy educational and racial inequity.


Although nitric oxide (NO) production is increased in HIV-1-infected patients, and NO is known to inhibit the replication of several viruses, very little is known about the effects of NO on HIV-1 replication. In the present studies, we find that S-nitrosothiols (RSNOs), a class of NO donor compounds present in the human circulatory system, inhibit HIV-1 replication in acutely infected human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and have an additive inhibitory effect on HIV-1 replication in combination with 3'-azido-3'-deoxythymidylate (AZT). RSNOs inhibit HIV-1 replication in acutely infected PBMCs at a step in the viral replicative cycle after reverse transcription, but before or during viral protein expression through a cGMP-independent mechanism. In the latently infected U1 cell line, NO donor compounds and intracellular NO production stimulate HIV-1 reactivation. These studies suggest that NO both inhibits HIV-1 replication in acutely infected cells and stimulates HIV-1 reactivation in chronically infected cells. Thus, NO may have a physiologic role in HIV-1 replication, and NO donor compounds, which have been used for decades in the treatment of coronary artery disease with limited toxicity, might be useful in the treatment of HIV-1 disease by inhibiting acute infection, reactivating latent virus, or both.


Hebel, J. R., Kinch, D., and Armstrong, E. (1976). British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine, 30, 170-174. Mental capability of children exposed to lead pollution. 'Eleven-plus' school examination scores were obtained for 851 Birmingham children residing since birth in a lead-polluted area and 1642 children residing in two similar but unpolluted areas. It was found that the children in the lead-polluted area actually scored higher on the average than children in the control areas. Within the area of lead contamination, children living closest to the source of pollution did not have significantly lower scores than children living further away. The results indicate that lead pollution of the magnitude reported in this investigation did not have a demonstrable effect on the mental capabilities of children in the affected community.


The current situation regarding imports of selected horticultural products from India into the European market in general, and the UK market in particular, is examined. The products selected for review are mango, melon, pomegranate, sapodilla, onion, and various Asian vegetables (okra, tindori, kantola and parval). The potential for either beginning or increasing volumes of sea-shipment is also investigated. In 1994, India exported about 3000 tonnes of mango to Europe, 1000 of which went to the UK There have already been some sea-shipments of mango to the UK, but it is noted that although mango has the most potential of all the products examined for increasing volumes of sea-freight, the very fragile Alphonso variety may not survive the long transit time. The Kesar and Pairi varieties may have some promise in this respect, but the low demand for the Rajapuri variety in the UK may limit its potential. Indian exports of melon to Europe are insignificant and accounted for only 0.001% of the European market in 1994. The market for melon in the UK is growing substantially, but few traders are optimistic about the possibility of sea-freighting Indian melon, partly because the Indian season coincides with that of Spain against which it has little chance of competing, and partly because many believe that the fruit could not be preserved for the 30 or so days of transit. There is some optimism about the development potential of papaya on European markets. The UK is attracted to good 'eating' papaya with good 'visual quality', but the sources are limited. The main suppliers are currently Brazil, Jamaica and Costa Rica. If the technical problems associated with importing papaya could be overcome, this could be a fast growth area. No disaggregated data are available on the supply of pomegranates to Europe, but small volumes are imported into the UK both by sea and by air. It is generally felt that the UK demand is too low for pomegranates to have much potential. An improvement in the visual quality of the fruit would probably have the greatest impact on its expansion in the UK market. Sapodilla is only traded by Asian wholesalers. It is a very low volume product in the UK and its extremely short shelf-life means that its potential for sea-shipment is not high. Speciality bananas occupy a niche market with small sales. Although there is some potential for market growth, traders feel that the process is unlikely to be rapid. There is little enthusiasm amongst traders for the import of Indian onions. Demand is very low and India would not be able to compete against the high domestic and European supply. There is also a low demand in the UK for the other Asian vegetables reviewed. Of them all, okra (ladies finger) has the most potential for expansion on the UK market, but there is strong competition from suppliers in Africa, particularly from Kenya. Many traders feel that vegetables are too perishable for successful sea-transport, and their relatively low value on the UK market may not justify increasing exports from India. Fruit and vegetable consumption in the UK is relatively low compared to the rest of Europe, but the UK market does appear to offer opportunities for expansion of horticultural export from India provided that Indian exporters can strengthen their competitive position.


At the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Italy, needle sharing among Intravenous Drug Users (IVDUs) was the principal mechanism of transmission of HIV. After an initial burst of the epidemic, the incidence declined sharply but transmission continues to occur mainly via homo and heterosexual intercourse. A significant number of cases were reported in last year amongst the immigrant population. The Italian Government has responded aggressively to the epidemic: a special commission composed of relevant AIDS clinicians, researchers and persons from NGOs, was set up in 1987 to give technical advice to the Ministry of Health. The first recommendations of the commission were enacted into a law (135/1990) which represents the main frame of the fight against AIDS in Italy. Initially, effective treatment not available, care of AIDS patients mainly involved treating Opportunistic Infections. Innovative care systems (Day care and Hospice Treatment Services) were implemented. The availability since 1996 of highly active antiretroviral treatment changed the life expectancy and care needs of the HIV affected patients. Different priorities have since had to be met: compliance to the treatment, emergence of drug resistant virus strains, management of side effects and treatment of co-morbidities such as chronic Hepatitis C are now the main challenges to be tackled by caregivers. The main drawback of the fight against HIV/AIDS in Italy was the lack of an effective Health Education plan targeted to the reduction of HIV transmission through sexual intercourse. This fact, coupled with unrealistic hopes for the effectiveness of antiretroviral treatment, produced a second wave of the epidemic among the hetero- and homosexual populations that, though less severe than that involving IVDUs, is maintaining the HIV epidemic alive in Italy.


Humanitarians and bureaucrats who are mandated to work together in complex emergencies face many challenges, especially in settings marked by conflict and displacement. High on the list of challenges are barriers to sharing knowledge freely. These barriers include (self)censorship, contested framings and priorities, deliberate ICT black-outs, and the withholding (or not collecting) of mission-critical information. These barriers exacerbate the gaps in knowledge sharing that occur as a result of a lack of time or capacity. This article conceptualises crisis knowledge as a 'commons': a shared resource that is subject to social dilemmas. The enclosure of the knowledge commons—brought about by the barriers outlined above—hampers daily operations as well as efforts to improve the situation in the long term. Trust is key to effective commons governance, as actors need to sacrifice personal benefits (e.g., control over information) for a collective good (e.g., shared learning). Knowledge and trust are deeply interlinked, as shared ways of knowing (alignment) foster trust, and trust fosters the sharing of knowledge. Given the hierarchical nature of humanitarian relationships, this article explores how power and networks shape this dynamic. It focuses on the humanitarian response to the 2018 Guji-Gedeo displacement crisis in the south of Ethiopia. It presents a qualitative analysis of how the governance arrangements that marked this response shaped emergency operations centres' ability to manage the local knowledge commons effectively. It shows how in Guji-Gedeo, these arrangements resulted in a clustering of trust that strengthened barriers to knowledge sharing, resulting in a partial enclosure of the knowledge commons.


The efficacy of anomaly detection (AD) sensors depends heavily on the quality of the data used to train them. Artificial or contrived training data may not provide a realistic view of the deployment environment. Most realistic data sets are dirty; that is, they contain a number of attacks or anomalous events. The size of these high-quality training data sets makes manual removal or labeling of attack data infeasible. As a result, sensors trained on this data can miss attacks and their variations. We propose extending the training phase of AD sensors (in a manner agnostic to the underlying AD algorithm) to include a sanitization phase. This phase generates multiple models conditioned on small slices of the training data. We use these "micro- models" to produce provisional labels for each training input, and we combine the micro-models in a voting scheme to determine which parts of the training data may represent attacks. Our results suggest that this phase automatically and significantly improves the quality of unlabeled training data by making it as "attack-free" and "regular" as possible in the absence of absolute ground truth. We also show how a collaborative approach that combines models from different networks or domains can further refine the sanitization process to thwart targeted training or mimicry attacks against a single site.


A young male Austrian tourist, aged 23 years and unvaccinated against rabies, was bitten by a dog in Morocco in July 2004. One month later he was hospitalised in Ceuta with symptoms compatible with rabies. He died on 23 September in an Austrian hospital after a diagnosis of rabies was confirmed by FAT, IHC and RT-PCR (including sequencing) of the neck skin and the RT-PCR (including sequencing) of the pharyngeal swab. This Austrian case of laboratory confirmed rabies highlights the urgent need for reinforcement of the international recommendations for travel vaccinations.


Pure gastric juice, as it is secreted by the fundus of the stomach, is an exceedingly corrosive liquid and has the capacity to digest away the normal mucous membrane of the stomach, duodenum, or small intestines and produce a defect indistinguishable from the chronic progressive peptic ulcers seen in patients.1The mucous membrane is exposed to such pure gastric juice, either when gastric secretion is stimulated by agencies other than food or when an excessive secretion occurs, so that the buffering capacity of food, gastric mucus, swallowed saliva, and regurgitated secretions is overcome. Under normal conditions the mucosa is protected by these buffering agencies and also by an autoregulatory mechanism in the gastrointestinal tract itself. This mechanism provides for a stimulation of gastric secretion during food taking and a check of further secretion when sufficient gastric juice has been secreted to digest the food and before the gastric content


Introduction: School-based programmes may promote knowledge and skills required to address climate change and better health and well-being in adolescents, yet evidence of their effectiveness is limited. In preparation for evaluating the Public Climate School, a school-based intervention to promote climate awareness and action in adolescents, we conduct a pilot study intended to assess procedures for participant recruitment, retention, and data collection, data quality issues and to provide preliminary parameter estimates to guide sample size calculations. Methods and analysis: This unblinded, cluster-controlled pilot study targets students in twelve classes from grades seven to thirteen in German public schools. Seven and five classes were allocated to the intervention and waitlist control arms, respectively. The intervention consisted of (1) live lessons on YouTube, (2) climate-related challenges of the day, (3) workshops and (4) peer exchange sessions. Waitlist control classes participated three weeks later. Measures included the proportion of students completing baseline and follow-up surveys, a comparison of baseline characteristics between students in the retained subsample and those lost to follow-up, proportions of students completing online and paper–pencil-based surveys and problems during data collection based on information reported by teachers. Data quality was assessed as proportions of missing data, associations between missingness and sociodemographic measures using logistic regression models and basic psychometric properties of scales including ceiling effects and internal consistency. Intentions to reduce one's ecological footprint, the primary outcome, and all secondary outcomes for effect estimation were assessed one week pre- and post-intervention from November to December 2021 using items adapted from internationally used instruments and will be investigated using generalised linear mixed models and intention-to-treat analyses. Conclusions: The pilot study will lay the methodological groundwork for a large-scale cluster-randomised effectiveness and process evaluation of the Public Climate School. If proven effective and rolled out more broadly, the Public Climate School has the potential to contribute meaningfully to national climate mitigation and adaptation efforts by reaching a substantial share of adolescents in public schools, including those traditionally less involved in climate action.


Kepler's quest for other Earths need not end just yet: it remains capable of characterizing cool Earth-mass planets by microlensing, even given its degraded pointing control. If Kepler were pointed at the Galactic bulge, it could conduct a search for microlensing planets that would be virtually non-overlapping with ground-based surveys. More important, by combining Kepler observations with current ground-based surveys, one could measure the "microlens parallax" �E for a large fraction of the known microlensing events. Such parallax measurements would yield mass and distance determinations for the great majority of microlensing planets, enabling much more precise study of the planet distributions as functions of planet and host mass, planet-host separation, and Galactic position (particularly bulge vs. disk). In addition, rare systems (such as planets orbiting brown dwarfs or black holes) that are presently lost in the noise would be clearly identified. In contrast to Kepler's current primary hunting ground of close-in planets, its microlensing planets would be in the cool outer parts of solar systems, generally beyond the snow line. The same survey would yield a spectacular catalog of brown-dwarf binaries, probe the stellar mass function in a unique way, and still have plenty of time available for asteroseismology targets.


Biodiesel, an alkyl ester compound produced through an alcoholysis process (transesterification) between triglycerides and methanol or ethanol with the help of alkaline catalysts into alkyl esters and glycerol, is an alternative renewable fuel. A total of 75 ml of used cooking oil and 5 kg dry Sargassum sp. was used. Five different treatments, namely P0 (Commercial Biosolar), P1 (100% Sargasssum sp. Biodiesel), P2 (75% Sargasssum sp. Biodiesel + 25% Biosolar), P3 (50% Sargasssum sp. Biodiesel + 50% Biosolar) and P4 (25% Sargasssum sp. Biodiesel + 75% Biosolar) were tested according to the biodiesel efficiency parameters. The efficiency test of the biodiesel included the flash point, freezing point and viscosity test. The tests were conducted with the help of the panelists prior to laboratory testing the best biodiesel sample. The panelist tests were conducted by involving 9 panelists with a replication of 5 treatments each. Seaweed oil from Sargassum sp. and used cooking oil were proven to be capable of being used as materials to produce biodiesel. Based on the study results, the most efficient combination was 75% Sargassum sp. biodiesel and 25% biosolar.


Most of steel beams in midspan bottom slab are fixed up following the shape of girder bottom edge with both ends anchoring to the bottom slab wedge. Due to the girder of long-span continuous rigid-frame bridge has variable cross section, the shape of steel beams in midspan bottom slab presents a curve opening downward, which does harm to the girder. Arranging steel beams along straight line in the bottom slab with both ends anchoring to the top wedge is better for girder to carry load. The analysis results of two methods analyzed by FEM shows that arranging of straight line lowers the stress of the top edge of girder meanwhile it increases the stress of bottom slab edge. Besides, the method lowers pressure stress and shear stress of the height middle of the girder where the steel beam anchoring and increases the main tension stress reservation which is good for the girder to carry load.


In this paper, a large‐scale diffuse interface model is used to describe the evolution of a gypsum cavity formation induced by dissolution. The method is based upon the assumption of a pseudo‐component dissolving with a thermodynamic equilibrium boundary condition. A methodology is proposed based on numerical computations with fixed boundaries in order to choose suitable parameters for the diffuse interface model, and hence predict the correct dissolution fluxes and surface recession velocity. Additional simulations were performed to check which type of momentum balance equation should be used. The numerical results did not show a strong impact of this choice for the typical initial boundary value problems under consideration. Calculations with a variable density and Boussinesq approximation were also performed to evaluate the potential for natural convection. The results showed that the impact of density driven flows was negligible in the cases under investigation. The potential of the methodology is illustrated on two large‐scale configurations: one corresponding to a gypsum lens located strictly within a porous rock formation and the other to an isolated pillar in a flooded gypsum room and pillar quarry. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Therapeutic application of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) requires their extensive in vitro expansion. MSC in culture typically grow to confluence within a few weeks. They show spindle-shaped fibroblastoid morphology and align to each other in characteristic spatial patterns at high cell density. We present an individual cell-based model (IBM) that is able to quantitatively describe the spatio-temporal organization of MSC in culture. Our model substantially improves on previous models by explicitly representing cell podia and their dynamics. It employs podia-generated forces for cell movement and adjusts cell behavior in response to cell density. At the same time, it is simple enough to simulate thousands of cells with reasonable computational effort. Experimental sheep MSC cultures were monitored under standard conditions. Automated image analysis was used to determine the location and orientation of individual cells. Our simulations quantitatively reproduced the observed growth dynamics and cell-cell alignment assuming cell density-dependent proliferation, migration, and morphology. In addition to cell growth on plain substrates our model captured cell alignment on micro-structured surfaces. We propose a specific surface micro-structure that according to our simulations can substantially enlarge cell culture harvest. The 'tool box' of cell migratory behavior newly introduced in this study significantly enhances the bandwidth of IBM. Our approach is capable of accommodating individual cell behavior and collective cell dynamics of a variety of cell types and tissues in computational systems biology.


This study explores the use of sensory gardens by observing the zones and how they are utilised by children with special educational needs. Methods applied were interviews, observation and behaviour mapping, which was used in conjunction with the affordance theory. Affordance was categorised by landscape furniture, soft and hard landscape in relation to three categories of activities: Sensory stimulation, physical and social skills. The findings had discovered continuous pathways that link the sensory garden to the site context, had easy access to the features, and had the highest number of user. This study also found that users spent a longer time in zones where sensory, rather than aesthetic value, was emphasised.
Keywords: Accessibility, affordance, behaviour, sensory.
eISSN 2514-751X © 2017 The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.


OBJECTIVE
To determine what, if any, opportunity exists in using administrative medical claims data for supplemental reporting to the state infectious disease registry system.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Cases of five tick-borne (Lyme disease (LD), babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF), tularemia) and two mosquito-borne diseases (West Nile virus, La Crosse viral encephalitis) reported to the Tennessee Department of Health during 2000-2009 were selected for study. Similarly, medically diagnosed cases from a Tennessee-based managed care organization (MCO) claims data warehouse were extracted for the same time period. MCO and Tennessee Department of Health incidence rates were compared using a complete randomized block design within a general linear mixed model to measure potential supplemental reporting opportunity.

RESULTS
MCO LD incidence was 7.7 times higher (p<0.001) than that reported to the state, possibly indicating significant under-reporting (∼196 unreported cases per year). MCO data also suggest about 33 cases of RMSF go unreported each year in Tennessee (p<0.001). Three cases of babesiosis were discovered using claims data, a significant finding as this disease was only recently confirmed in Tennessee.

DISCUSSION
Data sharing between MCOs and health departments for vaccine information already exists (eg, the Vaccine Safety Datalink Rapid Cycle Analysis project). There may be a significant opportunity in Tennessee to supplement the current passive infectious disease reporting system with administrative claims data, particularly for LD and RMSF.

CONCLUSIONS
There are limitations with administrative claims data, but health plans may help bridge data gaps and support the federal administration's vision of combining public and private data into one source.


In cultured endothelial cells, 70-95% of extracellular l-arginine uptake has been attributed to the cationic amino acid transporter-1 protein (CAT-1). We tested the hypothesis that extracellular l-arginine entry into endothelial cells via CAT-1 plays a crucial role in endothelial nitric oxide (NO) production during in vivo conditions. Using l-lysine, the preferred amino acid transported by CAT-1, we competitively inhibited extracellular l-arginine transport into endothelial cells during conditions of NaCl hyperosmolarity, low oxygen, and flow increase. Our prior studies indicate that each of these perturbations causes NO-dependent vasodilation. The perivascular NO concentration ([NO]) and blood flow were determined in the in vivo rat intestinal microvasculature. Suppression of extracellular l-arginine transport significantly and strongly inhibited increases in vascular [NO] and intestinal blood flow during NaCl hyperosmolarity, lowered oxygen tension, and increased flow. These results suggest that l-arginine from the extracellular space is accumulated by CAT-1. When CAT-1-mediated transport of extracellular l-arginine into endothelial cells was suppressed, the endothelial cell NO response to a wide range of physiological stimuli was strongly depressed.


Sirtuin 1 (Sirt1) exerts its cardioprotective effects in various cardiovascular diseases via multiple cellular activities. However, the therapeutic implications of Sirt1 in hypoxic cardiomyocytes and the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. The present study investigated whether Sirt1 regulates autophagy and apoptosis in hypoxic H9C2 cardiomyocytes and in an experimental hypoxic mouse model. Right ventricular outflow tract biopsies were obtained from patients with cyanotic or acyanotic congenital heart diseases. Adenovirus Ad-Sirt1 was used to activate Sirt1 and Ad-Sh-Sirt1 was used to inhibit Sirt1 expression in H9C2 cells, in order to investigate the effect of Sirt1 on cellular autophagy and apoptosis. SRT1720, a pharmacological activator of Sirt1 and EX-527, a Sirt1 antagonist, were administered to mice to explore the role of Sirt1 in hypoxic cardiomyocytes in vivo. The levels of autophagy and apoptosis-related proteins were evaluated using western blotting. Apoptosis was investigated by TUNEL staining and Annexin V/7-aminoactinomycin D flow cytometry analysis. Heart tissue samples from cyanotic patients exhibited increased autophagy and apoptosis, as well as elevated Sirt1 levels, compared with the noncyanotic control samples. The data from the western blot analysis revealed that Sirt1 promoted autophagic flux and reduced apoptosis in hypoxic H9C2 cells. In addition, Sirt1 activated AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), and the AMPK inhibitor Compound C abolished the effect of Sirt1 on autophagy activation. Further exploration of the mechanism revealed that Sirt1 protects hypoxic cardiomyocytes from apoptosis, at least in part, through inositol requiring kinase enzyme 1α (IRE1α). Consistent with the in vitro results, treatment with the Sirt1 activator SRT1720 activated AMPK, inhibited IRE1α, enhanced autophagy, and decreased apoptosis in the heart tissues of normoxic mice compared with the hypoxia control group. Opposite changes were observed in hypoxic mice treated with the Sirt1 inhibitor EX-527. These results suggested that Sirt1 promoted autophagy via AMPK activation and reduced hypoxia-induced apoptosis via the IRE1α pathway, to protect cardiomyocytes from hypoxic stress.


massive Abstract The introduction of new, genetically diverse and divergent populations of Plasmodium falciparum parasites into a given location, due to population influx, may have serious public health consequences. This study compared the genetic diversity (GD) of P. falciparum amongst Cameroonian populations sampled before (2014) and after (2018) intensive and massive relocations due to civil unrest, from affected regions with different malaria dynamics to the capital city Yaounde. For each time point, a subset of 50 samples was retrieved from a pool of samples collected from participant children aged between 6 months and 18 years and adults attending the hospital for outpatient consultation. To precisely assess the breadth of P. falciparum diversity, genotyping was performed using 2 PCR-based techniques which were further evaluated for their performance: nested-PCR targeting the merozoite surface protein 2 ( msp2 ) gene and Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD-PCR) . Three of the 6 RAPD primers used (R8, E8, L12) yielded useful polymorphic patterns with higher genotyping rates (91-95%) than nested-PCR (67%). There was a significant difference between the 4 (3RAPD and msp2) primers used (ANOVA; P<0.001 ). Based on msp2 , the Multiplicity of Infection in 2014 was greater than in 2018 (2.28 vs. 1.97). The calculated mean of GD parameters across years and markers showed RAPD-R8 had the highest index of GD (Shannon's Index, Unbiased Nei-GD) except for the Percentage of Polymorphic Loci. These indices, based on RAPD-R8, confirmed the comparatively higher trend of GD in 2014 compared to 2018, respectively - 0.294 vs 0.246; 0.179 vs 0.156; 88.64 vs 75.0. Clustering analysis was also used as a proxy for population structure, with the msp2 -based UPGMA distance-tree depicting intermixed and epidemiologically related clonal populations of 2014 and 2018 across sub-trees. Interestingly, the distance-tree based on RAPD-R8 primer revealed 2 clearly distinct unrelated clusters for 2014 alone, suggesting different genetic backgrounds from the rest of intermixed populations. These observations warrant in-depth investigation into how human migration redistributes malaria diversity and the interest of targeting populations with different genetic background for diagnostic purpose.


We present a simple method for measuring end-to-end latency in graphical user interfaces. The method works with most optical mice and allows accurate and real time latency measures up to 5 times per second. In addition, the technique allows easy insertion of probes at different places in the system I.e. mouse events listeners - to investigate the sources of latency. After presenting the measurement method and our methodology, we detail the measures we performed on different systems, toolkits and applications. Results show that latency is affected by the operating system and system load. Substantial differences are found between C++/GLUT and C++/Qt or Java/Swing implementations, as well as between web browsers.


Abstract New geochronological data for the Haolibao porphyry Mo–Cu deposit, NE China, yield Permian crystallization zircon U–Pb ages of 278 ± 5 Ma for granite and 267 ± 10 Ma for the granite porphyry that hosts the Mo–Cu mineralization, and four Re–Os molybdenite ages yield an isochron age of 265 ± 3 Ma. These ages disagree with the previous K–Ar age determinations that suggest a correlation of intrusive rocks of the Haolibao area with the Yanshanian intrusive rocks of Cretaceous age. The mineralizations at the Haolibao area may be related to the tectonic–magmatic activity caused by collisional events between the North China Plate and Mongolian terranes during the Permian. The occurrence of the Haolibao plutonic rocks indicates that the Palaeo-Asian-Mongolian Ocean closed during the Permian along the Xilamulun River suture.


One of the most important issues is the study of healthy nutrition of the population of Kazakhstan. Proper nutrition provides growth, contributes to the prevention of diseases, increase efficiency and prolong life of people, while creating conditions for adequate adaptation to the environment. A large part of the population of Kazakhstan as a result of technological processing, the use of inferior in chemical composition of food raw materials, the influence of other causes, does not receive the necessary amount of essential components of food, which lead to illness, premature old age and shortened life. The situation is aggravated by the low cultural level of the population in terms of good nutrition and the lack of skills to lead a healthy lifestyle. The problem of quality and food safety, while food must have not only nutritional and physiological value, but also perform preventive functions.


An artificial neural network (ANN) based current controller for a HVDC transmission link is described in this paper. Different ANN architectures and activation functions (AFs) are investigated for this ANN controller. Small (set current change) and large (DC-line fault) signal perturbations are applied to optimize the learning parameters for the controller. Performance evaluation of the ANN controller under noise conditions is studied. A comparison between a traditional PI and the proposed ANN controller is made for various system contingencies and it is shown that the latter has many attractive features.


Road safety has during the last decades developed into a fully recognized global policy area through for example, the WHO road safety report from 2004, the declaration of the Decade of Action in 2011, and the inclusion of road safety in the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. Despite the progress made, being killed in road traffic is the 9th leading cause of death in the world and the leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 15–29 (WHO, 2015). Therefore it is crucial to continue to develop the global and national management of this policy area as well as to further improve the communication of best practice and make sure that enough resources are allocated to this policy area on both the international and national level. Research is scarce regarding the global governance of road safety. Most studies are related to specific measures, issues, or countries. The article presented is based on a study performed in 2016 and 2017 with the purpose to; 1) identify the main events, actors, policies, and measures on the global level, and 2) analyze the main opportunities and obstacles in the global management of the policy area for making progress. The study shows the importance of having many actors complementing each other in the work ahead. On the other hand, the study also shows that there is a need to further the knowledge about the role and work of different actors in order to progress as efficiently as possible. In addition, the study concludes that the vast number of actors can hamper the coherence regarding a common philosophy or model on how to work with road safety.


Myopathic Syrian hamsters (BIO 14.6) have less brown adipose tissue (BAT) than normal. The trophic response of this tissue to cold is smaller than normal and trophic responses to diet and to photoperiod are absent. The objective was to find out whether activity of thyroxine 5'-deiodinase in their BAT was increased normally in response to cold and thus whether a defect in endogenous production of 3,5,3'-triiodothyronine might underlie the attenuated trophic response. The effect of feeding a high-fat diet on activity of 5'-deiodinase was also studied. Cold acclimation increased thyroxine 5'-deiodinase activity in BAT of the myopathic hamster, but the total remained smaller than normal because of the smaller size. The cold-induced increase in concentration of mitochondrial uncoupling protein was also smaller than normal. The level of serum 3,5,3'-triiodothyronine was low in myopathic hamsters and remained lower than normal when they were cold-exposed or cold acclimated. Feeding the high-fat diet to myopathic hamsters resulted in a greater than normal suppression of thyroxine 5'-deiodinase activity than in normal hamsters; the normal increases in protein content and in concentration of mitochondrial uncoupling protein were absent. We conclude that the defective trophic response of BAT of the myopathic hamster is not secondary to defective regulation of its thyroxine 5'-deiodinase activity because this activity does not appear to be obligatorily linked to hypertrophy of BAT. The low level of serum 3,5,3'-triiodothyronine in the myopathic hamster may be secondary to reduced capacity for peripheral thyroxine deiodination in its BAT.


Ranging from David Garrick's Macbeth in the 1740s to the World Shakespeare Festival in London 2012, this is the first book to provide in-depth analysis of the history and practice of Shakespearean theatre reviewing. Reviewing Shakespeare describes the changing priorities and interpretative habits of theatre critics as they have both responded to and provoked innovations in Shakespearean performance culture over the last three centuries. It analyses the conditions – theatrical, journalistic, social and personal – in which Shakespearean reception has taken place, presenting original readings of the works of key critics (Shaw, Beerbohm, Agate, Tynan), whilst also tracking broader historical shifts in the relationship between reviewers and performance. Prescott explores the key function of the 'night-watch constable' in patrolling the boundaries of legitimate Shakespearean performance and offers a compelling account of the many ways in which newspaper reviews are uniquely fruitful documents for anyone interested in Shakespeare and the theatre.


The purposes of this research were to: 1) developed a WBI for Competency-Based Teaching Plan in Circuit Description and Microcomputer Maintenance Using PjBL with Blended Learning, 2) find performance of developed WBI 3) compare the students learning achievements before and after learning with the developed WBI, 4) study the students' satisfaction through the WBI. The target group, was 30 undergraduate students of Nakhon Pathom Rajabhat University, which derived from drawing a simple random sampling. The research tools used Competency-Based Teaching Plan MIAP Learning, Achievements Test, and questionnaire. The statistics used mean, standard deviation, E1/E2 and t-test. The result findings showed: 1) The performance of WBI developed with the 84.13/81.28 which was higher than the criteria defined is 80/80 2) the students learning achievements after learned higher than before learned was significantly at .01 levels; and 3) The results of the students' satisfaction to WBI were at a high level.


Until recently, the analysis of Class II genes linked to the rat major histocompatibility complex, RT1, has been confined to serologic and electrophoretic analysis of their gene products. To obtain a more definitive estimate of the number and relative polymorphism of RT1 Class II sequences, we performed Southern blot analysis of rat genomic DNA employing human cDNA probes specific for Class II heavy and light chain genes. Southern blots of EcoRI and BamHI digests of genomic DNA from ten inbred strains, expressing eight RT1 haplotypes, were hybridized with the human DQ beta or DR beta cDNA that are homologous to Class II light chain sequences. Four to eight bands were observed to hybridize with the light chain cDNA: band sizes ranged from 2.5 to 28 kb. Restriction fragment patterns were polymorphic; the only identical patterns observed were those associated with RT1 haplotypes with identical RT1.B regions. The number and size of bands hybridizing with DQ beta and DR beta suggested a minimum of four light chain sequences in each haplotype. Southern blots of BamHI and EcoRI digests of genomic DNA from the same strains were hybridized with a DR alpha cDNA that is homologous to Class II heavy chain sequences. All RT1 haplotypes expressed either a 10.0-kb or 13.0-kb band when digested with BamHI, and either a 17-kb or 3.7-kb band when digested with EcoRI. Considerably less polymorphism was detected with the DR alpha probe; this observation is consistent with previously reported limited protein polymorphism of the rat equivalent of the I-E alpha subunit. The size and number of bands hybridizing with the DR alpha probe suggests a minimum of two heavy chain sequences. These observations suggest that the RT1 complex includes more Class II sequences than have been observed in serologic and electrophoretic analyses of Class II gene products. Furthermore, the level of polymorphism of RT1 Class II sequences appears to be comparable with mouse and human Class II sequences.


The news industry has gone through seismic shifts in the past decade with digital content and social media completely redefining how people consume news. Readers check for accurate fresh news from multiple sources throughout the day using dedicated apps or social media on their smartphones and tablets. At the same time, news publishers rely more and more on social networks and citizen journalism as a frontline to breaking news. In this new era of fastflowing instant news delivery and consumption, publishers and aggregators have to overcomea great number of challenges. These include the verification or assessment of a source's reliability; the integration of news with other sources of information; real-time processing of both news content and social streams in multiple languages, in different formats and in high volumes; deduplication; entity detection and disambiguation; automatic summarization; and news recommendation. Although Information Retrieval (IR) applied to news has been a popular research area for decades, fresh approaches are needed due to the changing type and volume of media content available and the way people consume this content. Hence, the first international workshop on recent trends in News Information Retrieval (NewsIR) was held in conjunction with ECIR 2016. As part of the workshop, we released a new dataset consisting of one million news articles to the research community. The workshop was very well attended with around 70 registered participants. We received a healthy number of 19 submissions in total of which 12 were accepted for presentation. In addition to that, we were pleased to have two keynote talks by well-known experts in the field - on with an industry background (Jochen Leidner) and one from academia (Julio Gonzalo). The workshop also included a breakout session to discuss ideas for a future data challenge in news IR and closed with a focused panel discussion to reflect on the day. Throughout the day the workshop stimulated discussions around new and powerful uses of IR applied to news sources and the intersection of multiple IR tasks to solve real user problems. In particular, several ideas were presented on solving complex information needs for media monitoring, event detection and summarisation. Moreover, and going forward, the workshop concluded with a long list of suggestions for shared tasks, and dataset requirements.


Rapid urbanisation, industrialisation, and capitalist developments have changed human values to be driven by materialistic developments instead of ecological developments. This has caused ecological and social crises visible in the urban fabric. There is an urgent need for us to address the question of how can we develop lifestyles that are truly holistic and able to regenerate well-being of humans and it's environments without external helps.
This thesis explores the interrelationships of feng shui and regenerative development. It attempts to show the recognition of feng shui as an integral to regenerative development that can regenerate urban environment and achieves humans' well-being and harmony with nature. The thesis believes it will need to first remedy urban areas in order to regenerate the rest of the earth. It will explore the process of regeneration from micro to macro levels using feng shui and regenerative development, where it seeks to regenerate the city holistically as a whole.
I propose that feng shui becomes an intrinsic model for regenerative development. This discipline is able to solve ecology degradation issues, to provide awareness and realisations of the intrinsic values of cities, and act as a paradigm shift towards achieving regenerative development. This thesis also propose that medium-rises compact city model, which integrate regenerative development and feng shui principles, as a better solution to solve densification of urbanisation compared to building high-rises and skyscrapers.


Several studies have been done on methane (CH4) emissions from the agricultural sector from Asia, the United States and Australia however data from tropical South Pacific is
scarce. This presentation looks at the evaluation of CH4 emissions from the agricultural sector in Fiji particularly from rice cultivation and enteric fermentation. A passive observational study using the static chamber method was done on two rice (Oryza sativa
L.) varieties (Star and Totoka) to determine the seasonally integrated methane fluxes which were found to be 247.26 mg m-2day-1 and 134.27 gm-2day-1 for Star and Totoka respectively. Since there were statistically no significant differences (p-value > 0.05) between the means of the flux from the two varieties, an average flux value was used to determine the total CH4 emitted from the irrigated rice farms in Fiji. This equated to 0.06 Gg
year-1 for the year 2014. The flux values obtained over the season showed a weak positive correlation with light intensity levels, atmospheric and chamber temperatures for both varieties. The other aspect of this presentation is the estimation of the total annual CH4 flux from enteric fermentation. These were determined to be 2.64 Gg yr-1, 2.46 Gg yr-1, 0.19 Gg yr-1, 0.08 Gg yr-1 and 0.03 Gg yr-1 for beef, dairy cows, goat, sheep and pig respectively based on the livestock population in 2014 using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models and guidelines. On a global scale, methane emissions from enteric fermentation is increasing however in Fiji there is a slow rise compared to other developed
and developing countries. The total methane emissions from the agricultural sector in 2014 that includes emissions from enteric fermentation and two rice ecosystems (irrigated and rainfed) was 154179.93 tonnes of CO2 equivalent. The emission factor determined in this
project will validate national greenhouse gas inventory and be instrumental in projecting future emissions from the agricultural sector.


The product of Snail1 gene is a transcriptional repressor of E-cadherin expression and an inductor of the epithelial–mesenchymal transition in several epithelial tumour cell lines. Transcription of Snail1 is induced when epithelial cells are forced to acquire a mesenchymal phenotype. In this work we demonstrate that Snail1 protein limits its own expression: Snail1 binds to an E-box present in its promoter (at −146 with respect to the transcription start) and represses its activity. Therefore, mutation of the E-box increases Snail1 transcription in epithelial and mesenchymal cells. Evidence of binding of ectopic or endogenous Snail1 to its own promoter was obtained by chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) experiments. Studies performed expressing different forms of Snail1 under the control of its own promoter demonstrate that disruption of the regulatory loop increases the cellular levels of Snail protein. These results indicate that expression of Snail1 gene can be regulated by its product and evidence the existence of a fine-tuning feed-back mechanism of regulation of Snail1 transcription.


During August 25–30, 2017, Hurricane Harvey stalled over Texas and caused extreme precipitation, particularly over Houston and the surrounding area on August 26–28. This resulted in extensive flooding with over 80 fatalities and large economic costs. It was an extremely rare event: the return period of the highest observed three-day precipitation amount, 1043.4 mm 3dy−1 at Baytown, is more than 9000 years (97.5% one-sided confidence interval) and return periods exceeded 1000 yr (750 mm 3dy−1) over a large area in the current climate. Observations since 1880 over the region show a clear positive trend in the intensity of extreme precipitation of between 12% and 22%, roughly two times the increase of the moisture holding capacity of the atmosphere expected for 1 °C warming according to the Clausius–Clapeyron (CC) relation. This would indicate that the moisture flux was increased by both the moisture content and stronger winds or updrafts driven by the heat of condensation of the moisture. We also analysed extreme rainfall in the Houston area in three ensembles of 25 km resolution models. The first also shows 2 × CC scaling, the second 1 × CC scaling and the third did not have a realistic representation of extreme rainfall on the Gulf Coast. Extrapolating these results to the 2017 event, we conclude that global warming made the precipitation about 15% (8%–19%) more intense, or equivalently made such an event three (1.5–5) times more likely. This analysis makes clear that extreme rainfall events along the Gulf Coast are on the rise. And while fortifying Houston to fully withstand the impact of an event as extreme as Hurricane Harvey may not be economically feasible, it is critical that information regarding the increasing risk of extreme rainfall events in general should be part of the discussion about future improvements to Houston's flood protection system.


M‐DNA is a novel duplex conformation in which metal ions such as Co2+, Ni2+ or Zn2+ replace the imino protons of every base pair. An ethidium fluorescence assay was used to estimate lesions in M‐DNA induced by γ‐ and UV radiation. General damage to DNA was assessed from the loss of ethidium fluorescence after irradiation of calf thymus DNA. Crosslinks were measured from the return of ethidium fluorescence after a heating and cooling step. Strand breaks were estimated from the loss of fluorescence in covalently closed circular plasmid DNA after a heating and cooling step. For the Co2+ form of M‐DNA, γ‐radiation caused the very efficient formation of crosslinks which was not observed with B‐DNA nor with the Ni2+ or Zn2+ forms of M‐DNA. The crosslinks occurred in both A–T and G–C base pairs but did not form in the presence of a free radical scavenger. Crosslinks induced by UV radiation also formed at a faster rate in the Co2+, Ni2+ and Zn2+ forms of M‐DNA compared to B‐DNA; crosslinking occurred in all DNA but was more prominent in AT‐rich sequences and was not inhibited by a free radical scavenger. Therefore, the presence of certain metal ions may lead to large increases in the formation of radiation‐induced crosslinks in DNA.


Life history invariants play a pivotal role in the study of social adaptation: they provide theoretical hypotheses that can be empirically tested, and benchmark frameworks against which new theoretical developments can be understood. Here we derive a novel invariant for dispersal evolution: the "constant philopater hypothesis" (CPH). Specifically, we find that, irrespective of variation in maternal fecundity, all mothers are favoured to produce exactly the same number of philopatric offspring, with high-fecundity mothers investing proportionally more, and low-fecundity mothers investing proportionally less, into dispersing offspring. This result holds for female and male dispersal, under haploid, diploid and haplodiploid modes of inheritance, irrespective of the sex ratio, local resource availability, and whether mother or offspring controls the latter's dispersal propensity. We explore the implications of this result for evolutionary conflicts of interest – and the exchange and withholding of contextual information – both within and between families, and we show that the CPH is the fundamental invariant that underpins and explains a wider family of invariance relationships that emerge from the study of social evolution.


Candida-associated denture stomatitis (CADS) is a significant clinical concern. We have demonstrated that urethane-based denture biomaterials with 10% methacrylic acid (MAA) could bind and then slowly release antifungal drug for months. Drugs on the resins could be repeatedly quenched/recharged, and in subsequent recharging, they could be changed/switched to more potent/effective ones. However, the physical/mechanical properties and biocompatibility of the new MAA-based resins are currently unknown. The objective of the current study is to evaluate the effects of copolymerization with MAA on physical/mechanical properties and biocompatibility of urethane-based denture resin materials. MAA and diurethane dimethacrylate (UDMA) were copolymerized using initiator azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN). Water sorption and solubility were assessed with the specifications of ISO (International Standards Organization) test method 1567, flexural strength and modulus were measured according to ASTM D-790, and biocompatibility was preliminarily evaluated in cytotoxicity assay using mouse 3T3 fibroblast cells with the trypan blue method. The results demonstrated that copolymerization of UDMA with up to 10% MAA did not negatively affect water sorption/solubility, flexural strength/modulus, and biocompatibility. With 20% MAA, however, the mechanical properties of the resulting resins were significantly decreased. To sum up, UDMA-MAA copolymers with up to 10% MAA had adequate physical/mechanical properties for denture materials with no side effects on cell viability. The UDMA-MAA denture biomaterials have a good potential to be used clinically for managing CADS and other related infectious conditions.


Aragonite formation and stabilisation in seawater is still an area of active investigation since the thermodynamically stable product at room temperature is calcite. In this manuscript, purely inorganic systems that were found to stabilise aragonite were analysed by various techniques. Dynamic Light Scattering was used to characterise the nucleation behaviour of the system and it was found that the presence of magnesium ions during crystal formation inhibits nucleation overall, not just calcite nucleation. In addition, it was found that sulfate is not necessary to stabilise aragonite. Microanalysis by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) revealed that the aragonite that was formed had a disordered core with, sodium, magnesium and sulfate ions incorporated into the structure. To the best of the authors' knowledge this is the first time an ACC core in aragonite has been visualised in a completely abiotic, synthetic system (in the absence of organic molecules). Inclusion of these impurities into the structure may explain the stability of aragonite in natural seawaters.


With the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors decreasing the particle removal requirements from 125nm (0.3–0.75/cm2) in 1997 to 25nm (0.01–0.15/cm2) in 2011, an era of the most challenging cleaning applications in semiconductor manufacturing is upon us [1. Megasonic cleaning is a widely used non-contact cleaning technique. In megasonic cleaning, wafers are immersed in a cleaning liquid medium to which sonic energy is applied. High intensity sound waves generate pressure fluctuations and acoustic streaming which detach the particles from the surface and remove them. Busnaina et al [2–3 studied megasonic particle removal and the effect of acoustic streaming on the cleaning process especially in post-CMP applications. It is important to know the advantage and the limitation of megasonic cleaning technique in nano-scale particles removal.


Introduction Thromboembolism, notwithstanding its increasing rate in the last decade, remains a rare disorder in children. Its development is a consequence of a long and varied list of congenital or acquired risk factors. Approximately 95% of children with such a pathology have one or more underlying risk factors, the majority of them having even more than one. Objective We would like to draw the attention on the exceptionally rare thromboembolic disorders lacking, at least at admission, risk factors for them. Patients and methods From the relatively large list of patients admitted during a year in the clinic with thromboembolic disorder (14), we selected three patients, without personal or familial risk factors, illustrating severe life-threatening conditions, generated by an unexpectedly developed thromboembolism. An extensive workup (thrombophilia, surgery, insertion of arterial or venous catheters, surgery, immobilisation, malignancy, congenital heart disease, aso) was performed for explanation of the pathogenic background and for tackling an adapted, more efficacious therapy. Results and discussion It is a heterogeneous group of three patients: a new-born with thrombosis of inferior cava vein extended in both renal veins, a school boy with peripheral pulmonary thromboembolism of multiple segmental and sub-segmental arteries, severe pulmonary hypertension and cardiac insufficiency NYHA IV and an adolescent with peripheral pulmonary thromboembolism with right pulmonary infarction, without pulmonary hypertension and cardiac insufficiency. Conclusion Thromboembolism can encompass all paediatric ages, from new-borns, infants, to children and adolescents. Considering their potential severity and the relative high risk of recurrence rate an optimal diagnostic approach and therapeutical management are of life importance.


INTRODUCTION AND AIMS
Polysubstance users are a high-risk population for negative health-related consequences. Although some studies have described harm reduction strategies adopted by polysubstance users, studies have not examined their effectiveness in minimising health-related consequences. We aimed to identify dosing-related harm reduction strategies in a sample of polysubstance-using dance festival attendees, and explore the relationship between harm reduction strategies and self-reported adverse health consequences.

DESIGN AND METHODS
Data were examined for 1226 past-year dance festival attendees who self-identified as past-year multiple drug users. We conducted bivariable and multivariable analyses to explore relationships between six dosing-related harm reduction strategies and 13 self-reported adverse consequences.

RESULTS
Self-reported use of dosing-related harm reduction strategies was prevalent, mainly avoidance of mixing depressants (69.2%) and setting limits on quantity (62.2%). Frequent users of harm reduction strategies reported experiencing fewer adverse health consequences (P values < 0.05). Those who reportedly set limits on quantity were at decreased odds of experiencing a bad mood after drug use, sexual difficulties while under drug influence, injuries or fractures while under drug influence, and involvement in fights or being attacked while under drug influence (P values < 0.05). Moreover, those who report frequently avoid mixing depressants were at decreased odds of experiencing headache, loss of consciousness, drop in blood pressure, injuries of fractures, and fights or attacks (P values < 0.05).

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Adoption of dosing-related harm reduction strategies appears to be associated with less drug-related harm among polysubstance-using festival attendees. Findings may inform organisations and policymakers in the designing of harm reduction interventions with this population.


Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) have numerous effects on temperate grassland ecosystems, but prairie restorations are frequently located in sites with depauperate AMF communities. In this greenhouse study, four native species (Schizachyrium scoparium, Elymus canadensis, Monarda punctata, and Aster ericoides) and an invasive grass (Bromus inermis) were grown in unsterilized field soils and treated with two types of commercial AMF inoculum. Inocula were applied at one and two times the manufacturers' suggested rate. Soil was collected from a meadow enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), and from an active agricultural field. Inoculum addition had no effect on biomass or percent colonization by AMF for any grass species, regardless of soil type. Inoculum type significantly affected Aster biomass and percent colonization, although pairwise comparisons of treated individuals and controls were not significant. The overall lack of effectiveness of the commercial inocula may reflect the small number of propagules added, even when used at twice the recommended rate. Higher rates of fungal colonization in all three grasses and increased biomass in the native grasses were observed in individuals grown in the CRP soil. Plants were also colonized by dark septate endophytic fungi; for Schizachyrium, endophyte colonization was significantly greater in tilled than CRP soil. Our results indicate that an existing soil fungal community promotes colonization by AMF more than the addition of commercial inocula, and that soil characteristics associated with land use history significantly affect the growth of native species in a restoration setting.


An interferometric method is presented that has been successfully used to measure the alignment precision of different mask patterns superimposed on a silicon wafer in the lithographic process. Based on an extremely precise electrooptical phase measurement technique this method is capable of measuring the relative pattern displacement with precision in the nanometer region. The principle of the measurement technique is described. Results of experiments are discussed including suggestions for improving the measurement precision.


Comparisons of genomes from recently diverged butterfly populations along a suture zone in central Texas have revealed high levels of divergence on the Z chromosome relative to autosomes, as measured by fixation index, Fst. The pattern of divergence appears to result from accumulation of incompatible alleles, obstructing introgression on the Z chromosome in hybrids. However, it is unknown whether this mechanism is sufficient to explain the data. Here, we simulate the effects of hybrid incompatibility on interbreeding butterfly populations using a model in which populations accumulate cross–incompatible alleles in allopatry prior to contact. We compute statistics for introgression and population divergence during contact between model butterfly populations and compare them to statistics obtained for 15 pairs of butterfly species interbreeding along the Texas suture zone. For populations that have evolved sufficiently in allopatry, the model exhibits high levels of divergence on the Z chromosome relative to autosomes in populations inter-breeding on time scales comparable to periods of interglacial contact between butterfly populations in central Texas. Levels of divergence on the Z chromosome increase when interacting groups of genes are closely linked, consistent with interacting clusters of functionally related genes in butterfly genomes. Results for various periods in allopatry are in qualitative agreement with the pattern of data for butterflies, supporting a picture of speciation in which populations are subjected to cycles of divergence in glacial isolation, and partial fusion during interglacial contact.


Abstract Introduction Airway management is one of many challenges that medical providers face in disaster response operations. The use of personal protective equipment (PPE), in particular, was found to be associated with higher failure rates and a prolonged time to achieve airway control. Hypothesis/Problem The objective of this study was to determine whether video laryngoscopy could facilitate the performance of endotracheal intubation by disaster responders wearing Level C PPE. Methods In this prospective, randomized, crossover study, a convenience sample of practicing prehospital providers were recruited. Following standardized training in PPE use and specific training in the use of airway devices, subjects in Level C PPE were observed while performing endotracheal intubation on a stock airway in a Laerdal Resusci-Anne manikin system (Laerdal Medical; Stavanger, Norway) using one of three laryngoscopic devices in randomized order: a Macintosh direct laryngoscope (Welch Allyn Inc.; New York USA), a GlideScope Ranger video laryngoscope (Verathon Medical; Bothell, Washington USA), and a King Vision video laryngoscope (King Systems; Noblesville, Indiana USA). The primary outcome was time to intubation (TTI), and the secondary outcome was participant perception of the ease of use for each device. Results A total of 20 prehospital providers participated in the study: 18 (90%) paramedics and two (10%) Emergency Medical Technicians-Cardiac. Participants took significantly longer when using the GlideScope Ranger [35.82 seconds (95% CI, 32.24-39.80)] to achieve successful intubation than with the Macintosh laryngoscope [25.69 seconds (95% CI, 22.42-29.42); adj. P<.0001] or the King Vision [29.87 seconds (95% CI, 26.08-34.21); adj. P=.033], which did not significantly differ from each other (adj. P=.1017). Self-reported measures of satisfaction evaluated on a 0% to 100% visual analog scale (VAS) identified marginally greater subject satisfaction with the King Vision [86.7% (SD=76.4-92.9%)] over the GlideScope Ranger [73.0% (SD=61.9-81.8%); P=.04] and the Macintosh laryngoscope [69.9% (SD=57.9-79.7%); P=.05] prior to adjustment for multiplicity. The GlideScope Ranger and the Macintosh laryngoscope did not differ themselves (P=.65), and the differences were not statistically significant after adjustment for multiplicity (adj. P=.12 for both comparisons). Conclusion Use of video laryngoscopes by prehospital providers in Level C PPE did not result in faster endotracheal intubation than use of a Macintosh laryngoscope. The King Vision video laryngoscope, in particular, performed at least as well as the Macintosh laryngoscope and was reported to be easier to use. YousifS, MachanJT, AlaskaY, SunerS. Airway management in disaster response: a manikin study comparing direct and video laryngoscopy for endotracheal intubation by prehospital providers in Level C personal protective equipment. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2017;32(4):352–356.


A complex analysis of 315 cases of verified traumatic intracranial hematomas helped single out clinical phases marking their evolution, viz. compensations, sub-compensation, moderate decompensation, gross decompensation and terminal ones. A relation between the frequency of and sequence in the development of clinical phases of the brain compression by the hematoma and severity of the primary lesion of the brain at the moment of an injury was established. A direct connection between the results of the surgical treatment of intracranial hematomas and the clinical phase in which the patient underwent the operation was ascertained. A proposition is advanced as to an active diagnosing of intracranial hematomas by which is meant elimination of topical and nosological doubts and performance of an effective operation pre-emptive to the onset of a gross clinical decompensation of the injury.


In the current drilling environment, the industry is facing greater pressure-related challenges while developing mature and unconventional fields, both on land and offshore. Additionally, there is greater focus on improving the feasibility of tight pore-pressure/fracture-gradient wells, safety, and increasing efficiency. The challenges that are present while drilling these wells with these tight conditions, are solved by a technique called Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD), which is defined by the International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC), as an adaptive process used to control the annular pressure profile throughout the wellbore. Among the MPD techniques, it is found one that maintains the pressure at the bottom of the well constant, and in order to face this challenge, Drillmec S.p.A. has developed a Continuous Circulation System (CCS) that accomplishes this goal, named Heart of Drilling (HoD®). It is important to notice that while the MPD techniques allows the drilling operation to be done in challenging environments it also adds more equipment to the drilling rig, turning the operations to be more complex and potentially riskier. This study describes the risk assessment performed for the system, starting from a risk identification, then an analysis and an evaluation The principal part of this study is focused on a qualitative examination of the continuous circulation device and its potential consequences, then, a quantitative analysis that provides the probability of failure of the equipment. The methodology followed provides a rational framework that allows to quantify the risk from tools utilised on the offshore field. The results of the analysis revealed that the possible failure scenarios that might arise from the utilisation of the CCS are directly connected with electrical failures of the tool while running, or the possibility of a malfunction on the software that controls the equipment, rather than mechanical problems.


dependent of the area of liposclerosis at the beginning of treatment. With leg ulcers there is some evidence' that healing follows a logarithmic curve, large ulcers healing faster than small ones. This biological phenomenon may well apply to the healing of liposclerosis; if so transformationof the data is essential before paired comparisons are made. In the discussion the authors mention that other methods of assessing healing, such as percentage change, appeared to offer no advantages, but in what respect ? HAYDN L MUSTON


Results of a recent extended study of prolapse surgery showed that in 60% of women, two common procedures failed within 5 years, but patients still reported a higher quality of life than before the surgery. Plus: ACOG has released a revised Committee Opinion to emphasize the idea of the "fourth trimester" in an attempt to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality numbers. Also: A recent study suggests that entering menopause later in life may be associated with a small boost in memory performance years later.


The international main goal is to reduce mother-to-child HIV transmission. The appro- priate birth delivery for seropositive woman has been analyzed since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Although at the beginning of HIV pandemic delivery by caesarian section (C-section) was considered mandatory in many studies and meta-analyses, recent information reveal limited benefits. Mother-to-child transmission is higher when moth - ers are diagnosed late during pregnancy, in advanced stages with a high HIV viral load, and labor with membranes ruptured for more than 4 h, especially when the antiretrovi- ral treatment is not respected. During vaginal delivery, the risk of HIV transmitting to infant is due to microtransfusions during uterine contractions or by newborn exposure to cervicovaginal secretions or blood. Although the indication of C-section in HIV-positive women is controversial, there are some situations in which C-section remains manda- tory. In mothers diagnosed late during pregnancy, in situation in which HIV viral load is not affordable in real time in the last trimester of pregnancy, and in mothers with poor adherence to antiretroviral treatment, C-section remains one of the most important measures of prevention for HIV mother-to-child transmission.


Hypertension is a prevalent disease affecting one in three adults in the United States. Approximately 25 % of the adult population is either not receiving therapy for their hypertension or is unable to control their blood pressure with current therapies, making treatment of hypertension an important public health goal. In blood pressure regulation, PGE2 can act in a pro-hypertensive or anti-hypertensive manner. It has been demonstrated that EP2 and EP4 receptors mediate the vasodepressor actions of PGE2 and EP1 and EP3 receptors mediate the vasopressor actions of PGE2. Additionally, PGE2 and the EP1 receptor have been demonstrated to mediate at least part of the actions of angiotensin II.
I sought to determine the contribution of EP1 and/or EP3 receptors to hypertensive end-organ damage and diabetic nephropathy. In this dissertation, I utilize mice with genetic disruption of EP1 or EP3 receptors and characterize the outcomes of several models of hypertensive organ damage. In the Nphx/DOCA-NaCl/Ang II model of hypertension, I have demonstrated that disruption of EP1 or EP3 can afford substantial protection from end-organ damage and reduce incidence of mortality. The beneficial effects of EP1 disruption, and likely EP3 disruption, appear to be a result of reduction in MAP in this model. The use of another model involving uninephrectomy and Ang II on a 129S6 background suggests the EP1 receptor plays an important role in hypertensive renal disease independent of blood pressure reduction. Furthermore, genetic disruption of EP1 protected eNOS-/- mice from diabetes-induced proteinuria, independent of blood pressure reduction.
In summary, the data presented in this dissertation advances our knowledge of the role of EP1 and EP3 receptors in hypertension and subsequent sequalae and demonstrate a detrimental role of EP1 in this disease. Targeting the EP1 receptor may be a viable pharmaceutical treatment strategy for hypertension and subsequent organ damage.


Abstract Astrophysicists are increasingly taking into account the effects of orbiting companions on stellar evolution. New discoveries have underlined the role of binary star interactions in a range of astrophysical events, including some that were previously interpreted as being due uniquely to single stellar evolution. We review classical binary phenomena, such as type Ia supernovae, and discuss new phenomena, such as intermediate luminosity transients, gravitational wave-producing double black holes, and the interaction between stars and their planets. Finally, we reassess well-known phenomena, such as luminous blue variables, in light of interpretations that include both single and binary stars. At the same time we contextualise the new discoveries within the framework of binary stellar evolution. The last decade has seen a revival in stellar astrophysics as the complexity of stellar observations is increasingly interpreted with an interplay of single and binary scenarios. The next decade, with the advent of massive projects such as the Square Kilometre Array, the James Webb Space Telescope, and increasingly sophisticated computational methods, will see the birth of an expanded framework of stellar evolution that will have repercussions in many other areas of astrophysics such as galactic evolution and nucleosynthesis.