The fluid flow and solute transport through fractures in rocks are processes that have importance for many areas of the geosciences, ranging from groundwater hydrology to petroleum engineering. It is well known that fractures play an important role in flow and transport processes through geologic formation and number of environmentally relevant problems require the analysis of mass transport in subsurface systems. As Qatar»s aquifer is Karstic, the development of an appropriate numerical model is necessary to take account the high contrast between the fractures and the porous matrix. Fractures are the set of rock discontinuities that can occur in geological formations at different scales. They intensively affect the transport processes because they represent the preferential flow and mass migration paths. In this study, we introduce an adaptation of the Eulerian Lagrangian Localized Adjoint Method (ELLAM) [1] for the simulation of mass transport in fractured porous media. The fractures are represented explicitly using the discrete fracture model (DFM) which handles explicitly the fractures and matrix. It involves describing each fracture individually and discretizing fractures as well as matrix [2]. Specific physical and geometrical properties are imposed for the fractures and matrix domains. This model can be used in the domains where a relatively small number of fractures exist. DFM is the most accurate model because fractures are considered without any simplification. However, this model requires enormous computational time and memory due to the dense meshes resulting from the explicit discretization of the fractures. As a consequence, its use requires highly efficient numerical methods for solving the flow and mass transport. The flow problem is solved using the Mixed Hybrid Finite Element Method (MHFEM) [3] which is well known to be accurate and efficient for complex geometries. It provides consistent and accurate velocity even in highly heterogeneous domain, which is a relevant property for flow in FPM. The obtained velocity field is then used to solve the mass transport problem with ELLAM. ELLAM combines an Eulerian and Lagrangian treatments without any splitting procedure by considering trial functions that depend on time and space. The results obtained by Celia et al. [1] demonstrated the mass conservation of the ELLAM in its formulation and its high computational efficiency compared to classical numerical method. In this work, a new ELLAM implementation is developed to address numerical artifacts (spurious oscillations and numerical dispersion) arising from the high contrast of velocities between fractures and porous matrix. Moreover, the efficiency of the developed ELLAM implementation was improved, taking advantage of the parallel computing on shared memory architecture for the tasks related to particles tracking and linear system resolving. The performance of ELLAM was tested by comparison against the Eulerian discontinuous Galerkin method based on several benchmarks dealing with different fracture configurations. The results highlight the robustness and accuracy of ELLAM, as it allows the use of large time steps, and overcomes the Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy (CFL) restriction. This work contribute to the Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) project of Qatar which aims at artificially storing water in the aquifer for future use by developing an efficient and accurate model for mass transport in fractured porous media. References [1] Celia, M.A., Russell, T.F., Herrera, I., Ewing, R.E.: An Eulerian-Lagrangian localized adjoint method for the advection-diffusion equation. Advances in Water Resources. 13, 187–206 (1990). doi:10.1016/0309-1708(90)90041-2 [2] Karimi-Fard, M., Durlofsky, L.J., Aziz, K.: An Efficient Discrete-Fracture Model Applicable for General-Purpose Reservoir Simulators. SPE Journal. 9, 227–236 (2004). doi:10.2118/88812-PA [3] Younes, A., Ackerer, P., Delay, F.: Mixed finite elements for solving 2-D diffusion-type equations. Reviews of Geophysics. 48, (2010). doi:10.1029/2008RG000277


Machine Translation (MT) systems based on Data-Oriented Parsing (DOP: Bod, 1998) and LFG-DOP
(Bod & Kaplan, 1998) may be viewed as instances of Example-Based MT (EBMT). In both approaches,
new translations are processed with respect to previously seen translations residing in the system's
database. We describe the DOT models of translation (Poutsma 1998; 2000) based on DOP. We demon-
strate that DOT1 is not guaranteed to produce the correct translation, despite provably deriving the
most probable translation. The DOT2 translation model solves most of the problems of DOT1, but
suffers from limited compositionality when confronted with certain data. Notwithstanding the success
of DOT2, any system based purely on trees will ultimately be found wanting as a general solution to
the wide diversity of translation problems, as certain linguistic phenomena require a description at levels
deeper than surface syntax. We then show how LFG-DOP can be extended to serve as a novel hybrid
model for MT, LFG-DOT (Way, 2001), which promises to improve upon DOT and other EBMT systems.


Prawn cultivation is a huge source of foreign exchange and income for the national economy but the effect it has on the people involved in it and its environmental impact is neglected. In Chilika Lake prawn cultivation has become a common sight. But the pattern of prawn cultivation and the methods used is not found to be sustainable. The small and poor farmers are also not the ones who gain huge profit and they remain deprived. This has adversely affected the living style of the poor fishermen. The impact is also on the social, cultural, environmental frontiers. So, this study is carried out in Chilika Lake where prawn cultivation has decreased over the years. The studies analyze the socio-economic condition of the people involved in prawn cultivation and examine its environmental impact. The previous studies in this area have not taken both the socio-economic and environmental consequences together. But, the study has been conducted with the help of schedule survey, personal interview and participation observation using random sampling method. Around 60% of the total population has been interviewed for this study. The primary data has been collected from primary source through questionnaire and secondary data has been collected from different secondary sources such as Directorate of fisheries, Govt of Odisha, research papers and reports. The present study finds that most of the prawn cultivators belonged to poor socio-economic condition and the cultivation in the area has resulted in environmental degradation of that place. The study suggest that, Govt should give more focus on implementing polices for the sustenance of their livelihood and take measures to conserve the environment around Chilika Lake.


This project aims to compose background music in real-time for tabletop role-playing games. To accomplish this goal, we propose a system called MTG that listens to players' speeches in order to recognize the context of the current scene and generate background music to match the scene. A speech recognition system is used to transcribe players' speeches to text and a supervised learning algorithm detects when scene transitions take place. In its current version, a scene transition occurs whenever the emotional state of the narrative changes. Moreover, the background music is not generated, but selected based on its emotion from a library of hand-authored pieces. As future work, we plan to generate the background music considering the current scene context and the probability of scene transition. We also consider to retrieve more information from the narrative to detect scene transitions, such as the scene's location and time of the day as well as actions taken by characters.


Background: Adjuvant hormone treatment of postmenopausal breast cancer is mainly based on aromatase inhibitors. Adverse events associated with such class of drugs are particularly severe in elderly patients. Therefore, we investigated the possibility of ab initio predict which elderly patients could encounter toxicity. Methods: In light of national and international oncological guidelines recommending the use of screening tests for multidimensional geriatric assessment in elderly patients aged ≥70 years and eligible for active cancer treatment, we assessed whether the Vulnerable Elder Survey (VES)-13 and the Geriatric (G)-8 could be predictors of toxicity associated with aromatase inhibitors. Seventy-seven consecutive patients aged ≥70 diagnosed with non-metastatic hormone-responsive breast cancer and therefore eligible for adjuvant hormone therapy with aromatase inhibitors, were screened with the VES-13 and the G-8, and underwent a six-monthly clinical and instrumental follow-up in our medical oncology unit, from September 2016 to March 2019 (30 months). Said patients were identified as vulnerable (VES-13 score ≥3 or G-8 score ≤14) and fit (VES-13 score <3 or G-8 score >14). The likelihood of experiencing toxicity is greater among vulnerable patients. Results: The correlation between the VES-13 or the G-8 tools and the presence of adverse events is equal to 85.7% (p = 0.03). The VES-13 demonstrated 76.9% sensitivity, 90.2% specificity, 80.0% positive predictive value, 88.5% negative predictive value. The G-8 demonstrated 79.2% sensitivity, 88.7% specificity, 76% positive predictive value, 90.4% negative predictive value. Conclusion: The VES-13 and the G-8 tools could be valuable predictors of the onset of toxicity associated with aromatase inhibitors in the adjuvant treatment of breast cancer in elderly patients aged ≥70.


ABSTRACT Although widely used for the characterization of the transmission of intestinal Cryptosporidium spp., genotyping tools are not available for C. muris and C. andersoni, two of the most common gastric Cryptosporidium spp. infecting mammals. In this study, we screened the C. muris whole-genome sequencing data for microsatellite and minisatellite sequences. Among the 13 potential loci (6 microsatellite and 7 minisatellite loci) evaluated by PCR and DNA sequencing, 4 were eventually chosen. DNA sequence analyses of 27 C. muris and 17 C. andersoni DNA preparations showed the presence of 5 to 10 subtypes of C. muris and 1 to 4 subtypes of C. andersoni at each locus. Altogether, 11 C. muris and 7 C. andersoni multilocus sequence typing (MLST) subtypes were detected among the 16 C. muris and 12 C. andersoni specimens successfully sequenced at all four loci. In all analyses, the C. muris isolate (TS03) that originated from an East African mole rat differed significantly from other C. muris isolates, approaching the extent of genetic differences between C. muris and C. andersoni. Thus, an MLST technique was developed for the high-resolution typing of C. muris and C. andersoni. It should be useful for the characterization of the population genetics and transmission of gastric Cryptosporidium spp.


Food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome (FPIES) is an allergic disease, probably non-IgE-mediated, with expression predominantly in the GI tract. The most characteristic symptom is repeated, debilitating vomiting. It occurs 2−6 h after ingestion of culprit food and is usually accompanied by pallor and lethargy. There may be diarrhea, and in 10−20% of cases, severe hypotension. These symptoms resolve completely within a few hours. The food most frequently involved is cow's milk, followed by rice, but many other foods may be involved. The prognosis is generally good in a few years. In this review the authors try to cope, with the help of some case histories, with the practical clinical aspects of FPIES. The authors also try to provide a management approach based on current knowledge, and finally, to point out the aspects of FPIES that are still controversial.


A program derivation is said to be polytypic if some of its parameters are data types. Often these data types are container types, whose elements store data. Polytypic program derivations necessitate a general, non-inductive definition of 'container (data) type'. Here we propose such a definition: a container type is a relator that has membership. It is shown how this definition implies various other properties that are shared by all container types. In particular, all container types have a unique strength, and all natural transformations between container types are strong.


Th e purpose of this study is to examine if attachment styles predict emotional intelligence (intrapersonal, interpersonal, adaptability, stress management, and general mood). Participants of the study consisted of 463 (272 females, 191 males) undergraduate students selected randomly from diff erent faculties of Selcuk University. Regression and correlation analyses were used for data analysis. Results indicate that there is a significant positive correlation between the secure attachment style and all subscales of emotional intelligence abilities. Results also indicate that attachment styles significantly explain emotional intelligence and secure attachment style predict all sub-dimensions of emotional intelligence.


This paper tackle the problem of coverage in IEEE 802.11 in mesh mode. Instead of omnidirectional coverage, we propose to use directional coverage that can increase the distance between the nodes. The use of directional antenna have two main advantages. The first is to increase the performance of QoS of considered services. The second is that using directional antenna allows to improve the spatial reuse of the wireless channel, which allows nodes to communicate simultaneously without interference, and potentially establish links between nodes far away from each other, and the number of routing hops can be fewer than that of omnidirectional antennas. We also propose an new amendment to reduce the routing overhead related to the use of multiple interfaces. We have evaluated the performance of the proposed architecture and we show with numerical results that the use of directional coverage outperform the omnidirectional coverage.


Background Tumor necrosis factor receptor-associated periodic syndrome (TRAPS) is an autosomal-dominant autoinflammatory disease caused by mutations in the TNFRSF1A gene. R92Q, a low-penetrance variant, is usually associated with a milder TRAPS phenotype than structural or pathogenic mutations. No studies differentiating R92Q-related disease in patients with pediatric and adult onset have been performed to date. Objective To analyze clinical features and disease outcomes in patients diagnosed with TRAPS associated with R92Q variant and to investigate differences between patients with pediatric and adult disease onset. Methods A retrospective review of patients with R92Q-related disease from four reference centers for autoinflammatory diseases was performed. Clinical and laboratory features, family history of autoinflammatory diseases, treatments received, and outcomes during follow-up were recorded and separately analyzed in pediatric and adult patients. Our results were included in the analysis with other reported pediatric and adult R92Q-related disease series. Results Our series encompassed 18 patients (9 females and 9 males) with R92Q variant. In 61% of patients, disease onset occurred during infancy and in 39%, during adulthood, with a median diagnostic delay of 5 years and a follow-up of 5.4 years. A positive family history of autoinflammatory disease was detected in 28% of patients. All patients presented with febrile recurrent episodes. Other common symptoms included arthralgia/arthritis (61%), myalgia (39%), asthenia/fatigue (44%), abdominal pain (39%), headache (33%), odynophagia (33%), skin rash (28%), and chest pain (22%). During attacks, 80% of patients increased acute phase reactants levels. No patient had developed amyloidosis during the study period. At the end of follow-up, 28% of patients were asymptomatic and treatment free, 50% were receiving non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or glucocorticoids on demand, and 22% were being treated with biologic agents. When differences between pediatric and adult patients were globally analyzed, adults tended to have longer attacks duration and presented more frequently with chest pain and headache, while abdominal pain, vomiting, cervical adenitis, and pharyngitis predominated in pediatric patients. No differences in outcomes and treatment requirements were observed in both age groups. Conclusion This study has contributed to characterize R92Q-related disease by identifying trends in disease phenotypes depending on the age at disease onset.


UNLABELLED
The energy landscape of RNA secondary structures is often complex, and the Boltzmann-weighted ensemble usually contains distinct clusters. Furthermore, the minimum free energy structure often lies outside of the cluster containing the structure determined by comparative sequence analysis. We have developed procedures to characterize and visualize the Boltzmann-weighted ensemble, and have made them available on the Sfold Web server. The new features on the Web server include clustering statistics, ensemble and cluster centroids, multi-dimensional scaling display and energy landscape representation of the Boltzmann-weighted ensemble.

AVAILABILITY
http://sfold.wadsworth.org; http://www.bioinfo.rpi.edu/applications/sfold

CONTACT
email@example.com.


This chapter serves as extensive introduction to a collection of essays examining the interplay of two areas of great importance to European economic and social actors: judicial cooperation in civil and commercial matters and the protection of intellectual property rights and information technology. Both areas have found themselves the object of increased normative activity by the European Union. Community/Union activity in the former area goes back to Article 220 of the Rome Treaty and the 1968 Brussels Convention but acquired new vigor and a systematic character following the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty and then-Article 65 EC. Today, Community action in matters of judicial cooperation is increasingly entangled with the protection of intellectual property rights and information technology. Since the early 1990s, the Community has produced a good number of instruments legislating on intellectual property matters – mostly Directives seeking the harmonization of Member States laws, but also Regulations establishing Community forms of intellectual property and the long attempts to create a common patent tribunal with first-instance jurisdiction over Community Patents, under Article 225a EC. The Community has been taking an active and influential part in the World Intellectual Property Organization. Such prolific activity poses challenges to the sound implementation of the instruments constituting the European Judicial Area. Issues of compatibility and coherence with the existing instruments of judicial cooperation must be also be taken into notice.
The challenges are exacerbated by the specificity of the IP/IT subject matter. The fact that in this area it is even more difficult to insulate the Community space from the global IP/IT marketplace further adds to the challenges, as was illustrated in the negotiations of the Hague Conference Judgments Project. The Community has to decide, along with other international actors, which is the best forum to pursue such matters and whether the principles of the Brussels/Lugano system are appropriate.
On a different level, recent developments call for broad reflection on what the common denominators might be in international litigation involving the different IP rights. Is the major concern, as recent developments seem to suggest, the need to consolidate before court proceedings relating to infringements spread over the territories of several countries? Is it necessary and/or possible to consolidate proceedings relating to several territorially enforceable rights in the court of a country other than the one where the rights in question were created? What are the other goals that should be pursued in this matter?
The paper addresses copyright and trademark litigation (sections III and IV), considering, in the process, how new technologies, and especially the Internet, alter the landscape of European jurisdictional law (section IV). But the main focus is patent litigation (sections I and II): patent litigation has been the most fertile ground for legal developments under the Brussels regime, and European jurisdictional law in general, including, most recently, the twin decisions of the European Court of Justice of 13 July 2006 in the Roche and GAT cases. This paper brings to light the evolution of the European law – both national and community – on jurisdiction over IP cases, as it moved from a system of strict territoriality towards more flexible solutions, indeed a system of cross-border litigation. An 'ingenious machinery' was created by national courts in the late 1980s and then adjusted after it started to jam. The July 2006 decisions put this 'machinery' in more serious jeopardy. This chapter illustrates the difficulties in reconciling a system created for the needs, in general, of international litigation in civil and commercial matters with the particularities of international litigation in intellectual property matters.


There are few things less reassuring during revision than someone who hardly knows you saying, "you'll be fine," "they want you to pass," and "it's just like a driving test." The last comment was particularly alarming to me as I failed my driving test four times. And yet, horribly, in a year's time you yourself will change into someone who blithely chants "it's really hard to fail." What gives a house officer this new found assurance is not only the knowledge that general expectation of their talents has returned to zero. It's also the certainty of survival.

A large amount of time at medical school does seem to be specifically and cruelly designed to cause maximum stress, and this is often justified by the fact that you are being prepared for a …


Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and robotics are rapidly changing the terms of comparative advantage between humans and machines in the workplace, with potentially profound implications for labor market operation and for the opportunities available to human workers of different skill and education levels. This overview paper discusses four areas where research is needed to identify strategies for managing these changes in ways that benefit workers, firms, and the broader economy: (1) skills training, (2) postsecondary education, (3) alternative work arrangements and the "gig economy," and (4) management practices. In each area, we highlight key findings from recent studies and discuss opportunities for further innovative experimentation to evaluate program and policy options, pilot novel interventions, and help workers, firms, and governments prepare for the "Work of the Future." acknowledgements


The human skin serves as a source for a large number of neurohormones and neuropep- tides, which affect skin biology on multiple different levels. Intriguingly, this includes the control of keratin expression by neurohormones such as thyrotropin-releasing hormone, thyrotropin, opioids, prolactin, and cannabinoid receptor 1-ligands. While this neuroen docrine regulation of human keratin biology in situ is likely to be involved in the main - tenance of skin and hair follicle homeostasis and may participate in skin pathology, this regulation remains to be appreciated and explored by mainstream keratin research. Here, we review recent progress in this frontier of neuroendocrine and keratin skin research, define the many open questions in the field, and elaborate how neurohormones may be harnessed to treat selected genodermatoses and other skin disorders accompanied by abnormal keratin expression.


The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic exposed multiple shortcomings in national and international capacity to respond to an infectious disease outbreak. It is essential to learn from these deficiencies to prepare for future epidemics. One major gap is the limited availability of timely and comprehensive population-based routine data about COVID-19's impact on pregnant women and babies. As part of the Horizon 2020 PHIRI (Population Health Information Research Infrastructure) project on the use of population data for COVID-19 surveillance, the Euro-Peristat research network investigated the extent to which routine information systems could be used to assess the effects of the pandemic by constructing indicators of maternal and child health and of COVID-19 infection. The Euro-Peristat network brings together researchers and statisticians from 31 countries to monitor population indicators of perinatal health in Europe and periodically compiles data on a set of 10 core and 20 recommended indicators1.


Mobile ad-hoc network is a part of ad-hoc network which can change locations and synchronize itself. Because of their mobile nature they use wireless connections to connect different networks; it would be a Wi-Fi connection or some other medium. With growing technologies VANET (Vehicular ad-hoc network)are special category of dynamic wireless network. VANET allows vehicles to communicate with the roadside equipments. It works under ITS (Intelligent transportation system). In VANET nodes communicate wirelessly with their different mobility nodes. Mobile communication, traffic monitoring safety and public utility management are the key components of VANET. In VANET there are two modes of vehicle communication which are names as Vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle to infrastructure (V2I). Infrastructure absence is the main characteristics of VANET such as access point or base station, existing in the Wi-Fi, WI-Max, GSM or UMTS. Vehicular communication explains the numerous initiatives of the research which enhance the security, efficiency of transportation systems, supplying, and traffic in the road conditions such as emergency, construction sites and congestion. The attributes of VANET works with a solution which takes routing protocols of MANET. IVCN (Inter Vehicle Communication Network) is the new approach of ad-hoc network.


40Cr steel is categorized as quenched-tempered steels and is widely used in gears, bolts, couplings, spindles, etc. To study the plastic deformation behaviour of the steel after quenching and tempering, compression and double-pass compression tests have been carried out. The quenched samples are tempered at the temperature of 540oC, 580oC, 600oC and 630oC, and the microstructures, compression load, hardness after compression and load of double-pass compression are investigated. The compression peak load is higher when the tempering temperature is lower. The hardness average and its increase amplitude decrease with the tempering temperature. An interesting phenomenon of the double-pass compression load can be well explained by the microstructures.


We read with great interest Blake's1 compelling case for Universal Basic Income (UBI) to decrease the trauma-inducing nature of the current socioeconomic system. As Euan Lawson correctly points out,2 the very concept of UBI — regular payments to all citizens regardless of circumstance — is not new. Around the world, numerous local experiments show benefits in health and socioeconomic outcomes.3 In rural Kenya, a large-scale UBI experiment during the COVID-19 pandemic improved food security, wellbeing, and rates of illness.4 In Canada, a 4-year experiment that ran until 1979 saw an 8.5% decline in hospitalisations and a reduction in GP visits.5 Other UBI experiments are equally promising. However, Blake stops short of acknowledging the conditions required to implement UBI including political will, public demand, and the ability to supply UBI.6 The latter, an understandably pragmatic objection, is a key factor mediating public and political will. Proponents suggest UBI could be generated through taxation of income, corporations, wealth, or the abolishment of tax reliefs. UBI could replace alternative welfare systems, and potentially save money overall through improvements in health and wellbeing.7 Under a meritocratic socioeconomic system, the concept of UBI may have also found more public acceptance through the furlough scheme, which, while engendering the spirit of UBI, is not UBI. The scheme affirmed how changes in personal economic circumstances are often beyond an individual's control and may have pushed UBI into the Overton window — the frame of acceptable political discourse. Meanwhile, criticisms of UBI, suggesting it fails to tackle the root causes of poverty and discourages work and societal participation,3 are increasingly unfounded.8 As general practice experiences increasing pressures related to service delivery, there is ever-less capacity to impact the upstream determinants of health. With growing evidence supporting the financial and social case for UBI, and rising public acceptability, advocating to our politicians for a fairer socioeconomic system with UBI could be one means of fulfilling the doctor's role as envisioned by Virchow: 'natural attorneys for the poor'.


The complex, dynamic shock-detonation structure formed by the glancing interaction of a primary detonation with a secondary explosive is studied by using time-dependent two-dimensional simulations and related experiments. The materials considered in the simulations are stoichiometric and lean mixtures of hydrogen and oxygen diluted with argon. Related experiments have used undiluted hydrogen and oxygen as well as other gases. For the conditions simulated: (a) the primary mixture is stoichiometric and the secondary inert; (b) both the primary and secondary mixtures are the same and stoichiometric; (c) the primary mixture is lean and the secondary is stoichiometric; and (d) the primary mixture is stoichiometric and the secondary is lean. In addition, for cases (b) and (d), comparisons are made between simulations in which the primary mixture is overdriven and when it is a Chapman-Jouguet detonation. For the overdriven stoichiometric primary detonation interacting with the lean mixture, a complex detonation structure forms and quickly asymptotes to the detonation velocity of the primary mixture. For this same case, but when the primary detonation is initially at Chapman-Jouguet velocity, the detonation appears to die but then reignites due to a series of shock reflections and then propagates as a complex structure. The lowest velocity of the complex structure is always greater than the Chapman-Jouguet velocity of the lean mixture and it increases in time, appearing to approach the Chapman-Jouguet velocity of the stoichiometric mixture. The dynamics of this decay and reignition process are described and discussed in detail.


In this research, temperature sensitive microgels with magnetic core for controlled release of 5-fluoruracil was synthesized. Magnetic nanoparticles (Fe3O4) were prepared by coprecipitation method and the surface was functionalized by acrylic acid. Polymer poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) were grown by free radical polymerization in presence of cross-liker and initiator. The size of the polymer was manipulated by changing the mole percent of the crosslinker and evaluated for their morphology (TEM), particle size, zeta potential, loading efficiency, drug content and drug release. Furthermore, microgels were tagged with FITC, a fluorochrome which could be applied for cell imaging. Cytotoxicity studies revealed that the microgels were not toxic. These complex nanoparticles (Fe3O4/pNIPAM/FITC/5-Fu) appear to be a great promise to be used in controlled drug delivery and tumor targeting.


Microbial backward mutation test, Ames Salmonella/microsome plate assay, on six bacterial strains (Salmonella typhimurium TA 98, 100, 1535, 1537, 1538 and E. coli WP 2uvrA) and micronucleus test in mice were carried out to detect mutagenic activity of mequitazine. Mequitazine caused no increases of revertants at doses from 1 to 1000 microgram/plate in every bacterial strains irrespective of metabolic activation. Similarly, mequitazine induced no significant increases of micronucleated polychromatic erythrocytes in mice over the control level at doses from 0.12 (clinical dose) to 48 mg/kg (approx. LD 50). From above results, we concluded that mequitazine has no mutagenic activity per se.


Small signal RF modeling of FinFETs is strongly dependent on the methodology used to extract transistor intrinsic and extrinsic parameters. In this article, an original extraction method is proposed for determining all FinFET extrinsic series elements values from S‐parameters measurements at zero bias condition. The extracted technique is demonstrated through successful comparison between simulated and measured S‐parameters over a widefrequency range. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:2616–2619, 2014


The decentralization of educational functions is one of crucial issues in the current era. The practice of centralized education management in the previous period constituted the main obstacle in recuperating educational quality nation-wide, and simultaneously, has tended to weaken the capacity of local government. In line with the policy of extended decentralization, most of education authorities are supposed to be reassigned to the District/City Government, or even to the school. It is believed to be the best way to generate the following advantages: improving decision-making process; promoting education management based on local content and local characteristics; and empowering the potency of local people. As one of the richest provinces in Indonesia, East Kalimantan Province is demanded to realize such education reform. The main challenge is how to strengthen the role of education in budding quality, relevance, management efficiency, and equity of education access for all community members. How does East Kalimantan Province implement such challenges, and what does decentralization of educational functions look like? This paper tries to scrutinize those queries.


Flesh flies are commonly found insects on decaying corpses that appears slightly later than blowflies, and their development patterns are significant indicators for minimum postmortem interval (PMImin) estimation. In this study, the flesh fly Parasarcophaga similis (Meade 1876) was reared at nine constant temperatures ranging from 15°C to 35°C to examine indicators for estimating their age. We generated three development models, including isomorphen diagram, isomegalen diagram, and thermal summation model. Larval body length at different rearing temperatures was fit into an L = a + bT + cT2 + dT3 equation with which the relationship between the larval body length (L) and the time after larviposition (T) was confirmed. The pupal stage was categorized into 13 substages according to intrapuparial morphological changes, and a detailed table was generated of the pupal developmental stages at five rearing temperatures, 15°C, 20°C, 25°C, 30°C, and 35°C. This study provides fundamental data in supporting P. similis as an indicator for PMImin estimation.


Up to 75 % of the overall work piece error can be caused by the thermo-elastic behavior of the machine tool. Therefore, correction methods based on machine-integrated sensors were intensively researched during the last years, in order to determine the error of the Tool Center Point (TCP) parallel to the process. One of these methods includes the integral deformation sensor (IDS), which detects the deformation along the length of a structural component of the machine. The error of the TCP is modelled based on the measured structural deformations, a mechanical model of the structural parts and a kinematic model of the machine tool. Currently, the sensor setup for specific machines is usually defined by an expert with the help of his or her domain knowledge. There are existing mathematical methods for optimal sensor positioning. The aim of this work is the evaluation of the expert positioning versus the mathematical methods. The parameters to be varied are the lengths and positions of the IDS. Criteria for the evaluation are the achievable accuracy of the TCP error prediction and the sensitivity to small variations of the optimal position, as they might occur during the installation.


: In this article the author analyses the doctor-patient and patient-doctor relationship seen from two ethical viewpoints, namely the question of what is the meaning of privacy in the relationship between the doctor and his patient and whether the truth should always be told. The author comes to the conclusion that privacy in the doctor-patient and patient-doctor relationship is no absolute value. Situations do occur when it is in the public interest to make certain information known. Aids is only one example in this context. The author also emphasises that truth is not a dogma, but a Person. Once again it is stated that truth is no absolute value and in some situations it is better not to tell the truth- or what people determine the truth to be.


Procrastination on online media streaming services is a form of problematic media use which a lot of
people struggle with – therefore it is relevant to research this phenomenon. This study followed a
recent transition in focus from biological sex as a predictor of media behaviour, to gender traits. In
addition to gender traits, other possible predictors for procrastination behaviour were thought to be:
passion for media streaming, motivation, and ego depletion. The central question in this research was:
to what extent do gender traits, passion, motivations, and ego depletion influence procrastination
behaviour on media streaming services? The influence of gender traits, passion, motivation and ego
depletion on procrastination behaviour were tested using data from this survey based quantitative
study (N = 243). The findings showed that gender traits, passion, motivation, ego depletion and
procrastination are closely related concepts with a lot of interplay. Gender traits were found to
directly influence all other variables within the study, which substantiated the value of existing
theoretical claims that personality attributes impact media behaviour. Negative feminine gender traits
were expected to predict obsessive passion, ego depletion, and procrastination, as they describe an
anxious, self-doubting personality. In contrast, negative masculine attributes were expected to protect
individuals from obsessive passion, ego depletion and procrastinatory behaviour, as they describe a
controlling personality. However, this study found both negative feminine as well as negative
masculine gender traits to be direct predictors of obsessive passion, ego depletion and procrastination
behaviour. Interestingly, both harmonious as well as obsessive passion did not directly predict
procrastination behaviour on online media streaming services. Instead, they were found to influence
content preference and motivational choices. Additionally, harmonious passion was found to protect
individuals from ego depletion, whilst entertainment motivation was found to influence the loss of selfregulatory
resources. Motivations' influence on procrastination showed duality, with information
motivation found to protect individuals from problematic media usage, whereas companionship
motivation predicted procrastinatory behaviour. Ego depletion was found to directly influence
procrastination. Results suggest that because gender traits, motivation, and ego depletion are direct
predictors of procrastination behaviour on online media streaming services, they influence this form
of problematic media use to a great extent. Passion influences procrastination to a certain extent, as it
is an indirect predictor.


PURPOSE
To analyze the ventricular enlargement and myelination of the corpus callosum in adult dogs after four and eight weeks of kaolin-induction of hydrocephalus.

METHODS
36 dogs were randomly divided into 3 groups: 1 - without hydrocephalus, 2 - kaolin-induction of hydrocephalus until the fourth week, and 3 - kaolin-induction of hydrocephalus until the eighth week. Ventricular ratios and volumes were calculated using magnetic resonance images, and myelination of the corpus callosum were histologically evaluated using solocromo-cianin stain.

RESULTS
Radiological hydrocephalus was observed in 93.75% and overall mortality was 38.4%. Ventricular volumes and ratios were higher in groups 2 and 3 compared to group 1 and similar when measures in the fourth and eighth weeks were compared in the group 3. Indices of luminescence in the knee and in the splenium of the corpus callosum were higher in group 2 than in group 1 indicating that there was loss of myelin in group 2, and similar in groups 1 and 3, showing a tendency to remyelination after 8 weeks.

CONCLUSION
The corpus callosum of dogs with kaolin-induced hydrocephalus responds with demyelination of the knee and splenium by the fourth week with a tendency to remyelination by the eighth week.


A sub-circuit SPICE model of a MOSFET for low temperature operation is presented.Two resistors are introduced for the freeze-out effect,and the explicit behavioral models are developed for them.The model can be used in a wide temperature range covering both cryogenic temperature and regular temperatures.


OJT007 is a methionine aminopeptidase 1 (MetAP1) inhibitor with potent anti-proliferative effects against Leishmania Major. In order to study its pharmacokinetics as a part of the drug development process, a sensitive, specific, and reproducible ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) method was developed and validated. Voriconazole was used as the internal standard to generate standard curves ranging from 5 to 1000 ng/mL. The separation was achieved using a UPLC system equipped with an Acquity UPLC BEH C18 column (2.1 × 50 mm, 1.7 μm) with 0.1% formic acid in acetonitrile and 0.1% formic acid in water as the mobile phase under gradient elution at a flow rate of 0.4 mL/min. The mass analysis was performed with a 4000 QTRAP® mass spectrometer using multiple-ion reaction monitoring (MRM) in the positive mode, with the transition of m/z 325 → m/z 205 for OJT007 and m/z 350 → m/z 101 for voriconazole. The intra- and inter-day precision and accuracy were within ±15%. The mean extraction recovery and the matrix effect were 95.1% and 7.96%, respectively, suggesting no significant matrix interfering with the quantification of the drug in rat plasma. This study was successfully used for the pharmacokinetic evaluation of OJT007 using the rat as an animal model.


Background: Recent research into positive experiences in caregivers has begun to redress the traditional focus on negative aspects of caregiving experiences. Method: This exploratory study used a cognitive-behavioural approach – namely, the transactional stress model (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984) – to investigate associations between appraisals, coping, and gains over a 6-week period in a small sample (N = 4; case series) design involving stroke caregivers. Analysis involved visual inspection of graphs, supported by descriptive statistics, and co-variation analysis. Results: Participants reported high levels of positive experiences, and these increased over the study period, a previously unreported trend. The study also found individual differences in the interactions between appraisal, coping, and caregiving gain variables, findings explained by the transactional stress model. Conclusions: Implications for clinical practice and future research are addressed.


The effect of lovastatin (LOV), the inhibitor of 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl coenzyme A reductase, on linoleic acid (LA, 18:2n-6) metabolism was examined in human monocytic Mono Mac 6 (MM6) and hepatoma Hep G2 cells. The desaturation of LA was examined after LOV (72 h, 10 microM) or dimethylsulfoxide (LOV carrier, < 0.1%) and [14C]LA (last 18 h, 0.3 microCi, 5 microM). In both cell lines, LOV reduced the percentage of 14C label associated with LA and increased the percentage of label in the 20:4n-6 and the 22:5n-6 fractions. In Hep G2 but not MM6 cells, this effect was fully reversible by means of coincubation with mevalonic acid (500 microM), but not with cholesterol or lipoproteins. In both cell lines, the LOV-mediated increase in LA desaturation resulted in dose-dependent reductions of LA and elevations of AA in cellular phospholipids. The lipids secreted by LOV-treated Hep G2 cells were also enriched in arachidonic acid (AA). In the MM6 cells, LOV increased release of thromboxane upon stimulation with the calcium ionophore A23187. In summary, our findings of higher LA desaturation and AA enrichment of lipids secreted by the Hep G2 cells suggest that LOV treatment may increase the delivery of AA from the liver to extrahepatic tissues. The changes in membrane fatty acid composition can influence a variety of cellular functions, such as eicosanoid synthesis in monocytic cells. The mechanism appears to be related to the reduced availability of intermediates of cholesterogenesis.


Electron diffraction patterns obtained on a TEM contain elliptical distortion resulting from column defects. This distortion can be corrected by applying offsets to the objective lens stigmators to cancel distortions occurring further down the column. In this work, a DigitalMicrographTM script‐based method has been developed to identify the optimum objective stigmator settings which produce a distortion minimum in diffraction. Initially, a manual (by eye) correction is used to determine the stigmator values necessary to bring the pattern distortion below the threshold at which it is no longer visible to the naked eye (<1%). Thereafter, an automated acquisition script is used to acquire matrices of diffraction patterns while varying the stigmator values about the values which were identified as producing a distortion minimum in the preceding step. This analysis can be applied iteratively to refine the location of the distortion minimum, using progressively finer step changes in objective stigmator values. The optimum stigmator values producing the distortion minimum in diffraction are very different to those in imaging. These imaging and diffraction stigmator values can be saved to script and subsequently recalled at the click of a button, making their application very simple. Using this method, diffraction pattern elliptical distortion in a newly installed TEM was reduced from 1.6% to 0.3%, on a measurement precision of 0.3%, effectively producing distortion‐free diffraction. The relevant scripts can be freely downloaded from the internet.


This study examines the use of teacher humor in whole-group interactions in beginning-level Spanish foreign
 language (FL) classes. Previous research has focused primarily on student humor and on humor in intermediate- and advanced-level
 FL courses. Hence, the goals of the research were, first, to determine whether teachers use spontaneous verbal humor in
 beginning-level courses and, if so, in what ways. Second, we considered whether the amount of teacher humor was related to the
 amount of student humor. The findings indicate that many of the instructors in the study did, indeed, joke around with their
 students. Most teacher humor was affiliative or rapport-enhancing, delivered in the target language, and designed with students'
 L2 abilities in mind. Finally, in classes in which teachers joked more often, there was a tendency for students to joke more often
 as well, suggesting that teacher humor may encourage student humor.


Abstract Crude extracts of Rutales species were tested in vitro against the trypomastigote form of Trypanosoma cruzi at 4 mg/mL, and 20% of them showed significant activity (80%). Their inhibitory activity against the glycolytic enzyme GAPDH from T. cruzi has also been evaluated at the concentrations of 100 and 200 mg/mL. Additionally, the inhibitory activity of 13 purified coumarins were also assayed against T. cruzi-GAPDH. Chalepin was the most active substance with IC50 = 64 mM. The 3D structure of the complex chalepin-enzyme was elucidated by X-ray crystallography, revealing the architecture of the interactions between the inhibitor and the enzyme active site.


J. Donald Gass, MD, is one of the "founding fathers" of the diagnosis and treatment of macular diseases and the interpretation of fluorescein angiography of the macula and retina. Many of his colleagues note that he has a photographic memory in correlating clinical findings with retinal pathology. His experience is evident in this fourth edition of his two-volume book, which contains more than 6500 references. The book is arranged in easily readable form, with text on the left side of the page and photographs on the right. The atlas utilizes a combination of black-and-white fundus photographs, stereo colored fundus photographs, fluorescein angiograms, and photomicrographs to illustrate the anatomical and physiological alterations produced by a variety of intraocular disease processes affecting the macular region of the retina. The great strength of this publication is that stereoscopic black-and-white fluorescein angiograms and colored stereoscopic photographs are included, which may be examined with a


In dialogue, speakers continuously adapt their speech to accommodate the listener, based on the feedback they receive. In this paper, we explore the modelling of such behaviours in the context of a robot presenting a painting. A Behaviour Tree is used to organise the behaviour on different levels, and allow the robot to adapt its behaviour in real-time; the tree organises engagement, joint attention, turn-taking, feedback and incremental speech processing. An initial implementation of the model is presented, and the system is evaluated in a user study, where the adaptive robot presenter is compared to a non-adaptive version. The adaptive version is found to be more engaging by the users, although no effects are found on the retention of the presented material.


For the most part, the United States has a decentralized criminal justice system. State legislatures define the majority of crimes and set out the punishments for those crimes. In addition, the enforcement of criminal laws lies, in most cases, in the hands of local law enforcement agencies. This article points out how this decentralized structure drives local jurisdictions to harshen their criminal justice system in order to displace crime to neighboring jurisdictions. More precisely, local jurisdictions can attempt to displace crime in two distinct ways. First, they can raise the expected sanction to a level that is higher than that in neighboring jurisdictions in order to become less attractive crime targets. Second, they can remove from them individuals who demonstrated that they have a high propensity to commit crimes. The article then turns to analyze the policy implications of the existence of jurisdictional competition in the area of criminal justice, and argues that the United States' criminal justice system might need a comprehensive structure reform that will regulate the competitive market for criminal justice.


Our report focuses on the case of a pregnant women with recurrent, paranoid schizophrenia. The patient was treated with Olanzapine from the 18 th gestational week until delivery and during breast-feeding. No adverse events occurred during pregnancy, and the outcome was healthy. After delivery, the plasma level of olanzapine in the infant was one-third of the maternal plasma level, and during breast-feeding, it decreased to an undetectable limit


Tunable narrowband spectral filters with high light throughput and wide dynamic range have remarkable applications such as in optical communications, optical spectroscopy and spectral imaging. However, a cost is usually associated with the filter narrowing either in the dynamic range, in the throughput or the manufacturability. Here we report on a resonating planar multilayered structure that exhibits transparency window in reflection with a controllable full width at half maximum (sub-Angstroms till tens of nm) and tunability over wide spectral range (>500nm in the visible and near infrared). The phenomenon is observed in TE and TM polarizations with much higher contrast in TE. Fano type resonance originating from coupling between waveguide modes and lossy surface electromagnetic waves supported by field distribution calculations explains the phenomenon. The wide tuning range with high contrast is mainly achieved using an absorptive layer with high imaginary to real part ratio of the dielectric constant that enables excitation of lossy surface waves known to exist over a wide spectral band in thin films. To avoid large losses, it is found that the lossy layer should be ultrathin (6nm Cr layer for example). The tuning is achieved by small angular scan of less than 2 degrees or by modulating the refractive index or thickness of the submicron thick waveguide layer from the visible till the near infrared range and in principle it can be designed to operate in any spectral range. Such a thin variable index or thickness layer can allow tuning at ultrahigh speed using conventional electrooptic, magnetooptic, piezoelectric or thermooptic materials at relatively low external fields.


Amid an enduring political deadlock in Parliament, the first civil marriage contracted in Lebanon in 2013 received significantmedia coverage in a countrywhere the personal status law of eighteen recognized religious sects governs marriage. This case study examines the debate on civil marriage reform and the implications for women's rights in Lebanon. For advocates, the recognition of civil marriage legalizes interreligious marriages, strengthens secular citizenship, shifts the jurisdiction of marriage from religious to civil law, and ensures women's rights. Opponents, meanwhile, fear the loss of religious autonomy, the transformation of self-identification in Lebanon from sect to nation, and the destabilization of the confessional system. To date, civil marriage reform has been incremental, given clerical and social opposition, but the winds of change are blowing as couples increasingly take matters into their own hands to reform Lebanon's system of personal status from the ground up.


This paper compares methods for calculating Input-Output (IO) Type II multipliers. These are formulations of the standard Leontief IO model which endogenise elements of household consumption. An analytical comparison of the two basic IO Type II multiplier methods with the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) multiplier approach identifies the treatment of non-wage income generated in production as a central problem. The multiplier values for each of the IO and SAM methods are calculated using Scottish data for 2009. These results can be used to choose which Type II IO multiplier to adopt where SAM multiplier values are unavailable.


Rawa Pening is the only lake at Semarang Regency. Multisectoral usage in Rawa Pening has accelerated degradation. In fisheries sector, Semarang Regency has effort to sustain its resource by making Regional Regulatory (Perda) No.25 in year 2001 about Fisheries Resource Management at Rawa Pening. Restocking is one of the program on it, but the effort was not appropriate yet to achieve its' expectation. Community involvement in restocking program should be the key factor for sustainable fisheries resource management.
 The research purpose is to know community participation level in restocking program and to identify management function, that is Planning, Organizing, Actuating, and Controlling. Descriptive method was used case study in this research, whereas respondent were determined using purposive sampling. Survey and observation in the field were used to get data by distributing questionnaires, and interviewing respondents.
 Base on the research totality of respondent is male, its employment are fisherman 86,9%, with education has not finish elementary school 27,7%, whereas elementary school and junior high school graduation are 25,4%. In stage of management the restocking program including planning, organizing, actuating, and controlling, their participation it less. Among 130 respondent as much as 76,9% not yet involved in planning, in organizing as much as 60,8% said that nothing specificity to organizing in the restocking program, so that in actuating program 80,8% is not involved, however 30% respondent involve to control the program because their job are to secure Rawa Pening resource. The restocking program is not quite success because community participation in each stage of management is low.

Key words: Rawa Pening, restocking, community participation, function of management


Salmonella is one of the most pathogenic genera implicated in food-borne bacterial outbreaks and diseases. There are numerous transmission routes for Salmonellosis, but the majority of the human infections are derived from consumption of contaminated foods especially those of animal origin. The study was undertaken to determine the incidence and distribution of salmonella species in poultry meat shop premises. A total no of 150 samples were procured from poultry shop premises in north Kolkata and analyzed for presence of salmonella strains. The study concluded that overall prevalence of salmonella species amongst all the samples as 4%.All the eight salmonella isolates were subjected to antibiotic sensitivity test.In this method highest sensitivity was recorded against Ciprofloxacin (83.33%) and Chloramphenicol(83.33%) followed by Ampicillin, Cefotaxime, Ceftazidine, Nalidixic acid and Gentamicin(50% each). Low sensitivity was observed against Tetracycline (16.66%). K e y w o r d s Salmonella spp., Poultry meat, Characterization, Antibiotic sensitivity.


Vision Transformers (ViT) have been shown to attain highly competitive performance for a wide range of vision applications, such as image classification, object detection and semantic image segmentation. In comparison to convolutional neural networks, the Vision Transformer's weaker inductive bias is generally found to cause an increased reliance on model regularization or data augmentation ("AugReg"for short) when training on smaller training datasets. We conduct a systematic empirical study in order to better understand the interplay between the amount of training data, AugReg, model size and compute budget. As one result of this study we find that the combination of increased compute and AugReg can yield models with the same performance as models trained on an order of magnitude more training data: we train ViT models of various sizes on the public ImageNet-21k dataset which either match or outperform their counterparts trained on the larger, but not publicly available JFT-300M dataset.


The effects of hydrogen on the microstructure and hot deformation behavior of Ti-6Al-4V alloy were studied, and the differences of microstructure and high temperature compressive behavior between the specimens hydrogenised various time at 700 oC and with the same hydrogen contents were analyzed. The results showed that the addition of hydrogen decreases the deformation resistance of Ti-6Al-4V alloy at high temperature. The flow stresses of specimens with the same hydrogen content declined as the prolongation of hydrogenating time. The microstructure observation indicated that stick-type microstructure was obtained in Ti-6Al-4V alloy annealed at 700 oC for 2 hours. Hydrogenation at 700 oC for 2 hours resulted in fine α plate in β transformed microstructure. When the hydrogenation time was prolonged to 6 hours, the volume fraction of newly-formed α plates increased and the prior α plates became coarser.


Abstract Objectives: Myofascial trigger points (MTrPs) are considered the principal clinical feature of myofascial pain syndrome (MPS). An MTrP consists of spot tenderness within a taut band of muscle fibers and its stimulation can produce both local and referred pain. The clinical diagnosis of MPS depends on correct history taking and a physical examination aimed at identifying the presence of MTrP. The purpose of this study was to investigate the intra-rater reliability of a palpation protocol used for locating an MTrP in the upper trapezius muscle. Methods: Twenty-four subjects with MTrP in the upper trapezius muscle were examined by an experienced physiotherapist. During each of eight experimental sessions, subjects were examined twice in randomized order using a palpation protocol. An anatomical landmark system was defined and the MTrP location established using X and Y values. Results: The intraclass correlation coefficient ICC(1,1) values were 0·62 (95% CI: 0·30–0·81) for X and 0·81 (95% CI: 0·61–0·91) for Y. The Bland–Altman plots for X and Y showed a mean of difference of 0·04 and −0·2 mm, respectively. Limits of agreement for X ranged from −26·3 to 26·2 mm and for Y from −27 to 26·4 mm. Discussion: The ICC(1,1) for the observed values revealed a moderate to high correlation and the Bland–Altman analysis showed means of difference very close to zero with narrow limits of agreement. An experienced physiotherapist can reliably identify MTrP locations in upper trapezius muscle using a palpation protocol.


We report the clinical and microbiological features of contact lens-related mixed infectious keratitis caused by a spore-forming filamentous fungus and a rare gram-negative bacterial infection. A 66-year-old Caucasian female presented with right eye (OD) pain after sleeping in her 2-weekly contact lenses for 3 days. On presentation, corrected distance visual acuity was 0.46 LogMAR OD and 0.20 in the left eye. Slit lamp biomicroscopy revealed a 1.9 mm by 1.9 mm area of dense stromal infiltrate with epithelial defect. Corneal scrapes grew Aspergillus fumigatus and Pseudomonas koreensis, and culture-directed microbial therapy with oral and topical voriconazole and topical fortified gentamicin along with regular debridement resulted in slow resolution of the infection, leaving a dense stromal scar in the visual axis requiring penetrating keratoplasty. Mixed infectious keratitis caused by filamentous fungi and gram-negative bacteria is rare. Pseudomonas koreensis infection has not been previously reported as a cause of infectious keratitis in humans. In our experience, these mixed infections require prolonged systemic and topical therapy and the secondary scarring may require surgical intervention for vision rehabilitation.


Behavioral Finance researches the influence of psychology on those carrying out financial transactions as well as on the market behavior afterwards. Behavioral Finance is an interesting topic in that it helps explain why financial markets are less effective and how they are less effective. In this study, important issues such as behavior, Behavioral Finance, literature review related to the behavioral patterns of investors, behaviors of those carrying out financial transactions, over-confidence, financial conceptual incompatibility, theory of regret, and theory of expectations have been discussed. This study also aimed to determine the influence of color and shapes on the credit card choice of people. Data were collected via survey documents sent via e- mail to 130 people who are all credit card users.


Glycoprotein I (gI) phenotypes and genotypes of 4 pseudorabies viral diagnostic isolates were evaluated by use of in vitro DNA amplification, monoclonal antibody binding, gI-specific serodiagnostic responses, and in vivo virulence approaches. Three viruses were avirulent and did not elicit gI-specific serologic responses, react with gI-specific monoclonal antibodies, or contain gI epitope-encoding DNA sequences. The fourth virus was virulent and did elicit a gI-specific serodiagnostic response. Compared with reference virulent pseudorabies viruses, however, the fourth isolate had reduced reactivity with a group of gI monoclonal antibodies and had a single nucleotide sequence substitution with a corresponding putative amino acid change in the epitopically dominant portion of the gI molecule. Presumably, the first 3 isolates represented diagnostic recoveries of viruses derived from gI-deleted modified-live pseudorabies viral vaccines, whereas the fourth isolate was a virulent but gI-aberrant wild-type virus. Thoroughly assessing the gI status of pseudorabies viral diagnostic isolates was considered to be essential in evaluating the epidemiologic importance of these viruses and in monitoring the validity of gI-based vaccine companion tests now used worldwide in pseudorabies control and eradication programs.


Modification guide snoRNAs either are encoded within introns and co-transcribed with the host gene pre-mRNA or are independently transcribed as mono- or polycistronic units. Different eukaryotic kingdoms utilize these coding strategies to various degrees. Intron-encoded and polycistronic snoRNAs are released from primary transcripts as pre-snoRNAs by the spliceosome or by an RNase III-like activity, respectively. In the spliceosomal pathway, the resulting intron lariat is then linearized by a debranching activity. The leader and trailer sequences of pre-snoRNAs are removed by exonucleolytic activities. The majority of snoRNA host genes encode proteins involved in the synthesis, structure or function of the translational apparatus. Several vertebrate snoRNA host genes do not appear to code for functional proteins. We have identified two unusually compact box C/D multi-snoRNA host genes in D. melanogaster, dUHG1 and dUHG2, similar in their organization to the corresponding vertebrate non-protein-coding host genes. In dUHG1 and dUHG2, the snoRNA sequences are located within introns at a conserved distance of about 75 nucleotides upstream of the 3' splice sites. Both genes initiate transcription with TOP-like sequences that share unique features with previously reported Drosophila snoRNA host genes. Although the spliced dUHG RNAs are relatively stable, they exhibit little potential for protein coding.


Simple sequence repeats (SSRs) or microsatellites are an important class of molecular markers for genome analysis and plant breeding applications. In this paper, the SSR distributions within ESTs from the legumes soybean (Glycine max, representing 135.86 Mb), medicago (Medicago truncatula, 121.1 Mb) and lotus (Lotus japonicus, 45.4 Mb) have been studied relative to the distributions in cereals such as sorghum (Sorghum bicolor, 98.9 Mb), rice (Oryza sativa, 143.9 Mb) and maize (Zea mays, 183.7 Mb). The relative abundance, density, composition and putative annotations of di-, tri-, tetra- and penta-nucleotide repeats have been compared and SSR containing ESTs (SSR-ESTs) have been clustered to give a non-redundant set of EST-SSRs, available in a database. Further, a subset of such candidate EST-SSRs from sorghum have been tested for their ability to detect polymorphism between Striga-susceptible, stay-green drought tolerant mapping population parent 'E 36-1' and its Striga-resistant, non-stay-green counterpart 'N13'. Primer sets for 64% of the EST-SSRs tested produced a clear and specific PCR product band and 34% of these detected scorable polymorphism between the N13 and E 36-1 parental lines. Over half of these markers have been genotyped on 94 RILs from the (N13 x E 36-1)-based mapping population, with 42 markers mapping onto the ten sorghum linkage groups. This establishes the value of this database as a resource of molecular markers for practical applications in cereal and legume genetics and breeding. The primer pairs for non-redundant EST-SSRs have been designed and are freely available through the database (http://intranet.icrisat.org/gt1/ssr/ssrdatabase.html).


or many centuries, smallpox devastated mankind. In modern times we do not have to worry about it thanks to the remarkable work of Edward Jenner and later de-velopments from his endeavors. With the rapid pace of vaccine development in recent decades, the historic origins of immunization are often forgot-ten. Unfortunately, since the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the threat of biological warfare and bioterrorism has reemerged. Smallpox has been identified as a possible agent of bioter-rorism (1). It seems prudent to review the history of a disease known to few people in the 21st century. Edward Jenner (Figure 1) is well known around the world for his innovative contri-bution to immunization and the ultimate eradication of smallpox (2). Jenner's work is widely regarded as the foundation of im-munology—despite the fact that he was neither the first to suggest that infection with cowpox conferred specific immunity to smallpox nor the first to attempt cowpox inoculation for this purpose.SMALLPOX: THE ORIGIN OF A DISEASEThe origin of smallpox as a natural dis-ease is lost in prehistory. It is believed to have appeared around 10,000


Electrical contactors are relays for interputing high currents (up to 2000 A). They consist of three main distinct parts: the low voltage circuit, the high voltage circuit and the linear actuator that moves the contact. The purpose of this thesis is to design, optimize and control the moving part of a linear actuator without external sensor. Indeed, it is very important to control the closing speed of the actuator in order to minimize the contacts wear. The speed should not be too fast so as not to damage the silver contacts at the impact and not too slow to avoid multiple arcs, which erode the contacts. The thesis is divided into different themes: the sensorless position detection, the optimization of the actuator, the signal processing of the position and the speed by adapting the Kalman filter, and finally the sensorless speed control of the actuator's moving part. Industrial constraints impose, for reasons of cost, a position detection without sensor. To do this, a high frequency signal (1250 Hz), named scan current, is superimposed to the one that drives the actuator's moving part. Then, the total current is filtered to obtain only the scan current. Its amplitude depends on the position because the inductance of the actuator windind varies greatly with the value of the airgap. It is therefore possible to detect the position using only the provided low voltage circuit. The optimization of the actuator is made by combining genetic algorithms and finite element modeling (FEM). The first objective to be achieved by the optimizer is to minimize the material cost of the actuator. Then, knowing the minimum price of the actuator, the cost becomes a constraint when optimizing for the best position detection. The optimal configuration presented in the thesis promotes the variation of inductance versus the position and thus allows the best position detection following the constraints defined by the specifications. The speed of the moving part is the derivative of the position but as this signal is noisy, the resulting speed is not exploitable as it is. Because the memory of the microcontroller is limited, an adapted Kalman filter method, simple and appropriate, is developed to allow filtering of the position and speed. Finally, the study of the speed control is first simulated using Matlab-Simulink in order to test different control strategies in both open and closed loops. They are then verified on the test bench with the industrial contactor and the optimized one. The results allow the validation of the different levels of the method of design, optimization and sensorless control of a linear actuator.


BcSUN1 is a glycoprotein secreted by Botrytis cinerea, an important plant pathogen that causes severe losses in agriculture worldwide. In this work, the role of BcSUN1 in different aspects of the B. cinerea biology was studied by phenotypic analysis of Bcsun1 knockout strains. We identified BcSUN1 as the only member of the Group-I SUN family of proteins encoded in the B. cinerea genome, which is expressed both in axenic culture and during infection. BcSUN1 is also weakly attached to the cellular surface and is involved in maintaining the structure of the cell wall and/or the extracellular matrix. Disruption of the Bcsun1 gene produces different cell surface alterations affecting the production of reproductive structures and adhesion to plant surface, therefore reducing B. cinerea virulence. BcSUN1 is the first member of the SUN family reported to be involved in the pathogenesis of a filamentous fungus.


The commercialization of inventions is very complex and challenging therefore it requires the collaboration
of several actors in an economy. Even when an invention possesses significant added value, its successful
commercialization could only be executed in a stable macroeconomic and innovation environment
and also if proper innovation management expertise is provided. ValDeal Innovations Zrt. was established
to foster the commercialization of Hungarian, high business potential inventions by providing its business
expertise. The company used an – already in various markets and countries probed – US innovation
management method consisting of the tasks of technology evaluation as well as the commercialization of
inventions. There were major changes necessary while probing the US method residing in the different
macroeconomic circumstances and the attitudes for innovation in Hungary. The article details the above
mentioned issues together with the conclusions the members of ValDeal have drawn during the innovation
management process.


Previous studies have indicated that the main molecular characteristic of aging is the progressive accumulation of oxidative damages in cellular macromolecules. Proteins are one of the main molecular targets of age-related oxidative stress, which have been observed during aging process in cellular systems. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) can lead to oxidation of amino acid side chains, formation of protein-protein cross-linkages, and oxidation of the peptide backbones. In the present study, we report the age-dependent oxidative alterations in biomarkers of plasma protein oxidation: protein carbonyls (PCO), advanced oxidation protein products (AOPPs) and plasma total thiol groups (T-SH) in the Indian population and also correlate these parameters with total plasma antioxidant potential. We show an age dependent decrease in T-SH levels and increase in PCO and AOPPs level. The alterations in the levels of these parameters correlated significantly with the total antioxidant capacity of the plasma. The levels of oxidized proteins in plasma provide an excellent biomarker of oxidative stress due to the relative long half-life of such oxidized proteins.


Nanoparticles from the rapidly increasing number of consumer products that contain manufactured nanomaterials are being discharged into waste streams. Increasing evidence suggests that several classes of nanomaterials may accumulate in sludge derived from wastewater treatment and ultimately in soil following land application as biosolids. Little research has been conducted to evaluate the impact of nanoparticles on terrestrial ecosystems, despite the fact that land application of biosolids from wastewater treatment will be a major pathway for the introduction of manufactured nanomaterials to the environment. To begin addressing this knowledge gap, we used the model organisms Nicotiana tabacum L. cv Xanthi and Manduca sexta (tobacco hornworm) to investigate plant uptake and the potential for trophic transfer of 5, 10, and 15 nm diameter gold (Au) nanoparticles (NPs). Samples were analyzed using both bulk analysis by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) as well as spatially resolved methods such as laser ablation inductively coupled mass spectrometry (LAICP-MS)andX-rayfluorescence(μXRF).Ourresultsdemonstrate trophic transfer and biomagnification of gold nanoparticles from a primary producer to a primary consumer by mean factors of 6.2, 11.6, and 9.6 for the 5, 10, and 15 nm treatments, respectively. This result has important implications for risks associatedwithnanotechnology, includingthepotential forhuman exposure.


Background Obesity has become a public health issue of global concern. Obesity is often associated with the occurrence of many diseases, and will also increase mortality; it not only affects personal health, but also increases healthcare costs, thus reducing social productivity and causing negative social and economic impacts. Therefore, ameliorating obesity is an issue worth attention and effort. The development of a natural and safe anti-obesity combination is worthy of further research. It is known that L-carnitine, green tea and lotus leaves have anti-obesity potential, but there is no research and discussion on this novel combination to improve body fat. Objective This study explored how the dietary supplement formula containing L-carnitine, green tea extract and lotus leaf extract (CGL) lowered the body fat accumulation in rats induced by high-energy diet. Design The test used 60-week-old male Sprague Dawley® white rats, which were first divided into the control group (12 rats were given normal feed) and the experimental group (48 rats were given high energy diet; HE). The HE group was further divided into H2O and CGL groups (296, 593 and 1186 mg/kg, to be designated as CGL-L, CGL-M, CGL-H respectively). The rats were first fed with feed for five-weeks, and then fed with different doses of CGL by gavage starting from the sixth-week. After nine-weeks of feeding, the rats were sacrificed to obtain their body weight, feed intake, body fat, serum biochemical indices and liver lipid measurements. Results The results show that the final body weight of HE+CGL-L (578.8±41.6 g) was significantly lower than that of HE+H2O (634.9±42.2 g), and the body fat amount of HE+CGL-L (36.6±9.8 g) was significantly lower than that of HE+H2O (49.4±13.8 g). Feed efficiency and calorie efficiency of HE+CGL-L were also significantly lower than that of HE+H2O (p<0.001). HE+CGL-M and HE+CGL-H were also able to significantly reduce the final body weight, body fat amount and serum-free fatty acid concentration (p<0.05). Conclusion CGL can significantly reduce the final body weight, body fat amount, body fat ratio, feed efficiency and calorie efficiency. CGL has the potential as a new dietary supplement for weight loss. However, the significance of these results on humans taking the supplement for prolonged periods of time is unknown and should be a focus for future investigations.


The constructive features of the Ilizarov apparatus with some additional details enabled the authors to use perosseous distractional osteosynthesis for the treatment of different foot deformities in 52 patients (61 feet) in the clinic following the developed techniques. Other conditions being equal, the method of distraction makes it possible to iliminate the foot deformity and at the same time to make it longer which can not be achieved by other methods.


Two attributes $A$ and $B$ are said to interact when it helps to observe the attribute values of both attributes together. This is an example of a $2$-way interaction. In general, a group of attributes ${\cal X}$ is involved in a $k$-way interaction when we cannot reconstruct their relationship merely with $\ell$-way interactions, $\ell < k$. These two definitions formalize the notion of an interaction in a nutshell.

An additional notion is the one of context. We interpret context as just another attribute. There are two ways in which we can consider context. Context can be something that specifies our focus: we may examine interactions only in a given context, only for the instances that are in the context. Alternatively, context can be something that we are interested in: if we seek to predict weather, only the interactions involving the weather will be interesting to us. This is especially relevant for classification: we only want to examine the interactions involving the labelled class attribute and other attributes (unless there are missing or uncertain attribute values).

But the definitions are not complete. We need to specify the model that assumes the interaction: how to we represent the pattern of co-appearance of several attributes? We also need to specify a model that does not assume the interaction: how do we reconstruct the pattern of co-appearance of several attributes without actually observing them all simultaneously? We need to specify a loss function that measures how good a particular model is, with respect to another model or with respect to the data. We need an algorithm that builds both models from the data. Finally, we need the data in order to assess whether it supports the hypothesis of interaction.

The present work shows that mutual information, information gain, correlation, attribute importance, association and many other concepts, are all merely special cases of the above principle. Furthermore, the analysis of interactions generalizes the notions of analysis of variance, variable clustering, structure learning of Bayesian networks, and several other problems. There is an intriguing history of reinvention in the area of information theory on the topic of interactions.

In our work, we focus on models founded on probability theory, and employ entropy and Kullback-Leibler divergence as our loss functions. Generally, whether an interaction exists or not, and to what extent, depends on what kind of models we are working with. The concept of McGill's interaction information in information theory, for example, is based upon Kullback-Leibler divergence as the loss function, and non-normalized Kirkwood superposition approximation models. Pearson's correlation coefficient is based on the proportion of explained standard deviation as the loss function, and on the multivariate Gaussian model. Most applications of mutual information are based on Kullback-Leibler divergence and the multinomial model.

When there is a limited amount of data, it becomes unclear what model can be used to interpret it. Even if we fix the family of models, we remain uncertain about what would be the best choice of a model in the family. In all, uncertainty pervades the choice of the model. The underlying idea of Bayesian statistics is that the uncertainty about the model is to be handled in the same was as the uncertainty about the correct prediction in nondeterministic domains. The uncertainty, however, implies that we know neither if is an interaction with complete certainty, nor how important is the interaction.

We propose a Bayesian approach to performing significance tests: an interaction is significant if it is very unlikely that a model assuming the interaction would suffer a greater loss than a model not assuming it, even if the interaction truly exists, among all the foreseeable posterior models. We also propose Bayesian confidence intervals to assess the probability distribution of the expected loss of assuming that an interaction does not exist. We compare significance tests based on permutations, bootstrapping, cross-validation, Bayesian statistics and asymptotic theory, and find that they often disagree. It is important, therefore, to understand the assumptions that underlie the tests.

Interactions are a natural way of understanding the regularities in the data. We propose interaction analysis, a methodology for analyzing the data. It has a long history, but our novel contribution is a series of diagrams that illustrate the discovered interactions in data. The diagrams include information graphs, interaction graphs and dendrograms. We use interactions to identify concept drift and ignorability of missing data. We use interactions to cluster attribute values and build taxonomies automatically.

When we say that there is an interaction, we still need to explain what it looks like. Generally, the interaction can be explained by inferring a higher-order construction. For that purpose, we provide visualizations for several models that allow for interactions. We also provide a probabilistic account of rule inference: a rule can be interpreted as a constructed attribute. We also describe interactions involving individual attribute values with other attributes: this can help us break complex attributes down into simpler components. We also provide an approach to handling the curse of dimensionality: we dynamically maintain a structure of attributes as individual attributes are entering our model one by one.

We conclude this work by presenting two practical algorithms: an efficient heuristic for selecting attributes within the naive Bayesian classifier, and a complete approach to prediction with interaction models, the Kikuchi-Bayes model. Kikuchi-Bayes combines Bayesian model averaging, a parsimonious prior, and search for interactions that determine the model. Kikuchi-Bayes outperforms most popular machine learning methods, such as classification trees, logistic regression, the naive Bayesian classifier, and sometimes even the support vector machines. However, Kikuchi-Bayes models are highly interpretable and can be easily visualized as interaction graphs.


LESSONS LEARNED
The fibrolamellar carcinoma-associated DNAJB1-PRKACA gene fusion transcript RNA codes for the catalytic domain of protein kinase A and, thus, overexpression of Aurora kinase A. ENMD-2076 showed a favorable toxicity profile. The limited results, one patient (3%) with a partial response and 57% of patients with stable disease, do not support further evaluation of ENMD-2076 as single agent. Future studies will depend on the simultaneous targeting approach of DNAJB1-PRKACA and the critical downstream components.

BACKGROUND
Fibrolamellar carcinoma (FLC) represents approximately 0.85% of liver cancers. The associated DNAJB1-PRKACA gene fusion transcript RNA codes for the catalytic domain of protein kinase A and overexpression of Aurora kinase A (AURKA). ENMD-2076 is a selective anti-AURKA inhibitor.

METHODS
Patients aged >12 years with pathologically confirmed incurable FLC, with measurable disease, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status 0-2 or Lansky 70-100, and adequate organ function were eligible. Patients were prescribed ENMD-2076 based on body surface area. The primary endpoint was overall objective response rate by RECIST v1.1, with a null hypothesis of true response rate of 2% versus one-sided alternative of 15%. Secondary endpoints included 6-month progression-free survival (PFS) rate (Fig. 1), median PFS, time to progression (TTP), and overall survival (OS). Safety was evaluated throughout the study.

RESULTS
Of 35 patients who enrolled and received treatment, 1 (3%) had a partial response (PR) and 20 (57%) had stable disease (SD). Median TTP, PFS, and OS were 5, 3.9, and 19 months, respectively. The most frequently reported drug-related serious adverse event was hypertension in three patients. Three deaths were reported on-study-two due to disease progression and one due to pulmonary embolism not related to ENMD-2076.

CONCLUSION
The study provided no rationale for further studying ENMD-2076 as a single agent in FLC.


This paper examines the characteristics of companies prone to become the target of a hostile takeover by investment funds or of "shareholder activism" by comparing companies targeted by two investment funds - MAC Asset Management Inc. (better known as the Murakami Fund) and Steel Partners Japan - and other companies randomly selected from those in the same industrial sector. The results of empirical analysis suggest that undervalued companies that are cash flow rich (i.e. rich in cash, deposits and readily-cashable securities) and have a low debt ratio and a low interlocking shareholding ratio tend to become takeover targets. This finding supports the free cash flow hypothesis, which argues that the presence of excessive free cash flows causes agency problems, and is consistent with a conclusion that companies targeted by hostile takeovers in the United States in the 1980s had been undervalued and cash flow rich. Based on these, it is considered highly probable that the pressure of shareholder activism, such as takeover threats by the Murakami Fund and Steel Partners, will help accelerate the early exit of failing companies and increase the corporate value of surviving companies in Japan where the cross-shareholding has yet to be fully dissolved, in the same way that the wave of hostile takeovers in the 1980s contributed to the boosting of corporate values in the U.S.


The effectiveness of effluent treatment at the Eleme Petrochemical Industry, Port Harcourt, Nigeria was monitored weekly for six weeks to assess their level of compliance with the Directorate of Petroleum Resources (DPR) guidelines and standards for environmental safety. Effluent samples were taken from the untreated and treated ponds and analyzed. The results showed that generally there has been a measure of effectiveness of treatment, but that maintenance of compliance with the DPR standards has not been so successful. High pH, chemical oxygen demand (COD), total dissolved solid (TDS), biological oxygen demand (BOD) and cadmium concentrations still recorded in the treated and about-to-be discharge effluent. These could lead to dangerous consequences on water life downstream of the discharge point. The need for effluent treatment and continuous monitoring of treatment plants is once more highlighted; for only in that way can the safety of water resources environment be guaranteed in the industrial regions of Nigeria. Keywords: Industrial effluent, petrochemicals, downstream, environmental monitoring


An investigation was conducted to determine the behavior of recently produced, forged S-816 turbine blades in a full-scale turbojet engine, and in particular, the scatter in performance of the alloy. The turbine blades were operated as continuously as possible at a temperature of 1500 degrees F and a centrifugal stress of 21,500 pounds per square inch. The operating lives of the turbine blades varied from 181 to 539 hours, a range of 358 hours. Stress-rupture properties of specimens cut from blade airfoils also varied considerably, as much as 1257 hours at 20,000 pounds per square inch and 1500 degrees F. Since the variability of scatter of stress-rupture data is greater than that of blade performance, the scatter is probably caused by variations in the properties of the forged blades rather than by variations caused by engine operation or installation of the blades. Metallographic examinations were made to determine possible causes of the scatter and although numerous differences in microstructures of blades were found, no consistent tendencies were observed and the findings did not permit an explanation of the scatter of blade performance. The results of the metallographic examinations and of the physical tests indirectly indicated variables in the fabricating method caused the scatter in properties.


Macrosiphoniella (Papillomyzus) iranica sp. n. (Aphididae Macrosiphini) is described from Iranian apterous viviparous females caught on Centaurea sp. and conserved in the Natural History Museum in London and in the Museum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris. The features of the new species are compared with those of the other 6 species of the subgenus Papillomyzus which are hosted on Centaurea and on other Cardueae, Cynareae or Anthemideae (Asteraceae) species and are distributed along a Mediterrean-Pontian-Turanian-East Palaeartic band.


Large amounts of quarry wastes are produced during quarrying. Though quarry wastes are commonly used in pavement construction and concrete production, in situ utilization during ecological restoration of abandoned quarries has the advantage of simplicity. In this paper, rock fragments 2–3 cm in size were mixed with landfill stabilized waste (LSW) in different proportions (LSW : gravel, RL), which was called LGM. The water content, runoff and plant growth under natural precipitation were monitored for 2 years using a runoff plot experiment. LGM with a low fraction of LSW was compacted to different degrees to achieve an appropriate porosity; water dynamics and plant growth of compacted LGM were studied in a field experiment. The results showed the following: (1) LGM can be used during restoration in abandoned quarries as growing material for plants. (2) RL had a significant effect on the infiltration and water-holding capacity of LGM and thus influenced the retention of precipitation, water condition and plant growth. LGM withRL ranging from 8 : 1 to 3 : 7 was suitable for plant growth, and the target species grew best when RL was 5 : 5. (3) Compaction significantly enhanced water content of LGM with a low RL of 2 : 8, but leaf water content of plants was lower or unchanged in the more compacted plots. Moderate compaction was beneficial to the survival and growth of Robinia pseudoacacia L. Platycladus orientalis (L.) Franco and Medicago sativa L. were not significantly affected by compaction, and they grew better under a high degree of compaction, which was disadvantageous for the uppermost layer of vegetation.


Modern home and corporate networks are interconnecting many different devices types other than personal computers and printers. It is pretty common to have surveillance cameras or thermometers and control them through cloud-based services. Security-wise this practice can create potential threats when connected devices are not kept updated or if they can freely access the network. This paper describes a novel approach to monitoring and enforcing network policies that takes advantage of techniques such as network discovery and device behaviour fingerprinting, to define per-device/user network policies and enforcing them at the network edge before unwanted traffic enters or leaves the monitored network perimeter.


We report a 13-year-old girl with Loeys-Dietz syndrome (LDS) caused by a known transforming growth factor beta receptor II (TGFBR2) gene mutation, who developed aortic root dilatation and saccular aneurysm of the internal carotid artery. LDS is a rare, autosomal dominant aortic aneurysm syndrome with multisystem involvement. The disease is typically characterized by the triad of arterial tortuosity and aneurysms, hypertelorism, and bifid uvula/cleft palate. The characteristic LDS symptoms observed in the reported case included craniofacial dysmorphism (hypertelorism, cleft palate, blue sclerae, malar hypoplasia, retrognathia), skeletal deformities (scoliosis, talipes equinovarus, pectus deformity, arachnodactyly), congenital heart defects (patent ductus arteriosus, PDA), and arterial tortuosity and aneurysms. Molecular genetic testing revealed a heterozygous mutation (c.1610 G>C, p.R528C) in the serine-threonine kinase domain of the TGFBR2 gene. Magnetic resonance (MR) angiography showed aortic dilatation, tortuosity of bilateral supraaortic arteries, and saccular aneurysm on the right cervical internal carotid artery. LDS resembles Marfan-related disorders (Marfan, Shprintzen-Goldberg and vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndrome), but arterial tortuosity and aneurysms are characteristic for LDS, so a timely diagnosis of LDS is important for early diagnosis and intervention of aneurysms to prevent vascular events. Here, we describe a LDS patient who presented with arterial tortuosity and saccular aneurysm.


How great potential effect does the Black carbon emitted from the boreal forest fire region of Alaska have on the retreating glaciers of the St. Elias Mountains? In this study climate and forest fire history data of Alaska was run in the HYSPLIT wind trajectory model to generate trajectories originated from large occurring fires in Alaska from 2005 to 2014. Results show a small percentage of trajectories passing the St. Elias Mountains and an expected pattern of a correlation between passing trajectories and density of amount forest fires. Interdisciplinary climate research is indicating an increase in global temperatures with consequences such as an upswing of forest fires in the Northern Hemisphere. Inner Alaska is fire prone due to a combination of prevailing droughts during the summer season and frequent lightning ignition as a result from homogeneous vegetation and topography. Downwind from Alaska's forest fire region is the ice field of the St. Elias Mountains, these glaciers are one of the fastest retreating due to increasing global temperatures and possible deposition of soot from Alaskan forest fires. Forest fire emits black carbon, which when deposited on snow or ice surfaces will decrease the albedo and accelerate the melting rate. Previous studies on ice cores from the St. Elias have investigated traces of combustion products from biomass burning. This indicates a possible record of historic forest fires in ice cores. The small percentage of passing trajectories in this study suggests that most large forest fires in Alaska might not be registered in the St. Elias ice cores.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the current definitions for sepsis and clarify and quantify the risk for intensive care unit (ICU) patients with sepsis.

DESIGN
A prospective cohort analysis of 519 patients with a primary clinical diagnosis of sepsis treated in the ICUs of 40 US hospitals drawn from a nationally representative sample of 17,440 admissions.

MEASUREMENTS
Patient's age, treatment location prior to ICU admission, comorbidities, origin of sepsis, daily physiologic measurements, therapeutic intensity, and subsequent hospital mortality rate.

INTERVENTION
Patients were categorized into subgroups by important risk factors and into current clinical definitions of sepsis. Patients also were provided an individual risk of hospital mortality based on their individual predicted risk by using the first ICU day APACHE III score, treatment location prior to ICU admission, and etiology of sepsis.

RESULTS
Patients with a designated urinary source of sepsis had a significantly lower baseline risk of death (30 percent) than patients with other causes (54 percent, p less than 0.01). Patients admitted to the ICU from the emergency department also had significantly lower mortality (37 percent) than patients admitted from hospital wards, other units within the hospital, or transferred from other hospitals (55 percent, p less than 0.01). Recognized definitions such as "sepsis syndrome" and "septic shock" identified groups of patients with significantly different mortality rates, 40 percent and 64 percent, respectively (p less than 0.01), but the range of individual patient risks within these groups were indistinguishable from the 211 patients (41 percent) that did not meet these definitions during the initial seven days of ICU treatment. Multivariate analysis using initial APACHE III score, etiology (urosepsis or other), and treatment location prior to ICU admission provided the greatest degree of discrimination (ROC = 0.82) of patients by risk of hospital death.

CONCLUSIONS
Sepsis is a complex clinical entity and could be viewed as a continuum with substantial variation in initial severity and risk of hospital death. One accurate description of sepsis is the continuous measure of hospital mortality risk estimated primarily from physiologic abnormalities.