This is a preliminary report on a project to characterize the historic species composition of coastal sage scrub vegetation in southern California using plot data collected between 1929 and 1934 by the USDA Forest Service's Vegetation Type Map (VTM) survey. Records and maps from a large historic data set collected for the VTM survey were converted into a digital database and GIS coverage. Historic data for 1481 shrub plots were combined with climate, modern land use, and land cover data. Preliminary analysis found patterns of species composition and geographic distribution in coastal sage scrub considerably more detailed than have been described in previously published regional descriptions. Coastal sage scrub associations described in local studies are here shown to occur over larger areas in the southern California region than the areas within which they were originally described. Maps of the regional distributions of these coastal sage scrub associations were produced. Summer precipitation, elevation, and minimum winter temperature best predicted relative differences in abundance of Eriogonum fasciculatum and Artemisia californica. Salvia apiana preferred interior, higher elevation sites with high annual precipitation and an extremely continental climate. Salvia mellifera's distribution was not well predicted by any environmental factors measured in this study. Rates of coastal sage scrub conversion were estimated by county and regionally for a number of species associations.


The objective of this study is to explore the interpretation of religious and spiritual experiences during mania, depression and recovery, from the perspective of bipolar clients and to inquire into their expectations of treatment in relation to these experiences. For this purpose, a qualitative pilot study is designed, which includes interviews with 10 outpatients of Altrecht, a Dutch mental health institution. The meaning of religious and spiritual experiences and the question of their authenticity proved to be an important theme for the participants. The support of spirituality for illness management was brought to the fore, as well as the temporary lack of this support during depression by some participants. Participants considered it desirable that more attention be paid to the topic during treatment, and to establish better cooperation between spiritual counsellors of the institution and other professionals. Thus, a more existential or hermeneutical approach towards religious experiences in relation to bipolar disorder would be a desirable contribution to standard treatment. The exact outlines of such an approach demand more empirical research.


The Van der Waerden number $W(k,r)$ denotes the smallest $n$ such that whenever $[n]$ is $r$–colored there exists a monochromatic arithmetic progression of length $k$. Similarly, the Hilbert cube number $h(k,r)$ denotes the smallest $n$ such that whenever $[n]$ is $r$–colored there exists a monochromatic affine $k$–cube, that is, a set of the form$$\left\{x_0 + \sum_{b \in B} b : B \subseteq A\right\}$$ for some $|A|=k$ and $x_0 \in \mathbb{Z}$.
We show the following relation between the Hilbert cube number and the Van der Waerden number. Let $k \geqslant 3$ be an integer. Then for every $\epsilon >0$, there is a $c > 0$ such that $$h(k,4) \geqslant \min\{W(\lfloor c k^2\rfloor, 2), 2^{k^{2.5-\epsilon}}\}.$$ Thus we improve upon state of the art lower bounds for $h(k,4)$ conditional on $W(k,2)$ being significantly larger than $2^k$. In the other direction, this shows that if the Hilbert cube number is close to its state of the art lower bounds, then $W(k,2)$ is at most doubly exponential in $k$.
We also show the optimal result that for any Sidon set $A \subset \mathbb{Z}$, one has $$\left|\left\{\sum_{b \in B} b : B \subseteq A\right\}\right| = \Omega( |A|^3) .$$


The mechanisms underlying the immune remodeling and severity response in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are yet to be fully elucidated. Our comprehensive integrative analyses of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) data from four published studies, in patients with mild/moderate and severe infections, indicate a robust expansion and mobilization of the innate immune response and highlight mechanisms by which low-density neutrophils and megakaryocytes play a crucial role in the cross talk between lymphoid and myeloid lineages. We also document a marked reduction of several lymphoid cell types, particularly natural killer cells, mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells, and gamma-delta T (γδT) cells, and a robust expansion and extensive heterogeneity within plasmablasts, especially in severe COVID-19 patients. We confirm the changes in cellular abundances for certain immune cell types within a new patient cohort. While the cellular heterogeneity in COVID-19 extends across cells in both lineages, we consistently observe certain subsets respond more potently to interferon type I (IFN-I) and display increased cellular abundances across the spectrum of severity, as compared with healthy subjects. However, we identify these expanded subsets to have a more muted response to IFN-I within severe disease compared to non-severe disease. Our analyses further highlight an increased aggregation potential of the myeloid subsets, particularly monocytes, in COVID-19. Finally, we provide detailed mechanistic insights into the interaction between lymphoid and myeloid lineages, which contributes to the multisystemic phenotype of COVID-19, distinguishing severe from non-severe responses.


This article sets out theorisations of developmental democracy and spiritual awareness formulated in previous work by the authors. These are used to explore collegial leadership in a case study Steiner school, with the aim of illuminating and illustrating the transformative demands of developmental democracy and its interconnection with spiritual awareness. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for imbuing democratised educational leadership with spiritual energy and fashioning and leading a school environment that reflects the model of developmental democracy.


Precipitation is the one of the prime indicators of climate change and its aberration causes many extreme events such as floods and droughts. Long-term trends were analyzed as monthly, seasonal and annual rainfall of Haridwar, Dehradun,Udham Singh Nagar, Almora and Nainital using Mann-Kendall and linear regression tests and change point was detected using cumulative deviation and Worsley likelihood statistic. Mann Kendall test revealed that there is significant increase in rainfall only for Haridwar district which has more urbanizing area compared to other districts. Haridwar is the holy place attracting significant floating population from all over the world, especially during festivals and fairs. Anthropogenic activity and industrialization is also the major cause of rainfall trend fluctuation in the Haridwar city. The monthly trend tests show that July rainfall is increasing whereas the December rainfall is decreasing which could be due to the seasonal shift. The start of change in the rainfall trend for the above mentioned districts is observed with distinct difference from 2009 onwards. From this it can be concluded that the stations to the west show significant trends compared to station which is towards east. Monsoon especially in July month a trend of increasing rainfall is observed in the studied Indian cities. The spatial and temporal trends of precipitation are pertinent for the future development and sustainable management of water resources of a given region.


We estimate the effects of initial labour market entry conditions on a range of subsequent job outcomes for men and women who entered the British labour market between 1991 and 2009, using data from the British Household Panel Survey and its successor Understanding Society. We find that the unemployment rate on leaving full-time education has large impacts on initial labour market outcomes including status, wages and employment stability, which persist over the subsequent ten years. These effects are more pronounced for men than women and indicate that young people entering the labour market during the current period of economic stagnation will suffer a lasting scar as a consequence.


OBJECTIVES: Our goal was to examine the association between poverty, in the first and fourth years of life and cumulatively in the first and fourth years of life, and the health of children in the fourth year of life in the UK Millennium Cohort Study and in the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (QLSCD). METHODS: Data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study of 14 556 children and from the QLSCD of 1950 children were analyzed. Comparable measures of poverty were households in receipt of the safety-net benefit: income support in the United Kingdom and social welfare in Quebec. Three parent-reported health indicators were examined: asthma attack, long-standing illness, and limiting long-standing illness by the fourth year of life. Associations were explored with logistic regression modeling controlling for child characteristics and maternal education. RESULTS: Poverty only in the first year of life significantly increased the risk of asthma attacks and limiting long-standing illness in the fourth year of life among UK children; trends were in the expected direction in the QLSCD but did not reach statistical significance. Poverty in the fourth year of life only significantly increased the risk of all 3 outcomes for UK children but not for Quebec children. For children experiencing poverty in both the first and fourth years of life, the risks for all 3 outcomes also increased in the United Kingdom, whereas only the risk of limiting long-standing illness increased in Quebec. Adjustment for confounding had little effect on the increased risks associated with poverty. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that experience of poverty at various times in early childhood increases the risk of asthma attacks and chronic illness in the fourth year of life; however, they also indicate that poverty at different stages of the early childhood life course may have different effects on chronic illness in different country settings.


Based on case studies of the author's first-hand experience, this paper calls attention to the awareness of cultural imperialism by the exploration of discourse implicature in business context across cultures. It is assumed by analysis that the cultural imperialism exists verbally, textually or non-verbally through the behavior of individual interlocutors, who preserve an outdated awareness of cultural-goods against cultural-humble. The cultural awareness serves as the dynamics for the production of communicative behavior and discourse implicature. The effective communication to get rid of such cultural imperialism relies on three major elements, i.e. a sober cultural understanding, a mastery of both source and target languages and an appropriate communicative behavior.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of the serotonin-induced coronary chemoreflex in the conscious monkey. Ten chronically prepared and four acute monkeys were used in this study. Five chronically prepared animals had catheters in the left atrium, ascending aorta, descending aorta, and, bilaterally, in the common carotid arteries. In addition, Silastic catheters were placed next to both vagi to permit vagal block with 2% lidocaine. Serotonin was injected (12–200 μg/kg) into the left atrium, ascending aorta, descending aorta, or, bilaterally, into the carotid arteries while blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory movements were recorded. Injections of serotonin were associated with hypertension and bradycardia followed by tachycardia, all of which were preceded by a cough response. Atropine blocked the bradycardia, whereas atropine and phentolamine eliminated the cardiovascular components of the reflex. Vagal blockade eliminated the bradycardia but otherwise did not alter the response to left atrial serotonin. Three monkeys were prepared with aortic and left atrial catheters. Subsequently, they were subjected to sinoaortic deafferentation. Serotonin injected into these animals did not alter blood pressure or respiration. The results of this study show that serotonin injected into the left atrium of the conscious monkey produces respiratory and cardiovascular alterations by its effect on aortic and carotid chemoreceptors, and that there is no coronary chemoreflex in the conscious monkey.


Part 1: Ethical and legal background: Reasoning about ethics. Ethics and legal background. Three core concepts in medical ethics - best interests, autonomy and rights. An introduction to law. Doctors, patients and professions. Part 2. Specific topics. Consent. Confidentiality. Genetics. Reproductive medicine. Children. Mental disorder. End of life. Resource allocation. Research. Disease, disability and human enhancement. Useful web resources in medical ethics and law.


Background Pregnant women are more prone to oxidative stress. Iron deficiency anemia not only affects hematological parameters but also disturbs body oxidative balance, which impairs pregnancy outcome. Besides, iron therapy may generate harmful oxygen species. Objectives The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the nature of oral iron supplementation (ferrous vs. ferric) in pregnant women with iron deficiency on oxidative stress and its correlation with peripheral systemic inflammatory response markers. Patients and methods A clinical trail study involves study included 30 healthy and 50 anemic pregnant women in their 20th-36th gestational weeks who fulfilled the inclusion criteria. They were randomly distributed to receive either ferrous sulfate or ferric polymaltose complex. Outcome was assessed after 8 weeks of iron supplementation and included hematological parameters, neutrophil : lymphocyte ratio, platelet : lymphocyte ratio, mean platelet volume, serum malondialdehyde (MDA), total antioxidant capacity (TAC), iron, and ferritin. Results Anemic pregnant women have increased oxidative stress with high levels of MDA and TAC, both at baseline and following iron supplementation (P < 0.001). Following 8 weeks of iron supplementation, there were a significant increase (P < 0.001) in hemoglobin and serum ferritin, and a significant decrease (P < 0.001) in the peripheral inflammatory markers neutrophil: lymphocyte ratio, platelet: lymphocyte ratio, mean platelet volume, and absolute lymphocyte counts. Conclusion Iron polymaltose complex was as effective as ferrous sulfate as both were able to correct hematologic parameters in parallel to a decrease in MDA and peripheral inflammatory markers together with an increase in TAC levels to maintain oxidative balance.


Early morphological and biochemical studies indicated that vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) exhibited two distinct phenotypes and that a change from the contractile to the synthetic phenotype was a prerequisite for progression of vascular disease. More recently, it has become evident that these phenotypes probably represent the extremes of a spectrum of phenotypes that may coexist in the vessel wall, which are dictated by their environment and functional requirements and which reflect differing patterns of gene expression. Therefore, knowledge of the key factors that regulate these patterns of gene expression is likely to lead to the ability to manipulate VSMC phenotype. However, before such factors can be identified, the relationship between VSMC gene expression and VSMC phenotype must first be established. We therefore undertook a differential screen of cDNA from VSMCs in vitro to provide a bank of gene markers that could be used under a variety of circumstances to define VSMC phenotype in terms of the pattern of genes expressed. Using this approach, we have found that the pattern of gene expression that occurs during neointima formation in the balloon-injured rat carotid artery is very similar to that seen at a specific period in the developing aorta of the early neonate and is characterized by coexpression of genes for both contractile and matrix proteins. Furthermore, recent studies have shown that VSMCs isolated at different stages of aortic development can stably maintain different phenotypic characteristics in cell culture. The use of these cells in transfection experiments with SM-specific promoter-chloramphenicol acetyltransferase reporter constructs may enable us to determine what regulates the pattern of gene expression in different VSMC phenotypes. Such studies may ultimately lead to the identification of transcription factors responsible for determining VSMC phenotype and may therefore provide targets for therapy aimed at manipulating VSMC gene expression in vascular disease.


Introduction The ischaemic consequences of a coronary artery stenosis can be assessed by invasive fractional flow reserve (FFR) or by non-invasive imaging. We sought to determine (i) the concordance between wall thickening assessment and FFR during clinically indicated stress echocardiography (SE) and FFR measurements and (ii) the predictors of hard events in these patients. Methods and Results 194 patients who underwent SE and invasive FFR measurements in close succession were analysed for diagnostic concordance and clinical outcomes. At the vessel level, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) of SE for identifying significant disease as assessed by FFR was 70%, 78%, 46% and 91% respectively. In patients with single vessel disease, the sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV were 86%, 66%, 38% and 95% respectively. The greatest discordance was seen in patients with wall thickening abnormalities (WTA) and negative FFR. During a follow up of 3.0±1.9 years there were 15 cardiovascular (CV) events. The number of wall segments with inducible WTAs emerged as the only independent predictor of CV events (HR 1.22 (1.05–1.43), p=0.01). FFR was not a predictor of outcome. There was a significant increase in event rate in patients with WTA/negative FFR and WTA/positive FFR, compared to patients with no WTA (p=0.04). However, no significant difference was seen between patients with WTA/negative FFR versus WTA/positive FFR (p=0.38) Conclusion In a patient population with significant CV risk factors, a normal SE effectively ruled out abnormal FFR. The greatest discordance was seen in patients with abnormal SE/normal FFR. In this group, patients had similar outcomes compared to those with abnormal SE/positive FFR but worse outcomes compared to patients with a normal SE. These findings have significant clinical implications.Abstract 115 Figure 1Abstract 115 Figure 2


This paper presents an approach to the problem of facilitating dynamic and secure networking in a highly heterogeneous environment. The proposed design includes new architectural components and functions collected at a separate layer - the session layer - while leaving functionality inside the TCP/IP stack intact. Following an overview of the approach and the underlying principles, it is argued that architectural changes in system design are necessary for a smooth evolution of the Internet in the future


The introduction of organic substituents into sol-gel materials can often result in networks that collapse during drying to afford non-porous xerogels. This can prove useful if non-porous coatings or membranes are the ultimate objectives. Collapse of porosity is also manifested in bridged polysilsesquioxanes with flexible bridging groups. Alkylene-bridged polysilsesquioxanes are hybrid xerogels whose organic bridging group is an integral constituent of the network polymer that can be systematically varied to probe the influence of its length on the xerogels' porosity and morphology. Our previous studies have shown that hexylene-bridged polysilsesquioxane xerogels prepared from 1, 6-bis(triethoxysilyl)hexane under acidic conditions are nonporous while the pentylene-bridged polysilsesquioxanes prepared under the same conditions are porous. We also discovered that the more reactive 1, 6-bis(trimethoxysilyl)hexane monomer could polymerize under acidic conditions to afford porous xerogels. Here, we have extended our study of bis(trimethoxysilyl)alkanes to include the heptylene (C7), octylene (C8), nonylene(C9) and decylene (C10) bridges so as to ascertain at what bridging group length the porosity collapses. The morphology of the resulting xerogels was characterized by nitrogen sorption porosimetry and electron microscopy. Solid state NMR was used to structurally characterize the materials.


Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) with convolutional and pooling operations along the frequency axis have been proposed to attain invariance to frequency shifts of features. However, this is inappropriate with regard to the fact that acoustic features vary in frequency. In this paper, we contend that convolution along the time axis is more effective. We also propose the addition of an intermap pooling (IMP) layer to deep CNNs. In this layer, filters in each group extract common but spectrally variant features, then the layer pools the feature maps of each group. As a result, the proposed IMP CNN can achieve insensitivity to spectral variations characteristic of different speakers and utterances. The effectiveness of the IMP CNN architecture is demonstrated on several LVCSR tasks. Even without speaker adaptation techniques, the architecture achieved a WER of 12.7% on the SWB part of the Hub5'2000 evaluation test set, which is competitive with other state-of-the-art methods.


The objective of this study is to assess the causal effect of previous eligibility on subsequent electoral participation. With data for age and turnout for almost all (97.6 %) eligible to vote in the Swedish election to the European Parliament 2009, both previous eligibility and outcome (i.e. if an individual voted in 2009) is measured. The difference in turnout between individuals who barely had passed the age limit at certain previous elections, and those who just had not, is estimated. Within a regression discontinuity framework, the interpretation of this difference as the causal effect of previous eligibility can be established and its validity evaluated. Similar studies have concluded negative effects of previous eligibility in Denmark and Finland (Bhatti et al., 2016) and mostly positive effects in the US (Coppock and Green 2016; Dinas, 2012; Meredith, 2009). The results in this thesis indicate that the effect of one-time eligibility is negative and amounts to about 2.5 percentage points, or about 7 % (0.9 standard deviations in the sample). This is hypothesized to be due to a psychological positive first-time boost to voting - it is simply more enthusing to be able to vote for the first time. No significant results for earlier eligibility is found, indicating that it does not matter what type of election one first is eligible to vote in, contrary to previous findings (Franklin and Hobolt, 2011).


The innovative approach of regional development during 2014-20 programming period, in line with the "Europe 2020" strategy, implies a new form of designing the local and regional strategies of development. The transition to a green , smart and innovative economy , cannot be attained only by adapting quickly to changes that appear in today's European society. Thus, an integrative strategic thinking becomes more necessary than ever. This research paper intends to guide and inspire those people that have the responsibility for designing and coordination of local and regional strategies of development. A lesson about strategic thinking in regional development refers mainly at the process of planning and implementation of policies with local focus , but with a significant European dimension , in an active partnership with all the relevant stakeholders. Another important lesson, mainly for Romanian authorities in charge with the management of local and regional development, is about timing with the Brussels . In order to be able to provide tangible results for citizens, each local/regional government should collaborate in order to harmonize their public policy in line with EU trend of development. Real multi-level governance is a novelty but also a necessity and a priority of 2014-20 programming period.


The formation and release of polybrominated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PBDD/Fs) from the incineration of electronic wastes (e-waste) that contain brominated flame retardants (BFRs) are a concern. However, studies on the determination of PBDD/Fs in environmental samples collected from e-waste recycling facilities are scarce. In this study, 11 2,3,7,8-substituted PBDD/Fs and 10 polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) congeners were determined in electronic shredder waste, workshop-floor dust soil, and leaves (of plants on the grounds of the facility) from a large-scale e-waste recycling facility and in surface soil from a chemical-industrial complex (comprising a coke-oven plant, a coal-fired power plant, and a chlor-alkali plant) as well as agricultural areas in eastern China. Total PBDD/F concentrations in environmental samples were in the range of 113-818 pg/g dry wt (dw) for leaves, 392-18500 pg/g dw for electronic shredder residues, 716-800000 pg/g dw for soil samples, and 89600-pg/g dw for workshop-floor dust from the e-waste recycling facility and in a range from nondetect (ND) to 427 pg/g dw in soil from the chemical-industrial complex. The highest mean concentrations of total PBDD/Fs were found in soil samples and workshop-floor dust from the e-waste recycling facility. The dioxin-like toxic equivalent (measured as TEQ) concentrations of PBDD/Fs were greater than the TEQs of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) reported in our previous study for the same set of samples. The concentrations of PBDFs were several orders of magnitude higher than the concentrations of PBDDs in samples from the e-waste facility or from soil from the chemical-industrial complex. A significant correlation was found between the concentrations of sigmaPBDD/Fs and sigmaPBDEs (r = 0.769, p < 0.01) and between sigmaPBDD/Fs and the previously reported sigmaPCDD/F concentrations (r = 0.805, p < 0.01). The estimated daily human intakes of TEQs contributed by PBDD/Fs via soil/dust ingestion and dermal exposures in e-waste recycling facilities were higher than the intakes of TEQs contributed by PCDD/ Fs, calculated in our previous study.


The helix transform was introduced to the geophysical community by Claerbout (1998) as a means to perform multidimensional convolution via one-dimensional convolution operators. The helix algorithm proves to be very helpful for multidimensional deconvolution problems like those encountered in noise attenuation and seismic data regularization with prediction error filters (Naghizadeh and Sacchi, 2009). The helix transform can be clearly explained using zero-padding and lexicographic ordering of multidimensional data cubes. The intention of this short presentation is to describe, in very simple terms, how one can perform multidimensional convolution via a 1D convolution algorithm.


Adult clinically healthy New Zealand rabbits were sampled bacteriologically to detect carriers and non-carriers of Pasteurella multocida. Both groups of rabbits were killed separately to obtain samples of nasal, buccal, pharyngeal and tracheal epithelial cells. The cells were tested for adherence in vitro to 18 isolates of P. multocida from healthy and sick rabbits, from ovine, bovine, cat and swine. The number of bacteria adhered per cell up to 25 cells per preparation were registered. Analysis of variance was used to interpret the significance of results. Adherence of P. multocida was significantly higher to carrier rabbit cells than to non-carrier rabbit cells. Bacterial isolates from rabbits were more adherent to rabbit cells than to isolates from other species. The frequency was higher to buccal and pharyngeal cells than to nasal and tracheal cells. Isolates from healthy animals adhered better to rabbit cells than isolates from sick animals, except the isolates from sick animals which adhered better to nasal cells of non carriers than did isolates from healthy rabbits.


Regional stress has a significant impact on fault development during the formation of salt dome structures. To examine such effects of wrenching, we conducted a series of analog experiments of updoming using dry, granular materials and observed the deformation on the top free surface. The experiments included three deformation styles: (1) updoming followed by wrenching, (2) simultaneous updoming and wrenching, and (3) wrenching followed by updoming. In the first series of the experiments, the faults produced by simple updoming were overprinted by two strike-slip fault systems that were generated by the subsequent wrenching. The second series of experiments with the configuration of simultaneous updoming and wrenching generated normal faults in a direction perpendicular to relative extension by the wrench. In the third series of experiments, the Riedel and anti-Riedel shear faults formed by wrenching were deformed by the subsequent updoming and were overprinted by the faults related to the updoming. These experimental results are applied to the fault systems observed above dome structures in the United Arab Emirates region, where extensive faults in the northwest–southeast direction have developed. By analogy, these faults were probably formed during an updoming and simultaneous wrenching. The direction of simple shear inferred from a comparison of real faults and experimental results suggests that dextral wrenching caused by the Oman stress regime during the Late Cretaceous affected the region at the time of the updoming.


The incidence of death of broiler birds above 40 days suddenly increased in the month of July-October 2010 in Kathmandu valley. Birds that were presented for postmortem examination at the Central Veterinary Laboratory Tripureswor Kathmandu were usually found dead on their backs with wings out-stretched. Gross abnormalities recorded on post mortem examinations were: muscle oedema, pulmonary, renal and liver congestion, dark black to pale yellow streaked liver bile filled gall bladder and congestive splenomegaly,blood clot in atrium haemorrhage in duodenal muscle , whitish yellow pasty fluid in proventriculus gland, greenish coloration marked intact feed particles in gizzard and excessive mucous filled swollen intestine. Incidence rate was recorded between 1.5 to 2.5% of the flock. The mean mortality rate due to sudden death syndrome was 1.3 9.6%.Penicillium spp., Aspergillus spp.,with CFU ranging from 56×10462×105,to uncountable mold count , E.coli, Streptococcus spp. and Staphylococcus spp. were the usual organisms isolated from culture samples of liver, lung, spleen and proventriculus. The condition seems to be related to mycotoxicosis. Reduction of mortality was achieved by feed restriction, with 8-10% reduction in nutrient density. Supplementation of glucose containing electrolyte, liquid toxin binder, Immunomodulator, acidifier and antibiotic therapy.


Abstract Congenital malformations of the hand may be present as part of syndromes. The recognition of these syndromes directly influences the surgical care of the hand anomaly. The natural history of the disorder may be predicted. The associated malformations may affect surgical timings and the indications for surgical correction. Various schema are presented here for evaluating the common abnormalities of the hand--radial club hand, ulnar defects, syndactyly, and polydactyly.


Male students (n=95) and female students (n=77) in their penultimate year at a metropolitan high school completed the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) to provide masculinity (M) and femininity (F) scores and also nominated their choices of ideal and realistic occupations, the former being the occupation they would most prefer to work in and the latter the occupation that they realistically expected to choose. They then rated each choice for male dominance and status or prestige. Those subjects who indicated that they would not continue in the realistically chosen occupation until retirement also rated the likelihood that each of 10 reasons would be their reason for leaving. Results indicated strong gender effects for the male dominance ratings, males preferring gender-congruent ideal and realistic occupations more than females. Strong gender effects also occurred from the analyses of the likelihood ratings for some of the reasons. Effects involving masculinity (M) and femininity (F) scores and their joint classification (androgynous, masculine, feminine, undifferentiated) were mostly non-significant but the significant effects that did emerge were theoretically meaningful, especially those that concerned reasons for quitting the realistic occupation. Results were taken as support for the view that the effects of sex-role expectations and attitudes should be distinguished from the effects of instrumental and expressive personality traits when occupational choices are considered.


In this paper, we try to present a way in terms of which one can analytically obtain the Hartree selfconsistent potential instead of computing it by the numerical iterative procedure as usual, which is convenient for us to describe the current flow through a mesoscopic conductor. In our treatment, we expand the action function S(x)by Planck constant h, then the self-consistent potential and the wavefunction can be solved analytically order by order starting from the Poisson equation and quantum Hamilton-Jacobian equation, the differential conductance and quantum capacitance can thus be obtained naturally. In our paper, we show the quantum corrections up to the second order, and the electron-electron interaction is considered only at the Hartree approximation level.


The purpose of this review is to examine how whole-body vibration can be used as a tool in therapy to help improve common physical weaknesses in balance, bone density, gait, spasticity, and strength experienced by individuals with cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy is the most common movement disorder in children, and whole-body vibration is quickly becoming a potential therapeutic tool with some advantages compared to traditional therapies for individuals with movement disorders. The advantages of whole-body vibration include less strain and risk of injury, more passive training activity, and reduced time to complete an effective therapeutic session, all of which are appealing for populations with physiological impairments that cause physical weakness, including individuals with cerebral palsy. This review involves a brief overview of cerebral palsy, whole-body vibration's influence on physical performance measures, its influence on physical performance in individuals with cerebral palsy, and then discusses the future directions of whole-body vibration therapy in the cerebral palsy population.


Aim. We conducted a study to determine whether administration of a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine to toddlers attending day-care centers (DCCs) could prevent acquisition of Streptococcus pneumoniae of the vaccine serotypes (VT) by their younger siblings. In a double blind study, 262 DCC attendees ages 12 to 35 months were randomized to receive a 9-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PnCRM9;n = 132), or a control vaccine (meningococcus C vaccine;n = 130). It was planned to follow the groups for 2 years with monthly nasopharyngeal pneumococcal cultures during the first follow-up year and every 2 months during the second year. Forty-six younger siblings of the above described children, age <18 months (23 siblings of the PnCRM9 recipients and 23 of the controls), were also enrolled, and nasopharyngeal cultures were obtained monthly until the children reached the age of 18 months or started to attend DCC, if before the age of 18 months. Pneumococcal isolates were serotyped and tested for antibiotic susceptibility. Results. Of the 3748 cultures obtained from the DCC attendees, 2450 (65%) were positive for S. pneumoniae. Of 306 cultures obtained from the younger siblings, 151 (49%) were positive. Among the PnCRM9 recipients, cultures were significantly less frequently positive for the VT S. pneumoniae than among the controls (13% vs. 21%, respectively;P < 0.001). The same pattern was seen in the younger siblings of PnCRM9 recipients vs. the siblings of controls (21% vs. 34%, respectively;P = 0.017). The reverse trend was seen for non-VT strains in both the DCC attendees (44% vs. 34%, respectively;P < 0.001) and their younger siblings (19% vs. 13%, respectively;P = 0.15). There was a significant decrease in the carriage rate of antibiotic-resistant S. pneumoniae in both the PnCRM9 recipients and their younger siblings. The relative risks (and 95% confidence intervals) to carry S. pneumoniae penicillin-nonsusceptible, resistant to ≥1, ≥2 and ≥3 antibiotic categories among younger siblings of PnCRM9 recipients vs. siblings of controls were 0.47 (0.31 to 0.70), 0.49 (0.33 to 0.71), 0.46 (0.30 to 0.73) and 0.49 (0.21 to 1.17), respectively. When acquired, VT and antibiotic-resistant S. pneumoniae were carried for a significantly shorter period of time among siblings of PnCRM9 recipients than in siblings of controls. Conclusion. The marked effect of PnCRM9 administration to DCC attendees on carriage of VT and antibiotic-resistant S. pneumoniae among their younger household close contacts demonstrates a herd effect of the vaccine.


Hospitalists are physicians who spend at least 25% of their professional time serving as the physicians-of-record for inpatients, during which time they accept "hand-offs" of hospitalized patients from primary care providers, returning the patients to their primary care providers at the time of hospital discharge. The hospitalist movement is only about 5 years old, yet at least 7000 hospitalists practice today and an estimated 19,000 will ultimately practice, approximately the current number of emergency medicine physicians. The emerging positivist literature on hospitalists' impact is the subject of this review. It traces the nature and evolution of the hospitalist movement; summarizes empirical evidence about costs, clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction, and education; and appraises whether the hospitalist model is indeed novel. The review concludes by outlining research questions about the hospitalist model's viability over time, the mechanisms by which it produces benefits, and especially hospitalists' longitudinal effect on continuity of patient care. A literature "scorecard" might rank evidence to date on costs as positive, evidence on clinical outcomes and education as nonnegative, and evidence on patient satisfaction and continuity of care as inconclusive. Above all, longitudinal research must illuminate whether hospitalists' advantages come at the cost of the doctor-patient relationship.


Antibodies obtained from guinea pigs injected with rabbit pancreatic trypsin together with antibodies raised in rabbits against bovine acrosin or bovine pancreatic trypsin were reacted against various mammalian trypsins and acrosins in double diffusion tests. The results of immunodiffusion analyses reveal antigenic dissimilarity between rabbit acrosin and rabbit trypsin.


In this paper, we report on stable liquid-air interfaces and high-aspect-ratio polymer micromembranes with complex and controlled structures formed within microfluidic channels. Selective alkanethiol treatment on gold and copper surfaces is employed to create hydrophilic-hydrophobic boundaries between glass and these metal surfaces within microchannels. Robust liquid-air interfaces, featured with different 3-D structures, are formed at these boundaries. The process for creating these liquid-air interfaces is highly reproducible. Simulations are conducted to further study the liquid-air interfaces. The liquid-air interfaces are then utilized for interfacial polymerization. Two immiscible liquid phases containing the reagents react and generate polymer micromembranes within microfluidic channels. Formed following the hydrophilic-hydrophobic boundaries, these membranes have not only complex footprints on the substrates but also different configurations in the -direction. Here, we demonstrate high-quality and complex 3-D nylon micromembranes fabricated in microchannels using this method.


PATTERNS OF COMPLEX MULTIMORBIDITY – A LINKED DATA ANALYSIS OF ABORIGINAL AND NON-ABORIGINAL PATIENTS HOSPITALISED FOR ATHEROTHROMBOTIC DISEASES: IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH CARE, MEDICAL EDUCATION AND RESEARCH Mohammad Akhtar Hussain, Judith M Katzenellenbogen, Frank M Sanfilippo, Kevin Murray, Sandra C Thompson 1 Western Australian Centre for Rural Health, The University of Western Australia, Geraldton, Western Australia, Australia 2 School of Population and Global Health, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia


Introduction: Anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) is a common procedure for a patient with progressive spinal cord compression and severe neurological deterioration causing major disability. Surgery in anterior approach involves removal of osteophyte and disc materials for decompression of spinal cord with addition to the interposition of autogenous tricortical bone graft and stabilization by plate and screw.
Objectives: To assess the clinical outcome, complications of anterior cervical decompression and fusion for cervical spondylotic myelopathy.
Materials and Methods: This prospective interventional study was carried out in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Combined Military Hospital, Dhaka from January 2015 to May 2017. Total of 24 cases of cervical spondylotic myelopathy was enrolled as a study sample. All were treated by an anterior cervical discectomy, fusion and stabilization by plate and screw. All patients were clinically and radiographically evaluated before and after surgery.
Results: In the majority (62.5%) patients, the level of involvement was in C5/C6 and 92.8% had a satisfactory outcome. In 4.1% of cases, early complication like superficial wound infection was noted. Late complications were persistence of pain, numbness present in 7.2% cases. The fusion rate was 100% in this series.
Conclusion: Anterior cervical decompression and fusion for cervical spondylotic myelopathy is a safe and effective procedure. It is associated with the highest fusion, least complications and relatively lower cost.
Journal of Armed Forces Medical College Bangladesh Vol.14 (2) 2018: 127-129


Published research articles are rich sources of data when the knowledge is incorporated into models. Complex biological systems benefit from computational modeling's ability to elucidate dynamics, explain data and address hypotheses. Modeling of pancreatic cancer could guide treatment of this devastating disease that has a known mutational profile disrupting signaling pathways but no reliable therapies. The approach described here is to utilize discrete modeling of the major signaling pathways, metabolism and the tumor microenvironment including macrophages. This modeling approach allows for abstraction in order to assemble large networks to capture numerous facets of the biological system under investigation. The Hallmarks of Cancer are represented as the processes of apoptosis, autophagy, cell cycle progression, inflammation, immune response, oxidative phosphorylation and proliferation. The model is initialized with pancreatic cancer receptors and mutations and simulated in time. The model portrays the hallmarks of cancer and suggests combinations of inhibitors as therapies.


We have studied the locking characteristics of semiconductor lasers through numerical calculation of the output intensity and change in carrier density of the slave laser during injection locking. We have also obtained the dynamic locking range by examining the roots of the secular determinant of the perturbed system. The lower boundaries of the static and dynamic locking ranges coincide, but the upper boundaries do not. Both the static and dynamic locking ranges are asymmetrical about zero detuning and dependent on injection ratio, linewidth enhancement factor and biasing condition. The upper boundary of the dynamically stable region exhibits an abrupt bend at a very low injection level. Unlike previous work, the locking characteristics at both low and high injection levels have been carefully studied.


Two types of information exist in a stereo pair: correlation (matching) and decorrelation (half-occlusion). Vision science has shown that both types of information are used in the visual cortex, and that people can perceive depth even when correlation cues are absent or very weak, a capability that remains absent from most computational stereo systems. As a step toward stereo algorithms that are more consistent with these perceptual phenomena, we re-examine the topic of scanline stereo as energy minimization. We represent a disparity profile as a piecewise smooth function with explicit breakpoints between its smooth pieces, and we show this allows correlation and decorrelation to be integrated into an objective that requires only two types of local information: the correlation and its spatial gradient. Experimentally, we show the global optimum of this objective matches human perception on a broad collection of wellknown perceptual stimuli, and that it also provides reasonable piecewise-smooth interpretations of depth in natural images, even without exploiting monocular boundary cues.


The load-sensing system has for a long time been the most energy efficient hydraulic system widely used for mobile machines. When replacing the combustion engine drive with an electric drive with a battery as energy source an incentive for using more energy efficient systems arise. Some promising examples of more energy efficient systems are independent metering systems, pump controlled systems and open flow control systems. Before getting to deeply involved in a specific design, an investigation of the intended application is of importance. The objective of this study is to present a large number of energy efficient designs for the hydraulic system of an electrified loader crane by the means of a loss analysis and a high level concept comparison. To be able to cover a large design space all systems are modeled based on static pressure-flow relations for their components.
Based on measurements, the losses from simultaneous operation, backpressure losses and load holding valve losses are found to be the largest loss contributors in the hydraulic system. If an electrical supply system is added to the reference load sensing system, the overall efficiency is found to be 23 %. The hydraulic system it is found to account for 62 % of the losses and the drive system for 38 %.
The concept comparison shows that a two or four pump system with recuperation possibilities can decrease the energy consumption of the complete system on the studied working pattern by about 50 %.


Purpose: To develop a methodology for retrospectively reconstructing the IMRT dose delivered to a prostate patient on the basis of on‐treatment cone‐beam CT(CBCT) and fluence maps derived from the MLC segments captured by an amorphous siliconelectronic portal imaging device (aSi‐EPID) during the treatment. Method and Materials: The geometric status of the EPDI, including the sag, tilt, and offsets for various gantry angles were established, and the necessary corrections were incorporated in the later calculation of the leaf end positions. CBCT was performed on a pelvic phantom and a typical IMRT prostate plan was delivered to the phantom; EPIDimages at 6.7 frames per second were acquired for each field. In‐house software was developed to (1) identify the different segmental images captured for each field, (2) calculate from the segmental image the leaf end positions using a maximum gradient algorithm, (3) couple the fractional monitor unit data intercepted from the MLC workstation with each corresponding segment and (4) re‐constitute the LS file. The EPID‐measured LS files were loaded back to the treatment planning system to derive the delivered fluence maps for CBCT dose reconstruction. The dose distributions from the two dose reconstructions on the CBCT using the delivered and planned fluence maps, respectively, were compared. Results: A dose reconstruction procedure based on CBCT and EPID‐measured LS files has been established. The dose distributions based on the delivered and planned fluence maps were slightly different in the high dose region; the maximum dose from the former distribution was 2.5% lower than that from the latter. Conclusion: The developed methodology allows us to reconstructIMRT delivered dose based on (1) the CBCT that depicts the most updated internal anatomy and (2) delivered fluence maps that include the delivery errors. This affords a valuable platform to implement adaptive therapy in the future.


BACKGROUND
Upper-limb injuries and musculoskeletal disorders represent a major economic burden for both patients and society, largely due to limitations in returning to work. We hypothesized that a positive patient-surgeon relationship may facilitate patients' recovery and lead to a faster return to work.

METHODS
This longitudinal observational study comprised 219 patients, from 8 French hand trauma centers, who were 18 to 55 years of age and were on sick leave from work because of an injury or musculoskeletal disorder of the upper limb. In addition to instruments measuring patients' functional scores and quality of life, the quality of the patient-surgeon relationship was assessed at enrollment using a specific questionnaire (Q-PASREL [Quality of PAtient-Surgeon RELationship]). Six months after enrollment, the return-to-work status was assessed. Logistic and Cox regression models were developed to identify predictors of return to work (yes/no) and the time off from work in days.

RESULTS
Overall, 74% of the patients who returned to work within 6 months after enrollment had a high or medium-high Q-PASREL score, whereas 64% of the patients who were still on sick leave had a low or medium-low Q-PASREL score. The odds of patients with a low or medium-low Q-PASREL score returning to work were, respectively, 95% and 71% lower than the odds of patients with a high score doing so, with a percent difference of 56% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 40% to 71%) for low versus high (odds ratio [OR] = 0.05 [95% CI = 0.02 to 0.13]) and 25% (95% CI = 6% to 44%) for medium-low versus high (OR = 0.29 [95% CI = 0.11 to 0.76]). All Q-PASREL items and scores were significantly associated with return to work.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients with a lower Q-PASREL score and more severe disability were less likely to return to work within 6 months and had a longer time off from work. Efforts to improve the quality of patient-surgeon relationships may minimize the duration of sick leaves and accelerate patient recovery.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE
Prognostic Level II. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.


Health promotion is finding a place in the community hospital. This article discusses the need for commitment to health promotion as an ongoing program and not a publicity campaign. Examples of successful programs, principles of good practice, and the benefits of providing the community with information are presented.


Predictions of the devastating impact of Alzheimer's disease (AD) are heightened in disadvantaged rural populations, yet studies investigating AD in this population are limited. Other researchers have shown that when rural Appalachian people are aware of their risk for a chronic illness, they are more willing to adopt healthy behaviors (Della, 2011; Schoenberg et al. 2011), suggesting that educational programs to increase knowledge and perception of risk are needed. The purpose of this article is to report findings from exploring knowledge of Alzheimer's disease in a southern rural West Virginia community of residents ( N = 193) and a sample of caregivers ( n = 20) using cognitive interview techniques of "Think-aloud" and "Laddering". The cultural fit and relevance of the "Knowledge of Alzheimer's Disease scale or KAD (Jang, Kim, Hansen, & Chiriboga, 2010) was also examined. Findings from the KAD included that an updated AD measure appropriate for use in rural settings is needed. Findings from the cognitive interview included that instead of fatalistic attitudes toward Alzheimer's disease, residents often viewed AD as something potentially preventable through healthier living, use of herbs as children, and eventual discovery of more effective treatment regimens. The themes that emerged were "preventing AD" and "personal knowing of AD". Considering cultural perceptions and determining knowledge gaps in the communities by rural providers is an important component of changing stigma regarding routine cognitive screening for rural older adults at increased risk for Alzheimer's disease. DOI:   http://dx.doi.org/10.14574/ojrnhc.v17i1.469


SUMMARY: Parameters of cellular energetics (ATP pools, adenylate energy charge, GTP pools and oxygen consumption) as well as bioluminescence and growth have been examined in batch cultures of four different species of luminous bacteria. The findings indicate that all of these energetic parameters remain constant throughout the growth cycle while bioluminescence is induced and increases many fold. These observations hold true for very bright strains during their dim and bright phases of growth, as well as for a luminescence-conditional strain under bright or dark conditions. The percentage of the total oxygen consumption that was due to bioluminescence was shown to vary by as much as a factor of 103 during growth. For very bright cells, the oxygen consumption experiments suggest both that the energetic requirements of the bioluminescent system are significant, and that the quantum efficiency (Q
o2
) of the luciferase in vivo is quite high, possibly approaching 1·0. Similar considerations based on ATP pool size and energetic estimates of luminescence indicate that the luminous system in bright cells represents a small but possibly significant energy drain. Finally, two methodological features are discussed. First, it was shown that extracts of cells that have been grown in media devoid of inorganic phosphate contain a heat-stable ATPase activity, which can lead to falsely low ATP values. Second, it was shown that the interfering effect of GTP on the assay of ATP could be completely overcome by the addition of GDP to the assay mixture.


INTRODUCTION
Despite increasing evidence challenging the effectiveness and legality of police drug dog operations, these strategies remain common. We aimed to describe drug dog encounters at music festivals, behavioural adaptations taken in anticipation of their presence and consequences of encounters amongst a sample of people who regularly use MDMA/ecstasy.

METHODS
Data were collected via interviewer-administered questionnaires in April-June 2019. Australians aged 16 years or older who used MDMA/ecstasy and/or other stimulants monthly in the last 6 months were recruited from capital cities via social media and word-of-mouth (n = 797). Participants reported recent drug dog encounters, encounter settings and actions taken in anticipation of and in response to encounters.

RESULTS
In this sample, encounters with drug dogs at festivals were common (60%), with most participants (92%) reporting anticipating the encounter. Most (86%) of this group reported behavioural adaptations to avoid a detection, with concealing drugs well (57%) and consuming prior to entering the festival (20%) most reported. Only 4% of those who expected drug dog presence chose not to carry or consume drugs. One-quarter (26%) of those who reported an encounter were stopped by police and 4% were searched (bodily/bag search).

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Most participants anticipated drug dog presence at festivals, however, were not deterred from carrying or consuming drugs. Some reported adaptations to avoid detection may increase drug-related health, social and legal harms. Our study suggests drug dog presence at festivals does not deter carriage/use of illegal drugs, and echoes concerns regarding the efficacy and appropriateness of this policing initiative.


In this paper, we aimed to assess the main characteristics of a growing form of precarious employment, namely the platform work. These digitally enabled services cover a wide range of activities from personal low or semi-skilled services (e.g. personal transportation) to highly skilled online services such as software development. In our paper, we aimed to characterize the digital platform labor force by their content of the job, working conditions, employment status, and the collective voice. The primary aim of the analysis was to give an overview of theoretical foundations and empirical evidence for an EU supported project on platform workers. Here we presented an overview of the variety of terminology, definitions of platform work, and platform workers and examine the grey zone of labor law regulation in which many of them operate. We assessed the size of platform employment in Europe, indicating the knowledge inequalities within the EU countries and some methodological inconsistencies. As a case study to scrutinize the regulatory challenges accompanying diffusion of platform work, we looked at the failed story of Uber in Hungary and by subsequent success of Bolt which took over the market share of the former. Our findings showed that while the size of the platform economy is growing in Europe, there is no consensus in the social scientific community either on the appropriate terminology or the most convenient methodology on how to measure its extent. This emerging form of employment represents a significant challenge not only for labor law jurisdictions but to the softer forms of social regulation as well. To better understand the proper governance of digital labor markets and the issue of "collective voice" through the transformation of the content of work, working conditions, and employment status of the Platform Work sector, will be necessary to focus on both the transformation of work/labor as well as its interplay with value creation, governance, management and labor in the platform-based economy.


OBJECTIVES
To present our experience in 48 coasted patients and how they performed in terms of the number of eggs collected, numbers of embryos available for embryo transfer after in vitro fertilization, pregnant and on going pregnancy rate.

METHODS
The study was conducted at Lister Hospital, London, United Kingdom, during the period October 1998 through to May 2001. For the purpose of the study, we selected coasted cycles in patients who were less than 38 years of age (n=48 patients). A control group of cycles consisted of all cycles during the same period in patients less than 38 years of age, who were not coasted because they did not fulfil the at risk criteria, but yet we collected 20 oocytes or more (n=115 cycles, 113 patients).

RESULTS
The study showed that there is no significant difference in outcome between the 2 groups (52.1% pregnancy rate in the coasted group versus 51.3% in the control group). The incidence of severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome was 4.3% in the study group versus 12.2% in the control but this did not reach statistical difference.

CONCLUSION
We therefore conclude that coasting is a safe and viable option for patients at risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome in an assisted conception cycle that allows the transfer of fresh embryos.


This paper examines the level of corruption in educational system focusing on the private secondary schools in Nigeria. The paper argues that corruption is a general disease within the private school proprietors, policymakers, examination councils, teachers, supervisors and invigilators, and above all, leads to the abuse of teaching as a profession like other professional bodies in Nigeria. In all human societies, particularly the modern ones, education therefore remains one of the most powerful instruments for both the development of man and transformation of the human society. However, the efficacy and efficiency of education as an instrument of transformation depends entirely on how all the stakeholders, students as individual's, parents, teachers, proprietors of private schools, policymakers, examination council, ministry of education and the government manage, execute and implement policy on education meant for the upliftment of educational sector. In this study, the factors, types, costs, causes of corruption and challenges facing private secondary schools were examined. Solutions and strategies to tackle the challenges were also examined.


ABSTRACT Partial resistance to downy mildew (Pseudoperonospora cubensis) and complete resistance to powdery mildew (Podosphaera xanthii races 1, 2, 3, and 5 and Golovinomyces cichoracearum race 1) were studied using a recombinant inbred line population between 'PI 124112' (resistant to both diseases) and 'Védrantais' (susceptible line). A genetic map of melon was constructed to tag these resistances with DNA markers. Natural and artificial inoculations of Pseudoperonospora cubensis were performed and replicated in several locations. One major quantitative trait loci (QTL), pcXII.1, was consistently detected among the locations and explained between 12 to 38% of the phenotypic variation for Pseudoperonospora cubensis resistance. Eight other Pseudoperonospora cubensis resistance QTL were identified. Artificial inoculations were performed with several strains of four races of Podosphaera xanthii and one race of G. cichoracearum. Two independent major genes, PmV.1 and PmXII.1, were identified and shown to be involved in the simple resistance to powdery mildew. Three digenic epistatic interactions involving four loci were detected for two races of Podosphaera xanthii and one race of G. cichoracearum. Co-localization between PmV.1, resistance genes, and resistance genes homologues was observed. Linkage between the major resistance QTL to Pseudoperonospora cubensis, pcXII.1, and one of the two resistance genes to powdery mildew, PmXII.1, was demonstrated.


Rents are a basic element of the political economy of underdeveloped economies. They hinder and often block the mechanism of social integration through gainful employment and veto the power of labour, which characterizes capitalist societies and the constitution of citizenship. The impact of rent on political structures is, however, ambiguous. Anomie is only one possible result. Hence the link between raw material exports and non-state violence is also ambiguous. Many societies, which are characterized by rents, have developed quite powerful mechanisms of keeping internal peace, possibly with limited participation. The conditions of differential impacts of rent on social structures and political behaviour call for an analysis of internal interest mediation.


Kernelized bandits, also known as Bayesian optimization (BO), has been a prevalent method for optimizing complicated black-box reward functions. Various BO algorithms have been theoretically shown to enjoy upper bounds on their cumulative regret which are sub-linear in the number T of iterations, and a regret lower bound of Omega(sqrt(T)) has been derived which represents the unavoidable regrets for any classical BO algorithm. Recent works on quantum bandits have shown that with the aid of quantum computing, it is possible to achieve tighter regret upper bounds better than their corresponding classical lower bounds. However, these works are restricted to either multi-armed or linear bandits, and are hence not able to solve sophisticated real-world problems with non-linear reward functions. To this end, we introduce the quantum-Gaussian process-upper confidence bound (Q-GP-UCB) algorithm. To the best of our knowledge, our Q-GP-UCB is the first BO algorithm able to achieve a regret upper bound of O(polylog T), which is significantly smaller than its regret lower bound of Omega(sqrt(T)) in the classical setting. Moreover, thanks to our novel analysis of the confidence ellipsoid, our Q-GP-UCB with the linear kernel achieves a smaller regret than the quantum linear UCB algorithm from the previous work. We use simulations, as well as an experiment using a real quantum computer, to verify that the theoretical quantum speedup achieved by our Q-GP-UCB is also potentially relevant in practice.


Previous studies have evaluated the action of gentamicin against Malassezia pachydermatis. The aim of this study was to evaluate in vitro susceptibility of M. pachydermatis to the aminoglycosides— gentamicin, tobramycin, netilmicin and framycetin. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of gentamicin was determined following methods M27‐A3 microdilution and Etest®. The Etest® was used to determine the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the tobramycin and netilmicin. The Kirby‐Bauer test was used to determine the antibiotic susceptibility to the framycetin. The MIC50 and MIC90 were 8.12 μg/mL and 32.5 μg/mL by microdilution method for gentamicin. The MIC50, determined by the Etest®, was 8 μg/mL for gentamicin and netilmicin and 64 μg/mL for tobramycin. The MIC90 was 16 and 32 μg/mL for gentamicin and netilmicin respectively. The MIC90 was outside of the detectable limits for tobramycin. To framycetin, 28 strains (40%) of the 70 M. pachydermatis isolates tested showed a diameter of 22 mm, 22 strains (31.42%) showed a diameter of 20 mm, 16 strains showed a diameter of ≤ 18 mm, and only 5.71% of the isolates showed a diameter of ≥ 22 mm. This study provides evidence of high in vitro activity of the aminoglycosides—gentamicin, tobramycin, netilmicin and framycetin against M. pachydermatis. For gentamicin Etest® showed similar values of MIC50 y MIC90 that the obtained by microdilution method. We considered Etest® method could be a good method for these calculations with aminoglycosides.


This Court should refuse to apply the First Amendment to Vermont's Prescription Confidentiality Law based on two essential facts. First, the regulation at issue is limited to the commercial use or private-channel distribution of confidential data. It is thus governed by cases of this Court upholding the regulation of uses of information in purely private settings that do not inform or contribute to the public sphere. Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514, 526-27 n.10 (2001); Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U.S. 749 (1985). Second, it concerns the regulation of secondary uses of information where the government requires the initial disclosure. It is thus governed by cases in which this Court has affirmed a right of governments to restrict access to government held or mandated information. L.A. Police Dept. v. United Reporting Publ'g Corp., 528 U.S. 32 (1999); Seattle Times Co. v. Rhinehart, 467 U.S. 20 (1984). This Court has never held that a regulation at the intersection of these two lines of cases – where private channel exchanges and uses of private (government-mandated) records are at issue – is First Amendment protected "speech." Cf. Reno v. Condon, 528 U.S. 141 (2000). The First Circuit, in a case parallel to the one before the Court now, decided the issue correctly – the private-channel use and trade of prescription records is economic conduct, not "speech." IMS Health, Inc. v. Ayotte, 550 F.3d 42 (1st Cir. 2008), cert. denied, 129 S. Ct. 2864 (2009). If this law were evaluated as regulating First Amendment protected speech, such speech should be given protection commensurate with its "nugatory informational value." Ayotte, 550 F.3d at 52. In contrast, this Court should recognize the overriding interests of Vermont and other states in regulating the confidentiality of prescription records. The Vermont law directly advances its interest in protecting against disclosure of records containing the most personal of information as well as its interest in protecting individual autonomy in decision making on important personal matters.NASA v. Nelson, 562 U.S. (2011); Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589 (1977). Protecting the confidentiality of records advances important goals of our health system, including combating undue influence of in-person pharmaceutical marketing that raises costs and damages public health interests. See Ohralik v. Ohio Bar Ass'n, 436 U.S. 447 (1978).


Background: Individual differences, especially gender, have an important role on individuals responds to the emotions. In cognitive science investigations, the analysis of biological signals has been introduced as a confident way to evaluate such responses. In this paper, by adopting a comprehensive approach on biomedical signal processing techniques, a precise examination on women and men differences in affective responses has been provided into different emotional stimuli, including fear, sadness, happiness, and peacefulness. Materials and Methods: Accordingly, signal processing methods were divided into three general categories, linear, wavelet, and non-linear based techniques. In the proposed method, different features from each of three categories and from three autonomic signals, including electrocardiogram (ECG), finger pulse, and galvanic skin response (GSR), were extracted. To induce emotions in participants, validated emotional pieces of music were broadcast in four affective classes. Results: The results indicate the different patterns of responses into affective incentives in women and men. The differences were more noticeable in the features of pulse signal than those of the other signals. Among emotional classes, fear resulted in the highest rate of distinction between men and women emotional responses. Conclusion: By the comprehensive evaluation of autonomic signals and different signal processing techniques, this study has tried to offer a new insight for better understanding of gender differences in emotional responses. In addition, it will help the researchers to adopt appropriate decisions in identifying efficient processing approach to deal with large amount of information achieved from signal analysis.


Increasing frequency, intensity, and geographic distribution of Harmful algal blooms (HABs) poses a serious threat to the coastal fish/shellfish aquaculture and fisheries in Malaysian bays. Rising in sea level, shoreline erosion, stresses on fisheries, population pressure, interference of land-use and lack of institutional capabilities for integrated management make major challenges. Recent investigations and satellite observations indicate HABs originated from specific coast that have favourable geographic, geomorphic and coastal geology conditions to bring the green macro algae from the coast offshore. Therefore, the identification of high HABs frequented bays using remote sensing and geology investigations in Malaysian waters is required to reduce future challenges in this unique case. This research implemented comprehensive geomorphic and coastal geology investigations combined with remote sensing digital image processing approach to identify Malaysian bays frequented with HABs occurrence in Malaysian waters territory. The landscape and geomorphological features of the Malaysian bays were constructed from the Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) remote sensing satellite data combined with field observations and surveying. The samples for laboratory analysis were collected from the sediment stations with different distance across shorelines features and watersheds of the Johor Bahru estuary. This research identified that semi-enclosed bays such as Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru bays with connection to estuaries have high potential to be frequented with HABs occurrence.


In the present article, a specified Pedagogical Infrastructure Framework, including technical, social, epistemological and cognitive components, is introduced as a conceptual tool for design-based research to examine the design of complex learning settings. The applicability of the framework was assessed by retrospectively exploring an evolving design effort in four, consecutive, undergraduate courses in cognitive psychology. The development of the course design was driven by the principles of the Progressive Inquiry model, such as grounding the inquiry process on students' authentic knowledge problems, sustained engagement in the elaboration of explanations, the promotion of collaborative activity, or the use of appropriate technological tools to mediate collaborative knowledge creation. The Webbased software system that was utilized in the courses evolved in parallel with the pedagogical development. The results provide insights into the critical aspects of the pedagogical organization of the courses influencing the characteristics of students' collaborative inquiry. The most important benefit of the framework was that it helped structure an overview of various design features in a concise form that facilitates the examination of the interplay between the critical components. In order to serve as a practical design tool for educators, the components of the framework need to be further specified and concretized. Pedagogical infrastructures for inquiry 2


In this project we design and implement a home embedded surveillance system with ultra-low alert power. Traditional surveillance systems suffer from an unnecessary waste of power and the shortcomings of memory conditions in the absence of invasion. In this design we use Pyroelectric Infrared sensors (PIR) and pressure sensors as the alert group in windows and doors where an intruder must pass through. These low-power alert sensors wake up the MCU (Micro Controller Unit) which has power management for the ultrasonic sensors and PIR sensors indoors. This state transition method saves a large number of sensors required for the alert power. We also use the Majority Voting Mechanism (MVM) to manage the sensor groups to enhance the probability of multiple sensors sensing. After the MCU sends the sensor signals to the embedded system, the program starts the Web camera. Our sensing experiment shows is highly reliable.


X-Ray Lasers 2004 comprises invited, contributed, and poster papers presented at the 9th International Conference on X-Ray Lasers (ICXRL2004) held in Beijing in May 2004. Some 120 participants from 13 countries and regions met in Beijing to compare results and exchange views on future developments in x-ray lasers and related fields. The book covers the following topics: overviews of x-ray lasers research, collisionally pumped x-ray lasers, capillary discharge-pumped x-ray lasers, OFI and photo-pumped x-ray lasers, high-order harmonics XUV radiation, grazing incidence pumping x-ray lasers, theory and simulations of x-ray lasers and plasma media, free-electron lasers and accelerator-based x-ray sources, alternative pumping schemes for x-ray lasers, applications of x-ray lasers and other bright x-ray sources, x-ray optics and instrumentation, investigations of x-ray laser media, and developments of x-ray laser drivers. X-Ray Lasers 2004 provides not only an overview and an up-to-date progress report on this fast moving field, but also important reference material on which future work can be built.


Sobol' sensitivity analysis has been used successfully in the past to reduce the parametric dimensionality for hydrological models. However, the effects of its limitation in that it assumes an independence of parameters need to be investigated. This study proposes an experimental approach to assess the commonly used Sobol' analysis for reducing the parameter dimensionality of hydrological models. In this approach, the number of model parameters is directly pitted against an efficiency criterion within a multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA), thus allowing both the identification of key model parameters and the optimal number of parameters to be used within the same analysis. The proposed approach was tested and compared with the Sobol' method based on a conceptual lumped hydrological model (HSAMI) with 23 free parameters. The results show that both methods performed very similarly and allowed 11 out of 23 HSAMI parameters to be reduced with little loss in model performance. Based on this comparison, Sobol' appears to be an effective and robust method despite its limitations. On the other hand, the MOGA algorithm outperformed Sobol' analysis for further reduction of the parametric space and found optimal solutions with as few as eight parameters with minimal performance loss in validation.


The ability to perform clinical skills competently and safely is a big part of being a doctor and as such the General Medical Council (GMC) in its 'Tomorrow's Doctors' document, stresses the importance of acquiring sound clinical skills. Lumbar punctures (LPs) are often considered to be one of the more technically difficult of these clinical skills to perform. This is because performing LPs requires sound anatomical knowledge, safe administration of local anaesthetic and the ability to establish and maintain a sterile field. LPs are used in a wide range of specialties and may be done for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes. Diagnostic LPs include cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis for infection or blood metabolites, whilst therapeutic LPs may be done for example to administer spinal anaesthetic and intra-thecal chemotherapy or to relieve pressure in patients with communicating hydrocephalus. In this article we provide a stepwise overview on how to safely perform an LP.


Abstract In previous studies, limited dispersal was revealed to be the main obstacle to restoration of species-rich flood-meadows along the northern Upper Rhine in Germany. To overcome dispersal limitation we transferred freshly mown plant material from species-rich sources to a restoration site on a former arable field. Before plant material application, topsoil was removed to accelerate nutrient impoverishment and create favourable conditions for seedling recruitment. Topsoil removal led to a drastic reduction in organic matter and essential mineral nutrients to the level of target communities (P) or even below (N, K). At a removal depth of 30 cm content of the soil seed bank that comprised exclusively of annual arable weeds, ruderals and some common grassland species, declined by 60 – 80%, while at a removal depth of 50 cm the seed bank was almost completely eliminated. With few exceptions, all species recorded in source plant material were found established at the restoration site. However, the overall correlation between seed content in plant material and establishment success was not very high. Vegetation development at the restoration site was characterized by a rapid decline in arable weeds and ruderals, while resident grassland species and species transferred with plant material increased rapidly from the third year onwards. After four years as many as 102 species were established that could be exclusively attributed to plant material transfer, among them many rare and highly endangered plants. Establishment of species from plant material was most successful in regularly flooded plots, due to the suppression of competitors as well as the creation of favourable moisture conditions for seedling emergence. Diaspore transfer with plant material proved to be an extremely successful method in restoring species-rich grassland. However, high quality of plant material and suitable site conditions with low competition in early stages of succession seem to be essential prerequisites. Nomenclature: Wisskirchen & Haeupler (1998).


Slow, isothermal, crack propagation is widely suspected to be rate controlled by thermally activated plastic deformation in the crack tip region. Adiabatic conditions are generally established in the fracture modified material at the tip of a crack during fast fracture. The temperature of this material is not the temperature of the specimen and is generally not measured during fast fracture. Thus, a complete thermodynamic description of adiabatic crack propagation data can not be made. When the slow, isothermal, crack propagation mechanisms are assumed to be operative during adiabatic crack propagation then certain predictions can be made. For example: the changes in the driving force due to temperature and rate are always in the opposite sense; there is no minimum in the driving force versus crack velocity without a change in mechanism; the temperature rise in the crack tip fracture modified material is determined mainly by the activation enthalpy for crack propagation; the interpretation of fast fracture structural steel data from simple plastic models is suspect since these materials have dissimilar isothermal temperature dependencies.


Astonishingly, 3-hydroxyisonicotinealdehyde (HINA) is despite its small size a green-emitting push–pull fluorophore in water (QY of 15%) and shows ratiometric emission response to biological relevant pH differences (pKa2 ∼ 7.1). Moreover, HINA is the first small-molecule fluorophore reported that possesses three distinctly emissive protonation states. This fluorophore can be used in combination with metal complexes for fluorescent-based cysteine detection in aqueous media, and is readily taken up by cells. The theoretical description of HINA's photophysics remains challenging, even when computing Franck–Condon profiles via coupled-cluster calculations, making HINA an interesting model for future method development.


Proceedings: AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011‐‐ Apr 2‐6, 2011; Orlando, FL

Background: Breast cancer (BrCa) ranks second as cause of cancer deaths in women. However, >90% of BrCa patients survive >5 years after diagnosis, thus providing an chance to prevent clinical progression and metastasis. Several chemopreventive agents are currently under investigation, however, no single agent is highly effective. Dietary agents offer an advantage for long-term, well tolerated and personalized treatment for chemoprevention. With this goal, we investigated anticancer effects of an aqueous extract of a common spice, the unripe berries of Pimenta dioica (Allspice).

Methods: An aqueous exact of Allspice was prepared, lyophilized and a solution of suitable strength was tested on several BrCa cell lines (MCF-7, MDA-MB231, SKBr3) for potential inhibition of clonogenic growth, autophagy and estrogen-receptor inactivation using commonly used analytical techniques. Potential effect on estrogen receptor (ERα) levels and transcriptional activities were determined using quantitative-real time PCR and western blotting.

Results: AAE reduced the viability and clonogenic growth of BrCa cells (IC50≈ 100μg/ml). Importantly, AAE was selectively effective against proliferating cells but not quiescent cells. In addition to cytotoxicity, AAE reduced ERα in an estrogen-dependent BrCa cell line, MCF-7. ERα protein levels were significantly decreased in AAE treated MCF7 cells (IC50≈ 100μg/ml). The decrease in ERα protein level by AAE was not rescued by MG132, a proteasome inhibitor, treatment indicating, it is likely due to AAE effect on ERα synthesis and not turnover. We did not detect AAE induced apoptosis in MCF-7 cells as confirmed by several assays. However AAE induced the expressions of autophagy-related proteins, microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3 (LC3).

Conclusion: We demonstrate anti-proliferative and anti-ERα activity of the aqueous extract of Allspice, a highly aromatic and delectable culinary additive world over. The cytotoxicity of this anticancer agent encompassed multiple pathways, including autophagy and ERα down modulation. These results, if found corroborative using studies in vivo models, should provide a strong rationale to test as an anti-cancer agent in breast cancer. [Grant Support: 1R01AT003544 (BLL)]

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 5589. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-5589


Thermal instability is the one of the most important disadvantages of wood since it begins to decompose at a low temperature (˃110 °C). Many scientists, past and present, have conducted studies aimed at improving the thermal stability of wood. The aim of this study was to impregnate wood withnano-sized boron nitride (NBN) to improve its thermal stability and to investigate the changes in the properties of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestrist), Ash (Fraxinus exelsior), and Iroco (Chlorophora excelsa) woods after the impregnation. The effects of the impregnation with NBN also were investigated on theheat-treated woods. The impregnation was conducted with using full-cell method in a chamber under a pressure of 0.6 MPa for 1 h. Densities at 0% and 12% moisture content (MC), mechanical properties, color changes, thermal stability, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM/EDAX) analysis were determined. The test results showed that the impregnation of wood with NBN increased generally the flexural strength and elasticity of modulus at bending, but the NBN impregnation decreased generally the compression strength except for ACI, ATWI, IC, and ICI. It was also determined that the changesin density and color were statistically different after the impregnation. According to the SEM/EDAX results, deposits of nano-sized boron nitride were found inside the cell wall and on the pits. But the deposits were also determined in inside structure of the wood with EDAX analysis. Thermal stabilityin T10% and T50% of wood was found to improve after the impregnation with NBN. TG/DTG and DTA values for some samples were found to fluctuate due to the heterogeneous dispersion of the NBN in the wood.


The majority of patients with Crohn's colitis eventually require surgical excision of the disease. The decision as to which operation to perform depends on the extent and site of disease, distensibility of the rectum, the presence of perianal disease, the age and attitude of the patients and their acceptance or otherwise of a stoma. Total proctocolectomy and ileostomy gave the best long-term results for Crohn's colitis in terms of recurrence rate. Abdominal colectomy and ileorectal anastomosis often restores young patients to good health without the risk of impaired sexual function from pelvic dissection and a permanent stoma is delayed and sometimes avoided. Segmental colonic resection should be considered for isolated short segment of Crohn's colitis but the optimal timing of such a procedure is not clear.


Advances in crop management are limited by our in• ability to recognize changes in growth resulting from short-term fluctuations in plant environment. Simple, rapid, and nondestructive methods are needed to indicate daily and hourly rates of growth under field conditions. Because plant carbon balance is one possible approach to this problem, CO, gas exchange parameters were meas• ured on Beta vulgaris leaves of field-grown plants to learn whether or not they might signal the onset of nitrogen and P stresses. The sugarbeets were grown on field plots of Portneuf silt loam (Xerollic Calciothid) soil and allowed to develop severe N and P stresses. Carbon dioxide exchange and stomatal resistance of intact plant leaves were measured with small leaf chambers during 1-min periods. Leaf water potentials were also measured in the field with a hydraulic press. The CO, compensation points, dark respiration, and osmotic pressures of excised leaf tissue were measured in the laboratory by standard methods. Photosynthesis per unit leaf area was reduced in advanced stages of N deficiency; however, none of the measurements satisfactorily indicated the onset of N or P stress because of heterogeneity between leaves. Calculations using the daily carbon balance of an average plant predicted the relative effects on root yield of 1) photosynthetic rate per unit leaf area, 2) photorespiration, 3) stomatal resistance to gas diffusion, 4) mesophyll resistance to carbon dioxide transfer, 5) size of the seedling tops in the spring, 6) partitioning of photosynthate between tops and roots near the end of the season, and 7) date of full plant cover. While all these factors are important, advances that can be made by manipulating most of them are limited, Increasing photosynthesis by reducing mesophyll resistance appears to offer the greatest potential for large yield increases. Additional index words: Dark respiration, CO, compensation value, Osmotic pressure, Stomatal resistance, Mesophyll resistance, Cold hardening, Water relations, Plant nutrition, Beta vulgaris yield.


This paper describes the early reliability investigation program conducted on regular production El-Menco dipped mica capacitors and covers a report containing an analysis of the raw data resulting from this reliability study. Discussed are the results of a reliability verification program performed on initial production Minuteman design dipped mica capacitors, and the unit-hours accumulated as a consequence of subsequent life testing additional production lots of these high reliability parts. The investigation of the voltage acceleration factor by R.C.A., the El-Menco method of reliability calculation, the predictions made of time to failure by employing the voltage acceleration factor, and the actual outcome of the investigation, are all described in detail. The meaning of all the unit-hours generated as a result of the R.C.A. Minuteman program, and the benefits derived from having participated in this high reliability program, are reviewed.


A scalar expression like some can optionally have an enriched interpretation (approximately meaning "some, but not all") depending on the context in which it appears. Numerous experiments using the self-paced reading method have found evidence that context has an online effect on the interpretation of a scalar term, resulting in faster or slower reading times for a later phrase whose comprehension is dependent on the interpretation of some. The present study used eye movements to isolate the time course of this process. We find evidence that the reading time facilitation observed in previous studies was driven by early reading measures, with little reading time evidence for an immediate inference-based processing cost at the scalar expression itself, consistent with previous studies. Our results suggest that comprehenders can rapidly commit to enriched interpretations online without cost and that these enriched interpretations are then used to guide the processing of upcoming sentence material.


An inorganic pyrophosphatase was purified from Desulfovibrio desulfuricans strain BERRE SOL. Its activity was increased up to 130-fold by reduction with reagents (Na2S2O4, Na[BH4], Na2S, etc.) of E
0 values less than - 0·14V at pH 7·0 and 25°. The pure enzyme was isoelectric at pH 6·55; its molecular weight was 41,600 according to amino acid analysis, consistent with values of 43,000 ± 7000 from ultracentrifugation and exclusion chromatography. The enzyme was very unstable at both 4° and 15° and was easily damaged physically: it lost 75% of activity on freezing and thawing and was progressively destroyed if O2, N2 or CO were bubbled through its solution. With 6·25 mM-sodium pyrophosphate, the enzyme showed maximum activity at pH 6·2 with 1 mM-CoCl2 as co-factor; with 3 mM-MgCl2 or 0·3 mM-MnCl2 the pH optimum was 8·0. The molecular weight and isoelectric point of the form active without reduction were the same as those of the form active only after reduction; no gross conformational change on reductant activation was detected by spectropolarimetry and fluorescence tests, but reductant activation was associated with an increase in the number of -SH groups in the molecule and a change in electrophoretic mobility at pH 10.
Neither crude nor highly purified enzyme preparations were sensitive to oxygen but the degree of reductant activation of the extracted enzyme depended on the extent to which the intact bacteria had been exposed to oxygen. When bacteria from a continuous culture were harvested with minimum exposure to air they contained active enzyme showing little reductant activation; comparable bacteria resuspended in environments containing dissolved oxygen, but neither a carbon source nor sulphate, yielded enzyme preparations which were almost or completely inactive without a reductant. Addition of sodium lactate and sulphate to the aerated bacteria reversed the phenomenon: the enzyme when extracted was active without reductant. Intracellular inactivation and reactivation processes were rapid and were not influenced by chloramphenicol; alteration of the nutritional status of the population did not affect the intracellular state of the enzyme. Reversible inactivation of inorganic pyrophosphatase was observed in four other strains; it may be a survival mechanism in Desulfovibrio, and in Clostridia, which enables such anaerobes to conserve ATP while in aerobic environments.


BACKGROUND
Breast cancer demands safe adjuvant to overcome the side effects of standard drug tamoxifen. Diet derived bioactive compounds are reported to exhibit modulation of cancer growth leading to cell death. Chickpea is a protein rich edible legume with several bioactive compounds that includes lectin as well. Characterization of chickpea lectin for its effect against cancer cells has been investigated in this study.

METHOD
Cicer arietinum L. lectin (CAL) agglutinating trypsin-treated rabbit blood cells was purified employing DEAE-cellulose and SP-sephadex ion exchange chromatography. The lectin was characterized for its biological activity vis-à-vis antiproliferative and apoptotic effects through cell cycle arrest in MCF-7 human breast cancer cells.

RESULT
There is a significant inhibition of the survival of breast cancer cells due to chickpea lectin in a dose dependent manner for 24 hr. Lectin treated cells revealed distinct features of apoptosis. Flow cytometric analysis at 80 µg/ml of lectin induced S and G2 phase cell cycle arrest. CAL induced apoptosis in MCF-7 cells associated with lactate dehydrogenase leakage, cell cycle arrest and reactive oxygen species generation.

CONCLUSION
Our studies show that chickpea lectin exerted anticancer activity and could be exploited as an essential source for medicine leading to the treatment of breast cancer.


Chemokines form a relatively new family of chemotactic cytokines that seem to play a central role in the migration and activation of leukocytes in a wide variety of immune-mediated disorders. Specific therapy targeted against these proteins may well become an effective treatment in many of these disorders. The efficacy and safety of chemokine blockade is currently being investigated in clinical trials on patients with HIV infection, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and other chronic inflammatory disorders. The first results have been reported in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and these seem to confirm the potency of this treatment.


Preservation of vegetables involving chemical additives is cheap and easy to operate technology best suited for application in developing countries to preserve perishable commodities like vegetables. An investigation was undertaken to study the shelf life of De-hydrated tomato powder. Control as well as pretreated tomato pieces were subjected to dehydration experiments and tomato powder was prepared. Powder samples were evaluated for peroxide value and sensory parameters. Results found that the appearance, colour, flavor, taste and texture of stored powders were changed as seen visually, due to this reason, organoleptic score of the recipes prepared with stored powder had decreased with increasing storage period. It was observed that, as storage period increased, mean score for colour of recipes had decreased significantly at one percent level. It was noticed that even though there was decrease in organoleptic score for sensory characteristics, recipes from powder were acceptable by the judges. Peroxide value of stored powders differed significantly between the months of storage, higher value being recorded on the third month of storage.


Cystic fibrosis (CF) is caused by dysfunction of the CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR), an anion channel whose dysfunction leads to chronic bacterial and fungal airway infections via a pathophysiological cascade that is incompletely understood. Airway glands, which produce most airway mucus, do so in response to both acetylcholine (ACh) and vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP). CF glands fail to secrete mucus in response to VIP, but do so in response to ACh. Because vagal cholinergic pathways still elicit strong gland mucus secretion in CF subjects, it is unclear whether VIP-stimulated, CFTR-dependent gland secretion participates in innate defense. It was recently hypothesized that airway intrinsic neurons, which express abundant VIP and ACh, are normally active and stimulate low-level gland mucus secretion that is a component of innate mucosal defenses. Here we show that low levels of VIP and ACh produced significant mucus secretion in human glands via strong synergistic interactions; synergy was lost in glands of CF patients. VIP/ACh synergy also existed in pig glands, where it was CFTR dependent, mediated by both Cl(-) and HCO(3) (-), and clotrimazole sensitive. Loss of "housekeeping" gland mucus secretion in CF, in combination with demonstrated defects in surface epithelia, may play a role in the vulnerability of CF airways to bacterial infections.


The aim of the study was to explore what behaviors experienced from peers and school staff at school are acknowledged as sexual harassment, and perceived as problematic, by female high school students, and what other factors may be relevant. Analyses were performed of responses (to 540 questionnaires) in an anonymous self-report mail survey from a random sample of female Swedish high-school students (59% response rate). Exposure to relevant behaviors, of varying levels of severity, alone, does not explain the acknowledgment of harassment. Many students were subjected to many of the potentially offensive behaviors without labeling them as sexual harassment, despite the fact that they saw many of them as problematic. Further, viewing the relevant behaviors as problems in one's school did not necessarily lead to acknowledging that sexual harassment in general was a problem. However, the behaviors seen as problems were less likely to be dismissed as sexual harassment than personal experiences. This was especially true of the most common behaviors, namely verbal ones. The results demonstrate female students' reluctance to label incidents as sexual harassment, despite the fact that actual behaviors are perceived as environmental problems. Potentially offensive sex-related behaviors become normalized in the school environment and are difficult to address, when little support is provided by schools.