Marbles are formed from recrystallization of limestone or dolomite during metamorphism and occur as a coarse grained rocks composed of interlocking calcite crystals. The structural and porosity analysis of some selected Nigerian marbles were investigated with a view to establishing crystal configuration and constituents of the marble occurrences in the areas considered. The samples were collected from five different locations in Nigeria namely; Igbeti, Oyo State; Olayinka, Kwara State; Jakura, Kogi State; Biribiri, Niger State and Takalafia, Nassarawa State. The samples were examined by X-ray diffraction which confirmed the presence of CaCO 3 in all the samples. Other constituents present are Calcium Magnesium, Calcium Magnesium Carbonate and Magnesium Carbide. The average grain sizes of the Samples are 32.15, 31.42, 32.72, 31.47 and 30.95 nm from Igbeti, Olayinka, Biribiri, Takalafia and Jakura respectively. The samples were further examined by density profiling to determine the porosity of the marble samples. The comparison of the dry and wet density of the samples in percentage change in density revealed the porosity of the all the samples and it was deduced that the marble sample has different pore sizes due to their formation processes. The porosity for the samples are as follow: Igbeti (6.9%), Biribiri (62.4%), Takalafia (24.9%), Olayinka (10.3%) and Jakura (13.8%).


After Hildesheim cathedral had been destroyed by fire on January 21st 1013, an inventory list for lost privileges was created, including a charter of immunity granted by Louis the Pious (BM2 S. 852 Nr. 206). This deperditum has turned out to be a fictitious mélange, which probably never existed as a worked-out document at all. Henry II's confirmation act (D H II 256b) is based on the immunity standard form for an unknown monastic recipient, the other version (D H II 256a), which the king had not accepted, lacks all signs of Louis' ordinary formular. Therefore, E. Müller was wrong in dating the deperditum to the Paderborn assembly of July 815 and consequently regarding it as the first proof for the existence of the Hildesheim diocese. Louis' confirmation of immunity attributed to bishop Reinbert (834?–844?) must be considered a forgery a fortiori, while in the documents issued by Louis the German and Arnolf at least the confirmations of the diocesan terminacio are falsified elements.


In this work we present the first experimental results on gait-pattern adaptation for lower limb orthoses. The adaptation algorithm considers the orthosis-patient interaction forces and the Zero Moment Point (ZMP) criterion, allowing the patient to modify the gait-pattern as his/her degree of voluntary locomotion still maintaining the walking stability. A set of neural networks (NN) are used to decrease the time-consuming computation of the model and ZMP-based trajectory generation. The first neural network approximates the inverse dynamics and the ZMP optimization, while the second one works in the optimization procedure, giving an adapted desired trajectory according to orthosis-patient interaction. This trajectory adaptation is added directly to the trajectory generator, also reproduced by a set of neural networks. Also, a robust controller based on the ℋ∞ method is designed to attenuate the effects of external disturbances and parametric uncertainties in the trajectory tracking errors. Experimental results of the proposed NN-based adaptation algorithm, with one of the ankle joints of the model was replaced by an actual active orthosis, are presented.


Entrepreneur firms are indispensable power in economy transition and sustainable development of China and financing has significant influence on the development of entrepreneur firms. The researches on what financing motivation entrepreneur firms have and how financing motivation influences growth of entrepreneur firms are still rare. In this paper, based on the review of literatures domestic and foreign on the theory of firm financing, we extract the dimensions of entrepreneur firms' financing motivation, financing choice, the intermediary variables of financing choice influencing growth and growth and the relation dimensions among these dimensions, propose a construction model of entrepreneur firms' financing motivation and growth, and construct a theoretical analysis framework of the functioning mechanism of financing motivation influencing growth of entrepreneur firms.


With the goal of supporting global education, Pearson Inc. (Pearson) was a sponsoring agency of the 2005 China–U.S. Conference on Educational Assessment held in Beijing. This event marked the second consecutive year of Pearson's support for this annual conference on education in the U.S. and China. Pearson's sponsorship provides American educators and researchers with the opportunity to investigate the issues that currently face education and assessment in China, as well as present information on specific topics. This year, the focus and title of the conference was "Aligning Assessment with Instruction." China, a country that is frequently cited as the principal competitor to the U.S. in education, has the largest student population in the world—approximately 320 million students at all levels of education (Wang, 2003). Educating a large and diverse student population is a challenge for any country. From the inception of its current government in 1949, China has addressed this challenge through ongoing education reforms. The most recent series of education reforms, which began in 1999, have sought to improve the level of compulsory basic education so that China's primary and secondary students are adequately prepared for the anticipated transition to the "knowledge-based economy" of the twenty-first century (International Bureau of Education, 2004; World Bank, 1999). Today, China is working to increase the availability of general education with the goal of improving its future generation's skills in information technology, software, management, and services (Dahlman and Aubert, 2001). There are distinct similarities between the purpose and implementation of education reforms in China and the education reforms currently underway in the U.S., such as the


Solid-state 13C and 15N NMR spectroscopy was used to study the structure and thermochemistry of nylon-6,6. Experiments were performed on samples of nylon-6,6 heated in the presence of labeled adipic acid and hexamethylenediamine (HMD) monomers as well as labeled bis(hexamethylenetriamine) (BHMT), a molecule previously implicated as a potential nylon cross-linker. The uptake and subsequent reaction of labeled materials were characterized by a variety of solid-state NMR techniques. Reaction of the central (α) nitrogen of BHMT to form an amide occurs very rapidly. With time, transamidation causes this position to become indistinguishable from the bulk amide nitrogen in nylon. Rotational-echo double resonance (REDOR), a solid-state NMR experiment that permits the quantitative measurement of 13C−15N labeled chemical bonds, was used to detect the formation and breaking of carbon−nitrogen bonds due to polymerization and transamidation. The reaction of adipic acid and hexamethylenediamine (HMD) and the transamida...


Einon's data support our original claims, although not a claim she seems to assume – of reciprocal attraction between elderly men and 20-year-old women. Implicit in her commentary is an assumption that genetic predispositions are omniscient fitness maximizers. Instead, evolutionary models assume selection-fashioned psychological mechanisms that, in the context of other mechanisms and pressures in past environments, had a positive effect on fitness relative to competing alternatives. The Over & Phillips data fit with our own data on homosexuals, and with the assumption of independent modular mechanisms, rather than any existing sociocultural models. Einon also incorrectly assumes that evolutionary models have overemphasized male choice to the exclusion of female choice.


Abstract Mineral extraction industries at each mining step generate large volume of waste, and most of them represent potentially sources of crucial metals. This chapter describes extraction and main mining processes, principal classifications of the generated wastes, as well as the chemical properties of the waste material, their disposal and further treatment to recover metals. Most of the presented technological solutions are or have been tested in real processes or using real waste materials.


This paper concerns the fault diagnosis of stochastic discrete event systems that behave with non-Markovian dynamics. Partially observed Petri nets are used to model the system structure and the sensors. Stochastic processes with arbitrary probability density functions and various time semantics are used to model the dynamics including the failure processes. From the proposed modelling and the collected timed measurements, the probabilities of consistent trajectories are computed with a numerical scheme. The advantage of the proposed scheme is that it can be used for arbitrary probability density functions of the firing durations. It works for race or preselection choice policies. Diagnosis in terms of faults probability is established as a consequence. An example is presented to illustrate the method.


The search for small molecule inhibitors of Ebola virus (EBOV) has led to several high throughput screens over the past 3 years. These have identified a range of FDA-approved active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) with anti-EBOV activity in vitro and several of which are also active in a mouse infection model. There are millions of additional commercially-available molecules that could be screened for potential activities as anti-EBOV compounds. One way to prioritize compounds for testing is to generate computational models based on the high throughput screening data and then virtually screen compound libraries. In the current study, we have generated Bayesian machine learning models with viral pseudotype entry assay and the EBOV replication assay data. We have validated the models internally and externally. We have also used these activation of hypoxia inducible factor-1. Quinacrine is an antimalarial but also has use as an anthelmintic. Our results suggest data sets with less than 1,000 molecules can produce validated machine learning models that can in turn be utilized to identify novel EBOV inhibitors in vitro Ekins et al. have presented a crisp and lucid manuscript on a very relevant topic. They have presented a methodology that implements machine learning techniques to learn from known active and inactive compounds (an ever increasing set, that will tend to provide improved results as time goes by), and score a larger set of compounds (MicroSource Spectrum set of 2320 compounds). The in silico methodology described here provides an excellent method to quickly screen known compounds for possible therapies (against Ebola in particular), and other viruses in general. Finally, they demonstrate ( in vitro ) the increased effectiveness of three compounds - the antiviral tilorone and the antimalarials quinacrine and pyronaridine - in comparison to the known active chloroquine (albeit at a higher cytotoxicity) in inhibiting viral infection of HeLa cells. Further, their efforts in ensuring open-access to such tools is commendable as the next pathogen caused humanitarian crisis looms in some nations.


Despite recent advances in targeted drugs and immunotherapy, cancer remains "the emperor of all maladies" due to inevitable emergence of resistance. Drug resistance is thought to be driven by mutations and/or dynamic plasticity that deregulate pathway activities and regulatory programs of a highly heterogeneous tumour. In this study, we propose a modelling framework to simulate population dynamics of heterogeneous tumour cells with reversible drug resistance. Drug sensitivity of a tumour cell is determined by its internal states, which are demarcated by coordinated activities of multiple interconnected oncogenic pathways. Transitions between cellular states depend on the effects of targeted drugs and regulatory relations between the pathways. Under this framework, we build a simple model to capture drug resistance characteristics of BRAF-mutant melanoma, where two cell states are described by two mutually inhibitory – main and alternative – pathways. We assume that cells with an activated main pathway are proliferative yet sensitive to the BRAF inhibitor, and cells with an activated alternative pathway are quiescent but resistant to the drug. We describe a dynamical process of tumour growth under various drug regimens using the explicit solution of mean-field equations. Based on these solutions, we compare efficacy of three treatment strategies: static treatments with continuous and constant dosages, periodic treatments with regular intermittent phases and drug holidays, and treatments derived from optimal control theory (OCT). Based on these analysis, periodic treatments outperform static treatments with a considerable margin, while treatments based on OCT outperform the best periodic treatment. Our results provide insights regarding optimal cancer treatment modalities for heterogeneous tumours, and may guide the development of optimal therapeutic strategies to circumvent drug resistance and due to tumour plasticity.


Inorganic arsenicals are distinctly toxic and carcinogenic to humans. Inorganic arsenite (As III ) and arsenate (AS V ) are enzymatically methylated to monomethylarsonic acid (MMAS V ) and dimethylarsinic acid (DMAS V ) in mammals. Recent reports indicate that cytotoxic trivalent methylated arsenicals are produced through methylation of inorganic arsenicals and are involved in arsenic poisoning. Some previous studies have suggested that a typical thiol reagent cysteine (Cys) can reduce pentavalent arsenicals to trivalent arsenicals and might be able to enhance arsenic cytolethality. However, not much is known concerning the effects of exogenous Cys on the cytolethality of arsenicals. In this study, we examined the effects of exogenous Cys on the cytolethality induced by inorganic and organic arsenicals using rat liver cells. Cys prevented inorganic As III -induced cytolethality. In contrast, when more than 5 mM Cys was incubated with millimolar levels of MMAS V or DMAS V , MMAs V . and DMAS V -induced cytolethality significantly increased; this cytolethality might have been caused by the generation of trivalent methylated arsenicals. However, Cys at a concentration of less than 5 mM decreased the MMAS V - and DMAS V -induced cytolethality. These findings suggest that high concentrations of both arsenicals and Cys are required to form trivalent methylated arsenicals and to induce significant cytolethality.


Together, in the plays and essays published in the 1903 issue of Samhain, William Butler Yeats assembled writings that endorse his vision of cultural nationalism in that they stress the possibilities of an artistic regeneration that that has the power to reconcile perceived exclusive strata within Irish society and also to herald a new age not only for Irish culture but for the Irish nation. Yeats, in his cultural nationalism, ultimately vested faith in an Ascendancy tradition, defined not by birth as much as by a willingness to surrender not just political ambitions but all ambition to that of the artist.


Research strategy One of the strongest motivations for creating the Generation Challenge Programme (GCP) in 2003 was to fi ll the gap in translational biology between fundamental and applied research. GCP links laboratories in developed economies with user communities in developing countries to accelerate the use of elite genetic stocks and new marker technologies for crop breeding (see companion poster for more details on GCP).


Over recent decades, we have witnessed a shift in global public health priorities from the eradication of infectious diseases to addressing the emerging pandemic of noncommunicable diseases. Diseases traditionally relevant only in developed countries, such as diabetes mellitus, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, and cancers have become a global issue with disproportionately higher rates in developing countries. According to the World Health Organization, it is estimated that the global noncommunicable disease burden will increase by 17% in the next 10 years, and in the African region by 27%. This transition in disease epidemiology is thought to be driven by a number of factors related to economic development: a dietary shift from traditional foods to processed foods high in fat, salt, and sugar; a decrease in physical activity with sedentary lifestyles, and evolving cultural norms such as an increasing number of women using tobacco. In most textbooks, diverticular disease is described to be a problem of the developed Western world. But as we witness the evolution of other behaviorally associated noncommunicable diseases, it stands to reason that diverticulitis may also undergo an unfortunate globalization. However, actionable data are sorely lacking. In this month's issue of Diseases of the Colon & Rectum, Hunt et al attempt to address the knowledge gap that exists in both the global burden of diverticular disease and trends across time. They leverage longitudinal data from the World Health Organization, United Nations, World Bank, and the Tufts University Global Dietary database to conduct an ecological study in an attempt to "determine the global burden of diverticular disease as measured by disease-specific mortality while identifying indicators of rising disease rates." They observe several key insights. First, there was significant variation in the disease mortality burden among the studied countries. The majority of nations with high diverticular disease mortality burden were developed (68%) and characterized by higher than average health expenditures per capita. Second, from 1994 to 2016, 57% of nations demonstrated increasing rates of diverticular disease mortality, whereas only 7% had decreasing rates. A greater percentage of developing nations (72%) were observed to have increasing diverticular disease mortality than developed nations (46%). Compared to developed nations, developing nations also demonstrated a more rapid rise in rates of diverticular disease mortality. Finally, developing nations were found to have greater increases in their percentages of overweight adults. Overall, this analysis paints a picture of increasing global diverticular disease mortality rates, with developing countries seeing a greater increase in mortality despite lower baseline rates. Although this study is notable for an elegant approach to address an important lack of knowledge, three main questions stand out.


Film is becoming an important art form. Studies on the relationship between film and theology have become a growing discipline. Film and its religious significance need to be further recognized as a valid means to understand and interpret society's particular concerns and beliefs. Clearly enough, theology needs to address these same possibilities. There is of course, a need to further examine the force of film in the light of its potential to serve as an avenue for religious experience and insights. This essay stressed the value of exploring the relationship between film and theology as a means of understanding and interpreting religious experiences and in contextualizing theological education in Asia. This essay argues that film can become an important source for doing theology as a people continue to search for fresher perception and articulation of their understanding of God as processed through the text of filmic expression. In three ways, this argument is developed: (1) Film can be a repository of religious contents, beliefs and understanding of given culture or society; (2) Film affects our religiosity as a people in that its narrative schema contains elements that are religious in nature. Art reflects the deeper structures with the human heart; and (3) Film in itself becomes the avenue for religious experience and divulges a religious dimension.


The paper analyzes the two conversion formulas of the subgrade resilient modulus and the deflection,combines the requirements for the subgrade resilient modulus of all ranks of roads,ensures the more reasonable deflection of the foundation design and illustrates the source and the calculation methods for the deflection of the foundation design,so as to improve the study on the relationship between the subgrade resilient modulus and the deflection.


Summary form only given. High gain GaAs photoconductive semiconductor switch offers many advantages for the pulsed power applications including beam accelerator, optically activated electrical fireset, electro-optic driver1-2. In view of the specific application considerations, it is required to replace the desktop laser system by laser diode (LD) sources, i.e., micro-joules excitation energy, which leads to the promise of extremely compact switching systems with low cost. Despite the favorable benefits, the operation mechanism of high gain mode under LD excitation has not been much investigated. At excitation of μJ laser energy, the bias electric field would be higher than that with excitation of mJ. The main factors affecting switch performance are mostly related to thermal effects, especially in limited space and specific ambient temperature. In order to achieve reliable operation conditions for utilizing the high gain characteristics with proper conditions, a digital temperature-control system attached to PCSS is used to investigate the electric field threshold (EFT) of high gain operation. In the experiment, the temperature (from -12°C to 20°C) dependence of high gain operation are studied under the excitation with two patterns of rectangular LD optical spots, i.e., perpendicular and parallel to electrodes. It indicates that the temperature-dependent electro-absorption is caused by absorption edge shifting, since bandgap narrowing plays an important role on the EFT in PCSS high gain operation with below bandgap excitation. Results demonstrate the influence of two different excitation spot patterns on the EFT during the temperature variation process, which can help in achieving the stable and effective high gain operation for specific application.


Indoxyl sulfate (IS) is a uremic toxin that is a small molecule solute, as many as 90% of which bind to the plasma proteins. IS derives from the breakdown of tryptophan by gut microbes. Normal renal function can lead to IS excretion through the tubular secretion, while impaired renal function can result in accumulation of IS in the body. So plasma IS levels are elevated in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). IS has nephrotoxicity, and can cause renal interstitial fibrosis and glomerulosclerosis, accelerating the progression of CKD. IS also has cardiovascular toxicity, leading to myocardial fibrosis and left ventricular hypertrophy, etc. Cardiovascular disease has been widely recognized as the leading cause of death in CKD patients. Studies have found that IS can increase the risk of all-cause death and cardiovascular death in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Therefore, it is very important to reduce plasma IS level by means of dialysis or non-dialysis method. This article summarized the research results on IS clearance by domestic and foreign scholars in recent years.

Key words:
Indoxyl sulfate; Chronic kidney disease; Cardiovascular disease; Dialysis; Clearance


Transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy offer evidence that the purely chemical HF:HNO3:H2O "stain etch" used to form light-emitting porous silicon is actually composed of competing etches. A localized etch forms the porous nanostructure by propagation of a discrete reaction interface into the silicon substrate. An amorphous surface layer (SiO2) that is a significant by-product of this etch has been observed and is believed to be a primary efficiency-limiting factor in attempts to fabricate chemically etched porous silicon devices. A destructive etch competes for ions in solution and removes both the porous silicon and the amorphous layers from the surface of the specimen when it becomes dominant, eventually quenching the luminescence properties.


Let $\Delta^o$ be a finite set and, for each probability measure $m$ on $\Delta^o$, let $G(m)$ be a transition probability kernel on $\Delta^o$. Fix $x_0 \in \Delta^o$ and consider the chain $\{X_n, \; n \in \mathbb{N}_0\}$ of $\Delta^o$-valued random variables such that $X_0=x$, and given $X_0, \ldots , X_n$, the conditional distribution of $X_{n+1}$ is $G(L^{n+1})(X_n, \cdot)$, where $L^{n+1} = \frac{1}{n+1} \sum_{i=0}^{n} \delta_{X_i}$ is the empirical measure at instant $n$. Under conditions on $G$ we establish a large deviation principle for the empirical measure sequence $\{L^n, \; n \in \mathbb{N}\}$. As one application of this result we obtain large deviation asymptotics for the Aldous-Flannery-Palacios (1988) approximation scheme for quasistationary distributions of irreducible finite state Markov chains. The conditions on $G$ cover various other models of reinforced stochastic evolutions as well, including certain vertex reinforced and edge reinforced random walks and a variant of the PageRank algorithm. The particular case where $G(m)$ does not depend on $m$ corresponds to the classical results of Donsker and Varadhan (1975) on large deviations of empirical measures of Markov processes. However, unlike this classical setting, for the general self-interacting models considered here, the rate function takes a very different form; it is typically non-convex and is given through a dynamical variational formula with an infinite horizon discounted objective function.


Two-body reactions at high energies are investigated by using a model in which some of assumptions used in the absorption model are removed. Our model can avoid the diffi culty of energy dependence in the absorption model and moreover includes contributions from inelastic intermediate states. The energy dependence of the cross section for a two-body re action comes essentially from the difference of the related two elastic scatterings. Qualitative discussions are given for general processes and the quantitative estimate of the cross section for rcp~KoA is presented.


Objectives: This research explores food insecurity among asylum seekers who are members of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) in Melbourne, Australia.


The purpose of this study is to identify the challenges of preparing sustainability reporting (SR) and the reasons for non-disclosure. A systematic review was done from two major databases Scopus and Web of Science. Existing literature related to the managers' perception of barriers in SR was considered for this study. Results show that lack of awareness and understanding of SR is a major barrier mentioned in most of the studies, followed by lesser perceived benefits compared to cost, scarcity of resources, lack of legal requirements, government initiatives, and data collection issues as common barriers manager's face for sustainability disclosure. Most of the barriers in developed and developing countries are found to be similar, this may be due to relative newness in the concept of SR. The present study also emphasizes the research gaps in the extant literature that can be taken forward for a better understanding of the issues in SR and enhancing reporting quality.


AbstractThe aerodynamic performance of long-span bridges under extreme environmental conditions, such as under strong winds and heavy traffic, is critical for bridge design. Either free vibrational...


Background: The associations of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) with cardiovascular disease (CVD) and coronary heart disease mortality in an exclusively low estimated 10-year risk group are not well delineated. We sought to determine the long-term associations of various LDL-C and non–high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) thresholds and CVD and coronary heart disease mortality in a large, low 10-year risk cohort. Methods: The study sample included participants of the CCLS (Cooper Center Longitudinal Study) without a history of CVD or diabetes mellitus and defined as low risk (<7.5%) for 10-year atherosclerotic CVD events at baseline based on Pooled Cohort Risk Assessment Equations. The associations of fasting LDL-C and non–HDL-C with CVD mortality were tested with Cox proportional hazards models. Results: In 36 375 participants (72% men, median age 42) followed for a median of 26.8 years, 1086 CVD and 598 coronary heart disease deaths occurred. Compared with LDL-C <100 mg/dL, LDL-C categories 100 to 129 mg/dL, 130 to 159 mg/dL, 160 to 189.9 mg/dL, and ≥190 mg/dL were associated with a significantly higher risk of CVD death, with hazard ratios of 1.4 (95% CI, 1.1–1.7), 1.3 (95% CI, 1.1–1.6), 1.9 (95% CI, 1.5–2.4), and 1.7 (95% CI, 1.3–2.3), and mean reductions in years free of CVD death of 1.8, 1.1, 4.3, and 3.9, respectively. After adjustment for atherosclerotic CVD risk factors, LDL-C categories 160 to 189 mg/dL and ≥190 mg/dL remained independently associated with CVD mortality, with hazard ratios of 1.7 (95% CI, 1.4–2.2) and 1.5 (95% CI, 1.2–2.1), respectively. In multivariable-adjusted models using non–HDL-C <130 mg/dL as the reference, non–HDL-C 160 to 189 mg/dL, 190 to 219 mg/dL, and ≥220 mg/dL were significantly associated with CVD death, with hazard ratios of 1.3 (95% CI, 1.1–1.6), 1.8 (95% CI, 1.4–2.2), and 1.5 (95% CI, 1.2–2.0), respectively. Restricting the cohort to those with 10-year risk <5% did not diminish the associations of LDL-C and non–HDL-C with CVD mortality. Conclusions: In a low 10-year risk cohort with long-term follow-up, LDL-C and non–HDL-C ≥160 mg/dL were independently associated with a 50% to 80% increased relative risk of CVD mortality. These findings may have implications for future cholesterol treatment paradigms.


"Nasi Uduk" is one of the Indonesian traditional food made from rice, steamed with coconut milk and seasoning. For optimizing shelf-life, canned "nasi uduk" for military and disaster-response ration, was packed using cylindrical cans of 72,63 × 53,04 mm (O × h) in size. One of the important aspects on quality assessment of preserved product was its rancidity. The aim of this research was to determine shelf-life of canned "nasi uduk" using ASLT method of Arrhenius model. Storage temperatures set up at 35, 45 and 55°C for 35 days. Optimization of sterilization process was conducted to achieve the optimum conditions of sterilization. Target lethality value (Fo), microorganism total plate count (TPC) and rancidity levels (TBA) were used as parameters in this research. The results showed that the optimum sterilization conditions were 121 °C for 20 minutes, TPC value of 9.5 × 101 CFU/ml and Fo value 4.14 minutes. Predicted shelf-life of canned "nasi uduk" was 9.6 months which was average TBA value still bellow of the critical point."Nasi Uduk" is one of the Indonesian traditional food made from rice, steamed with coconut milk and seasoning. For optimizing shelf-life, canned "nasi uduk" for military and disaster-response ration, was packed using cylindrical cans of 72,63 × 53,04 mm (O × h) in size. One of the important aspects on quality assessment of preserved product was its rancidity. The aim of this research was to determine shelf-life of canned "nasi uduk" using ASLT method of Arrhenius model. Storage temperatures set up at 35, 45 and 55°C for 35 days. Optimization of sterilization process was conducted to achieve the optimum conditions of sterilization. Target lethality value (Fo), microorganism total plate count (TPC) and rancidity levels (TBA) were used as parameters in this research. The results showed that the optimum sterilization conditions were 121 °C for 20 minutes, TPC value of 9.5 × 101 CFU/ml and Fo value 4.14 minutes. Predicted shelf-life of canned "nasi uduk" was 9.6 months which was average TBA value still bellow ...


❙ABSTRACT❙ Background: Aim of study is designed to investigate whether apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease-1/redox factor-1 (APE1/Ref-1) expression is changed in abdominal aortic coarctation models. Methods: Male Sprague–Dawley rats were randomly assigned with abdominal aortic coarctation, repaired group, sham, and control groups. Endothelial function was assessed with endothelium-dependent relaxations. Detection of superoxide anion and lipid peroxidation was performed by lucigenin chemiluminescence and thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances assay. APE1/Ref-1 expression was measured with Western blot and immunohistochemistry. Results: In anesthetized condition, the abdominal aortic coarctation rats showed hypertension as systolic/diastolic arterial pressure of 171/114 mm Hg, compared with 114/94 mm Hg of control. Endothelium-dependent relaxations were significantly impaired in the aortic coarctation which was recovered in 1 week after coarctation repair. Superoxide production and lipid peroxidation were elevated in aortic coarctation rats. In immunohistochemistry, APE1/Ref-1 expressions were increased at aorta and kidney in aortic coarctation rats. Increased APE1/Ref-1 expression in aorta was recovered by repair of coarctation. Conclusions: Taken together, it suggests that APE1/Ref-1 expression was increased in aortic coarctation-induced hypertensive rats, suggesting a biomarker for hypertension. Impaired endothelium dependent relaxation in the aortic coarctation can be modulated by repair of coarctation or the modulation of blood pressure. (J Korean Soc Hypertens 2012;18(3):126-135)


Eye features include iris,eyelids,eye corners etc.The tracking of eye features plays an important role in face recognition system as the eye features are among the most salient facial features.A robust algorithm for tracking the eye outer corners in video sequence was presented.This algorithm is based on modified Hough Transform(HT) and Unscented Kalman Filter(UKF).The proposed algorithm uses the modified HT to extract the eye outer corners when the iris is available in the input images.Otherwise the algorithm uses the UKF to estimate the positions of the eye outer corners.Experiments demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed algorithm.


Australian Constitutional Law: Commentary and Cases provides a concise and logical breakdown of well chosen and carefully edited extracts from key constitutional cases and statutes. This facilitates a clear understanding of Australian constitutional law. Strong author commentary The commentary binds the primary and secondary material together and helps students to navigate the book and tackle the complex issues, rules, principles, core concepts and theory of the Australian constitutional system. Coherent structure The authors have meticulously planned the organisation of this book. It provides a clear structure and excellent coverage of the material students need to know.


Mangrove deforestation in Riau province, especially in the District of High Cliff from 2005 until 2013 every year or penguranga damaged mangrove forest area of 1.35% per year (Department of Fisheries Riau, 2014). It can be seen from some of the phenomena which states that: mangrove forest cover in the district of High Cliff Bengkalis decreases. According to the report Riau Provincial Forestry Office (2014), estimated the damage rate will continue to grow each year. This is due to the internal and external pressures on the mangrove forests, the lack of regulations or policies Bengkalis area of the Regional Forest Service Bengkalis itself to the protection of mangrove forests in Bengkalis to date, geophysical changes in recent decades have encouraged onset of abrasion in areas that threaten Bengkalis mangrove forests. Reduced extensive mangrove provide a very important influence for the community and also life, especially in Bengkalis ecosystem, where the coastal areas until the last decade continues to experience a serious abrasion, especially in the northern part of the island. Abrasion that occurred on this island every year, reaching 5-10 m in length abrasion-hit areas reaching 100 km more. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the policy conducted by the Department of Forestry and Plantation Bengkalis safeguard Mangrove forest in the district of High Cliff Bengkalis. The result showed that the responses of informants according to the interview, observation and documentation available from the Forest Service concluded that Bengkalis not maximal preservation of mangrove forests in the District High Cliff Bengkalis due to the low resources (resources) in particular Bengkalis Forest Service , people in the District High Cliff and also entrepreneurs who average panglong not understand forestry legislation, and the risk of sanctions imposed on perpetrators of mangrove forest destruction. Besides the lack of government policies and the Forest Service Bengkalis Bengkalis towards conservation of mangrove forests lead to many critical land and also the ineffectiveness of mangrove reforestation on forest land. Keyword : Communcation, Resources, Disposition, Bureaucratic, Structure


During the last century, there have been major developments in the technology of power transmission by gears. Numerical analysis contact stress of the spur gear tooth models by using ANSYS programming (point to point) and experimental work by using the stress-optical method (photo elasticity) are widely used today. This paper investigates the characteristics of an Involutes gear system including contact stresses between pair of the gears (surface to surface) for 3D and comparing the results with the experimental results. The experimental analysis established in new idea by using the D.C servomotor and planting the strain gages in the tooth of the gear (polyimide materials). The results of the numerical FEM analyses from ANSYS programming (surface to surface) and experimental analysis (D.C servomotor) are presented in order to calculate the contact stress. These stresses are compared between numerical and experimental results. Both results agree very well. This indicates that the experimental model is successful and leads to excellent results comparing with numerical results (ANSYS program) and equal (12.86 %).


In a modern society there is a constant increase in electrical use but at the
same time the environmental awareness among consumers is rising. This master theses aims at investigating the possibilities in cost and energy efficient
lighting control techniques.
This master thesis is written for the Measurement Technology and Industrial
Electrical Engineering division, IEA, within the Faculty of Engineering
of Lund University in cooperation with AB Regin in Landskrona.
Lighting control systems are studied from an energy saving perspective and
the relation to reduction of carbon dioxide emission is addressed. Designing
tools, such as LENI and ELI, are introduced and their relation to international standards in electrical and lighting design. To illustrate the cost efficiency of lighting control systems, a case study is conducted at Schenker logistics in Vaxjo, revealing the payback time of the lighting control installation.
A market study is carried out, where available lighting control systems are
investigated. Different protocols are compared based on parameters such as
data rate, power consumption and cost. The aim of this study is to select
one existing system to be implemented on one of AB Regin's platforms. For
this purpose a selection criteria is composed.
Digital Addressable Lighting System, DALI, is chosen for implementation
along with the EXOcompact controller from AB Regin. The implementation
deals with building an interface between the EXOline, used by AB Regin,
and the DALI line, defined by the DALI protocol. A DALI Master Unit is
built around an Atmel ATmega186 microprocessor and some testing of sending
messages from the EXO system to a DALI enabled lamp is performed.
Based on the case study conducted and other sources, the cost and energy efficiency of lighting controle systems are proven. The concept of controlling lights from AB Regin's EXOSystem is also proven with implementation and testing.


As result of the survey in two Environmental Protection Areas (APA Rio Capivara and APA Lagoas de Guarajuba), Camacari city, five new reports of Desmidiaceae (Zygnematophyceae) are presented for the State of Bahia: three for the genus Octacanthium (O. octocorne var. octocorne, O. borgei and O. longispinum var. longispinum) and two for the genus Xanthidium (X. regulare var. asteptum and X. antilopaeum var. mamillosum f. mediolaeve). Fifty-six samples of planktonic and periphytic material were collected during the summer (January to March 2007) and winter (June to August 2007), both in lotic and lentic environments. Descriptions, illustrations and comparisons with related taxa are presented.


To describe the clinical and pathological features of a series of patients with biopsy findings of a coeliac disease‐like enteropathy in the setting of an acute illness.


The temporal variations in the sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events in the winter stratosphere always coincide with the quasi-2-day wave (Q2DW) in the summer mesosphere, and the impact of SSW on Q2DW is interesting but still a mystery. Major SSWs occurred in both 2006 and 2009, while the Q2DW activity was quite different. The Second Modern Era-Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA-2) reanalysis dataset was used to comparatively analyze these two major SSW events and elucidate the reasons for the different Q2DW behaviors. We noticed that the summer easterly jet shows a large interannual variability. We conclude that the summer mesospheric Q2DWs are modulated by the winter SSW, whereas the modulation process is also affected by the interannual variability of the summer easterly flow itself. The effects of the SSW on the Q2DWs may differ from year to year due to the variability of the summer easterly flow itself, resulting in different anomalous Q2DW behavior. This conclusion may also be true for the interannual variability of other phenomena during the SSW period.


This paper aims to compare the typological characteristics of OCS(Old Church Slavic), Russian and Bulgarian. For this analysis, the author choose three criteria(belonged to OCS) to compare. (1) *tj, *dj, (2) '?, (3) postpositional use as a article of OCS demonstrative pronoun The following tableau is the summary of typological research results. The remark "+" means positive value, "-" means negative value. 〈이미지 참조〉 As shown in above, Typological sameness between OCS and Bulgarian is much bigger than that between OCS and Russian. But, in the process of diachronical changes of these language, Bulgarian goes to analytic language because of the Balkan language influences, not like OCS and Russian. About this phenomenon will be studied in the next article by the author. Brief Tableau "Typological characteristics on OCS, Russian and Bulgarian" is attached in the end of this article.


In this paper, we analyze, by using a matrix approach, the dynamics of a nonrelativistic particle in presence of a quaternionic potential barrier. The matrix method used to solve the quaternionic Schrodinger equation allows us to obtain a closed formula for the transmission coefficient. Up to now, in quaternionic quantum mechanics, almost every discussion on the dynamics of nonrelativistic particle was motivated by or evolved from numerical studies. A closed formula for the transmission coefficient stimulates an analysis of qualitative differences between complex and quaternionic quantum mechanics and by using the stationary phase method, gives the possibility to discuss transmission times.


This paper proposes a new robotic system, which consists of multiple robots and executes a task in cooperation with humans. The authors consider a task in which the robots and humans manipulate an object in coordination. The authors assume that no interactions occur among robots and humans, that is, robots and humans have interactions with each other only through the object. The authors also assume that the humans are manipulating the object around a point fixed to the object. Under these assumptions, the authors design a controller for each robot around the point so that the object has a prescribed passive dynamics around the point. The stability of the resultant system is assured based on Popov's hyper stability theorem under the assumption that the passivity conditions for the humans are satisfied. The resultant control algorithm is applied to an experimental system, which consists of two industrial manipulators and a human. The results illustrate the proposed control algorithm.<<ETX>>


This chapter offers information on the class of Sesquilinear boundary conditions. It states that the class of boundary conditions can be defined by requiring that the complex Poynting vector of any electromagnetic field have no normal component at the boundary surface.


Paper depicts the practical experience in creating digital repository of theses and dissertations available in the holdings of the Mysore University Library. Issues and challenges faced are discussed in obtaining access to soft copy of the doctoral theses and splitting them chapter-wise and finally converting into PDF. Various issues regarding the problems faced while up-loading on to the Shodhganga Server of UGC-INFLIBNET Centre on one hand and providing display so as to access and download the theses and dissertations by the researchers and academicians across the country on the other are highlighted.Attempt is made while studying various aspects pertaining to selection of dissertations submitted to the University as part fulfillment of various Masters' Degree programmes including the project works of M.Phil courses. Authors have also discussed various constraints faced in up-dating and maintaining the digital repositories of Shodhganga, Vidyanidhi , Indian Institute of Science and such other popular repositories. Paper also deals with the issues which affect the user communities while attempting to do comprehensive survey of the research work done in the concerned subject disciplines


Abstract The PAS reaction was used to stain total insoluble polysaccharides in pollen of two species of Pinus collected in two different years and germinated in vitro at different pH values. PAS-detectable polysaccharides are localized in the intine, cytoplasm and amyloplasts; PAS-undetectable (callose) in the middle of the intine, but only in the distal part of the grain. The total PAS stained polysaccharide content was quantified with a microdensitometer. Values are correlated with germination percentages and pollen tube length. The total polysaccharide content, as well as pollen tube length, varies in each species according to the year, probably due to environmental conditions. Also the various pHs deeply influence pollen germination and tube length, the lowest pH being the most unfavourable condition. At this pH (3.5) the total polysaccharide content is higher than in the control (pH 5.5): this is probably due to a lack of callose synthesis for tube wall or to a depolymerization of this polysaccharide...


Soil samples from 0~10,10~20,20~30 and 30~40 cm depths were collected monthly between July and December 2004 under the canopy of Puerraria lobata in Wugong,Shaanxi.The result showed that fungi distribution,colonization is closely related with the time.The mean percent colonization and spore density of AM fungi reached maximal values in November 2004.Soil pH value had a significant negative correlation with vesicular percent colonization.Spore density had appositive effect on vesicular percent colonization.Soil available P had a negative correlation with vesicular percent colonization.Soil alkali solution N had a negative effect on spore density and total percent colonization.Our results support the opinion that spore density and different structures of AM fungi in the rhizosphere of Puerraria lobata are useful indicators for evaluating changes in soil ecosystems,especially the vesicular percent colonization are the useful indication for evaluating changes in saline-alkaline soil.


As a result of recent disruption in the world petroleum market and rapid price increases, the United States is in the process of developing energy policies that will lead to a greater degree of energy self-sufficiency, and to a reduced level of vulnerability to interruption of supply from abroad.


In this paper the attention is paid to the problem of adjustment of workstations to European students who are more and more willing to enrol at education exchange programs in universities all around Europe. With this aim, six classrooms and six auditoriums in two universities were evaluated considering the anthropometric data of the students. The results of the investigation showed that most of workstations in both universities are not appropriate for 5 and 95 percentile of the analysed populations. Thus, there is a need to adjust these workstations to their potential users and, accordingly, to eliminate the mismatch and provide students with workstation able to allow them to adopt natural resting postures.


The Plunger return spring of Starter Solenoid is prematurely failed during service. The said failure is presumed to be associated with the combined effects of wear, cold drawn micro crack and tool mark formed during the service. In-order to understand the cause of the failure, the present paper aims to investigate the spring failure at 203k cycle, by Chemical analysis, Scanning Electron Microscope and Vickers hardness assessment. The test reports from the above said assessments disclose surface irregularities and does not show any noticeable change in chemical composition and hardness. The studies reveal that, the wear scratches are formed due to non-uniform contact of plunger components, which cause the surface crack in the internal dia of the spring. Further, Oxide inclusions act as crack initiation sites, where Crack initiation and propagation route are clearly observed in the Scanning Electron Microscope images. This paper, further discusses the methods to improve the spring life. *Corresponding author: Rajeshkumar Ramasamy, Comstar Automotive Technologies, Keelakaranai Village, Malrosapuram Post, Maraimalai Nagar, Tamil Nadu 603204, India, Tel: 044-3747 3700; E-mail: email@example.com Received August 20, 2018; Accepted October 15, 2018; Published October 25, 2018 Citation: Ramasamy R, Neelakandan V, Ganesan T, Praveen CR (2018) An Investigation into Failure of Starter Solenoid Spring. J Material Sci Eng 7: 491. doi: 10.4172/2169-0022.1000491 Copyright: © 2018 Ramasamy R, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.


Objectives: To study the therapeutic effects of Q-switch laser in treatment of freckles and lentigo.Methods: To treat freckles and freckletous naevus with Q-switch laser in different wave length and energy.Wave length 755nm,energy density 5J/cm2-SJ/cm2;wave length 532nm,energy density 1.6J/cm2-1.9 J/cm2.A course of treatment is 12 months.Results: The rate of cure was 100 present without scar and depigmentation.Conclusions: This technique was proved to be effective and safe in treatment of freckles and freckletous naevus.


It is devoted t o the peculiarities of the modernization i n Siberia i n late X I X * early XX* centuries. The a u t h o r s pay a t t e n t i o n at t h e peculiarities of the agricultural and industrial development and show their connection with the r e g i o n ' s c o l o n i z a t i o n and t h e s t r a t e g i c plans of t h e Russian development with respect to Siberia.


Vena cavographies were performed on 22 patients following compartmentalization of the inferior vena cava. Various[See figure in the pdf file]roentgenographic appearances of the vena cava following plication were demonstrated. Twelve of the patients examined were[See table in the pdf file]found to have patency of the plication site, whereas 10 were found to have complete thrombosis following the surgical procedrue. There was poor correlation between clinical and roentgenographic findings, and accurate clinical assessment of the status of the vena cava could not be established prior to the performance of vena cavography.Evidence of pulmonary embolization was present postoperatively in 7 of the 22 cases and these included 1 case of fatal pulmonary embolus which occurred after ligation of the vena cava. Six of the postoperative pulmonary embolization patients were found to have patency of the plication, and in 2 there was suggestion of partial or complete breakdown of the plication site.Plication of the vena ...


The mechanism and function of polyester fiber improving the performance of asphalt mixture are described in this article.The effect of the fiber in mixture on the thermal stability of asphalt mixtures and the water stability are analyzed from the application of this fiber to asphalt mixture in Laoyemiao-Jining Expressway.The results of indoor and outdoor tests show that the polyester fiber added to the mixture result in the increase of optimum asphalt content while the features of volume keep constant.Finally,the construction technology of asphalt mixtures with polyester fiber is summarized.


The aim of this paper is to review some of the parameters influencing the corrosivity of alkanolamine solvents used for natural gas purification or for CO2 capture. In the light of literature data and of new experimental results, the influences of temperature and of acid gas loading are discussed. These two parameters appear to have a strong impact on corrosion rates of carbon steel, with extrapolated corrosion rates of several tens of mm/year for the highest temperature and acid gas loading condition.


By simultaneously measuring changes in energy and reflection angle of Laue spots with respect to a reference position, it is possible to measure all lattice parameters of a unit cell and calculate the full strain/stress tensors in a single-shot experiment with high spatial resolution.


BACKGROUND
The medical ethic of confidentiality is usually taught from a western ethical perspective based on the Hippocratic oath. This study at an urban Aboriginal medical service aimed to explore how confidentiality is understood in a community controlled Aboriginal health service, with a view to informing the training of general practitioners.

METHOD
Twenty-three people, comprising staff, patients and general practice registrars, were interviewed about confidentiality between July 2007 and February 2008.

RESULTS
Six themes were identified: overlapping contexts of confidentiality, key sensitivities, sharing of patient information, importance of consent, multiple roles, and consequences of maintaining or breaching confidentiality.

DISCUSSION
Perspectives on confidentiality in this community included issues of social justice, the importance of public demonstrations of confidentiality, and the challenge of protecting all relationships when staff have multiple roles. Incorporation of community perspectives into the teaching of confidentiality may help doctors to understand the responsibilities of practising confidentiality in certain communities.


The role of a university in a local society changes according to the trend of an age. Universities in this period play an important role for the local economy by opening their facilities to local residents and holding various cultural and liberal arts courses. In this circumstance, a university's surrounding area may be perceived to be in strongly mutual relations with the university. Currently, some areas designated as university district unit planning areas in the city of Seoul area include obsolete buildings and infrastructure, and unvitalized local economies require improvement. In order for these areas to be equipped with their own respective competitiveness, it is necessary not to organize physical elements such as buildings and roads, but to set their own unique images. As for a measure to vitalize a university area's local community, the purpose of this study is to draw out regions' own unique images by university by establishing the respective regions' own images and by making an assumption at the same time that forming positive placeness must be prioritized. Also, this study has reviewed factors affecting the formation of placeness and their relationships among one another. The study was conducted largely through literature and field studies, and newspaper analyses, field studies, and survey studies were conducted on regions nearby Hanyang University, Sookmyung Women's University, Sungkyunkwan University, and Kyunghee University. This study is meaningful in that this will set specific approaches for establishing various university areas' environment improvement projects, while enabling the approaches to focus on specific aspects.


The purpose of this paper is to argue that awareness of epistemological issues is critical to understanding the crisis and the policy response, to challenging that understanding and to encouraging a radical policy shift. Because reason and evidence cannot be enough to establish a theory to be 'correct', economists must ultimately rely on belief in one theory or another. The crisis has demonstrated the shortcomings of mainstream economic theory. But a major source of continuing belief in its policy prescriptions arises from the fact that mainstream economists have been persuasive that their theories are scientific, not relying on belief. As a result their belief in the general reliability of markets to act in the social interest came to be widely shared. This belief continues to prevail in spite of the crisis, justifying austerity policies. There has been a strong argument against austerity on ideological and ethical grounds, but many have been persuaded by the mainstream position that this is separable from the economic arguments for austerity. Rhetoric in its narrow sense has played a crucial role in the cementing of beliefs which generate austerity policies and in the widespread support these have received. This paper focuses on the much more fundamental Smithian role of rhetoric (encompassing ideology) as integral to epistemology and accordingly to policy understanding and policy direction. The mainstream are convincing because their results are presented as scientific such that debate is diverted away to what are seen as the separable areas of ideology, power and ethics. The critique of austerity policies is therefore strengthened by a critique of this rhetorical (mis)representation of economic theorising.


How do the children with mild and moderate mental retardation recognize and comprehend the external reality? How do they communicate their abilities of representation and exhibit their competencies? What kind of Practical skills do they possess? With what practical skills do they interact? These are some of the seminal questions in the contemporary discourse on children with mental retardation. This study is an attempt to grapple with some of the above questions, related to the practical adaptive behaviour of children with mental retardation. In social and domestic lives, the practical skills are important, and this article is to study the comparison of various domains of mentally retarded individuals with different degrees of retardation such as mild, moderate, severe, and profound. To carry out this research work a sample of 60 children with mental retardation are randomly selected, from two sub-populations i.e., mild and moderate children with mental retardation. This article mainly focuses on the practical adaptive behavior of children with mild and moderate mental retardation to their level of mental retardation, gender, level of the parent's education, and years of schooling. This research helped us to identify certain gaps in the existing knowledge. It was found based on the conducted research that the majority of the children with mild mental retardation exhibited practical behavior most frequently by participating in most of the classroom practical activities. It is also very important for us to realize that these children whose exceptionalities and disabilities can also be helped with good suggestions so, that they can lead a happy and productive life. From the analysis and testing of the hypothesis, it is evident that the variable 'gender' does not have any influence on children's practical skills. Irrespective of various backgrounds both the boys and girls are equally getting involved in the different practical activities, this may be the reason for the absence of gender discrimination in this context. It can be concluded that children with mental retardation exhibit delays in all aspects of practical skills management compared to non-retarded children and it is felt that if some verbal and non-verbal prompts are provided, these children can manage practical acts well in familiar situations. Article visualizations:


The Human Variome Project (http://www.humanvariomeproject.org) is an international effort aiming to systematically collect and share information on all human genetic variation. The two main pillars of this effort are gene/disease‐specific databases and a network of Human Variome Project Country Nodes. The latter are nationwide efforts to document the genomic variation reported within a specific population. The development and successful operation of the Human Variome Project Country Nodes are of utmost importance to the success of Human Variome Project's aims and goals because they not only allow the genetic burden of disease to be quantified in different countries, but also provide diagnosticians and researchers access to an up‐to‐date resource that will assist them in their daily clinical practice and biomedical research, respectively. Here, we report the discussions and recommendations that resulted from the inaugural meeting of the International Confederation of Countries Advisory Council, held on 12th December 2011, during the 2011 Human Variome Project Beijing Meeting. We discuss the steps necessary to maximize the impact of the Country Node effort for developing regional and country‐specific clinical genetics resources and summarize a few well‐coordinated genetic data collection initiatives that would serve as paradigms for similar projects. Hum Mutat 33:1513–1519, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


Objective To estimate left atrial mechanical function with three-dimensional echocardiography in essential hypertension patients with normal left ventricular geometric.Methods Fifty essential hypertension patients with normal left ventricular geometric(left ventricular mass index LVMI,man125 g/m2,woman120 g/m2,relative wall thickness RWT0.45) and 50 age-BSA matched healthy controls were enrolled.All subjects were collected full volume imaging at apical four-chamber view with real-time three-dimensional echocardiography.Left atrial volume curve,left atrium maximal volume(LAV_max),left atrium minimal volume(LAV_min) and left atrium presystolic volume(LAVpre) were analyzed with QLAB workstation.Following parameters including left atrium passive emptying volume(LAVp),left atrium passive emptying fraction(LAVpEF),conduit volume(CV),left atrium active emptying volume(LAVa),left atrium active emptying fraction(LAVaEF),left atrium total emptying volume(LAVt) and left atrium total emptying fraction(LAVtEF) were calculated.Left ventricle maximal volume(LVmax) and left ventricle minimal volume(LVmin) were measured by same way,then stroke volume(SV) and left ventricular ejection fraction(LVEF) were calculated.All volumes were standardized for body surface area.Result LAV_max,LAV_min,LAVpre,LAVt,LAVa,LV_max,SV increased obviously in hypertensives than in the controls(P0.001),while LAVtEF,LAVpEF,LAVaEF,LAVp,CV,LV_min and LVEF were similar in both groups(P0.05).Conclusion Atrial reservoir and booster pump functions increase in hypertensive patients,but conduit function does not changed.Left atrial volume changes before left ventricle geometric does.


In all burns treatment centres there is universal agreement that with the first group transplantation with natural skin should be proceeded with caution, in order that no more skin has to be removed than absolutely necessary. Around the outside of these rather superficial burns and scalds unnecessary scars also occur due to the fact that the transplanted natural skin is raised above the surface of the healing epithelial layer (otherwise known as "overgrafting"). However, in the well-intentioned effort to treat second-degree burns conservatively, even today these burns victims are still bathed daily under local anaesthetic and with disinfecting ointments. This kind of treatment is expensive and causes a lot of pain for patients. Apart from this, the ointments normally used at present have shown evidence of restricting the healing process in the epithelium as it regrows. As such, it is not surprising that in many burns treatment centres permanent dressings are used, which may be left on the wound for longer periods.


The article presents the results of bacteriological studies of flushes from the prepucial sac in balanoposthitis in dogs. Inflammation of the preputial sac is a multifactorial disease, the leading role in the pathogenesis and etiology of which belongs to the microflora. The leading role of microorganisms Staphylococcus spp., Streptococcus spp., Pseudomonas аеrиginosa, Escherichia coli has been established both as monoinfections and as part of associations. The isolated microorganisms have multiple antibiotic resistance. The antibiotics kanamycin, cephalexin, and virusid had the greatest bactericidal effect on all isolated cultures. Also, in the course of research, an increased content of Candida fungi sensitive to nystatin was found.


The article deals with the discursive symbolism of elements of the language system which determines the specificity of family discourse semiotics. The symbolism of the "family" sign is predetermined by the case-interpretation. Family language is a set of secondary symbols created by a group and associated with emotional rituals. Integration of family language sign in the area of their functioning – family discourse – is based on the mutual determinism. From the perspective of Charles Peirce's theory of sign (classifying into three main trychotomies – the sign by itself, the meaning of the sign and its syntagmatic functioning in interaction with others), the research shows the whole complex of characteristics of semiotic entities in intra-familial nominations. The article proves that the "family" precedent is based on the experience within a collective cognitive space – common (recognizable, used and cited by other members of the group – family) memories that determine the identity of a man as a representative of the family recognizing its values, norms, ideas, priorities, tastes and traditions. Family images as archetype and culturally socialized symbols, are the "messengers" of ancient times, and, correlating with contemporary cultural context, are transformed under its influence. The family discourse symbolic meanings are genuinely represented by a set of specific nominative acts


Reliability is an important aspect in the distributed system studies and developments. Distributed processes are an instance of a running program, which are either concurrent or parallel. The distributed processes exhibit more dynamism. The processes also have peculiar characteristics like message passing, load sharing, fault tolerance, fault resilience and recovery. The program reliability analysis encounters a variety of distributed programs. These programs reside in several nodes. Each program has a composite structure. The functions and data are composite. In order to perform reliability analysis of distributed programs the programs are run in the distributed computing environment. Studying and analyzing the programs derive the configuration of the programs by reduction. The program code is read and analyzed by the analyzer program. The program flow is checked. Then the appropriate program flow graph is derived. It is then classified into one of serial configured, parallel configured program or mixed configured program. Once configured, the system can be evaluated perfectly. Reliability of such a system can be easily evaluated by taking into account the reliability of independent components.


13 14 The external sulfate attack is a degradation process that causes expansion and cracking 15 in concrete structures. Due to the absence of simplified methodologies to predict the 16 potential damage, codes specify that sulfate resistant cement should be used whenever 17 the surrounding sulfate concentration surpasses a predefined limit. This may lead to 18 penalizing measures as the size of the element or the mechanical properties of the 19 concrete used are not considered. In the present work, an alternative approach is 20 proposed. A simplified chemo-mechanical methodology is deducted to assess the 21 potential damage in concrete elements exposed to sulfate rich environments. Equations 22 to estimate the penetration of sulfates are derived from a numerical model taking into 23 account sulfate consumption, acceleration of the penetration induced by cracking and 24 decrease in diffusivity caused by pore filling. Failure modes associated to this 25 phenomenon are analyzed and a set of equations to assess the risk of failure are 26 deducted. Finally, a parametric study with different geometries of elements and 27 surrounding sulfate contents is performed. The results show that the criterion included 28 in codes might be modified depending on the characteristics of the structure. 29


Internal crowdsourcing platforms, which enable firms to generate a large pool of ideas and connect employees to large number of colleagues, hold the potential to support employee innovation. Yet, managers face considerable difficulties when it comes to deploying such platforms in a way that generates business value. This article describes the eight years-long evolution of Allianz UK efforts to tap into its employees' ideas to drive innovation as a collective capacity. It identifies the challenges the firm faced with its internal crowdsourcing journey and describes the organizational design mechanisms adopted by leaders to address them. Our analysis reveals the necessity to adopt a configurational perspective among design elements to reinforce value creation. It details the design elements adopted by the firm to harness employee innovation and distills the lessons learned along the way.


The aim of presented study was to assess the most suitable way how to distinguishdifferent breeds based on molecular markers. One of the most difficult aspects ofquality assurance schemes is their reliability. The verification of fraud needs greatefforts in control strategies. The use of DNA markers has been shown to be auseful tool for individual identification. It is necessary to use modern statisticalmethod based on data mining and supervised learning. Supervised patternrecognition techniques use the information about the class membership of thesamples to a certain group (class or category) in order to classify new unknownsamples in one of the known classes on the basis of its pattern of measurements.Large scale of supervised learning oriented method was used for traceability andidentification on individual level. A result of provided study shows the possibilityto classify unknown samples according to genetic data. Model is also useful forclassification on many logical levels as brand, region and many others. If we takein the account only Slovak and Austrian Pinzgau cattle, based on SNP chip data, itis not possible to separate them using Bayesian approach. Once we considered withthe admixture of breeds involved in the historical development as well asinbreeding, selection signatures and migration, we were able to separate evengenetically similar breeds. It is possible distinguish between closely relatedpopulations based on different markers. We just need to select the appropriate typeof analysis.


During the last decade, the technology of in-situ experimental safety evaluation of structures has been significantly improved and extensively tested. The research work presented here resulted in technical achievements concerning methods and equipment for loading tests. Furthermore, corresponding technical guidelines were formulated. By using state-of-the-art measuring equipment the research team could successfully evaluate the structural safety and serviceability of approximately 300 structures, among them about 30 bridges.


In this letter we focus on the power allocation in multicarrier modulation system (MCM). We consider two non iterative algorithms of adaptive power loading (APL). The first of them minimizes the average power of the system transmitter and ensures the preset average bit-error rate (BER) and the second provides decreasing of the average transmitting power subject to the given values of demanded BER and the outage probability. The considered algorithms may be used for power-efficient management of the up-link in cellular communication, where mobile terminals use rechargeable batteries, or of the downlink in satellite communication with solar power source of a transponder. Performance analysis of the adaptive MCM (AMCM) systems supported by computer simulation for the case of the m-Nakagami fading and additive white Gaussian noise in the forward and backward channels is presented. Evaluation of the average power gain (APG) of the considered APL strategies and its comparison with uniform power loading strategy, shows that APG depends on average signal to noise ratio (ASNR) in the system sub channels and can reach 20 dB.


Summary The distribution of body water in the different body compartments of four highpotassium (HK) and four low-potassium (LK) type sheep of the Marwari breed of the Rajasthan desert was determined after imposing the following watering treatments, viz. watering ad lib., ¼, ½ and ¾ restrictions (each of five days 'duration with a sevenday normal drinking regime between each treatment) and water deprivation (of three days' duration). There was no difference in the voluntary water intake of the HK and LK animals. The HK animals normally have a higher blood and plasma volume status than the LK. In both types of animals, the total body water, total blood and plasma volumes and the extracellular, intracellular and interstitial fluid volumes started decreasing as water intake was reduced below 25% of the daily requirement. In both the phonotypes 75% reduction was similar in its effect to complete deprivation. The physiological status of the HK Marwari animals appears to be somewhat superior to that of the LK although both types seem to be equally adapted to the conditions of the habitat.


Defects Per Million (DPM), defined as the number of calls dropped out of a million calls due to failures, is used by the telecommunication systems community as a user-perceived dependability metric. As new standards evolve, with built-in mechanisms to handle and recover from failures, the need for an accurate estimation of metrics like DPM become essential. In this paper, we illustrate the computation of the DPM metric using a system supporting Voice over IP functionality using the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) as an example to illustrate how the fault-handling mechanisms of the protocol can be accurately reflected in the dependability evaluation. We discuss how can we extend our approach and underlying models to other types of service-oriented environments.


In this work we present an analysis of the response of a compact, simple and inexpensive optoelectronic sensor system intended to detect spectral shifts of a long-period fiber grating (LPG). The system makes use of a diffraction grating and a couple of receiving optical fibers that pick up signals at two different wavelengths. This differential detection system provides the same useful information from an LPG-based sensor as with a conventional laboratory system using optical spectrum analyzers for monitoring the minimum offset of LPG. The design of the fiber detection pair as a function of the parameters of the dispersion grating, the pick-up fiber and the LPG parameters, is presented in detail. Simulation of the detection system responses is presented using real from spectral shifts in nano-coated LPGs caused by the evaporation of various liquids such as water, ethanol and acetone, which are examples of corrosive, flammable and hazardous substances. Fiber optic sensors with similar detection can find applications in structural health monitoring for moisture detection, monitoring the spillage of toxic and flammable substances in industry etc.


Stock option encouragement mechanism is an effective culture of ownership, which is called pioneering work of the 20th century system arrangement. After the event of enron, a series of financial swindles have been revealed in American. So share option encouragement mechanism is called in question because of these events so how to undestand action and reaction of share option encouragement mechanism, how to draw lessons from share option encouragement mechanism and solve authority of agency effectively is became a very important task for discussion which is we faced in our economy. This paper analyses share option encouragement mechanism deeply and draws out some political suggestions to share option encouragement mechanism which is how to exercises in Chinese enterprises.


There are same occasions to extract the moving object from image sequence in the region of remote sensing, robot vision and so on. The process needs to have high accurate extraction and simpler realization. In this paper, we propose the design method of the optimal filter in the frequency-time mixed domain. Frequency selective filter to dynamic images usually are designed in 3-D frequency domain. But, design method of the filter is difficult because of its high parameter degree. By the use of frequency-time mixed domain(MixeD) which constitutes of 2-D frequency domain and 1-D time domain, design of filters becomes easier. But usually the desired and noise frequency component of image tend to concentrate near the origin in the frequency domain. Therefore, conventional frequency selective filters are difficult to distinguish these. We propose the optimal filter in the MixeD in the sense of least mean square error. First of all, we apply 2-D spatial Fourier to dynamic images, and at each point in 2-D frequency domain, designed FIR filtering is applied to 1-D time signal. In designing the optimal filter, we use the following information to decide the characteristics of the optimal filter. (1) The number of finite frames of input images. (2) The velocity vector of the signal desired. (3) The power spectrum of the noise signal. Signals constructed by these information are applied for the evaluation function and it decides filter coefficients. After filtering, 2-D inverse Fourier transform is applied to obtain the extracted image.


This Memorandum summarizes the conclusions and recommendations of the participants at the Consultation on Strategy for Isolation and Characterization of Poliovirus Strains and Surveillance of Wild Polioviruses held in Geneva, 28-30 November 1988.


ctoated by some coincidence of detaÃ1⁄4 tiiat I myself had not observed. What seemed best to me on the whole was me fact that die case was made—and convincingly made—for the need to explore possible grounds for Goethe's assertion of the centraUty of the "Bekenntnisse" to terms of both structure and meaning. What Neumann has done is to underscore the hidden esotericism of the writing and to encourage further exploration of the text with this to view. As I said earUer, however, this book seems to me not altogether satisfactory to terms of structure. Apart from the second section ("fnitiationen"), which focuses on the recurrent ritualized process of consecration/initiation and only makes up about a quarter of the whole, much of the rest shows a famUiarity with materiai that is more suggestive than conclusive to terms of its support value. Given that tiiis is so, one wonders whetiier there reaUy was a book here. I myself think that on die whole die material presented would perhaps have been better suited to presentation as a lengthy article, with Part B cut down to about half its size and integrated into die remainder of die text. fn fairness, f should say tiiat widi my own particular interest to Goethe's mode of writing, I found die book a stimulus to further reflection on die broader issue of esotericism. This was not its purpose or main thrust, however, and it is a matter of some doubt to me whether others whose focus is rather different from


A method of illustrating program structure by showing how sections depend on each other is presented. This suggests an intuitive metric for program partitioning, which is developed with supporting theory.


Self-seeding is a promising approach to significantly narrow the Self-Amplified Spontaneous Emission (SASE) bandwidth of XFELs to produce nearly transform-limited pulses. We study radiation propagation through the grating monochromator installed at Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS). The monochromator design is based on a toroidal Variable Line Spacing (VLS) grating working at a fixed incidence angle mounting without an entrance slit. It covers the spectral range from 500 eV to 1000 eV. The optical system was studied using wave optics method to evaluate the performance of the self-seeding scheme. Our wave optics analysis takes into account the finite size of the coherent source, third-order aberrations and height error of the optical elements. Wave optics is the only method available, in combination with FEL simulations, to simulate performance of the monochromator without exit slit. Two approaches for time-dependent simulations are presented, compared and discussed.


We discuss etiology of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). It frequently occurs in coronary artery disease patients and may be used as a multifocal atherosclerosis marker. We review various risk factors of cardiac complications which occur in early postoperative period (EPP) in 15-34% of patients with atherosclerotic AAA. At present time β blockers, calcium antagonists and angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors are used for prevention of cardiac complications in EPP.


To assess the performance of the Milan, Shanghai Fudan and Hangzhou criteria based on a preoperative evaluation in patients undergoing liver transplantation (LT) for hepatitis B‐related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).


A cluster theory is given to derive the effective (or macroscopic) conductivity of disordered square and simple cubic resistor networks in which bonds are broken at random (bond model). The cluster approximation that goes beyond single-bond effective medium approximations (single-bond EMA) can be obtained from the partial sum of two-bond terms by means of a diagrammatic representation of the perturbation series. The two-bond effective medium approximation is also derived from different points of view in order to clarify the meaning and applicability of the method. The thresholds pc for the bond percolation on a square lattice and on a simple cubic lattice are calculated by the two-bond EMA. The results give the exact value pc=1/2 for the square lattice and certainly show an improvement over the single-bond EMA for the simple cubic lattice. It is also found that the sum of two-bond terms gives the second-order term of the broken-bond concentration c on a non-self-consistent two-bond approximation. A comparison of the second-order term with that of the continuum model is made and the differences between the lattice and continuum models are demonstrated.


of a doctoral essay at the University of Miami. Doctoral essay supervised by Professor Aaron Tindall. No. of pages in text. (121) Instructional materials, syllabi and scholarly documents, were evaluated using discrete comparative analysis in an attempt to develop a curricular approach that is interdisciplinary and multicultural to ensure compliance with new market demands of tuba professorship listings and performing tubists. These materials encompass the areas of applied instruction, theory instruction, curriculum development, and applied jazz instruction. The specific musical attributes addressed by this study are stylistic fluency, scalar proficiency, and music composition. It was predicted that comparing and analyzing applied tuba syllabi, applied jazz syllabi, and applied composition syllabi would reveal large scale commonalities between the three disciplines. It was concluded that modifications to the standard tuba curriculum, that reflect an intercultural and crosscurricular awareness, are possible. A proposed curriculum guide and recommendation for further study is enclosed.


This study examines the influence of product placements in television serial comedies on consumer attitudes toward the products. Proposing a "Balance Model of Sitcom Product Placement Effects," the study integrates genre theory to analyze character-product associations in sitcoms, parasocial theory to consider consumer-character referential relations, and balance theory to address the main research issue of the way that characters' relations to placed products and consumers' relations to the characters affect consumers' attitudes to the products. The model is based on balance theory, in which attitude alignment is the explanation for links between a triad composed of the consumer, the sitcom character, and the placed product. The influence of two consumer-character variables (attitude and parasocial attachment) and two character- product variables (valence and strength of association) are tested in a real-world situation. The methodology uses real televised sitcoms as stimuli, real viewers as respondents, and a real-time on-line survey to measure the relationship among the variables. Study findings support the predictions that consumers align their attitudes toward products with the characters' attitudes to products and that this process is driven by the consumers' attachment to the characters.


Using a model of acute zymosan-induced inflammation in NMRI mice, the dependence of anti-inflammatory effects of low-intensity extremely high-frequency electromagnetic radiation (EHF EMR) on frequency and intensity was found. The maximum decrease in footpad edema and hyperthermia by 20% was revealed at frequencies of 42.2, 51.8 and 65 GHz, intensity of 0.1 mW/cm2 and exposure duration of 20 min. The pharmacological analysis has shown that arachidonic acid metabolites and histamine are involved in realization of anti-inflammatory effects of low-intensity EHF EMR.


The Philippines, it is often said, has mediocre or weak political parties and an inchoate or ill-developed political party system. A political party, as defined by the country's Omnibus Election Code, is an organized group of persons pursuing the same ideology, political ideas, or platform of government. Political activist and analyst Joel Rocamora quips, however, that nobody can accuse any of the Philippines' main parties of being such an animal.1 Dominated by the country's politico-economic elite, they are built around personalities, rather than around political programmes or platforms. In fact, ideologies and platforms are just adornments for them. A major Philippine daily newspaper aptly describes what the parties stand for: "The usual motherhood statements are passed off as political programmes".2 Apart from being indistinguishable from one another in their political beliefs and programmes ? or lack of these ? the Philippines' main parties have weak membership bases and seem to come alive only during election time. Elections are often marked ? or marred ? by lavish spending, vote-buying, fraud, and violence. In Philippine party politics, turncoatism is a venerable tradition3 ? politicians flit like butterflies from one party to another. Post-Marcos parties, in particular, are said to reflect the undeveloped or malformed character of the Philippine political party system. Far from being stable organizations, they have proven to be nebulous entities that can be set up, merged with others, split, resurrected, regurgitated, reconstituted, renamed, repackaged, recycled, or flushed down the toilet any time.4 Most politicians belonging to the main parties have come to be derogatorily called trapo, which is short for "traditional politician",


The paper reviews the progress that has been made over the last ten years in the measurement and analysis of knowledge flows between the various institutions involved in "systems of innovation". It shows that this has involved both more imaginative use of existing data (such as patent statistics and data on scientific publications and citations) and the gathering of new datasets by means of firm-level surveys (CIS, PACE and Yale) and other techniques (MERIT-CATI databank on alliances). Very often the most interesting results have emerged from studies that have sought to combine some of these measures (for example patent citations and strategic alliances) to examine the nature, extent and effects of knowledge interactions.


Primary mature teratomas of the fallopian tube are extremely rare and about 60 cases have been reported in the literature. Most of them have been discovered incidentally and none has been diagnosed preoperatively. In cases of undetermined pelvic or abdominal masses, a teratoma of the fallopian tube should be considered. We report a benign teratoma of fimbrial end of the fallopian tube discovered per-operatively.


Exclusion of the poor and the marginalised from the development process has given rise to the concerns for active citizenship, responsible participation of people and accountability in the development process. Such concerns seek alternate forms of development, which foster more inclusive and deliberative forms of citizen engagement. The Development Research Centre (DRC) on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability aims to re-cast such concerns on inclusion, participation and accountability in a rights-based and citizenship-centered mould both in theory and practice.


Background: Lymphovascular invasion (LVI), a critical feature of advanced cancers, is a major route of metastatic dissemination. Of the clinically-distinct types of breast cancer, the most lethal variant is inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) where LVI is a histopathological hallmark. Majority of IBC patients lack a distinct, solid tumor and instead present with diffuse tumor cell clusters cells, also termed as tumor emboli, in the breast and dermal lymphatics, which contributes to the clinical breast-skin symptoms and postulated to provide an efficient path to metastatic spread. The steps in lymphatic dissemination are challenging to study in vitro, and in vivo models are limited. Our goal was to develop new in vivo models that would enable direct visualization and quantitation of local tumor cell growth and tumor-lymphatic vessel interactions for improved understanding of the unique IBC tumor biology and for drug discovery. Methods: mCherry/GFP-expressing non-IBC (4T1, E0771) and IBC cells derived from patient untreated primary tumors (SUM149/basal and SUM190/Her2+) were implanted into the fascia in the center of a window chamber in the skin-fold or mammary fat pad. In order to allow direct study of tumor cell–lymphatic vessel interaction, we generated transgenic nude mice with fluorescent lymphatics [tdTomato fluorophore under control of a Prox1 promoter, encodes a transcription factor (prospero-related homeobox 1) necessary for the formation and maintenance of lymphatic vessels]. Multichannel microscopy was employed to serially quantify tumor growth, tumor spread and lymph-tumor interactions. Using this model, we also optimized implantation and live imaging of pre-formed IBC-cell derived tumor emboli generated by simulating the lymphatic sheer stress in culture. Results: Compared to non-IBC cells, which formed solid tumors that increased in size over a 14 day period, IBC models exhibited a diffuse and disseminating phenotype, within 24h, rather than a centralized tumor mass, similar to the disease presentation in patients. Using a threshold analysis in ImageJ, we quantified tumor area (as a metric of tumor growth), the tumor motility, and the linear density of lymph and blood vessels. Briefly, we binarized each fluorescent channel image such that the tumor or lymph signal was positive; then, an algorithm drew regions of interest (ROIs) around each defined tumor-cell cluster. The ROIs were used to calculate the parameters describing tumor growth and motility (distance of the tumor from the center of mass (CM)), and the area moment (the movement of the clusters relative to the CM) at each timepoint. The linear vascular density was calculated from the distance of segments drawn through the center of large vessels for each mouse, which provided quantitative data describing tumor cell or IBC emboli and lymphovascular interactions, suggesting that there is a specific microenvironment necessary for the unique phenotype and dissemination pattern exhibited by IBC tumor cells. Conclusions: Despite the poor prognosis of IBC, the clinical implications of how and why tumor emboli form and how they survive to migrate into the lymphatics is not defined. These in vivo models provide in-depth imaging and quantitative measurements of locoregional invasion, tumor cell-lymphatic or endothelial vessel interactions of implanted tumor cells or tumor emboli. This model has the potential to be extended to study other cancer cell types exhibiting LVI as well as a screening metric for IBC therapies. Supported by DOD-Breakthrough-W81XWH-17-1-029, IBC Research Foundation, DCI pilot funds, IBC Network Foundation, Duke Surgery Gardner Award. Citation Format: Ashlyn Rickard, Pranalee Patel, Scott J Sauer, Mark W Dewhirst, Gregory M Palmer, Gayathri R Devi. Multichannel serial imaging of transgenic, preclinical murine models provides the first quantitative analysis of the unusual growth kinetics and lymph-vascular invasion of patient-derived inflammatory breast cancer cells and tumor emboli [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2019 Dec 10-14; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P1-03-03.


EDITORS, In their letter, Chen and colleagues pointed out that the patients in our study cohort were predominantly infected with HBV genotype A and D, whereas genotypes B and C were found less frequently. They concluded that this distribution was most likely due to the European origin of our study population and that our results have to be examined in larger study populations with a higher prevalence of HBV genotypes B and C. We agree with this conclusion and we are excited to learn more on this topic in patients with genotype B and C infection as this group was naturally underrepresented in our study of patients living in Europe. Chen and colleagues presented data of 106 HBeAg-negative patients infected with HBV genotypes B and C "without anti-viral therapy before." The authors observed no differences in the HBsAg levels among these genotypes. As they also found no differences in earlier studies analysing patients with nucleos(t)ide analogues therapy, they concluded that genotypes B and C are not associated with differences in HBsAg levels. However, for meaningful interpretation of the genotype-specific impact on HBsAg levels the analysed patient group has to be described more precisely as HBsAg levels also depend strongly on the disease stage. In the cited studies, patients with presumable active hepatitis were included as they qualified for therapy. Both HBeAg-positive (n = 32 and 61, respectively) and HBeAg-negative patients (n = 16 and 33, respectively) were analysed and the overall patient numbers, especially for HBeAg-negative patients, were small. In their letter, the patient numbers are also limited (62 genotype C and 44 genotype B infected patients) and no demographic data were given. In detail, it is unclear if "without anti-viral therapy before" means that these patients were all inactive carriers with normal transaminases etc. without need for anti-viral treatment as in our study. Therefore, interpretation of these data seems to be difficult at this point. In addition, Chen et al presented data regarding the prevalence of the basal core promotor (BCP) A1762T/G1764A and precore (PC) mutation G1896A and their impact on HBsAg levels. The authors wrote that none of these mutations was significantly associated with HBsAg levels, although as shown in figure 1D of their study, statistically significantly more HBsAg was found in patients with PC mutation (P = 0.006, exact patient numbers are missing). In contrast, in our study the PC mutation was associated with lower HBsAg levels and this was also true after excluding patients with additional preS mutations from the analysis (3.0 vs 3.3 log IU/mL for patients with and without G1896A, respectively; P = 0.005). However, this effect seems to be mild and the clinical impact still needs to be explored. The observation that the BCP mutation has no impact on HBsAg levels is in line with our results. In conclusion, we agree with the authors that the impact of the genotype and frequent mutations on HBsAg levels has to be confirmed in studies with a higher prevalence of HBV genotypes B, C and also E and we are excited to see more research on this topic.


Poly(n-alkyl isocyanates) are well known to adopt stiff helical conformations in solution. This fact suggests that the optical activity associated with the backbone chromophore may arise from an excess of one of the helical senses now cast into diastereomeric states as a consequence of the chiral stereogenicity of the pendant groups. This interpretation is supported by the large negative increase in D-line optical rotation on formation of the polyisocyanates and the same-signed exciton-like couplet clearly associated with the higher energy absorption maximum in both polymers. Experiments are in progress to reveal the per deuterium energy difference favoring one helical sense. Such information will be helpful to understanding the structural forces behind the conformational equilibrium isotope effect reported in this work. Diasterotopic carbon hydrogen stretching frequency differences could play a role, and their contributions could be evaluated by spectroscopic experiments also in progress.