We explored for the first time the ability of a three-dimensional polyacrylonitrile/ZnO material prepared by a low-cost and scalable synthesis method based on the combination of electrospinning and atomic layer deposition (ALD) as a new material with a large surface area to enhance the performance of UV photodetection. The UV photoresponse current was enhanced by a factor of 250 compared to a flat electrode. In addition an increase by a factor of 1.3 of the recovery time has been observed which is negligible versus the huge amount of current enhancement. The greatly improved performance and the good stability of these nanostructured electrodes induce exciting materials for use in UV sensor applications.


Engineering design under uncertainty is an established field. Attempts to extricate the human decision maker from the process generally do not succeed. Surprisingly, even the determination of system parameters and their admissible values needs as many interventional steps from human designers and operators, as the selection of final attributes of the system that the human end user is expected to only interact and be concerned with. In this light, it becomes important to consider the mathematical models that would explain and model the decision making behavior of human beings. Concerningly, this behavior has been seen to violate common sense probability axioms. In this paper, we propose an earnest look at the mathematics of quantum mechanical theory in modeling and manipulating the uncertainties involved in engineering systems. We propose that the state of a system be modeled as a point in an abstract complex vector space as in quantum mechanics. Additionally, at a given point in time it can be interpreted as a superposition of multiple pure states. This change in perspective allows explanation of many commonly observed behaviors, least of which is the inconsistencies in defining what constitutes the failure of a system. We present our approach in the context of reliability engineering as it sees some of the most prevalent use of uncertainty modeling and propagation techniques. However, the implications on design and design theory are also evident. Some motivating examples are provided and directions for future work are identified.


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

Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, a homotrimeric, pleiotropic cytokine, mediates both apoptosis and inflammation. Following exposure to TNF-α, activation of caspases leads to apoptotic cell death and stimulation of an inflammatory cascade through the non-canonical pathway of NF-κB activation leads to increased nuclear RelB and p52. In contrast, the common food additive carrageenan (CGN), which contains sulfated galactose residues, stimulates inflammation through both the canonical and non-canonical pathways of NF-κB activation. CGN-induced inflammation utilizes B-cell leukemia/lymphoma (BCL)-10 to activate a pathway of innate immunity that is initiated by interaction with toll-like receptor (TLR)-4. CGN also stimulates inflammation through a reactive oxygen species-mediated pathway. In a series of cell-based experiments, colonic epithelial cells and mouse embryonic fibroblasts were treated with TNF-α and CGN, in order to simulate the possible effects of exposure to dietary CGN in the setting of TNF-α-mediated effects. Marked increase in secretion of Interleukin (IL)-8 occurred, attributable to synergistic effects on phospho-NIK in the non-canonical pathway. TNF-α induced the ubiquitination of TNF receptor-associated factor (TRAF)-2 which interacts with NFκB-inducing kinase (NIK), and CGN induced phosphorylation of BCL10, which is required for NIK-phosphorylation. These results suggest that TNF-α and CGN in combination act to increase NIK phosphorylation, thereby increasing activation of the non-canonical pathway of NF-κB activation. In contrast, the apoptotic effects of TNF-α, including activation of caspase-8 and poly [ADP-ribose] polymerase (PARP)-1 fragmentation, were markedly reduced in the presence of CGN. CGN exposure caused reduction in Fas by cDNA microarray and by ELISA. The study results demonstrate that exposure to CGN drives TNF-α stimulated cells toward inflammation, rather than toward apoptotic cell death. The findings suggest that CGN exposure may compromise the effectiveness of anti-TNF-α therapy. Average consumption of CGN in the typical Western diet is reported to be 250 mg/day, in contrast to therapeutic glycosides, such as digoxin that are prescribed in doses of ∼0.1 mg/day. Ingestion of CGN-containing foods has the potential to both inhibit the pro-apoptotic effect and to increase the pro-inflammatory effect of TNF-α and may contribute to malignant transformation.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1022. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-1022


An important class of digital integration algorithms is examined. The complete integration filter is partitioned into a feedback filter combined with a finite duration impulse response (FIR) part which may be thought of as a cascaded compensator subfilter. New integrator designs are obtained using linear programming to achieve minimax optimization of the linear-phase FIR compensator, constrained to have no dc error. Comparisons with other integration algorithms are presented. A tabulation of some optimal integrator filter coefficients is included.


Purpose: Tissue ischemia triggers a bunch of cellular responses directed to restore blood flow and accelerate repair. Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), a family of zinc-dependent endopeptidases, contribute extensively to tissue remodeling in a variety of normal and disease processes, including ischemic disorders associated to vascular dysfunction (e.g.: peripheral artery disease, PAD). High gelatinolytic activity is necessary for tissue remodeling in response to arterial occlusion in experimental ischemia, however, the contribution of other MMPs, such as; collagenases, or stromelysins, has not yet been investigated. MMP-10 or stromelysin 2 has been suggested to be involved in disorders associated to tissue remodeling and inflammation, although it remains unknown its involvement in ischemic diseases.

Methods: we used a model of femoral artery occlusion in wild type (WT) and MMP-10 deficient (Mmp10-/-) mice to study the role of MMP-10 in skeletal muscle repair.

Results: At the degenerative phase, MMP-10 deficiency reduced tissue perfusion and increased necrosis and inflammation. At the regenerative phase, MMP-10 deficiency resulted in reduced tissue regeneration. The injection of recombinant human MMP-10 (rhMMP10) in Mmp10-/- mice rescued the observed phenotype. Compared to WT, ischemic Mmp10-/- muscles had higher levels of Cxcl1 (Gro-alpha), suggesting the involvement of chemokine production in muscle regeneration by MMP-10.

Conclusions: Our results demonstrate an important role of MMP-10 for proper muscle repair during degenerative and regenerative phases of limb ischemia, and open new pathways for specific manipulation of MMP-10 in ischemic conditions.


Abstract Green roof technology can partially mitigate the adverse effects of urbanization by controlling stormwater runoff, pre-filtering water, minimizing climate change outcomes and reducing heat island effects. However, improvements to current green roof systems and innovative approaches are paramount to advancing environmental benefits and consumer acceptance of this technology. Regular green roofs are hindered by high cost and mass, as well as the incorporation of large amounts of polymers. Hydroponic green roofs (HGRs) require specific setups, maintenance and frequent replacement of plant-growing substrate, with limited energy savings in the heating and cooling load of the building due to the space between the roof surface and the hydroponic setup. In this review, a comparison of regular and HGRs is provided, and research into the environmental benefits of these technologies, including stormwater control, water purification and lifecycle assessment, is summarized. Following this, the prospect of porous concrete (PC), as a combined plant-growth substrate and structural layer in a novel extensive hydroponic green roof (EHGR) design is proposed, through a compilation and analysis of recent studies reporting the feasibility of this construction material for different applications. The mechanical, hydrological and vegetative properties of PC are discussed. Finally, a new green roof system that incorporates both PC and hydroponics, termed the EHGR system, is presented. This new green roof system may help offset the effects of urbanization by providing stormwater and pollution control, runoff delay and physical and thermal benefits, while concurrently producing biomass from a reusable substrate.


NORESS recordings of nuclear explosions in central Asia (Δ = 38°) provide new spectral attenuation estimates for frequencies from about 3 to 15 Hz. Two path spectra, representing propagation losses from the Shagan River and Degelen test sites to southern Norway, are calculated using the double-averaging technique of Bache et al. (1985, 1986). Both paths exhibit less attenuation than previously documented for explosions recorded teleseismically at the UKAEA arrays over the 1- to 8-Hz frequency range. The Shagan and Degelen spectra have somewhat different decay rates, perhaps reflecting variations in average source properties. Since the NORESS data extend to higher frequencies than previously available for attenuation measurements, we compare the NORESS spectral data to published models derived from NORSAR data (1 to 8 Hz) for the same path. The Degelen-NORSAR model is compatible with the NORESS data to about 7 Hz, but from 7 to 15 Hz, it predicts higher spectral amplitudes than are observed Using a hybrid absorption band-constant t * formulation, new models are derived which fit both the Shagan River path spectrum ( t * = 0.6 sec, τ m = 0.05 sec, ( t 1* = 0.07 sec) and the Degelen spectrum ( t * = 0.6 sec, τ m = 0.05 sec, ( t 1* = 0.05 sec) from 3 to 15 Hz. The NORESS data support frequency-dependent t * in the 3- to 15-Hz frequency range. The results also demonstrate that extrapolation of attenuation models obtained from longer period data to shorter periods may not predict the correct spectral levels. Actual high-frequency measurements are needed in order to characterize attenuation behavior at high frequencies.


OBJECTIVE
Assess mother's perceptions of their children's weight.

METHODS
Cross-sectional study. We included demographic variables and children's height and weight and used a series of sketches to assess the mother's perception. Among overweight or obese children we collected blood samples to determine glucose, cholesterol and triglycerides levels.

RESULTS
Of the 525 children, 52% were female with an average age of 6.4 +/- 3.2 years. Thirteen and 17% of participating children were overweight or obese. There was a higher frequency of obese children if the mother was obese. Fifty seven percent of the mothers correctly assessed their children's weight. Among 357 children with normal weight children, 64% of the mothers perceived their child weight as normal. Of the 72 overweight children, only 29% believed that their child was overweight and of the 90 obese children, 52% of mothers perceived them as obese. Mothers of male children significantly perceived a higher weight for their children than mothers with female children (56 versus 45.6%, p = 0.001). Among overweight and obese children, the frequency of hyperglycemia, hypercholesterolemia and hipertriglyceridemia was 9, 2.3 and 3.8% respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
Half of the mothers that we surveyed failed to perceive their child's weight. A better understanding of how mothers perceive the problem of excess weight in their children is needed in order to achieve success in preventive interventions of childhood obesity.


A study of the in vitro growth of embryonic structures from dispersed blastoderm cells is reported. The specific type of blastoderm cells with the capability of growing on the coverslip developed into the discoidal embryonic structures resembling those of avian species. The glass surface was apparently an initiator of differentiation into at least three types of cells specifically distributed in the blastodisc. Groups of structures formed were evaluated at 6, 12, 24 and 36 hours to study the developmental pattern in vitro and to estimate the number of cells per structure. Microscopic examination of the area pellucida revealed that all three basic germ layers were established after 24 hours of incubation in vitro. The 36 hour stage was represented by bulky growth of mesodermal-like cells and changes in hypoblast layer where some of the cells degenerated and some were transformed to mesenchymal spindle-like cells.


In our recent study, we aimed to impart hydroxyapatite (HA)-forming to bioinert stainless steels (SUS316L). The surfaces of SUS316L specimen were treated by a sandblasting process using alumina grinding particles with 14.0 or 3.0 μm for average particle size, respectively. In addition, a doubled sandblasting process (DSP) using the 14.0 μm particles and subsequently 3.0 μm ones were also conducted. Compared with the case of the 14.0 μm particles, the 3.0 μm particles were available to increase the surface roughness and the surface area of the specimen. Moreover, these values were further increased in the case of the DSP. These specimens were soaked in simulated body fluid (SBF) at pH = 8.4, 25 °C and were directly heated in the solution by electromagnetic induction. By this treatment, formation of CaP was induced on each specimen. These materials performed high HA-forming ability in SBF. Average bonding strength of the HA film formed on them in SBF was increased depending on the increase of surface roughness and surface area. These results indicated that sandblasting condition was an important factor to improve interlocking effect related to the increase of the surface roughness and the surface area.


Most explainable AI (XAI) techniques are concerned with the design of algorithms to explain the AI's decision. However, the data that is used to train these algorithms may contain features that are often incomprehensible to an end-user even with the best XAI algorithms. Thus, the problem of explainability has to be addressed starting right from the data creation step. In this paper, we studied this problem considering the use-case of explaining loan denials to end-users as opposed to AI engineers or domain experts. Motivated by the lack of datasets that are representative of user-friendly explanations, we build the first-of-its-kind dataset that is representative of user-friendly explanations for loan denials. The paper shares some of the insights gained in curating the dataset. First, existing datasets seldom contain features that end users consider as acceptable in understanding a model's decision. Second, understanding of the explanation's context such as the human-in-the-loop seeking the explanation, and the purpose for which an explanation is sought, aids in the creation of user-friendly datasets. Thus, our dataset, which we call Xnet, also contains explanations that serve different purposes: those that educate the loan applicants, and help them take appropriate action towards a future approval. We hope this work will trigger the creation of new user friendly datasets, and serve as a guide for the curation of such datasets.


Suprascapular nerve entrapment at the spinoglenoid notch by a ganglion cyst results in the paralysis of the terminal motor branch of the nerve, with isolated atrophy of the infraspinatus muscle, loss of strength in external rotation, and posterior shoulder pain. Increased awareness of this nerve compression is paramount in order to avoid the stage of irreversible infraspinatus muscle wasting and long term disability. Magnetic resonance imaging scan, electromyography and nerve conduction velocity studies can confirm the diagnosis and lead to an early arthroscopic nerve decompression and favorable functional results. We present a rare case of spinoglenoid ganglion cyst compression of the distal suprascapular nerve and discuss the recent developments in anatomy, aetiology, diagnosis, and review the treatment and current trends in the management of this condition.


Background: Many studies were found correlation between hypertension, hyperuricemia and reduction of glomerular filtration rate in general population but little or no information was found correlation in farmer's population. Objective: To explore the correlation between systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR) with serum uric acid levels in specific population (Batu City's Farmer). Method: It was observational analytic among specific population with cross sectional method. A total of 102 subjects from farmer in Bumi Aji Village, Batu City. All participants were individually interviewed with a structured questionnaire and measured according to standard protocol Fasting blood samples were then collected for the measurement of uric acid, glucose, lipids and creatinine. The levels of correlation between variables were determined by calculating Pearson's correlation coefficients (r). Result: There were 82 subjects (77%) female, mean age 46,7 ± 10,4, mean uric acid 5,6 ± 1,54, prevalence of hyperuricemia 30,4%, mean Systolic Blood Pressure 124 ± 19,4, mean diastolic blood pressure 80,5 ± 13,2 Mean GFR 90,5 ± 29,06. In subject with hyperuricemia display significantly higher SBP (p = 0,016), higher DBP (p = 0,008), higher triglyceride (p = 0,01) lower HDL (p = 0,026). Pearson correlation showed that hyperuricemia correlate with increase systolic blood pressure (r = 0,41, p = 0,000), increase diastolic blood pressure (r = 0,43, p = 0,000), Increase Triglycerides (r = 0,39, p = 0,000), low HDL level (r = −0,244, p = 0,007,). Conclusions: In this study, we suggest that serum uric acid has significant correlation with levels of blood pressure and weak correlation with GFR reduction. Further investigation is required to establish the treatment for hyperuricemia in hypertensive patients.


Target localisation methods using time difference of arrival measurements have to handle the correlated measurement noises caused by the common reference sensor. The noise correlation, as well as the reference sensor selection, impacts the Cramer–Rao lower bound and the target tracking result. This Letter proposes two theorems to analyse the effects of reference sensor selection theoretically. Simulation results validate the correctness of the proposed theorems.


In the debate surrounding Turkeyâ??s integration into the EU, the country is often presented as an imperfect democracy, with a democratization process hindered by the Turkish state itself. Drawing both on Ottoman history and political philosophy, this article argues that the object to be examined with respect to its degree of democracy is less the state per se than its relationship to Turkish political society. This relationship is structured more around an opposition between the rulers and the ruled â?? an Ottoman legacy â?? than around distinctions derived from the theory of representation, in contradistinction to modern democracies. In fact, the very nature of the Ottoman state â?? defined by an original combination of dynastic legitimacy, autocracy and elite reproduction â?? isolated the Sultanâ??s Empire in its final years from the trends toward democratization that European political societies were experiencing. Analyzing the elements of continuity between the republican and imperial states and societies â?? revealed by the recent Ottomanist historiography â?? leads to emphasizing the extent to which the still perceptible Ottoman political figuration has paved the way for the construction of Kemalist state nationalism and has limited the emergence of a democratic culture of representation that conditions its integration into the EU.


This demo takes the form of a challenge to the IJCAI community. A physical vault, secured by a 4-digit code, will be placed in the demo area. The author will publicly open the vault by entering the code on a touch-based interface, and as many times as requested. The challenge to the IJCAI participants will be to crack the code, open the vault, and collect its content. The interface is based on previous work on calibration-free interactive systems that enables a user to start instructing a machine without the machine knowing how to interpret the user's actions beforehand. The intent and the behavior of the human are simultaneously learned by the machine. An online demo and videos are available for readers to participate in the challenge. An additional interface using vocal commands will be revealed on the demo day, demonstrating the scalability of our approach to continuous input signals.


Abstract Countries in Africa have since joined their counterparts in other regions of the world in adopting IFRSs with over 30 countries either requiring or permitting its use for its companies. This study contributes to academic literature as it presents a bibliometric analysis on the state of IFRS research in Africa. The analysis involves 73 published articles listed on Scopus database between 2005 and 2018. Key findings in the study indicate that the first research document on Scopus database on IFRS in Africa was in 2005, despite its early adoption since 1993 in Zimbabwe. There is a continued upward growth in the volume of publications and citations over the years. The year of first IFRSs adoption is not associated with the volume of publication. Top five leaders in the volume of publication on IFRSs include Tunisia and Egypt, these countries are yet to adopt IFRSs. The dominant subject areas on IFRSs research are Business, Management & Accounting, Economics, Econometrics & Finance and Social Sciences. Only 21 authors and 18 institutions out of over 600 institutions in Africa contribute more than one publication to IFRS research. These institutions and authors are all in six African countries (South Africa, Nigeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Uganda and Ghana). Recommendations from the result include the need for higher visibility of research on IFRS. Approximately 87% of the publications are non-open access and the need for more academic conference on IFRS as conference proceedings accounts for only 11%.


Accurate simulation of snow cover process is of great significance to the study of climate change and the water cycle. In our study, the China Meteorological Forcing Dataset (CMFD) and ERA-Interim were used as driving data to simulate the dynamic changes in snow depth and snow water equivalent (SWE) in the Irtysh River Basin from 2000 to 2018 using the Noah-MP land surface model, and the simulation results were compared with the gridded dataset of snow depth at Chinese meteorological stations (GDSD), the long-term series of daily snow depth dataset in China (LSD), and China's daily snow depth and snow water equivalent products (CSS). Before the simulation, we compared the combinations of four parameterizations schemes of Noah-MP model at the Kuwei site. The results show that the rainfall and snowfall (SNF) scheme mainly affects the snow accumulation process, while the surface layer drag coefficient (SFC), snow/soil temperature time (STC), and snow surface albedo (ALB) schemes mainly affect the melting process. The effect of STC on the simulation results was much higher than the other three schemes; when STC uses a fully implicit scheme, the error of simulated snow depth and snow water equivalent is much greater than that of a semi-implicit scheme. At the basin scale, the accuracy of snow depth modeled by using CMFD and ERA-Interim is higher than LSD and CSS snow depth based on microwave remote sensing. In years with high snow cover, LSD and CSS snow depth data are seriously underestimated. According to the results of model simulation, it is concluded that the snow depth and snow water equivalent in the north of the basin are higher than those in the south. The average snow depth, snow water equivalent, snow days, and the start time of snow accumulation (STSA) in the basin did not change significantly during the study period, but the end time of snow melting was significantly advanced.


This MSc Thesis describes the design, the development and the assessment of an online community for web comics. From this community, the users will be able not only to upload and publish their comics, but also to read, download, print and vote stories from other users. This portal also hosts an easy to use tool for creating online comics strips named Cosy Comic Strip Creator, which is followed by graphic image libraries ready to be imported to the tool. This tool has been created to help users that cannot draw to create their own comic strips easily by dragging and dropping images in order to say their own story. The tool has also been designed to be used from early aged students in order to be used in classroom and change them to creators of educational materials. It can also be used from teachers in order to create educational material with comic stories and interactive activities that would attract students who are less interested in classroom. The two use cases that took place in Greek schools in Athens, had great results. Students didn't have difficulties by using the tool, but, contrariwise had fun and were effective with their exercises.


Using an experiential framework, this paper examines how colors of a commercial website help consumers to buy online. To that end, the authors use the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model as the model which considers emotion as an internal mechanism within the purchasing process. A survey was conducted to collect data from 256 web users in a classroom context. Participants visited one of the 2 versions of a website selling hardware materials (laptops, desktop…). Measurement was processed using SPSS19 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) software and the statistical methods used to treat all data were factor analysis, analysis of variance and linear regression. The results we obtained show that the blue color promotes purchase intention, but the red color has a stimulating effect on the consumer. However, the color of websites influences indirectly the intention of the user through the state of pleasure and domination aroused in the consumer.  As Practical implications, web designers should use blue color as a dominant web site interface color to reduce purchase postponement risk and encourage web users to buy online. The study was an attempt to examine the role of emotion in explaining the relationship between web site colors and resulting consumer responses.


The variation of tissue's electrical properties, both dielectric and conductive characteristics, through a frequency spectrum is characterised as bioimpedance spectroscopy. In electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) of biological tissues, the overall impedance measurement is performed by applying AC signals, either a current signal or a voltage signal, to the surface of the tissue or cell via one pair of electrodes and recording the resulting signals via a separate or the same pair, which are then converted to impedance via a demodulation process. Considering current stimulus, a wide band current driver up to 3 MHz is desired so that it can penetrate to the nucleolus of the cell and provide accurate information about the morphology and physiology of the cell. This thesis intended to design a novel wide band current driver with phase compensation scheme for tetra-polar EIS applications. It presented the measurement result and experimental validation of the proposed current driver which provide superior performance to the existing state of the art current drivers in terms of bandwidth, output impedance and phase error. The integrated fully differential non-linear feedback current driver is fabricated in 0.35 μm CMOS technology and occupies a silicon area of 1.2 mm2 . With the introduction of automatic phase compensation circuit, the current driver is able to operate at frequencies close to the pole frequency of the output transconductor with phase errors as low as 3o at 3 MHz Frequency. Another important aspect of the phase compensation is that the output impedance of the current driver remains (largely) constant throughout the entire range of operational frequencies (100 kHz – 3 MHz). The current driver can deliver a maximum output current of 1.8 mAp-p from a supply of ± 2.5 V. For an output current of 1 mAp-p the accuracy is 0.24%, 0.43% at 1 and 2 MHz respectively. With active compensation, the phase error at the output of the current driver reduces to 1o at 1 MHz and 3o at 3MHz. The current driver can be configured to operate with multi-frequency (multi-sine) by connecting in parallel extra current drivers (with their corresponding phase compensation).


Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of simple sexual/vaginal health treatment strategies in breast cancer patients/survivors seeking treatment at a female sexual medicine program, and to evaluate compliance and clinical outcomes. Methods: Demographics, medical information, and clinical assessments from 94 new visits with at least 1 follow-up from 09/12–10/14 were analyzed. The assessment form consists of a clinician evaluation with the Vaginal Assessment Scale (VAS) and Vulvar Assessment Scale (VuAS), and patient-reported outcomes (PROs) including the Sexual Activity Questionnaire (SAQ), Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI), and exploratory items. Compliance with treatment recommendations at the last visit were summarized. Changes from the first to last visit were compared with regard to clinical outcomes (e.g., vaginal pH, moisture), the VAS and VuAS, and the PROs (FSFI, SAQ, and confidence about future sexual activity). Results: The mean number of visits was 3 (range, 2-7). Mean age was 55.2 years (range, 29-48), 67% (n=63) were married or in an intimate relationship, and 94% (n=88) were menopausal. Seventy-seven percent (n=72) were on some form of active treatment, such as endocrine therapy (89%, 64/72). Only 15% (11/72) reported any hormonal supplementation (e.g., Vagifem). Treatment strategies included the use of vaginal moisturizers, lubricants with sexual activity, pelvic floor exercises, and dilator therapy. At last visit, 94% (80/85) of the women had complied with the clinical recommendation to moisturize 2 to 5+ times per week. Vaginal pH scores >6.5 declined from 31% (29/93) at Visit 1 to 20% (19/93) at the last visit (p=0.049). Vaginal (VAS) symptoms improved from the first to last visit (mean 1.2 to 0.59, p At Visit 1, 51% (43/85) of the women reported current sexual activity with a partner, and sexual activity rates increased over time—61% at last visit (52/85, p=0.049). FSFI total scores significantly improved from the first (mean=12.91) to last visit (mean=17.44) (p Conclusions: Breast cancer patients/survivors attending our female sexual medicine program reported improvement of vaginal and vulvar symptoms, sexual function and activity, and had clinical improvement over time on vaginal pH and moisture. Preliminary findings suggest that simple strategies, education, and support can improve vaginal/sexual health concerns in cancer survivorship. Citation Format: Carter J, Seidel B, Stabile C, Baser R, Eaton A, Goldfarb S, Goldfrank D. Program evaluation of a female sexual medicine and women9s health program. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2015 Dec 8-12; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P4-11-04.


Ultrasound vascular imaging with subtraction is considered as very useful method to evaluation vascularity of tumor and its relationships to great vessels. Lung tumor was evaluated with power color Doppler ultrasound with and without B-mode scanning. Power color Doppler imaging without B-mode scanning is better depicted tumor internal vascular architecture and its relationships to great vessels then with B-mode. This method makes differentiation of tumor character possibly and interventional procedures more safely.


Viral mammary tumorigenesis in mice is frequently initiated by proviral activation of a highly conserved cellular gene called int-1. We have cloned the human homolog of this putative mammary oncogene and compared its structure to that of the mouse gene by heteroduplex analysis. The human int-1 gene was localized on chromosome 12 by use of somatic cell hybrids.


We study symmetry restoration at finite temperature in the theory of a charged scalar field interacting with a constant, external magnetic field. We compute the finite-temperature effective potential including the contribution from ring diagrams. We show that in the weak field case, the presence of the field produces a stronger first order phase transition and that the temperature for the onset of the transition is lower, as compared to the case without magnetic field.


How will green energy measures fare when examined under the microscope of the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures? Will they be found to be inconsistent with its obligations? After 20 years of the WTO, it is still early days in the interpretation of this important and complicated WTO agreement. To date, there has been one important WTO dispute involving a green energy measure: Canada – Feed In Tariff Program. However, there have been several requests for consultations relating to other Members' green energy programs that are currently under consideration. Many governments have implemented a wide array of programs that could potentially result in future WTO disputes. One case alone is not a sufficient basis on which to conclude whether the SCM Agreement will pose a significant barrier to governments that wish to implement green energy measures in the future. In order to analyze this question properly, a comprehensive analysis of specific types of measures must be carried out under the provisions of the SCM Agreement in order to determine whether, indeed, it will be a major obstacle to government initiatives to combat climate change. As the Canada – Feed In Tariff Program case demonstrates, the Appellate Body has some scope in interpreting the Agreement when green energy measures are challenged. Are the SCM Agreement rules themselves a problem? Can the Appellate Body adopt liberal interpretations in order to provide scope for regulatory autonomy for governments to design green energy programs that meet the needs of their citizens? Is reliance on the Appellate Body enough, or do the rules in the SCM Agreement need to be reformed?


The study is motivated by NASA plans to develop technology for an autonomous cryogenic loading operation including online fault diagnostics as a part of Integrated Health Management system. For years, the diagnostic modeling effort is performed in many paradigms. None of these paradigms independently can provide a complete set of efficiency metrics: better diagnostics, lower run-time, etc. D-matrix, a causal 0-1 relationship between faults and tests, is proposed as a single representation between different model-based diagnostic methods for comparison and communication. This framework is suitable to create a common platform for communication via D-matrix for systems engineering process. The knowledge transfer between modeling techniques is done via D-matrix. In addition, D-matrix provides a common paradigm to compare the embedded knowledge and performance of heterogeneous diagnostic systems. D-matrix is generated from physics models to be used with faster run-time performance D-matrix based diagnostic algorithms. Additionally, we will also investigate if the derived D-matrix and thereby the physics model is sufficient and accurate for efficient diagnostics via iDME tool.


We investigate different scenarios for the origin of the extragalactic radio background. The surface brightness of the background, as reported by the Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission 2 (ARCADE 2) collaboration, is several times higher than that which would result from currently observed radio sources. We consider contributions to the background from diffuse synchrotron emission from clusters and the intergalactic medium, previously unrecognized flux from low-surface-brightness regions of radio sources and faint point sources below the flux limit of existing surveys. By examining radio source counts available in the literature, we conclude that most of the radio background is produced by radio point sources that dominate at sub-μJy fluxes. We show that a truly diffuse background produced by electrons far from galaxies is ruled out because such energetic electrons would overproduce the observed X-ray/γ -ray background through inverse Compton scattering of the other photon fields. Unrecognized flux from low-surface-brightness regions of extended radio sources, or moderate flux sources missed entirely by radio source count surveys, cannot explain the bulk of the observed background but may contribute as much as 10 per cent. We consider both radio supernovae and radio-quiet quasars as candidate sources for the background and show that both fail to produce it at the observed level because of an insufficient number of objects and total flux, although radio-quiet quasars contribute at the level of at least a few per cent. We conclude that if the radio background is at the level reported, a majority of the total surface brightness would have to be produced by ordinary star-forming galaxies above redshift 1 characterized by an evolving radio–far-infrared correlation, which changes towards the radio loud with redshift.


A new algorithm for adapting the coefficients of an equalizer for continuous phase modulated data signals in a flat-fading environment is presented. The cost function to optimize is based on the maximum likelihood sequence estimation index for such signals and channel conditions. It is shown that this equalizer algorithm, called the maximum likelihood equalizer, involves the iterative computation of one of the eigenvectors of a matrix. An implementation is proposed, which combines iterative estimation procedures for QR decomposition, matrix eigenvalue tracking and channel prediction error. Simulation results are presented that demonstrate the ability of the algorithm to equalize the channel filtering effects in a fast fading environment, without requiring phase coherent carrier recovery. >


The Fermi shock acceleration mechanism may be responsible for the production of high-energy cosmic rays in a wide variety of environments. Modeling of this phenomenon has largely focused on plane-parallel shocks, and one of the most promising techniques for its study is the Monte Carlo simulation of particle transport in shocked fluid flows. One of the principal problems in shock acceleration theory is the mechanism and efficiency of injection of particles from the thermal gas into the accelerated population. The Monte Carlo technique is ideally suited to addressing the injection problem directly, and previous applications of it to the quasi-parallel Earth bow shock led to very successful modeling of proton and heavy ion spectra, as well as other observed quantities. Recently this technique has been extended to oblique shock geometries, in which the upstream magnetic field makes a significant angle Theta(sub B1) to the shock normal. Spectral resutls from test particle Monte Carlo simulations of cosmic-ray acceleration at oblique, nonrelativistic shocks are presented. The results show that low Mach number shocks have injection efficiencies that are relatively insensitive to (though not independent of) the shock obliquity, but that there is a dramatic drop in efficiency for shocks of Mach number 30 or more as the obliquity increases above 15 deg. Cosmic-ray distributions just upstream of the shock reveal prominent bumps at energies below the thermal peak; these disappear far upstream but might be observable features close to astrophysical shocks.


This paper focuses on the performance of traffic mix which consists of both voice and data services. The paper deals with intra-frequency soft handover in a 3G networks where mobile stations are connected simultaneously to several base stations. The QoS of voice for mobile users in the mixed traffic environment is estimated. The results are compared with the performance obtained by deploying a scheduling scheme based on weight. The scheme is simulated with different number of users. It is observed that the scheduling scheme could improve the overall network performance. Although the number of users is increased, the end-to-end delay can be reduced significantly. The results show that the scheme can improve the system capacity while maintaining the acceptable end-to-end delay.


For the past couple of decades, technological developments have caused the way in which we work to continuously evolve, particularly by changing the ease with which we can bridge physical and temporal distances. Combined with rising competitive pressures and changing employee expectations, this has led to a substantial uptake of flexible working practices. Most notable among these is telework. Whether telework actually works, however, still remains to be seen: existing studies on its relation with performance are limited, typically lacking both an indication of how frequently employees telework as well as a solid theoretical foundation that could help elucidate its underlying causal structure. These shortcomings are an important motivation behind the research presented in this dissertation, which focuses on creating a better understanding of how the extent of telework (through enacted temporal and spatial flexibility) affects employee and organizational performance. This was done by applying multiple theoretical perspectives, levels of analysis, and analytical methods in four empirical studies, each of which addresses specific distance dilemmas inherent in telework. Overall, the findings, perspectives, and frameworks presented in this dissertation offer important insights into how to maximize employee and organizational performance in a telework context, and contribute a springboard for additional investigations in this area.


This article is the National Report of the United States for the XVIIth International Congress of Comparative Law held in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Part I provides an overview of international arbitration law in the United States, highlighting some currently unsettled issues. Part II describes the growing American involvement in international arbitration. Part III then examines "new experiences" with international arbitration in the U.S.: (1) investor-state arbitration, particularly under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); (2) the interrelationship of new information technologies and international arbitration, focusing on the formation of arbitration agreements in electronic commerce transactions; and (3) the use of arbitration to resolve consumer and employment disputes in the United States, which to date has largely been a domestic undertaking but increasingly shows signs of becoming internationalized.


Heat stress is a common occupational hazard workers experience in industries requiring outdoor and indoor activities. This article reviews the risk exposure occurrence of heat stress at automotive service centres for indoor and outdoor settings. The review article aims to investigate the problems and propose solutions that can be implemented to alleviate the symptoms of heat stress experienced by workers at automotive service centres that specialise in repairing tyres. The causes and symptoms of heat stress, such as dehydration, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke, are discussed at the beginning of this review. Generally, workers in automotive service centres must contend with various industrial adversities, including exposure to hot environments, machinery, and radiant heat.


The organic carbon particle export to the interior layers in the Southern Ocean in the New Zealand–Tasmania Sector was approximately 170 mmolC m−2 yr−1. The export of particulate inorganic carbon in CaCO3 was 110 mmolC m−2 yr−1 and was contributed mostly by pteropods shells in the Antarctic Zones. The Si flux from biogenic opal at the sub-Antarctic Zone was 67 mmolSi m−2 yr−1 and rapidly increased to the south up to nearly 1 molSi m−2 yr−1 in the Antarctic Zone. The Antarctic Polar Front clearly demarcated the area where the biological pump was driven by CaCO3 to the north and biogenic SiO2 particle export to the south. Summer stratification caused by the sub-zero winter water layer in the Seasonal Ice Zone (SIZ) curtails the zooplankton community and hinders the replenishment of Fe. This hypothesis explains the large organic carbon export with large f- and export ratios at the SIZ and extremely large opal production at the Antarctic Circumpolar Zone. Estimated regeneration rate of CO2 from the export production and settling particulate fluxes of organic carbon in the water column between 100 m to 1 km was about 13 mmolC m−2 d−1 in the Antarctic Zone and Polar Frontal Zone.


The objective of the study is to design a drilling fluid that prevents differential pressure pipe sticking tendency caused by drilling fluid with fly ash that is an industrial waste generated from the combustion of coal. To this end, drilling fluid samples were prepared with different particle sizes obtained through the sieving and grinding process and increasing concentrations of fly ash. Differential pipe sticking tests of the samples were performed by applying 3.447 MPa (500 psi) pressure and using a Fann Model 21150 Differential Sticking Tester in order to determine how the coefficient of sticking and torque reading varied with the fly ash. From the results, it was observed that the coefficient of sticking and torque reading of the water-based drilling fluids decreased up to a specific concentration as the concentration of fly ash increased. Furthermore, particle size analysis illustrated that the coefficient of sticking and torque of the drilling fluid differs depending on the particle size of fly ash introduced. The drilling fluid designed with ground fly ash demonstrated lower sticking coefficient and torque reading than that of drilling fluids formulated with raw and sieved fly ashes. The experimental study revealed that fly ash is a promising additive in the mitigation of differential sticking tendency caused by water-based drilling fluids.


Laytime and demurrage comprise one aspect of maritime law, in particular the law relating to voyage charters. Laytime is the period of time allowed by a shipowner to a carrier to carry out cargo loading or discharging operations. The laytime is prescribed in a contract, which is an exchange of obligations and an allocation of risks between the shipowner and the charterer. Each party agrees to accept the risk of certain foreseen circumstances. Laytime commences when the vessel has arrived at the agreed destination, is ready to load or discharge and has tendered a valid NOR. The beginning of laytime may change in proportion with the clauses of the contract. Demurrage is the agreed amount payable to the owner in respect of the delay to the vessel beyond the laytime, for which the owner is not responsible. It has been held that once the vessel is on demurrage, no exceptions will operate to prevent demurrage continuing to be payable, unless the exceptions clause is clearly worded to have this effect. Usually demurrage claim must be submitted within a specified period stated in the contract, failing which the claim will be deemed to have been waived. Demurrage is an important element for each trading company. Basic knowledge of the law relating to voyage charters and proper correspondence among the departments of the company are essential. The preparation of a claim requires contracts, cargo documents and proof of demurrage rate. There are two basic categories of deliveries, the FOB/CIF-CFR-DES when the vessel is company's fixture or TC and the FOB-FOB or CIF-CFR-DES/ CIF-CFR-DES when the vessel is not company's fixture.


Intraoperative mitomycin-C application has been well accepted recently as a useful adjunctive procedure to enhance the filtering effect in glaucoma surgery. However, the exact dose of mitomycin-C left after such a procedure in the ocular tissue is variable and unclear. It is important to determine such residual because of potential long-term toxicity of mitomycin-C to the eye. Based on previous successful experience using preoperative mitomycin-C subconjunctival injection in the THC-YAG laser sclerostomy on rabbits, the effect of intraocular pressure (IOP) control and its clinical observation was studied in six eyes of six refractory and high risk glaucoma patients by subconjunctival 1.2 micrograms to 3.6 micrograms mitomycin-C injection 24 to 72 hours prior to classic, routine, limbal-based trabeculectomy surgery. After 18 months of satisfactory clinical observation of the first eye for IOP, functioning bleb appearance and smooth clinical course, the same procedure was used on an additional five eyes, with a follow-up period of more than five months. Average IOP was reduced from 27.8 mm Hg (range 24 to 34 mm Hg) preoperatively to 9.5 mm Hg (range 5 to 14 mm Hg) postoperatively, with a smooth clinical course. The advantages of such preoperative subconjunctival mitomycin-C injection are emphasized here.


Stress is a condition when someone try to adapt and give reaction to
stressors that they receive in their life. There are life event and stressful life event.
The purpose of the research is analyze whether stressors in student's life can or cant
make stress condition that affect their sleep patterns.
Method: This research design is Analytic-Observational. Research samples are
junior high school students and senior high school students in Surabaya. Total
sampling model research observe stress scale and sleep duration among students.
Results: There are 320 subjects who have stress scale means 105,37 which
categorized as low stress rate. They have sleep duration means during work day 6,53,
during weekend 8,14 and both day means 14,65. The result with spearmen correlation
analysis is p>0,05 which means there are no significant correlation between stress
scale and sleep pattern.
Conclusion: There are no significant correlation between stress scale and sleep
pattern among junior high students and senior high school students Surabaya in 2017.


In "Slave in a Box," M. M. Manring investigates why the troubling figure of Aunt Jemima has endured in American culture. The author traces the evolution of the mammy from her roots in Old South slave reality and mythology, through reinterpretations during Reconstruction and in minstrel shows and turn-of-the-century advertisements, to Aunt Jemima's symbolic role in the Civil Rights movement and her present incarnation as a 'working grandmother.' The reader learns how advertising entrepreneur James Webb Young, aided by celebrated illustrator N. C. Wyeth, skillfully tapped into nostalgic 1920s perceptions of the South as a culture of white leisure and black labor. Aunt Jemima's ready-mixed products offered middle-class housewives the next best thing to a black servant: a 'slave in a box' that conjured up romantic images of not only the food but also the social hierarchy of the plantation South.


The development of the Future Internet will see a move towards widespread use of services as a way of networked interaction. However, while the technologies for deploying services are well established, methods for ensuring trust and security are less well developed. In particular, current service security standards and technologies tend to be focussed on specific areas, such as security at the communication level. In order for users to be confident that their security requirements are being satisfied, a more holistic approach is required. For example, the security claims of a service should be known in advance, and a user should be able to make judgements about the trustworthiness of a service and its likelihood of fulfilling these claims. This should apply to services running in isolation, as well as those comprised of other services from different providers. We present a high level design of the Aniketos platform that aims to address some of these challenges, providing capabilities for managing trust, security and threats in relation to services in the Future Internet. While still at an early stage, this high level design provides an insight into how the platform is expected to develop in the future.


Background: The number of deaths caused by COVID-19 are on the rising worldwide. This study focused on severe and critically ill COVID-19, aim to explore independent risk factors associated with disease severity and to build a nomogram to predict patients' prognosis.Methods: Patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 admitted to the Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College and Hankou Hospital of Wuhan, China, from February 8th to April 6th, 2020. LASSO Regression and Multivariate Analysis were applied to screen independent factors. COX Nomogram was built to predict the 7-day, 14-day and 1-month survival probability.Results: A total of 115 severe [73 (63.5%)] and critically ill [42 (36.5%)] patients were included in this study, containing 93 (80.9%) survivors and 22 (19.1%) non-survivors. For disease severity, D-dimer [OR 6.33 (95%CI, 1.27-45.57], eosinophil percentage [OR 8.02 (95%CI, 1.82-45.04)], total bilirubin [OR 12.38 (95%CI, 1.24-223.65)] and lung involvement score [OR 1.22 (95%CI, 1.08-1.40)] were the independent factors associated with critical illness. Troponin [HR 9.02 (95%CI, 3.02, 26.97)] and total bilirubin [HR 3.16 (95%CI, 1.13, 8.85)] were the independent predictors for patients' prognosis. Troponin≥26.2 ng/L and total bilirubin>20 μmol/L were associated with poor prognosis. The nomogram based on the independent risk factors had a C-index of 0.92 (95%CI, 0.87, 0.98) for predicting survival probability. The survival nomogram validated in the critically ill patients had a C-index of 0.83 (95%CI: 0.75, 0.94).Conclusions: In conclusion, in severe and critically ill patients with COVID-19, D-dimer, eosinophil percentage, total bilirubin and lung involvement score were the independent risk factors associated with disease severity. The proposed survival nomogram accurately predicted prognosis. The survival analysis may suggest that early incidence of multiple organ dysfunction may be an important predictor of poor prognosis.


Evaluation of pulmonary veins (PVs) has a significant role in the modern electrophysiology (1). Three-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography (3DSTE) is a new clinical tool for ventricular and atrial chamber quantifications (2). We present a 25-year-old female patient with hereditary long QT syndrome who was examined by 3DSTE. She was recruited into the MAGYAR-Path Study (Motion Analysis of the heart and Great vessels bY three-dimensionAl speckle-tRacking echocardiography in Pathological cases). For creation of a 3D model of PV, several adjustments were performed during 3DSTE. Firstly, left lower PV (LLPV) was looked for in apical 4-chamber and 2-chamber views. Later, longitudinal sectional planes were optimalized to the LLPV ( Figure 1A,B ). Then cross-sectional views were chosen at different sites of the LLPV in perpendicular planes ( Figure 1C3, C5, C7 ). Following manual corrections, a 3D cast of the LLPV was created ( Figure 1D ). Rotational characteristics of LLPV are demonstrated in Figure 1E . To the best of authors' knowledge this is the first case in which 3DSTE is presented for the assessment of a PV. Clinical studies are warranted in larger series of patients with different arrhythmias to clarify diagnostic and prognostic value of 3DSTE-derived parameters of LLPV.


There are problems in classical linear elasticity theory whose known solutions must be rejected because they predict unacceptable deformation behaviour, such as the interpenetration of material regions. What has been missing is a proper account of the constraint that allowable deformations must be injective. This type of constraint is highly nonlinear and non–convex, even within the classical linear theory, and it is expected to give rise to the existence of an appropriate constraint reaction field. We propose to determine the displacement field u(·) : B →Rn (n = 2, 3) of an elastic body B ⊂Rn such that the potential energy is minimized subject to the constraint that the deformation y = f(x) = x + u(x), x εB, is locally invertible, i.e. det(1 + ▽u) > 0 in B. In linear elasticity theory, the strain energy (assumed positive definite) is a quadratic function of ▽u and, in the context of plane problems where the dimension n= 2, the constraint is properly closed, which allows us to prove, at least in this case, an existence theorem for such minimizers in W1,2(B). We then investigate the form of the corresponding Euler–Lagrange equations in dimension n = 2 or 3 and characterize the associated constraint reaction (Lagrange multiplier) field. Finally, we review an example problem from linear elasticity theory for an aeolotropic disk whose classical solution supports a subregion of material interpenetration, and we give an alternative solution within the constrained theory which avoids this unacceptable behaviour. The subregion of the disk in which the Lagrange multiplier constraint reaction field is active is determined, as is the field itself. We find that the existence of a constraint reaction field is essential if overlapping of the material is to be avoided. Correspondingly, when the constraint of local invertibility is applied we see that the body becomes significantly stiffer in response to the same loads. Though, perhaps, only coincidental, the existence of a constraint reaction field is remindful of the fact that the force between the atoms of a substance becomes strongly repelling when the separation distance between them is made relatively small.


We report the results of a high resolution synchrotron x-ray scattering study of the weakly incommensurate stripe domain phase of high stage bromine-intercalated graphite. The translational order in this system is two-dimensional in nature.) We demonstrate power-law behaviour at five harmonics (G) of the mass density wave, and confirm the scaling of the structure factor with G 2. Our results are consistent with recent theories of the two dimensional uniaxial commensurate-incommensurate transition, which are based on an entropically wandering domain wall picture of the incommensurate phase. We demonstrate that, in this system, the domain walls have a width much less than their separation so that significant molecular displacements from the commensurate sites occur within a unit cell. Close to the transition, we observe hysteresis.


Natural health products are promoted to the public as equally or more effective and less toxic than conventional drugs. However, some 'natural' medicines, and in particular some herbal medicines, are known to have adverse effects. The Italian Pharmacovigilance System, in charge of the Italian Medicines Agency, collects spontaneous reports only for registered drugs. The awareness of the need of surveillance of the safety of natural health products has stimulated the implementation of a suspected adverse reaction reporting system in Italy. The system has been set up by the Italian National Institute of Health.


In a repetitive transaction object-oriented system, a trade-off for an access control mechanism is accomplished in satisfying both the requirements of user friendliness and system performance. Since access control in object-oriented systems is applied to individual methods of individual objects, hence the overhead is extremely large because a check is done on every method invocation. To properly solve the two requirements above, we present a design with the following main features : (1) the whole environment is a central controlled, opened, object-oriented system with discretionary access control, and is trying to satisfy both hierarchical and non-hierarchical control requirements. (2) a rule-based method is provided for user to describe their access control policies (3). After a series of transformation and optimization processes, the access control policies are translated into access control list table with one to one mapping between resource object id's and user id's. (4) finally, because an ACL table is maintained in main memory for each user who repetitively use resource objects in the system, there is only zero or one disk access needed per one access authorization check. A theoretical analysis of the time complexity of this design has been made, and we have implemented it by using high speed workstation, UNIX, C++ and C-ISAM. >


Abstract This paper presents a recursive algorithm for computing the pruned DCT with a structure that allows the generation of the next higher-order pruned DCT from two identical lower order pruned DCTs. The implementation of the proposed algorithm does not require bit-reversal shuffling, coefficient inversions, or divisions. To illustrate the usefulness of the proposed recursive pruned DCT algorithm, we utilize it to compress images using the JPEG algorithm. The proposed pruned DCT algorithm improves the compression ratio and reduces both the complexity and execution time of the modified JPEG algorithm.


Keeping in mind the growing concern of sustainability, the present study aims to develop a hands-on technique for potable water production by using a portable single-basin solar still, which is constructed with low-cost, locally available and lightweight materials. The performance of single-basin solar still were investigated using different essential operational variables, which include weather condition, water salinity, brine water depth, and addition of glass marbles as energy absorbing material. Ambient weather conditions were found to have direct effect on the productivity of the still. The solar still productivity increased by 29% when a layer of glass marbles was used. The study also showed that the daily water production increased with the decrease in the initial depth of brine water. Estimating a useful life of 4 years of the solar still, an average cost of produced potable water was defined to be BDT 0.35 per lit. In addition, some important water quality parameters were tested and compared with drinking water standard values. The obtained values were found to be in line with the drinking water standards of WHO. Journal of Chemical Engineering, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2017: 3-8


The aim of this study is to investigate the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics in an Eccentric Converging-Diverging Tube (ECDT) with twisted tape inserts. Experiments were conducted with tape inserts of three different twist ratios. Cold and hot water are used as working fluids in shell and tube sides, respectively. The effect of the twist ratio and other parameters on heat transfer characteristics and pressure drop are considered. The experimental data for the plain tube and (ECDT) without inserts are compared with (ECDT) with twist tape insert. The results show that the twist tape insert has significant effect on the enhancement of heat transfer. The Nusselt numbers for the (ECDT) are found to be 15% to 45% higher than of the plain tube while for the (ECDT) combined with twisted tape insert is found 52% to 280% higher and pressure drop is found 6.8 times the plain tube. Moreover, (ECDT) combined with a twisted tape insert gives higher heat transfer rate and pressure drop than the (ECDT) alone around 23% to 35% and 98% to 125%, respectively.


This latest version of the popular Web-authoring tool retains the easy-to-use features introduced in PageMill 1.0 and adds exciting new capabilities, such as WYSIWYG table creation and support for many more HTML extensions. Designed for nontechnical people who want a no-nonsense way to create or maintain content on the Web, PageMill includes everything you need to create individual pages, forms, and clickable images in an environment that hides HTML tags and looks, feels, and works like a word processor.PageMill 2 for Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide is a richly illustrated, step-by-step guide to using all the features of PageMill. In addition to PageMill's basic features, Version 2 offers numerous feature enhancements, including powerful search and replace capabilities, spell-checking, and the ability to import information from other applications into a PageMill document. As with all books in Peachpit's highly successful Visual QuickStart series (with more than a million copies in print), information is presented in a graphic, visual fashion, with hundreds of screenshots accompanied by clear instructions and loads of helpful tips.


In this paper, the reduction of radar cross section of an airplane using overall and partial coverage of fuselage with absorbing material is studied. Specifically, various coverage strategies are tested to achieve minimum radar cross section and minimum mass of the absorbing material. This is important because the weight of absorbent material is usually great, around 13 Kg per square meter, even for a small thickness of 3mm. Therefore, it is extremely important to find effective strategies for covering the fuselage. Using the moment method and ray tracing method in the CST software package, the monostatic and bistatic RCS of an airplane with partial coverage of RAM are calculated. It is shown how partial coverage of the fuselage can affect the RCS. For instance, the head-front radar cross section of the studied airplane without any RAM coverage was found to be at 1.925 GHz. When only the wings are covered with RAM, the cross section is reduced to . When the body (without wings) is covered, the average mono-static radar cross section is reduced to . When all parts are covered with RAM, the average mono-static radar cross section is further reduced to . Furthermore, the effects of partial coverage of the wings are studied.


Proceedings: AACR 104th Annual Meeting 2013; Apr 6-10, 2013; Washington, DC

Introduction: The current prostate cancer (CaP) screening in the United States includes the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test and the digital rectal exam (DRE). Abnormal results lead to a prostate biopsy, pathologic evaluation and diagnosis. The PSA test has high sensitivity, but low specificity, leading to a high percentage of unnecessary biopsies. Therefore, there remains an urgent need for a specific and sensitive, non-invasive assay for CaP detection. Our objective was to develop an assay for the detection of CaP cells in post-DRE urine.

Methods: Urine CaP (UCaP) assay development was performed by spiking CaP cell lines (VCaP, LNCaP, and NCI-H660) into normal urine and optimizing cell stability, recovery, and biomarker detection by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Cells were recovered from the urine by translucent membrane filtration. Using the filter as the assay platform, retained cells were assessed for the detection of selected protein markers (ETS related gene [ERG]-CaP marker; alpha-methylacyl-CoA racemase [AMACR]-CaP marker; PSA-normal prostate marker). As a clinical assessment, post-DRE urine from patients undergoing diagnostic biopsy was analyzed for the presence of CaP cells.

Results: Assay sensitivity was enhanced by maximizing the percentage of cells recovered following filtration. To assess enhanced cell recovery of the UCaP assay over currently reported methods (cytospin, centrifugation), low numbers of cultured prostate cancer cells (10 or 100 cells) were spiked into centrifuged urine samples. Cells captured on the filter membrane were stained with DAPI nuclear dye and counted. Between 70% and 85% of cells were recovered after spiking VCaP, LNCaP and NCI-H660 CaP cells. Cells were recovered 100% of the time, even when spiking in as little as a single cell. This is in contrast to published cell recovery studies that require at least 1,000 cells spiked into urine for consistent detection. Furthermore, detection of ERG, AMACR, and PSA protein expression was demonstrated by IHC in cells recovered from post-DRE urine. A feasibility test of ten patients was conducted. Our assay confirmed the presence of CaP marker positive cells in all biopsy positive patients (3 of 3). We also detected the presence of CaP cells in two patients whose biopsy results were negative.

Conclusions: This novel yet simple cell capture platform for CaP cell detection and characterization yielded enhanced assay sensitivity. In a clinical feasibility test the assay confirmed positive biopsy results, and detected CaP cells in some urine specimens potentially missed by biopsy. A larger study is in progress for further evaluations of the UCaP assay.

Citation Format: Kristen Nickens, Shyh-Han Tan, Lakshmi Ravindranth, Amina Ali, David G. McLeod, Shiv Srivastava, Gyorgy Petrovics. A sensitive cell-based assay for the evaluation of prostate cancer cells in urine. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1929. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-1929


Most ligand-receptor interactions result in an immediate generation of various second messengers and a subsequent association of the ligand- receptor complex to the cytoskeleton. Depending on the receptor involved, this linkage to the cytoskeleton has been suggested to play a role in the termination of second messenger generation and/or the endocytic process whereby the ligand-receptor complex is internalized. We have studied how the binding of chemotactic peptide-receptor complexes to the cytoskeleton of human neutrophils is accomplished. As much as 76% of the tritiated formylmethionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine (fMet- Leu-[3H]Phe) specifically bound to intact cells, obtained by a 30-s stimulation with 20 nM fMet-Leu-[3H]Phe, still remained after Triton X- 100 extraction. Preincubating intact cells with dihydrocytochalasin B (dhCB) or washing the cytoskeletal preparation with a high concentration of potassium, reduced the binding of ligand-receptor complexes to the cytoskeleton by 46% or more. Inhibition of fMet-Leu- Phe-induced generation of second messengers by ADP-ribosylating the alpha-subunit of the receptor-coupled G-protein with pertussis toxin, did not reduce the binding of ligand-receptor complexes to the cytoskeleton. However, using guanosine-5'-O-(2-thiodiphosphate) (GDP beta S) to prevent the dissociation of the fMet-Leu-Phe-associated G- protein within electrically permeabilized cells, led to a pronounced reduction (62%) of the binding between ligand-receptor complexes and the cytoskeleton. In summary, in human neutrophils the rapid association between chemotactic peptide-receptor complexes and the cytoskeleton is dependent on filamentous actin. This association is most likely regulated by the activation and dissociation of the fMet- Leu-Phe-associated G-protein.


The dynamic performance of permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) is affected by variation of machine parameters due to temperature, saturation and other effects. Design of controller for the PMSM does not consider the robustness issue systematically. We provide a design technique for the robust control of PMSM which takes into account the machine uncertainty, such as, gain variation of the linear model of the machine, in a natural way. The method uses interpolation theory applied to the PMSM machine model. The design technique not only provides robust stability for system gain variation but also can guarantee a certain minimum damping (as desired) of the closed loop system. The technique, being fundamental, can be applied to induction motor and other machine models as well.


Hydraulic pressure ripple in a pump, as a result of converting rotational power to fluid power, continues to be a problem faced when developing hydraulic systems due to the resulting noise generated. In this paper, we present simulation results from leveraging an actor-critic reinforcement learning method as the control method for active noise control in a hydraulic system. The results demonstrate greater than 96%, 81%, and 61% pressure ripple reduction for the first, second, and third harmonics, respectively, in a single operating point test, along with the advantage of feed forward like control for high bandwidth response during dynamic changes in the operating point. It also demonstrates the disadvantage of long convergence times while the controller is effectively learning the optimal control policy. Additionally, this work demonstrates the ancillary benefit of the elimination of the injection of white noise for the purpose of system identification in the current state of the art.


ABSTRACTIn recent years, the development of alternative energies has attracted much interest owing to the depletion of crude oil reserves and increasing oil prices. Many efforts have been made to use biodiesel as an alternative fuel in diesel engines. This study examines the particulate matter (PM), particulate carbon (EC and OC), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that are emitted from a generator using biodieselhols, which comprise 10–50 vol% pure (or dehydrated) butanol (denoted as B) or 10–40 vol% water-containing butanol (2% and 5% water content, denoted as B' and B'', respectively), 20 vol% waste-edible-oil-biodiesel (WEO-biodiesel, denoted as W20), and 30–80 vol% conventional diesel. The experimental results reveal that water-containing and -free butanol-added WEO-biodiesel yielded 21.7–56.3% less PM, 28.7–63.8% less PM-EC, 11.8–48.7% less PM-OC, 23.5–59.2% less total-PAHs, and 37.0–55.3% less total-BaPeq than fossil diesel (D100). The greatest reductions were achieved using the blended fuels with 30% added butanol (W20B30, W20B'30, and W20P2B''30). The use of 5% water-containing butanol reduced total-PAHs emission more than did the use of 2% water-containing butanol.


Foreword Some key Fundamental Effects in Semiconductor Systems were discussed at a Nordita Conference bearing this title and held at Nordita, Copenhagen, on 6th to 8th August 1986. This volume contains the record of the proceedings. Most of the 16 invited talks and some of the contributed posters are here represented either by a paper or at least by an Abstract. I should like to thank the participants for their help with the reviewing of the papers and the authors for their unfailing cooperation which made it possibe to produce this issue of Physica Scripta rather quickly. Peter Landsberg, Honorary Guest Editor Introduction A few years ago now, Karl Berggren approached me with the suggestion that Nordita organize a satellite to the International Conference on Semiconductors to be held in Stockholm in August 1986. The idea was that we should focus on problems related to semiconductors and, more generally, advanced materials technology, which at the same time lay within Nordita's domain of fundamental theoretical physics. So we began to make plans for what came to be known as the Nordita Conference on Fundamental Effects in Semiconductor Systems. We were very lucky in getting Mike Pepper and Gordon Thomas to join us on the organizing committee, and it is very largely thanks to them that we achieved the success we did. The scientific program of the conference is essentially their creation, and they must get the credit for persuading so many key speakers to participate. In the early planning stages, it became clear to us that the area defined by the title of the conference was far too broad to hope to cover in a meeting of three days, so three subjects of intense current activity and interest were chosen: the quantum Hall effect, localization, and what Gordon suggested we call "glitches". This is something of a catch-all designation for topics like chaos and the newly-discovered universal sample-to-sample conductance fluctuations. In the course of the conference, we heard much about the concept of mesoscopic physics, i.e., systems which are big enough that statistical methods must be applied to their description, yet still exhibit properties traceable to their quantum mechanical level structure. This theme pervaded much of the work reported on both of the last two subjects, and I came away with the impression that this area will be very active in the next few years. The title of the conference may appear somewhat misleading to a hard-core semiconductor physicist, and we are aware that there are many fundamental problems in semiconductors which we have not touched on, but we feel we have been true to the original intent of focusing on some truly fundamental physics that comes up in current materials science. We decided early on in the planning to encourage participants, both invited speakers and contributors of posters, to submit their contributions to a published conference proceedings. However, we felt that this should be optional rather than a condition for participation, in order not to deter potential participants from coming to the meeting. We do include here, however, abstracts of all the contributions. We have also been very fortunate in having the help of Dr. Peter Landsberg, who has served as editor of these proceedings. I would like to thank all the participants for their contributions – talk, posters, discussions, and finally these proceedings. And finally, special thanks are due to the Nordita administrative staff, especially Ellen Pedersen, who did so many of the practical arrangements for all of us. John Hertz, Copenhagen, October 1986


Tissue from 86 cases of Hodgkin's disease, fixed in formalin and embedded in paraffin, was immunostained for the T‐cell marker CD3. Of these cases, 20 were selected on the basis of previous reactivity of Reed‐Sternberg cells for T‐cell associated antigens in frozen sections whilst the remaining 66 were retrieved from the routine pathology files. Five of the 20 selected cases and 22 of the retrieved cases showed predominantly cytoplasmic positivity in a subpopulation of Hodgkin and Reed‐Sternberg cells. CD3 positive cells were present in all subtypes of Hodgkin's disease including three of nine lymphocyte predominance cases. It therefore appears that some Hodgkin and Reed‐Sternberg cells can express the major T‐cell antigen CD3. Although these findings are open to other interpretations, they are consistent with the hypothesis that at least some cases of Hodgkin's disease arise from activated T‐cells.


The last decade of the 20 th century was marked as the opening gateway to internet and communication revolution, which added new dimensions to information and knowledge society.  The scholarly community of today's knowledge society communicates between each other in a non-traditional way besides the traditional way. The arrival of web 2.0 and scientists' gradual use of said platforms as tools for the diffusion and receipt of scientific information and with part of the scientific community relatively receptive, that scientometrics 2.0 began to be discussed.  Another milestone in the era of scientometrics 2.0 is the 'Wikimetrics'. After the 'Wikimetrics' next footprint comes with the advent of 'Article-level metrics'. Article-level metrics followed by Altmetrics, i.e. Alternative Metrics. The term altmetrics was coined by Jason Priem in 2010, as a generalization of article level metrics, and rooted in the twitter #altmetrics hashtag. Although altmetrics usually functions as metrics about articles, but it can also be applied to people, journals, books, data sets, presentations, videos, source code repositories, web pages, etc. Altmetrics does not cover just citation counts, but also other aspects of the impact of a work, such as how many data and knowledge bases refer to it, article views, download, or mentions in social media and news media. In this paper, the altmetric scores of top-cited altmetric papers are presented. Also, the contents of the same are analysed and presented. It is interesting to note that all top-cited papers appeared from diverse subject domains, i.e. big data in science, biological science, medical science, research methodology, social studies, citation studies and scientometrics, different issues involved in social networking et al. The subject domain altmetrics is a highly interdisciplinary field covering all major areas of universe of knowledge. This study reflects other notable feature, i.e. the discord between traditional metric (times cited) and modern metric (altmetric score).


To obtain resistant hybrids against black spot disease in roses, Rosa rugosa cv. Pink was crossed with Rosa hybrida cultivars. Eleven offspring showed higher resistance to races of black spot than did the parents, and four of them had multiple resistances to three races of black spot. A hybrid of R. hybrida cv. Sun Obange×R. rugosa cv. Pink (10/99/03) with negative thornless stem and single flowers expressed high resistance to the specific race of black spot from R. hybrida cv. Rote Rose. The pollen grains of flowering offspring were poorly developed. From the results of ploidy analysis using a flow cytometer, most offspring obtained from this study showed intermediate level crossing. Exceptionally, bimodal peaks were detected on flow cytometry for the hybrid R. hybrida cv. Redia×R. rugosa cv. Pink (01/01/04), which had multiple resistances to black spot. This hybrid was shown to be a ploidy-chimeric clone.


A new millet (Setaria italica Beauv) variety, super early-mature millet No.1, was bred by means of gene bank breedingmethod of target characters. This variety has the following outstanding characters. (1) Super early-mature. This varietyonly needs 1550C effective accumulated temperature and can normally maturate in the Bashang Region in Hebei Provinceof Chi na, which can break through the limit zone of millet cultivation and move the cultivation zone northward greatly. (2)Multi-spikes, in addition to the effect tilling at the top, the nodes in the low-middle part also can produce spikes. (3) Sweetstem have high sugar content. The contents of whole-sugar, soluable sugar and deoxidized sugar are 74.8, 200.5, 237.2%higher than the regular varieties respectively. (4) High gross protein content. The content of gross protein is higher thanthe regular varieties by 3.9-30.4%. (5)Changeable grain color. The grain color of super early-mature millet No.1 is red inShijiazhuang, but yellow in the Bashang region. In addition, this variety is characterized by good quality, high yield, andgood synthetic traits


We present an approach for building libraries of reusable software components that addresses the tension between design-with-reuse and design-for-reuse. The approach is based on a hierarchical model that assumes four levels of reusability. The design guidelines for developing components according to this methodology are summarized and an application demonstrating how the products of a domain analysis technique can be mapped into this hierarchical model is described. The application is a reactive scheduling architecture for manufacturing operations, and the domain analysis technique selected is the feature oriented domain analysis developed by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. The main objective of the paper is to establish the connection between the domain analysis products and the different reusable levels identified by the proposed methodology.<<ETX>>


In the last few years, emotion detection in social-media text has become a popular problem due to its wide ranging application in better understanding the consumers, in psychology, in aiding human interaction with computers, designing smart systems etc. Because of the availability of huge amounts of data from social-media, which is regularly used for expressing sentiments and opinions, this problem has garnered great attention. In this paper, we present a Hinglish dataset labelled for emotion detection. We highlight a deep learning based approach for detecting emotions using bilingual word embeddings derived from FastText and Word2Vec approaches in Hindi-English code mixed tweets. We experiment with various deep learning models, including CNNs, LSTMs, Bi-directional LSTMs (with and without attention), along with transformers like BERT, RoBERTa, and ALBERT. The transformer based BERT model outperforms all current state-of-the-art models giving the best performance with an accuracy of 71.43%.


A non-linear time dependent Fokker-Planck transport code is used to simulate neutral beam experiments, without the divertor, in the DITE Tokamak. Injection of H0 into both D+ and H+ plasmas is considered. The effects of both high and low Z impurities are modelled. The effect of beam impurity charge exchange on the radiative power loss is modelled. Transverse conductivities and diffusivities are found which best represent the experimental data both with and without injection, for six well documented experiments. Good overall agreement is obtained.


Background: Climate affects cell-mediated cellular immunity and antibody mediated humoral immunity. As basic units of humoral immunity, antibodies regulate pathogens and prevent infection, which affect human health. However, the influence of atmospheric temperature and temperature differences on antibodies is still unclear. We provide basic evidence on this topic by analyzing the effects of ambient temperature on immune indexes and mortality.Method: Based on the physical examination data of a general hospital in a large city in China from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2019, we analyzed the influence of atmospheric temperature and temperature differences from climatic factors on the concentrations of four kinds of antibodies (IgA, IgM, IgG and IgE) through an epidemiological survey. Relationships between the atmospheric temperature and mortality in the hospital and city were also discussed. On this basis, we explored the relationship between each immunoglobulin and the mortality rate in the hospital and city. To further verify the effects of ambient temperature on IgE related to respiratory system immunity, we designed a field experiment with an artificial environment near the human thermal comfort zone.Results: The changes of IgM and IgE have seasonal characteristics. There was a significantly positive correlation between ambient temperature and IgE concentration related to respiratory immunity in natural and artificial environments (natural environment: P=0.021, R 2 =0.428 in; artificial environment: P=0.009, Spearman=−0.495). The IgM and IgE levels were the inverted "U" type with the temperature difference, while the IgA and IgG levels were the "fishbone" type. The IgM and IgE concentrations were the highest when the temperature difference was equal to zero. The mortality rate of the hospital and city was U-shaped with the season, and the mortalities were strongly negatively correlated with local atmospheric temperature (hospital: P=0.006, Spearman=-0.544**; city P = 0.000, Spearman = 0.743 **). The concentration of IgE related to respiratory system immunity was significantly negatively correlated with the hospital and city mortalities (hospital: P=0.014; city: P=0.048). IgE levels can be used as a biological parameter to predict death.Conclusions: Low temperature and large increases or decreases in temperature are not conducive to the secretion of antibodies, especially IgE related to respiratory immunity, which can increase the mortality rate to some extent. In the future, based on the findings of our artificial environment study, the span between stressors can be narrowed to determine the temperature range that can cause changes in antibody concentrations. Thus, the duration and lag time of the influence of each temperature on human immune indexes were studied, as well as how the immune indexes changed.


The present study aimed to assess the status of preventive measures for nosocomial tuberculosis infection and the incidence of tuberculosis among hospital workers in Japan. Data were collected using two types of questionnaires submitted to 333 hospitals with tuberculosis beds and 247 hospitals without tuberculosis beds. The incidence of tuberculosis among hospital workers was assessed for the period from 1992 to 1996. Handling of the tuberculin test and BCG vaccination at the time of employment was inadequate. Environmental management of the workplace in laboratories and tuberculosis wards was also in adequent. Regarding the incidence of tuberculosis among hospital workers, nurses at hospitals with tuberculosis beds had the highest incidence especially those in their twenties to thirties. Considering these findings, improvement of the prevention of tuberculosis infection in hospitals is important.


This paper introduces average speed control (ASC), a novel way of controlling heavy-duty reciprocating machinery, such as weaving machines. Its main goal is to reduce the power consumption of such machine, by only regulating their average speed, and thus allowing for instantaneous drive speed fluctuations. Its basic structure combines a linear phase FIR-filter, which calculates a moving average, with a low-bandwidth PI controller. The paper also discusses an extension of the basic controller. That is a feedforward algorithm in order to meet the stringent transient behavior specifications for a weaving machine. Validation by means of simulations and experiments show that the controller meets all specifications


Acute lethality was induced in rabbits by the sequential injection of Propionibacterium acnes and lipopolysaccharide (LPS). P. acnes induced the infiltration of inflammatory cells into the liver lobules during the early phase, and LPS in the late phase caused death in association with pathological changes mimicking hepatocellular necrosis or degeneration around infiltrated mononuclear cells and fibrin deposition in the liver, lung, and kidney, suggestive of a systemic Schwartzman-like reaction. These pathological changes were accompanied by the elevation of plasma tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and interleukin-8 (IL-8) levels. A neutralizing antibody to a leukocyte adhesion molecule, integrin beta 2 (CD18), administered at the time of LPS challenge, prevented reduced the elevation of plasma TNF and IL-8 levels. An anti-TNF alpha antibody but not an anti-IL-8 mediator in this model. These results indicate that CD18 is critically involved in vivo in activating leukocytes to produce cytokines in response to LPS.


The elementary simulation mathematical models presented in this article are related with the sub-system Crop production of the expert system for the decision support in technological and working processes management and their optimisation. Along with this sub-system, the expert system also involves the sub-systems Livestock production and Material handling which is further divided into the parts transport and storage. The boundary between the individual parts of the expert system is usually a short-term or long-term material storage. The relative individual subsystems are mutually connected through the information flow. For each of the sub-systems, specific simulation models are created. The simulation models in the expert system investigated replace the complex of general standards and norms used in other expert systems. The simulation models allow to take into consideration the concrete natural and production conditions (area, plots shape and inclination, soil type, transport routes length and surface, fertilisers doses, crops yields etc.) and also the technological systems utilised during the realisation of operations in working processes (technical, exploitation, energy, economical or energy means, attached vehicles, machines and equipment and method of their work) and the calculation of the parameters utilised. The simulation models also allow the creation of suitable working, and transport sets to choose their optimal variants for the given conditions. In comparison with the utilised standards and norms, the parameters computed through the simulation models significantly improve the data which represent the output from the expert system.


PL05-03 The ability of CD8+ T cells from the immune system to recognize specific antigens on tumor cells and promote their killing is a clear example of targeted therapy for cancer. Increasing the frequency of such tumor antigen-specific T cells has been the goal of cancer vaccines and adoptive T cell transfer. However, for those cells to be effective, they need to home to tumor sites and migrate into the tumor mass. This process is driven by specific chemokines, and recent evidence suggests that some metastatic melanomas express key chemokines for effector T cell recruitment while others do not. In addition to migration, the T cells must maintain key functional properties following arrival within the tumor microenvironment. Recent evidence has indicated that metastatic melanomas and other cancers contain potent immunosuppressive mechanisms that appear to inhibit T cell function. These include the tryptophan-depleting enzyme indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase, the inhibitory ligand PD-L1, the presence of CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ regulatory T cells, and the process of T cell anergy due to low expression of B7 costimulatory ligands. Preclinical models have confirmed that strategies to improve T cell migration into tumor sites, as well as to interfere with the above mechanisms of immune suppression, can improve immune-mediated tumor rejection in vivo. Clinical translation of such approaches is in the development phase and represents a set of new interventions to improve anti-tumor immunity at the level of the tumor microenvironment in patients.


It has been demonstrated that vascular endothelial cell growth factor (VEGF) induction of angiogenesis requires activation of the nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT). We show that NFATc2 is also activated by basic fibroblast growth factor and blocked by the inhibitor of angiogenesis pigment epithelial–derived factor (PEDF). This suggests a pivotal role for this transcription factor as a convergence point between stimulatory and inhibitory signals in the regulation of angiogenesis. We identified c-Jun NH2-terminal kinases (JNKs) as essential upstream regulators of NFAT activity in angiogenesis. We distinguished JNK-2 as responsible for NFATc2 cytoplasmic retention by PEDF and JNK-1 and JNK-2 as mediators of PEDF-driven NFAT nuclear export. We identified a novel NFAT target, caspase-8 inhibitor cellular Fas-associated death domain–like interleukin 1β–converting enzyme inhibitory protein (c-FLIP), whose expression was coregulated by VEGF and PEDF. Chromatin immunoprecipitation showed VEGF-dependent increase of NFATc2 binding to the c-FLIP promoter in vivo, which was attenuated by PEDF. We propose that one possible mechanism of concerted angiogenesis regulation by activators and inhibitors may be modulation of the endothelial cell apoptosis via c-FLIP controlled by NFAT and its upstream regulator JNK.


The European Union has a long history of investment in, encouragement for, and development of, electronic commerce and for more than 20 years has established a strong, and mostly coherent, regulatory framework for the e-commerce sector. We can date the EU's interest in e-commerce to at least the November 1996 Communication from the Commission Putting Services to Work. However that early interest from the Commission took a while to infiltrate further into EU institutions. In April 1997 the European Commission took forward the Putting Services to Work Communication and issued their now well-known initiative "A European Initiative on Electronic Commerce". For the first time the Commission stated its intent to: "encourage the vigorous growth", recognized the "fundamental importance of electronic commerce in Europe", and envisioned for the European Union to become "the heartland of electronic commerce". These undeniably high expectations have not all been realized.
Against the backdrop of this fluid and dynamic economic, social and regulatory framework lawyers, both in practice and in academia, are often asked to explain the regulatory framework. In such a complex and fast moving arena asking any one lawyer to remain informed of the entire legal-regulatory framework seems unreasonable. For this reason we asked a series of contributors to each contribute a chapter within their area of expertise to provide an invaluable single resource for lawyers, academics, students and businesses both already within and entering the European e-commerce marketplace. Following on from this introductory chapter, the most important EU initiatives relevant to e-commerce are discussed.
As with all Internet law related topics global regulations are ideal, but difficult to realize. This may change over time as more digital natives take positions in lawmaking and regulatory enforcement bodies. This though is still some way off and therefore for the moment we keep our focus on the European Union, but maybe one day the classic approach to state sovereignty and jurisdiction in relation to e-commerce will be replaced by a globally oriented approach.


Introduction
Trauma is a leading cause of morbimortality in the world. Intraabdominal compartment is the third most affected anatomical region and bleeding from this origin is difficult to identify, therefore the importance to predict possible lesions to the abdominal cavity.

Objective
To describe and analyze the sociodemographic profile and injuries found in patients with abdominal trauma in a western hospital in Mexico.

Method
Consecutive patients included in the local registry GDL-SHOT were analyzed.

Results
From 4961 patients, 91.4% were men, with a mean age of 28.7 years. Regarding the mechanism of trauma, 39.7% were stab wounds, 33% blunt abdominal trauma and 27.3% gunshots. The most affected organs were: small bowel (20.9%), liver (18.2%), and colon (14.2%). The mean hospital stay was 6.95 days with a mortality of 6.74%.

Conclusion
In Mexico, abdominal trauma represents an important cause of morbidity and mortality, especially in young patients. We found an important amount of penetrating trauma.


Gossypiboma is a retained surgical cotton matrix material in the body after a surgical procedure. Cases are rarely reported due to medico-legal concerns. Although infrequent, it causes serious morbidity and even mortality if left undiagnosed. We present the case of a trans-mural migration of gossypiboma and a review of the literature. Gossypiboma's trans-duodenal migration is a rare complication of retained gauzes. Cases reported in the literature were easy to diagnose based on clinical grounds and endoscopic studies.