We evaluated fissural (ie, visceral pleural) thickening on radiographs in two asbestos-exposed study populations and a control group. Asbestos workers had an incidence of fissural thickening of 54.5% compared with 16.0% in the unexposed control group, with a strong positive statistical effect due to asbestos exposure beyond that attributable to age. Fissural thickening occurred in 85% of workers with parietal plaques and in 36% without pleural plaques. Fissural thickening occurred in 45% without radiographic evidence of pulmonary fibrosis, but it was very common (85%) in those with pulmonary fibrosis. Data analysis showed that fissural thickening responds more strongly to asbestos exposure than does plaque formation, with 21 years of asbestos exposure needed for a 50% chance of developing fissural thickening, while 31 years of exposure were needed for a 50% chance of forming pleural plaques. From a second group of 57 asbestos workers evaluated clinically, 8 were diagnosed as having asbestosis with radiographically clear lungs and fissural thickening. We conclude that visceral pleural thickening is common in asbestos exposure, that it is related to the years since first asbestos exposure, and that its presence may indicate the presence of pulmonary asbestosis, even with radiographically normal lungs.


: A number of popular preparations of Guggulu are being practiced for the treatment of many vatavyadhis and other related disorders. Aamvata (Rheumatoid arthritis), is a very common disease throughout the world. It is a chronic systemic inflammatory disorder, which affects the joints of the body causing painful swelling in them. It makes life miserable and crippling due to unknown causation, claiming the maximum loss of human working power. 109 cases along with involvement of joints having clinical features of Aamvata were selected and diagnosis was confirmed on the basis of proforma advocated by Central Rouncil for Research in Ayurveda and Siddha. The study indicates significant improvement in the clinical parameters, ESR, R.A. titre. Almost all cases whichever completed the treatment, improved from their signs and symptoms, therefore, the Ayurvedic compound drug Sunthi, Guggulu and Godanti (1:2:1) is found to be effective with no side effects and toxicity in the management of Aamvata .


Fu-Ling, the sclederma of Poria cocos (Schw.) Wolf, has long been used as a sedative and diuretic. However, data in this report suggest that Fu-Ling is a potential suppressor of cytokine secretion from human peripheral blood monocytes under in vitro condition. Monocyte culture medium containing 10% of Fu-Ling extract significantly inhibited secretion of TNF-alpha, IL-beta, IL-6 and GM-CSF from the monocyte monolayer. However, as Fu-Ling extract content was gradually reduced, cytokine secretion was augmented in comparison with the cytokine secretion in drug-free controls. This augmentative effect resulted from the trace amount (1.24 ng/ml in 0.62% of Fu-Ling extract) of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) which contaminated the Fu-Ling extract during the preparation process, since TNF-alpha, IL-1 beta and IL-6 secretion induced by 0.62% Fu-Ling extract could be significantly inhibited by polymyxin B, an LPS inhibitor. Furthermore, the amounts of TNF-alpha IL-1 beta and IL-6 induced by 1 ng/ml of LPS without the presence of drug were more than that induced by 0.62% of Fu-Ling extract. Thus, cytokine secretion induced by LPS contamination (1.24 ng/ml) in the Fu-Ling extract was partially suppressed by 0.62% of the Fu-Ling extract itself. GM-CSF secretion in the medium containing 0.62% of Fu-Ling extract was not induced by LPS since: a) GM-CSF induced by 0.62% Fu-Ling extract could not be inhibited by polymyxin B; b) LPS at 1 ng/ml showed no activity indicating induction of GM-CSF secretion.


This study provides the first large-scale study of the performance of expected-return proxies (ERPs) internationally. Analyst-forecast-based ICCs are sparsely populated and not robustly associated with future returns. Earnings-model-forecast-based ICCs are well-populated, but are unreliable outside the U.S. We adapt and extend the log-linear and present-value (LPV) framework-combining an accounting valuation anchor, its expected growth, and market prices-for estimating ERPs internationally, and implement a correction for the use of stale accounting data. An LPV ERP anchored on the book value of equity is positively associated with future returns in 26 of 29 equity markets, and largely subsumes the predictive ability of a broad set of firm characteristics previously shown to be associated with expected returns.


In coal mining, the main purpose of a chute is to transport coal from a higher level to a lower level with a minimum production of dust and the smallest practicable amount of degradation. The carrying surface of spiral chute can be considered as a helix. The design of a spiral chute is most important as the correct design will give a high standard of performance when employed in the right conditions. The main parameters which govern the design and performance of a spiral chute are the helix angle and the profile of the chute track. An incorrect design will lead to frequent blockages of the chute surface and there will be considerable degradation of the mineral transported. The motion of a particle sliding down the spiral chute has been mathematically explained in this article. The increase in fines may very within the wide limits of 2 to 20 percent, depending upon the nature of the coal and the efficiency of the spiral chute design in preventing breakage.
On the basis of the literature available, the authors have designed a spiral chute for a public sector undertaking to convey coal particles up to 500 mm size at the rate of 500 tonnes per hour through a height of 18 m. A few experiments conducted by the authors on an imported spiral chute have been included. A number of experiments were conducted to determine the angle of sliding friction on which depends the tangential inclination of the chute surface. The design work was completed and the details were supplied at the end of 1967.


Pneumothorax is a common complication of radiofrequency ablation of pulmonary lesions. During a treatment session, a moderate pneumothorax was initially managed by placement of a pigtail catheter. Due to technical considerations, ablation of the lesion was not performed; given resolution of the pneumothorax, the pigtail catheter was removed. However, after a short time, the patient's vital signs abruptly deteriorated and the diagnosis of tension pneumothorax was made clinically. A small-gauge catheter was emergently inserted with prompt improvement in the patient's condition, and a chest tube was subsequently placed via this access in the interventional department for definitive treatment.


A multi-scale validation of the capability of the SAFER human body model (v9) to predict the risk for an occupant to sustain two or more rib fractures in vehicle crashes was carried out. The rib fracture risk was evaluated by means of a probabilistic rib fracture prediction method. A variety of loading conditions was evaluated, from published lab tests with post mortem human subjects (PMHS) to detailed accident reconstructions and population-based reconstructions. The PMHS load cases were table-top, impactor and sled tests. The detailed accident reconstructions included 20 occupants involved in real-world crashes. For the population-based reconstructions more than 100 simulations with a generic vehicle interior model were carried out. Parameters regarding both the generic model and the occupant were varied in the population-based simulations. The predicted risk for an occupant to sustain two or more rib fractures was evaluated for the PMHS sled reconstructions as well as for the detailed and population-based reconstructions. The predicted 2 or more rib fracture risk was compared to the actual number of fractured ribs sustained by the PMHS and the occupants. Generally, two or more fractured ribs observed in the PMHS tests, the vehicle crashes and NASS data were successfully predicted with the model.


Bayesian Networks are useful for solving a wide range of problems in many domains. Yet, they are exposed to one important challenge when structural and parametrical changes occur. As Bayesian networks lack memory regarding changes over time, there is currently no good way of maintaining a history of changes and their provenance. Thus, any variance in the network's problem solving behaviour will not be explainable to a user. Within the context of systems that integrate case-based reasoning and Bayesian networks, we suggest to add a casebased reasoning functionality that will retain changes and their provenance, as well as approaches to explain any unexpected problem solving behaviour.


Purpose: To review current knowledge about ocular effects of sulfur mustard (SM) and the associated histopathologic findings and clinical manifestations Methods: Literature review of medical articles (human and animal studies) was accomplished using PubMed, Scopus and ISI databases. A total of 274 relevant articles in English were retrieved and reviewed thoroughly. Results: Eyes are the most sensitive organs to local toxic effects of mustard gas. Ocular injuries are mediated through different toxic mechanisms including: biochemical damages, biomolecular and gene expression modification, induction of immunologic and inflammatory reactions, disturbing ultrastructural architecture of the cornea, and long-lasting corneal denervation. The resulting ocular injuries can roughly be categorized into acute or chronic complications. Most of the patients recover from acute injuries, but a minority of victims will suffer from chronic ocular complications. Mustard gas keratopathy (MGK) is a devastating late complication of SM intoxication that proceeds from limbal stem cell deficiency (LSCD). Conclusion: SM induces several different damaging changes in case of ocular exposure; hence leading to a broad spectrum of ocular manifestations in terms of severity, timing and form. Unfortunately, no effective strategy has been introduced yet to inhibit or restore these damaging changes.


Background Estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) trajectory in HIV-1-infected patients on tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) – based therapy has been widely assessed using linear models, but this linearity assumption is disputable and the nonlinearity of eGFR change remains unknown in patients with initially normal renal function. Methods This is a retrospective, observational cohort study in treatment-naïve HIV-1-infected patients in Hangzhou, China. Estimated GFR (calculated by MDRD equation) trajectories were compared by one-linear and piecewise-linear mixed effects models, before and after propensity matching, respectively. Whether the incidence of renal dysfunction (reduced renal function [RRF], eGFR < 90 mL/min/1.73 m² and rapid kidney function decline [RKFD], eGFR > -3 mL/min/1.73 m² /year) follows nonlinearity was assessed by logistic regression. Results We examined 823 (299 of TDF users and 524 of non-TDF users) treatment-naïve HIV-1-infected participants (age≥17 years) with initial eGFR greater than 90 mL/min/1.73m² . The median follow-up time was 10 (interquartile range, 2-20) months, during which 178 (21.6%) experienced RRF, and 451 (54.8%) experienced RKFD. In nonlinear adjusted model, the eGFR of TDF users decreased over time before 1.40 years (-5.31 mL/min/1.73 m² /year; 95% CI: -6.57, -4.06), and after 2.30 years (-3.71 mL/min/1.73 m² /year; 95% CI: -5.97, -1.45). However, the eGFR significantly improved from years 1.40 to 2.30 (4.83 mL/min/1.73 m² /year; 95% CI: 1.38, 8.28). Within this particular time frame, each year of TDF exposure was associated with a 78% decreased risk of RKFD (95% CI: -91%, -49%). In comparison, eGFR increased slightly at the initiation of antiviral therapy, declined after 2.15 years (-4.96 mL/min/1.73 m² /year; 95% CI: -5.76, -4.17) among non-TDF users. Such a progression nonlinear trajectory was missed on the assumption of one-linearity, whether in TDF or non-TDF users. Conclusion For HIV-1-infected Chinese initiated antiviral therapy with normal renal function, the nonlinear trajectory of renal function do exist, as revealed by the piecewise mixed effects model with advantage of speaking to the true nature of the exposure outcome relationships. Routine screen based on this nonlinear progression of eGFR, could be helpful for patient management.


Membrane lipids function as essential components of biological membranes, as signaling molecules, and as energy storage molecules. Phosphatidic acid is a vital membrane lipid that serves as a precursor for the synthesis of all acylglycerol lipids in the cell. Phosphatidic acid participates in a wide range of cellular processes, including cytoskeletal organization, secretion, endocytosis, and cell proliferation. Here, we examined the effect of phosphatidic acid on myeloid cells and its ability to modulate tumor immunity and inflammatory disease. We found that in vivo administration of phosphatidic acid protected against immune mediated liver inflammation induced by concanavalin A, but worsened tumor spread in the B16F10 melanoma lung metastasis model. Phosphatidic acid reduced pro-inflammatory cytokines but increased anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-10 in the liver. Phosphatidic acid did so by inducing the mobilization and migration from the bone marrow to peripheral organs of Ly6C+ myeloid cells that upon adoptive transfer protected against autoimmune liver inflammation. Our novel observations indicating immune suppressive functions of phosphatidic acid may have wide implications for a variety of conditions with altered lipid metabolism and inflammation such as atherosclerosis and autoimmune disease and conditions with local or systemic alterations in phosphatidic acid such as osteoarthritis and Alzheimer's disease.


INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: We seek to compare thermal versus non-thermal energy modalities for partial gland ablation (PGA) in a contemporary cohort of patients using MRI-targeted biopsy for patient selection. METHODS: Systematic literature searches were conducted in MEDLINE, Embase and the Cochrane Library. A total of 3401 abstracts were screened, of which 201 full texts were reviewed. 162 studies were excluded. 39 papers, abstracts and presentations met the inclusion criteria. Studies included pre-procedure MRI with targeted partial gland therapy, at least 6-month oncologic outcomes, and systematic post-therapy biopsies. RESULTS: 27 studies utilized thermal ablative technologies, which included high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU), cryotherapy (cryo), focal laser ablation (FLA) and radiofrequency ablation (RFA). Thermal PGA in-field recurrence rates varied widely across these technologies: while one small HIFU study reported 0% failure rate in 25 patients, other larger studies had recurrence rates as high as 36%. FLA failures ranged from 4-50% however the larger studies reported rates of 23-27%. Similarly, cryo failures ranged from 6-24% and 2 RFA studies had failure rates of 20 and 25%. 12 studies utilized non-thermal technologies, which included focal brachytherapy, vascular-targeted photodynamic therapy (VTP) and irreversible electroporation (IRE). Non-thermal PGA in-field failure rates ranged from 8-35%. Focal brachytherapy reported the lowest failure rate of 8% among 318 patients treated with Gleason <=7. VTP studies showed >30% positive in-field post-procedure biopsies rate among 147 patients. IRE studies were smaller, reporting in-field recurrence rates of 12-35% among 20-65 patients. In all 39 studies the procedures were well tolerated. Nearly all patients recovered to baseline urinary function at 12 months post-procedure. Most energy modalities reported transient decrease in erectile function however, 14-22% of 900 patients from 3 large HIFU studies reported persistent erectile dysfunction (ED) after 12+ months. CONCLUSIONS: Systematic review of the existing data shows that PGA is safe; however, there is tremendous variability in oncologic outcomes among the different treatment modalities. Long-term erectile function appears worse in the HIFU group. Figure. No caption available. Source of Funding: None


Plasma exchange may be more effective than placebo in reducing disability scale scores and improving the likelihood of disability improvement in patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Plasma exchange showed similar effectiveness as IV immunoglobulin on disability outcomes in treating Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Limited evidence from a health technology assessment subsection suggests that plasma exchange may have a similar safety profile as IV immunoglobulin.
An evidence-based guideline suggests that plasma exchange can be used as 1 of the immune therapies (IV immunoglobulin alternatives) for children with Guillain-Barré syndrome who have contraindications for IV immunoglobulin or when IV immunoglobulin is ineffective. However, most supporting evidence was from adults.
We did not find any study reporting on the rate of recovery, duration of hospitalization, or cost-effectiveness of plasma exchange for treating Guillain-Barré syndrome that met the inclusion criteria for this report.


Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy has improved patient survival in a variety of cancers, but its resistance presents a major clinical challenge. It remains unclear whether therapeutic resistance is driven predominantly by refractory clones of cancer cells or by immunosuppressive microenvironment. To address this, we utilized syngeneic transplantation model and performed clonal tracing of cancer cells to monitor the response to ICB. Different cancer clones displayed variable sensitivity to ICB treatment, reflecting intratumoral heterogeneity in therapy response. Furthermore, different recipients manifested distinct resistance mechanisms. ICB-responders developed resistance through selection and expansion of pre-existing ICB-resistant cancer clones, whereas non-responders presented with irresponsive microenvironment rather than dominance of resistant cancer clones. Extrapolation of the tumor-infiltrating immune repertoire revealed that higher IgG and lower IgA strongly correlated with better ICB response. This biomarker was further validated in multiple clinical cohorts. Our approach discriminates different sources of resistance to ICB, and identifies humoral immunity as biomarker of ICB response. Citation Format: Shengqing Gu, Xihao Hu, Xiaoqing Wang, Peng Jiang, Ziyi Li, Nicole Traugh, Xia Bu, Xiaofang Xing, Gordon J. Freeman, Myles Brown, Xiaole S. Liu. Clonal tracing reveals different mechanisms of resistance to immune checkpoint blockade [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 3779.


This paper presents a new method of designing a beamformer having a desired nearfield broadband beampattern. The methodology uses the spherical harmonic solution to the wave equation to transform the desired nearfield beampattern to an equivalent farfield beampattern. A farfield beamformer is then designed for a transformed farfield beampattern that, if achieved, gives the desired nearfield pattern exactly. Salient features of the new method are as follows. (i) The nearfield patterns can be achieved for all angles, not just the primary look direction. (ii) There is no theoretical restriction on the bandwidth. (iii) General array geometries may be used. As an illustration, we apply the method to the problem of producing a practical array design that achieves a nearfield beampattern that is frequency invariant over an octave bandwidth, where at the lowest frequency, the array-source separation is three wavelengths.


Introduction: International treatment guidelines for pulmonary embolism (PE) recommend that patients with low-risk of mortality should be considered for early discharge or ambulatory care. The Pulmonary Embolism Severity Index (PESI) has been validated to assess probability of 30 and 90 day mortality post PE. The aim of this study was to determine whether avoiding hospital admission, or facilitating early discharge, in low-risk patients could be achieved safely using the PESI score. Methods: Since May 2010, St George9s Hospital has implemented a PE Assessment pathway. The PESI score was used to risk stratify patients in order to determine suitability for early discharge or ambulatory care. A dedicated PE specialist nurse collected patient data and selected appropriate patients. Low-risk patients with PESI score I-II were given education, and taught self-administration of low molecular weight heparin. Results: Over a twenty-one month period, 119 of 346 patients with confirmed PE on computed tomography pulmonary angiogram (CTPA) were discharged within 24-48 hours of diagnosis. A further 25 patients were able to avoid hospital admission altogether. No readmissions or mortalities were noted in these groups, within up to 90 days of diagnosis. Conclusions: The PESI score can be utilised effectively by a specialist nurse to treat patients with low-risk PE (PESI score class I-II) in the community.


The average Gaussian curvature and the probability distribution of the mean curvature are calculated for Cahn's model of random surfaces. As a model for microemulsions it demonstrates the connection between bending rigidity and the appearance of the scattering peak. The bulk scattering and the scattering due to the interfacial film are calculated.


In the present study, a single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) aptamer binding to Bifidobacterium breve with high avidity and selectivity was selected through a whole-bacterium-based systemic evolution of ligands using an exponential enrichment (SELEX) process. Following 12 rounds of selection specific for B. breve, three FAM-labeled aptamers were chosen for flow cytometry analysis and the results revealed that all three aptamers possessed a high binding affinity for B. breve. To obtain the optimal sequence, sequence truncation experiments of these three aptamers were conducted. An aptamer variant BB16-11f with high affinity and selectivity was acquired. In addition, the dissociation constant was significantly reduced to 18.66 ± 1.41 nM. Furthermore, an enzyme linked aptamer assay was developed to prove the potential application of the aptamer BB16-11f in the detection of B. breve. The results showed that the colorimetric assay had a linear relationship between the absorbance at 450 nm and the concentrations of B. breve ranging from 103 cfu mL−1 to 107 cfu mL−1 with a correlation coefficient of 0.98. The limit of detection (LOD) of the assay was 1000 cfu mL−1. Additionally, the developed method was also successfully used to detect B. breve in a milk environment. Taken together, we hold that the developed colorimetric bioassay based on the aptamer BB16-11f is a promising method for the detection of B. breve.


Side-channel analysis is a powerful technique discovered by P. Kocher. The principle consists in monitoring some side-channel information like the running time, the power consumption, or the electromagnetic radiation. From the monitored data, the attacker tries to deduce the inner-workings of the algorithm and thereby to retrieve some secret information. This survey is aimed to analyse the performance of elliptic curve cryptosystem under side channel attacks. The main advantage of Elliptic curve cryptography is smaller key size, it is mostly used for public key infrastructure, but the side channel analysis is now well understood by the implementer.


The marketing survey of thirty products has been included in the consumer basket of Georgia. Information obtained from the respondents' surveys on the current and consumable acceptable prices of products are used by this information to construct linear, indicative and linear models to reflect the change in time.


People use reflection and reflective practice for many different reasons, including for self-care and to make sense of their experiences. In this study, social workers spoke about how they learned to be reflective, with many participants describing activities in their childhood that developed their reflective capacity. The aim of this article is to apply these ideas and examine the factors that enhance reflective capacity in children and young people. This research was part of a PhD study that involved interviews with 35 social workers in USA, Canada, UK and Australia. This exploratory study found that activities like story reading and asking children to reflect on their behaviour are early steps in the process of becoming reflective, but this needs to be followed up with conversations that deconstruct assumptions to make sense of experiences and explore multiple perspectives. This research is important for health and human service workers and others who want to develop reflective capacity in children and young people, particularly for children subject to disadvantage who need to overcome trauma and adversities.


Maintaining peer-to-peer connectivity with low energy overhead is a key requirement for several emerging Internet of Things (IoT) applications. It is also desirable to develop such connectivity solutions for non-static network topologies, so that resilience to device failures can be fully realized. De-centralized clustering has emerged as a promising technique to address this critical challenge. Clustering of nodes around cluster heads (CHs) provides an energy-efficient two-tier framework for peer-to-peer communication. At the same time, decentralization ensures that the framework can quickly adapt to a dynamically changing network topology. Although some decentralized clustering solutions have been proposed in the literature, they either lack guarantees on connectivity or incur significant energy overhead to maintain the clusters. In this paper, we present Decentralized Connected Resilient IoT Clustering (DeCoRIC), an energy-efficient clustering scheme that is self-organizing and resilient to network changes while guaranteeing connectivity. Using experiments implemented on the Contiki simulator, we show that our clustering scheme adapts itself to node faults in a time-bound manner. Our experiments show that DeCoRIC achieves 100% connectivity among all nodes while improving the power efficiency of nodes in the system compared to the state-of-the-art techniques BEEM and LEACH by up to 110% and 70%, respectively. The improved power efficiency also translates to longer lifetime before first node death with a best-case of 109% longer than BEEM and 42% longer than LEACH.


Hypoxia-inducible factor-2α (HIF2α) plays an important role in the development of tumors. However, the clinicopathologic and prognostic significance of HIF2α in cancer patients remains controversial. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis to investigate the relationship between the HIF2α status and clinical outcome in human cancer. Studies were screened online using electronic databases. The pooled risk ratios or hazard ratios (HR) with their 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated from available publications. Subgroup analysis, sensitivity analysis, heterogeneity, and publication bias were also conducted. A total of 854 studies with 4,345 patients were obtained in this meta-analysis. The results indicated that the increased expression of HIF2α could predict unfavorable overall survival of cancer patients on both univariate analysis (HR, 1.64; 95% CI, 1.41–1.92, P < 0.001) and multivariate analysis (HR, 2.21; 95% CI, 1.70–2.87, P < 0.001). Moreover, HIF2α overexpression was associated closely with tumor differentiation, tumor–node–metastasis stage, and lymph metastasis. In addition, there was no obvious evidence for significant publication bias in this meta-analysis. Our study indicated that HIF2α might be an indicator of poor prognosis and clinicopathologic features of tumors and could serve as a novel biomarker in human cancer.


Abstract Objects crafted from jade played a prominent role in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica from at least the Middle Formative period (ca. 1000–400 b.c.). Based primarily on the consumption of jade artifacts by Classic Maya elites, scholars have argued that their production was under the direct control of elite members of society. Recent research in the middle Motagua Valley and elsewhere in Mesoamerica suggests that that the production of wealth goods varied much more widely than previously assumed. These data and subsequent technological analyses indicate that jade artifact production took place in a variety of domestic and nondomestic, as well as elite and nonelite, contexts. In particular, the current evidence from the middle Motagua Valley suggests that households at all levels of the local social hierarchy were engaged in the production of jade beads and preformed blanks intended for final-stage production elsewhere. This evidence runs counter to many previous models of wealth goods production, which have viewed such production as an elite-dominated activity. This article brings together recent evidence from the middle Motagua Valley, Guatemala, to propose new ways of conceptualizing the place of elites in Classic period Maya wealth goods production and the extent of their role in controlling ancient economies. The current evidence suggests that we need to evaluate models of wealth goods production in regard to specific temporal and spatial circumstances.


A partial cDNA that encodes a newly discovered member of the syndecan family of integral membrane proteoglycans, which we have termed syndecan 3, has been isolated from an embryonic chicken limb bud cDNA library. Syndecan 3 is distinct from but structurally related to syndecan and fibroglycan, two previously characterized members of this family of membrane-intercalated proteoglycans. Syndecan 3 contains a cytoplasmic domain potentially associated with the cytoskeleton that is 85% identical in amino acid sequence to the cytoplasmic domain of syndecan. Syndecan 3 also possesses a hydrophobic transmembrane domain and an extracellular domain containing several clustered potential glycosaminoglycan attachment sites. Like syndecan, the ectodomain of syndecan 3 has a single dibasic protease-susceptible site adjacent to the transmembrane domain, which might be involved in shedding the ectodomain from the cell surface. A striking feature of syndecan 3 is an extensive (182 amino acid) threonine, serine, and proline (T+S+P)-rich domain that closely resembles T+S+P-rich regions in several mucin-like proteins in which O-linked oligosaccharides are bound to the threonine and serine residues. Syndecan 3 is expressed in high amounts during a critical phase of chicken limb chondrogenesis in which limb mesenchymal cells condense, round up, and interact with one another before depositing a cartilage matrix. The multiple functional domains of syndecan 3 provide potential sites for mediating the adhesive cell-matrix interactions and cytoskeletal reorganization involved in this critical condensation process.


Objectives This study examined the adherence rate of recommendations of a palliative consultation team (PCT) and a geriatric consultation team (GCT). Secondary aims were to investigate which factors and/or recommendation characteristics influence adherence rates. Methods This retrospective cohort study was performed in the Maastricht University Medical Center+ in the Netherlands and included hospitalised patients who received a consultation by the PCT or the GCT. Baseline data on consultations were collected for the total population and for the GCT and PCT separately. The adherence rate of the recommendations was evaluated by checking evidence of implementation. The nature of recommendations given (solicited or unsolicited) was documented per domain (somatic, psychological/cognitive, social, spiritual, functional, and existential). The association with adherence was evaluated for solicited and unsolicited recommendations separately. Exploration of potentially associated factors was performed using OpenEpi. Results Overall, 507 consultations of individual patients were performed (n=131) by the GCT and (n=376) by the PCT. Most recommendations given were solicited (865/1201=72%). Over 80% of both solicited and unsolicited recommendations were implemented in the majority of domains. No potentially modifiable factors associated with the adherence of the advices were found. Conclusions The overall adherence rate of the GCT and PCT consultations was high. In addition, in certain domains, many recommendations were unsolicited. However, also the majority of these recommendations were implemented.


The article reconstructs the events of the Italian project, strongly backed by Nenni, the Rumor Government's Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1968, to recognize the People's Republic of China. The Italian initiative alarmed the Nixon Administration, then just in office, thus arising for Washington the question to limit a process, which within the Western Bloc could have caused unpredictable repercussions on the large policy Nixon intended to pursue in light of a possible Sino-American rapprochement and of the consequent isolation of the Soviet Union. However, the hasty Italian action threatened to frustrate the long American diplomatic work, thus worsening the Taiwan problem, debated at length during the Italo-American talks. On October 25, 1971, the United Nations General Assembly voted by a large majority the replacement of Taiwan's representative with that of Beijing. Italy abstained.


A pair of rapid tests for evaluation of the effectiveness of penetrating sealers in preventing corrosive chloride ions from penetrating concrete have been developed. The tests are designed to yield an indication of the relative performance of a sealer as compared with unsealed concrete. The first test is based on measurement of electrical resistance between two small electrodes created on a concrete surface by use of a highly conductive spray-applied coating. A criterion of 200 k-ohms after 4 minutes of test was selected for differentiating between effective and ineffective sealers. The second test is based on absorption of water into the concrete surface over a four minute period. Development and field trials of the two tests are described. The tests are applicable to both horizontal and vertical surfaces. Applications for the tests include quality control of sealer application, qualification of sealers under field conditions, and monitoring of sealer performance over time in a nondestructive manner.


Introduction: There are different methods for evaluating cardiac ischemia in a noninvasive way, most commonly used is nuclear stress testing. Another commonly performed investigation to evaluate coronary artery disease in symptomatic patients is coronary CT angiography. On one hand, coronary CT angiography provides anatomic information and stress testing using different modalities provides physiologic information. This physiologic information plays an important role in patient management than mere anatomic narrowing seen on CT angiography. Objectives: In this article, we are highlighting the role of cardiac MRI in this critical situation and its value over nuclear stress test. We will also discuss how cardiac MRI can help obtaining more added informations and obtaining differential diagnosis not always possible with nuclear imaging. Discussion: With continued advancement of MRI, stress MRI imaging is becoming another important modality and frequently used now a day to look for cardiac ischemia. This imaging modality provides physiologic information as stress nuclear imaging and also provides anatomic information. Delayed contrast enhanced imaging with MRI helps identifying areas of scar tissue and quantifying areas of viability. With MRI characterization of ischemic vs. non-ischemic cardiomyopathy is possible. Conclusion: On this article, we are highlighting the role of cardiac MRI evaluating cardiac ischemia and its value over nuclear stress test.


Abstract : During the design phase of Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C) systems for guided projectiles, performance evaluation of the algorithms, and the resulting flight dynamics, is invaluable. In order to characterize the performance of a system's effectiveness, a Monte Carlo analysis is typically performed using empirically derived random variable distributions. Due to the complexity of the GN&C system, typical methods of linearization and closed form solution evaluation do not provide adequate results when determining the key parameters for measuring overall system performance. Since reliance on traditional methods is not adequate, Monte Carlo analysis must be performed with thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of iterations. Analysis of this complexity requires significant computational assets, therefore this process is used sparingly during the design phases. However, determining the true robustness of a control system cannot be resolved without performing this critical analysis. Through parallelization, this process can be run independently on many processors simultaneously, reducing the run time and allowing for quick evaluation of design modifications and algorithm updates. By using a small computing cluster and rapidly parallizing simulations, the Monte Carlo analysis can be integrated into the design cycle and mitigate errors prior to costly flight experiments. This rapid analysis provides a critical tool, not only for the evaluation of the system performance, but for safety fan analysis as well.


Five new species of the genus Coenosia Meigen, namely C. subflaviseta, C. subgracilis, C. parva C. aurea, and C. zhaoi, are described from the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China. The type specimen of C. parva is kept in the Department of Biology, Shenyang Normal University, and the others are kept in the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.


Observing System Experiments were undertaken within the 4D-Var data assimilation of the Météo-France global Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) model. A six-month period was chosen (October 2019 - March 2020) where 40 millions of observations per day were assimilated. The importance of in-situ observations provided by aircraft, radiosondes and surface weather stations, despite their small fractional amount (7 %), has been confirmed particularly in the Northern Hemisphere. Moreover, the largest impact over Europe in terms of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) scores comes from surface observations. Satellite data play a dominant role over tropical regions and the Southern Hemisphere. Microwave radiances have a more pronounced impact on the long range and on the humidity field than infrared radiances, despite being less numerous (10 % versus 80 %). Bending angles impact significantly the quality of the upper troposphere / lower stratosphere temperature of the tropics and Southern Hemisphere. Atmospheric Motion Vectors (AMVs) are beneficial in wind forecasts at low and high levels in the tropics and the Southern Hemisphere, but also in the humidity field. Such impacts are only significant during the first 48 hours of the forecasts. Scatterometer winds have an impact restricted to low levels which is kept at longer ranges. A comparison with Forecast Sensitivity - Observation Impact studies over a 3 month period using the same measure of short-range (24 h) forecast errors reveals that the ranking between the major observing systems is kept between these two ways of measuring observation impact in NWP. From our conclusions, recommendations are provided on possible evolutions of the global observing system for NWP.


The aim of the study was to determine the main metabolic parameters of 11-beta-hydroxy-androstenedione (11 OHAD) in man. Seven normal subjects were investigated at 1-3 months interval by 2 types of isotope dilution techniques using a tritiated tracer: constant infusion and bolus iv injection. 3H-11 OHAD and 3H-11-beta-hydroxy-androsterone (3H-11 OA) were isolated by gel column chromatography, unlabeled 11 OHAD was determined by RIA, unlabelled 11 OA by GLC. The results included computation of free and conjugated catabolite fractions. 3H-11 OHAD MCR determined from the infusion or the injection data averaged ca 1250 ml/min or 1800 L/d (CV: +/- 10%) providing a mean estimation of unlabelled 11 OHAD BPR of 1.5 +/- 0.15 mg/d. UPR estimations gave similar values. 3H-11 OHAD fractional catabolic rate drawn from the postinfusion or the injection curve averaged ca 1.4% per min (CV: +/- 7%). Mean total distribution volume ranged between 90 and 120 L according to the type of experiment. Extrapolation to time zero of the injection curve (2 exponentials) provided an estimation of 32 +/- 5 L for rapid exchange compartment. Urinary recovery of labelled compounds was complete within 24 h whereas the excretion of undegraded 3H-11 OHAD was undetectable; urinary clearance rate of 3H-conjugates approached that of creatinine. The present data show that: the secretion rate of 11 OHAD is equivalent to that of its direct precursor, adrenal androstenedione; its large MCR value results from the size of its exchange volume-equivalents.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


1. Red-billed queleas Quelea quelea are major pests of small-grain crops throughout sub-Saharan Africa. When conditions permit, birds breed in vast colonies which are targets for control operations. Queleas are intra-African long-distance migrants whose complex movements vary annually according to variations in rainfall patterns. An ability to forecast where and when colonies could be established will greatly improve the efficiency of control measures. We describe such a forecasting model for the southern African subspecies Q. q. lathamii. 2. The model is based on and provides a partial test of the conjectured rainfall-migration model of Ward (1971), whereby quelea movements are determined by rainfall patterns and grass seed availability. We consider that a threshold quantity of rainfall (shown here to be c. 60 mm) within any 2 weeks at the start of the wet season is necessary to cause annual grass seeds to germinate, forcing queleas to emigrate. Only if rainfall exceeds another threshold (240 mm within a 6-week span and at least 6 weeks elapsed after the 60-mm threshold had been exceeded), allowing production of fresh seed, can queleas return and commence breeding. Birds may breed again in the same season by undertaking further long-distance 'breeding migrations' to areas where sufficient rain had fallen even later. 3. Using only estimates of rainfall derived from satellite data, we describe a simple spatio-temporal model for southern Africa to show at weekly intervals those areas where (a) the wet season has not yet started; (b) the early rains migration threshold has been exceeded; (c) the threshold to permit breeding has been exceeded; and (d) conditions are no longer suitable for new colonies to be established. 4. Synthesis and applications. The model was run for three seasons and performed well compared to an expected null distribution of breeding colonies among quarter-degree grid squares. In 2002/2003 and 2004/2005, but not in 2003/2004, quelea colonies were reported significantly more often in grid squares where the model had predicted breeding to be possible. However, in a more refined analysis of a smaller subset of colonies for which precise dates of their establishment were known, their spatio-temporal distribution matched predictions in 95%, 85% and 99% of grid squares, respectively, over the three breeding seasons. These success rates show that predictions from the model, the first of its kind for any African bird, can aid the planning of quelea control strategies.


The integration of satellite and terrestrial networks is a promising solution for extending broadband coverage to areas not connected to a terrestrial infrastructure, as also demonstrated by recent commercial and standardisation endeavours. However, the large delays and Doppler shifts over the satellite channel pose severe technical challenges to traditional terrestrial systems, as long‐term evolution (LTE) or 5G. In this paper, 2 architectures are proposed for a low Earth orbit mega‐constellation realising a satellite‐enabled LTE system, in which the on‐ground LTE entity is either an eNB (Sat‐eNB) or a relay node (Sat‐RN). The impact of satellite channel impairments as large delays and Doppler shifts on LTE PHY/MAC procedures is discussed and assessed. The proposed analysis shows that, while carrier spacings, random access and RN attach procedures do not pose specific issues and hybrid automatic repeat request requires substantial modifications. Moreover, advanced handover procedures will be also required due to the satellites' movement.


Toe legal background
The legal remedy for extortion by a provincial governor was first provided - in a non-ad hoc
way- by the Lex Calpurnia de rebus repeturulis of 149 BC, which established a standing court
(quaestio) of senators presided over by a praetor. The procedure prescribed by the Lex
Calpurnia was legis actio sacramento,2 in which plaintiff and defendant (here treated as two
claimants) made their separate claims on oath (sacramentum) before a praetor, and the two
sworn statements were then referred to a iudex for a decision (Gaius Institutes 4.13-17). Since
legis actiones were the privilege of citizens, non-citizens would have been debarred from
presenting their case directly to the extortion court.


Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) continues to be a disease with poor outcomes and short-lived treatment responses. New information is emerging from genome sequencing identifying potential subgroups based on somatic and germline mutations. A variety of different mutations and mutational signatures have been identified; the driver mutation in around 93% of PDAC is KRAS, with other recorded alterations being SMAD4 and CDKN2A. Mutations in the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) damage repair pathway have also been investigated in PDAC and multiple clinical trials are ongoing with DNA-damaging agents. Rare mutations in BRAF and microsatellite instability (MSI) have been reported in about 1–3% of patients with PDAC, and agents used in other cancers to target these have also shown some promise. Immunotherapy is a developing field, but has failed to demonstrate benefits in PDAC to date. While many trials have failed to improve outcomes in this deadly disease, there is optimism that by developing a better understanding of the translational aspects of this cancer, future informed therapeutic strategies may prove more successful.


This article aims to accentuate the Islamic ideology about philosophers and their thoughts in the research perspectives of Abdul Aziz Al-Firharvi(1206AH-1239AH),modernistic broad minded islamic subcontinental scholar. Philosophy is one of the world beginning arts as it is related to the origin of all the sciences. It's meaning of "love to wisdom" (that is interpretated by a strategy which leads a person to the prospects in the thinking Process of something), was actually getting used to Greece for the first time, In there many great philosophers like Ibna' Zaqlas, Pythagore, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle established their reasonable views and opinions about the Creative and Developemental perspectives of the universe like the origin of the nature And resultantly the faculties of Theology(Al-Ilahiya't) and Physics(Al-Tabi'at) materialised. Their views and opinions centered the basis of wisdom and that's why they misunderstood in various types of thoughts like the many of the universe is eternal as god. Moreover; These thoughts met Islam and were polished on the purity. Then the muslim scholars denied these thoughts in every passing time when raised up. Firharvi' is one of them who denied their thoughts on the basis of Quran and sunnah And made a middle ground between these two. He did many of the scholarly achievements in his life and Al-Tamyi'z is one of them in manuscript form. In its Preface, Firharvi' has justified all of the Thinkings of Philosophers on the fundamentals of Quran and sunnah by summarizing these at his best. So, This article relates philosophy to Islamic Ideology as not to accept thinkings of philosophers outright, nor to neglect them in that way and there should be a middle between these two for the application of socio-philosophical rules on the society.


Assessing network security is a complex and difficult task. Attack graphs have been proposed as a tool to help network administrators understand the potential weaknesses of their network. However, a problem has not yet been addressed by previous work on this subject; namely, how to actually execute and validate the attack paths resulting from the analysis of the attack graph. In this paper we present a complete PDDL representation of an attack model, and an implementation that integrates a planner into a penetration testing tool. This allows to automatically generate attack paths for penetration testing scenarios, and to validate these attacks by executing the corresponding actions -including exploits- against the real target network. We present an algorithm for transforming the information present in the penetration testing tool to the planning domain, and show how the scalability issues of attack graphs can be solved using current planners. We include an analysis of the performance of our solution, showing how our model scales to medium-sized networks and the number of actions available in current penetration testing tools.


This paper delivers a case study on the properties of metadata provided by a folksonomy. We provide the background about folksonomies and discuss to which extend the process of creating meta-data in a folksonomy is related to the idea of emergent semantics as defined by the IFIP 2.6 Working Group on Data Semantics. We conduct experiments to analyse the meta-data provided by the del.icio.us folksonomy and to develop a method for selecting subsets of meta-data that adhere to the principle of interest-based locality, which was originally observed in peer-to-peer environments. In addition, we compare data provided by del.icio.us to data provided by the DMOZ taxonomy.


The rate of antibiotics prescription for an acute airway infection significantly varies depending upon the diagnosis type, specialty, and the location of the hospital along with many other related factors. The objective of this study is to empirically investigate the possible relationship between the antibiotics prescription rates for an acute airway infection and the degree of competition in the hospital market regions of mainly the providers of primary medical care services such as clinics, internal medicines, pediatrics and otorhinolaryngology department. Using the data from Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) regarding the hospitals" antibiotics prescription rates for the acute airway infection and controlling for selected variables of demand and supply sectors, this study tries to figure out that the degree of competition in the hospital market, regardless of what type of competition indexes we employed, has a statistically significant effect on the variations of antibiotics prescription rate of the clinics in local areas. This result implies that as an economic consideration itself, the change in the degree of competition in the hospital market can play a crucial role influencing the treatment behaviors of the medical doctors. More specifically, this study reveals that as the degree of competition increases the antibiotics prescription rate goes up. This result means that if the market becomes more competitive in a specific region so that it might cause a reduction in doctor"s income, doctors with rational decision-making process, recognize that the benefit created from inducing patients" seemingly unnecessary demand for medical care (income effect) would be higher than the costs associated with sustaining their targeted income (substitution effect). It is because that the doctors are more likely to prescribe antibiotics which create relatively higher margins than other medical care services in order to sustain their targeted income when the hospital market competition becomes tighter. Even though this study empirically confirms that antibiotics prescription can be affected by the economic incentives, it still raises following issues as limitations of the study: first issue is about the representativeness of the hospital regions segregated for this study, which might be weak in explaining whether these regions are mutually exclusive in reality. Patients actually consider the quality of services, transportation cost, time costs, and any other related factors choosing the doctors or hospitals, and in that sense, this study rules out "border-crossing" in using the medical care services. Second issue arises in capturing the data of antibiotics prescription rate. Since we use the average rate for each medical institution, we cannot figure out the average rate for each patient so that we are not able to control for the variation of patients" medical conditions. It is because of the unavailability of data regarding each patient"s medical condition from HIRA. Thirdly, since this study mainly analyzes the medical institutions providing primary care such as clinics, internal medicines, pediatrics, and otorhinolaryngology department, it is skeptical of whether those institutions can represent the hospital market in respective regions and truly reflect the degree of competition. It needs to extend the study areas and disease types as well as any micro data for future studies.


Provided are a flow rate adjustment device capable of updating an offset value to an appropriate value and an analysis device provided with the same. A determination processing unit (441) determines whether to update an offset value on the basis of an output value of a pressure sensor (42). An offset value update processing unit (442) causes an offset value storage unit (451) to store the output value of a pressure sensor (42) as the offset value only if a determination has been made to update the offset value. Thus, because it is possible to prevent the offset value from being updated in a state in which there is carrier gas in a flow path, the offset value can be updated to an appropriate value.


The electron cyclotron emission (ECE) diagnostic on FTU tokamak is routinely performed with a Michelson interferometer with spectral range extending up to 1300 GHz. The diagnostic allowed accurate electron temperature measurements during the recent 140 GHz electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) experiments on FTU. Very accurate measurements have been performed on a wide range of electron temperatures and profile peaking. The ECE measurements have been compared with Thomson scattering and with observations of x-ray spectra from highly stripped molybdenum ions. The suprathermal emission in these conditions has been studied.


Urine is a highly saturated solution due to the presence of certain colloids. The protective action of urinary colloids is of major importance in preventing precipitation, agglomeration and conglomeration of crystalloids from a super-saturated solution. If the concentration of such protective colloids is insufficient, stone formation begins or is accelerated. In 680 human subjects, the incidence of stone was found to be almost inversely proportional to the degree of protective urinary colloids present. Urine specimens were subjected to ultramicroscopic examination, determination of electric charge carried by the colloidal particles, determination of the surface tension, and photo-ultramicrographic studies. Subcutaneous injection of hyaluronidase mixed with physiologic saline solution greatly increases the content of protective colloids in the urine. The colloids are caused to set up to a gel, thereby preventing electrolytes present from crystallizing. They act as excellent dispersing agents and prevent the formation of stone. Hyaluronidase therapy, using 150 turbidity reducing units every 24 to 72 hours, was effective in preventing calculous formation or reformation during a period of 11 to 14 months in 18 of 20 patients in whom, previously, stones formed rapidly. In a second series of ten patients in whom stones formed rapidly, larger doses of hyaluronidase, averaging 300 turbidity reducing units every 24 to 48 hours, were given. The period of observation at the time of report was from six to ten months. In this group, there was no new stone formation or enlargement of existing stones as evidenced by x-ray studies at 30- to 60-day intervals.


Abstract Objective We compared the performance of two tools to help general practitioners (GPs) identify patients in need of palliative care: the Surprise Question (SQ) and the Supportive and Palliative Care Indicators Tool (SPICT). Methods Prospective cohort study in two general practices in the Netherlands with a size of 3640 patients. At the start of the study the GPs selected patients by heart using the SQ. The SPICT was translated into a digital search in electronic patient records. The GPs then selected patients from the list thus created. Afterwards the GPs were interviewed about their experiences. The following year a record was kept of all the patients deceased in both practices. We analysed the characteristics of the patients selected and the deceased. We calculated the performance characteristics concerning predicting 1-year mortality. Results The sensitivity of the SQ was 50%, of the SPICT 57%; the specificity 99% and 98%. When analysing the deceased (n = 36), 10 died relatively suddenly and arguably could not be identified. Leaving out these 10, the sensitivity of the SQ became 69%, of the SPICT 81%. The GPs found the performance of the digital search quite time consuming. Conclusion The SPICT seems to be better in identifying patients in need of palliative care than the SQ. It is also more time consuming than the SQ. However, as the digital search can be performed more easily after it has been done for the first time, initial investments can repay themselves.


Background: Lag screw fixation commonly is used to treat avulsion fractures of the posterior calcaneal tuberosity, but this method may not offer reliable fixation. This study compared the strength to failure of lag screws compared to lag screw fixation augmented with suture anchors in these fractures. Methods: The calcanei and Achilles tendons of 12 fresh lower extremity cadaver matched pairs were dissected and removed. An oblique osteotomy was created in the calcaneus, and two 4.0-mm lag screws were placed nearly perpendicular to the plane of the fracture in the dorsal aspect of the calcaneus with 30 degrees of divergence between them. In the contralateral specimen, the same procedure was done, but with two suture anchors placed 1.5 to 2 mm distal to the osteotomy. A zigzag suture technique through the Achilles tendon was used. The specimens were mounted and placed in a load frame for monotonic loading to failure. A paired Student t-test and a Pearson correlation were used to analyze the data (p ≤ 0.05). Results: The specimens treated with lag screws alone failed at 251.3 (range 66 to 459) N whereas specimens repaired with lag screws and suture anchors failed at 441.6 (range 274 to 661; p = 0.01 N). Conclusions: Suture anchor augmentation significantly improved the strength of screw fixation of the calcaneal posterior tuberosity avulsion fractures. Clinical relevance: The use of suture anchor augmentation as described may improve the reliability of fixation in avulsion fractures of the posterior calcaneal tuberosity.


In this paper, an analytical approach for the nonlinear distorted bit error rate performance of optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (O-OFDM) with single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) receivers is presented. Major distortion effects of passive quenching (PQ) and active quenching (AQ) SPAD receivers are analysed in this study. The performance analysis of DC-biased O-OFDM and asymmetrically clipped O-OFDM with PQ and AQ SPAD are derived. The comparison results show the maximum optical irradiance caused by the nonlinear distortion, which limits the transmission power and bit rate. The theoretical maximum bit rate of SPAD-based OFDM is found which is up to 1~Gbits/s. This approach supplies a closed-form analytical solution for designing an optimal SPAD-based system.


Field experiments were performed to obtain the basic information of flowering order and variation of yield characteristics by capsule position in sesame. Flowering order was advanced regularly about one day interval from 5th capsule-setting node to upper node. Developing order of flowers at the same nodes, the chief bud was generally flowered eariler than side buds, 3 days below 8th node, 2 days from 9th to 16th node, and 2 - 3 days above 17th node. The number of capsule per plant and total grains were 98% from 1st to 16th capsule - setting node, but the number and the weight of matured grain were 99% from 1st to 13th node. The weight of matured grain among nodes was the heaviest at 5th capsule - setting node. The variation of yield characteristics among nodes was higher than individual plants. Yield characteristics of 6th node was shown lowest variation in comparision with those of other nodes.


An electron beam generated by a GaAs photocathode, activated in negative electron affinity conditions, was studied under two different accelerating regimes. The energy spread of the beam, after an adiabatic acceleration is lower than after a fast acceleration. For the first time a longitudinal plasma parameter greater than one has been obtained for an electron beam.


The purpose of this study is to analyze the characteristics of current public housing in Singapore. This study have investigated the design, banking, construction, consulting, promotion, management of public housing in the Housing Development Board. On the basis of substantial analysis, five issues are raised as major factors of success of public rental housing : public initiative, banking system and financial support planning, cooperating with profession for comprehensive and long-term master plan, improvement design quality, user-friendly policy.


The increase in the elderly population is a global phenomenon and with it medical and social issues have taken on great importance. Violence against the elderly has become a public health problem due to the high rates of morbidity and mortality (M&M) associated with it. Identifying elderly maltreatment is everyone's duty, especially the doctor's, so that negative outcomes do not occur. Disclosure of information about victim's and abuser's characteristics and about the main types of violence is a way of keeping health professionals alert, thus justifying this study. This is a transversal descriptive study based on information from Brazil's Health Ministry on domestic violence reports involving people over 60 years old of both genders. The time frame reviewed ranges from January, 2009 through December, 2014. The results of the study show that the number of reports concerning domestic violence against the elderly progressively increased in the time span referred above. Most aggressions occurred in the victim's home and oftentimes the abusers were the victim's sons. Women were more commonly abused, however men had a higher mortality frequency. Physical aggression and negligence were the most often reported. Despite the apparent rise in reports, these rates are still far from the actual rates in reality, due to under-reporting. Doctors should be aware of the possibility of abuse and report on confirmed or suspected cases, in compliance with the Brazilian laws.


Background : In order to develop more effective anticancer agents there is a shift from not only treating the bulk of cells in a tumor but also to target the self renewing cancer stem cells (CSCs). Standard treatment with chemotherapy and radiotherapy is unable to eradicate CSCs and therefore other treatment modalites against CSCs are needed. LTX-315 (Oncopore®) is a chemically modified cytolytic peptide which is equally active against drug-sensitive and drug-resistant cancer cells. Earlier animal studies have demonstrated that treatment of syngenic murine A20 B-lymphomas and CT26WT carcinomas with intratumoral (i.t.) injection with LTX-315 resulted in complete tumor regression. The present study was undertaken to investigate whether LTX-315 induced an antitumor response in vivo in a novel malignant rat mesenchymal tumor model with "stemness" properties. Methods : Following long-term culturing of bone marrow-derived rat mesenchymal cells, a transformed mesenchymal cell line (rTMSC) has been been developed. rTMSC has, as the non-malignant rMSC, maintained osteogenic and adipose differentation properties and side population cells from rTMSC are highly clonogenic both in vitro and in vivo . Previously we have shown that s.c. as well as i.v. or i.p. injection of rTMSCs form immature solid sarcomas both in nude rats as well as in PVG rats. In this study the rTMSCs were marked with a dual reporter gene GFP and Luciferase and a CCD camera was used for dynamic living imaging. rTMSCs (5×10 5 cells) were subcutaneously inoculated into PVG rats and established tumors treated i.t. with LTX-315. Results : Intratumoral treatment with LTX-315 resulted in a complete regression in the majority of the treated animals. Successfully treated mice were protected against s.c. or i.p. re-challenge with rTMSCs. Conclusions : Taken together, our results suggest that LTX-315 treatment induced complete regression and long-term, specific cellular immunity against malignant rat mesenchymal tumor cells with "stemness" properties". Thus, intratumoral administration of a cytolytic peptide might, in addition to providing local tumor control, confer a novel strategy for therapeutic vaccination against established cancers containing CSCs 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 LB-161. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-LB-161


The effects of NC-1300 on gastric acid and mucus glycoprotein secretion were investigated in pylorus-ligated (4 h) rats. NC-1300 (30 mg/kg, intraduodenally) significantly inhibited gastric acid concentration more than 90%. The agent did not affect the total mucus glycoprotein output in the gastric juice, but caused by about 1.5 times denser mucus glycoprotein secretion than that in the control group. The amount of mucus glycoprotein in the mucous gel layer increased by about 1.4 times with this agent. Thus, NC-1300 not only inhibits acid secretion but also promotes mucus secretion, and this may explain its ability to protect the stomach against necrotizing agents.


Macrophages are an important type of white blood cells in the dialogue between inflammatory response and cancer. Macrophages can maintain a chronic inflammatory state that predisposes to the development of cancer. In the tumor, macrophages phagocytose and kill cancer cells directly and promote the generation of antitumoral cytotoxic lymphocyte response. Cancer cells, however, often modulate the functions of macrophages in several ways to promote tumor progression. Such protumoral macrophages increase neovascularization, produce molecules promoting the growth and dissemination of cancer cells, and suppress antitumoral immune responses. Hence, abundant macrophage infiltration correlates with poor prognosis in most types of cancer. Many cancer treatments also affect the antitumoral properties of macrophages. New drugs are developed to reduce the accumulation of macrophages into malignant tissue and to re-educate pro-tumoral macrophages to anti-tumoral macrophages and some of these drugs have already entered clinical trials.


A solitary liver tumor was found in a 64-year-old female. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed the tumor was located in the caudate lobe of the liver (6 cm diameter); almost all caudate lobe was occupied by the tumor. Anterior transhepatic approach was used for isolated complete resection of the caudate lobe through a reversed L-shaped incision, without sacrificing other part of the liver. The postoperative course of the patient was uneventful. The final pathological result showed a cholangiocarcinoma with a part of inferior vena cava (IVC) wall involved.


A predistortion linearizing method using an envelope-feedback technique is proposed and implemented. This linearizer compensates the gain and phase nonlinearity of the power amplifier at the same time by controlling both variable attenuator and phase shifter with the feedback of only the difference signal between the input and output envelopes. Also a new way to achieve signal cancellation is presented with the combination of a minimization circuit, log detector and vector modulator. A two-tone test for a class-A power amplifier at 1.855 GHz with a frequency spacing of 1 MHz showed an IMD reduction of 16 dB maximum and stable operation over 5 dB output power variation up to 4 dB back-off. The proposed linearizer is also applicable to class-AB and class-B power amplifiers without any special adjustments. The adaptation algorithm is fully implemented with analog ICs, which can further extend its applicability with the integration technology.


In Ghana, cocoa production is a major economic activity among rural farmers. Its production contributes significantly to the GDP and further, livelihood security enhancement among rural folks. However, recent development has unveiled a situation of persistent low farm-level productivity among cocoa farmers which threatens their livelihood security. In view of this, we estimated the economic, technical, and allocative efficiencies among cocoa farmers and their determinants to help proffer relevant policy strategies to arrest the situation of low farm-level productivity. Using a multistage sampling procedure, we collected data from 750 cocoa farmers across the cocoa-growing regions of Ghana. To estimate the farm-level efficiency scores, we employed the stochastic frontier analysis and our results show that cocoa farmers generally exhibited significant levels of technical, allocative, and economic inefficiencies. We estimated the average technical, allocative, and economic efficiencies scores among the cocoa farmers to be 67%, 69%, and 51% respectively. The analysis of the determinants of technical, allocative, and economic inefficiencies revealed that farmer and farm-specific variables such as sex, household size, educational level, years of farming experience, frequency of extension contact, quality of extension received, use of climate smart adaptation technologies, farm size, farm labour and access to credit facilities significantly explain cocoa farm level efficiencies. Accordingly, we recommend that extension service providers and COCOBOD develop strategies to improve upon the quality of extension service delivery as well as incorporate the promotion and adoption of climate smart adaptation technologies into its productivity enhancement programmes for farmers.


Diabetes is now a major public health problem especially in developing countries. The purpose of this study was to develop an adherence promotion framework for diabetes in pregnancy. The study followed a mixed methods sequential dominant status design utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methods. Approval for the study was granted by the respective ethical review committees. All participants gave informed consent. The quantitative phase was conducted with a cohort of 157 pregnant women with a diagnosis of diabetes in pregnancy. The exposure was adherence to anti-diabetic therapy while the outcomes were perinatal outcomes. Data was collected using semi structured interviews and was analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 and STATA. A descriptive qualitative design was used in the qualitative phase where four focus group discussions (FGDs) were held with pregnant women with diabetes. Eight key informant interviews (KII) were conducted with health professionals. Thematic analysis was separately done for the FGDs and KIIs. Adherence to anti-diabetic therapy was suboptimal and the mean was 66.7%. The most common adverse perinatal outcomes were (34.4%), caesarean delivery (45.9%) and macrosomia (33.8%). There were significant associations between adherence and caesarean delivery (RR 1.90 CI 0.8 to 2.03 p>0.001), low Apgar score (RR 1.95 CI 1.03 to 3.69 p>0.039) and perinatal mortality (RR 3.08 CI 1.11 to 8.52 p>0.018). Some barriers to adherence identified in the qualitative phase were financial barriers and lack of social support. Contextual factors deduced from the study were used to develop the Adherence Promotion Framework. Chinn and Kramer's theory of knowledge development was used to guide development of the Framework.


The basic conception behind the given problem definition is to discuss the working, operations and complexity analyses of some advanced data structures. The Data structures that we have discussed further are Red-Black trees and Splay trees.Red-Black trees are self-balancing trees having the properties of conventional tree data structures along with an added property of color of the node which can be either red or black. This inclusion of the property of color as a single bit property ensured maintenance of balance in the tree during operations such as insertion or deletion of nodes in Red-Black trees. Splay trees, on the other hand, reduce the complexity of operations such as insertion and deletion in trees by splayingor making the node as the root node thereby reducing the time complexity of insertion and deletions of a node. Furthermore, amortized analysis, which emerged from aggregate analysis, is an optimistic approach that can be used to calculate the amount of time and space required for the execution of various operations. Amortized analysis considers the number of operations required during the execution of an algorithm rather than the number of inputs required thus overlooking the worst case run time per operation, which can be too pessimistic.


1340 Most solid tumors are characterized by abnormal angiogenesis that results in morphologically and functionally defective vasculature. Pdgf-rβ (with its ligand pdgf) and VEGF have crucial roles in angiogenesis and are commonly over-expressed in a number of solid tumors. Abnormal tumor angiogenesis is believed to be partially responsible for inadequate tumor perfusion, oxygenation and drug delivery. Vasculature normalization theory implies that angiogenesis inhibition affects more immature than mature vasculature, and therefore, improves tumor physiologic parameters. Current data from our laboratory shows that in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) xenografts, gleevec inhibits Pdgf-rβ expression, down-regulates VEGF, and decreases microvessel density (MVD). Further, our data show that gleevec improves tumor oxygenation and decreases interstitial fluid pressure. The objective of this study was: 1) to evaluate the change in immature microvessel density or proliferate capillary index (PCI) after treatment with gleevec in relation to overall microvessel density (MVD) and 2) to evaluate the relationship of gleevec treatment and tumor drug delivery in NSCLC xenografts. A549, a cell line derived from human lung carcinoma, was used to grow xenografts in nude mice. Tumor bearing animals were randomized to: control (saline), gleevec alone (100 mg/kg via gavague for 7 days), doxil (6.5 mg i.v. once on day 7), and gleevec plus doxil treatment group. 24 hours after doxil injection animals were sacrificed and tumors were harvested for IHC and HPLC analysis. CD105 and CD31 endothelial cell markers were used to determine PCI and overall MVD, respectively. NSCLC xenograft treatment with gleevec resulted in significant PCI decrease (p=0.01) as compared to control group. The ratio of MVD to PCI for control and gleevec treated group was 1.05 and 1.18, respectively, suggesting that gleevec specifically reduces more immature blood vessels when compared to all existing blood vessels. Furthermore, the average tumor drug concentration for gleevec treated versus control animal groups was 538±188 ng/ml and 395±71 ng/ml (mean±SD), respectively. The change in tumor drug concentration after gleevec treatment showed a strong trend towards statistical significance (p=0.057). This study shows that treatment with gleevec in NSCLC xenografts might significantly decrease immature microvessel density and increase the ratio of MVD/CPI. In this study we also demonstrated that gleevec might have the ability to improve tumor drug delivery. These results could be of important clinical relevance since if truly responsible for improved drug delivery, gleevec, as a relatively non-toxic and easy-to-take drug, could become an important adjunct to standard chemotherapy. However, future larger preclinical studies are needed to further investigate the role of gleevec in tumor drug delivery.


Katherine Routledge is a central figure in the history of Easter Island, one of the world's most remote and mysterious locales. Born to a wealthy and prestigious English Quaker family in 1866, Katherine rebelled against Victorian values, becoming one of the first female graduates of Oxford University and the first woman archaeologist to work in Polynesia. From 1913 to 1915, Katherine and her husband, Australian adventurer William Scoresby Routledge, led the Mana Expedition to Easter Island, where Katherine conducted the first ever excavations of the island's world-famous stone statues. Katherine collected vast quantities of new information, and through interviews with dozens of elderly men and women, she was able to save the history of the island, whose population was struggling back from the brink of extinction. Without Katherine's extraordinary efforts, Easter Island's traditional beliefs and customs would have been forever lost. Many of Katherine's papers were thought to be lost until they were discovered by Jo Anne Van Tilburg, the contemporary world's leading authority on the Easter Island statues. In this compelling biography, Dr.Van Tilburg brings her unique expertise to Katherine Routledge's discoveries and to her turbulent life. The result is an exciting personal story, set against the drama of Katherine's remarkable exploration of one of the most intriguing archaeological sites in the world.


matologJsts maintain a level of 500 mg to 250 mg when they treat moderate to mild acne. We have not as yet performed any study of topical erythromycin vs oral erythromycJn, nor have we compared erythromycJn to any other topical antibiotic as yet. We had hoped to show that the topical erythromycin was at least equal to oral tetracycline, so as to avoid the known side effects of the oral medication. We also do obtain a resistance on the part of young people today to the taking of oral medication, especially if there are any known side effects. In the "natural" society of today, we have less difficulty prescribing topical medication than oral medication, especially in view of everybody's concern for long-term effects,


In most socially structured populations, the formation of new groups depends on the survival and reproduction of dispersing individuals. Quantifying vital rates in dispersers, however, is difficult because of the logistic challenges of following wide-ranging animals. Here, using data from free-ranging meerkats (Suricata suricatta), we estimate survival and reproduction of dispersing females and compare these estimates to data for established residents. Meerkat groups consist of a dominant pair and several subordinate helpers. Female helpers are evicted from their resident groups by the dominant female, allowing her to monopolize reproduction, and evicted females may form small dispersing coalitions. We show that, as in established resident groups, one female is behaviorally dominant in parties of dispersing females. During dispersal and the first 4 months after new group formation, survival is lower for all females compared with established resident groups. At the same time, subordinates in disperser groups have higher birth rates than those in established groups, which rarely breed successfully. This may partly offset the survival costs of dispersal to subordinate females. Further studies of dispersal based on direct observation of dispersing animals are needed to explore the costs and benefits of dispersal in species with contrasting breeding systems.


Recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have made significant advancement, however, they are widely known to be vulnerable to adversarial attacks. Adversarial training is the most widely used technique for improving adversarial robustness to strong white-box attacks. Prior works have been evaluating and improving the model average robustness without per-class evaluation. The average evaluation alone might provide a false sense of robustness. For example, the attacker can focus on attacking the vulnerable class, which can be dangerous, especially, when the vulnerable class is a critical one, such as "human" in autonomous driving. In this preregistration submission, we propose an empirical study on the class-wise accuracy and robustness of adversarially trained models. Given that the CIFAR10 training dataset has an equal number of samples for each class, interestingly, preliminary results on it with Resnet18 show that there exists inter-class discrepancy for accuracy and robustness on standard models, for instance, "cat" is more vulnerable than other classes. Moreover, adversarial training increases inter-class discrepancy. Our work aims to investigate the following questions: (a) is the phenomenon of inter-class discrepancy universal for other classification benchmark datasets on other seminal model architectures with various optimization hyper-parameters? (b) If so, what can be possible explanations for the inter-class discrepancy? (c) Can the techniques proposed in the long tail classification be readily extended to adversarial training for addressing the inter-class discrepancy?


Umbilical vein catheterization is a routine procedure of neonatal intensive care units, and only rare complications associated with catheter malposition have been described in the literature. We herein present an infant boy (28 days old, 4 kg) with an intracardiac mass diagnosed after umbilical vein catheterization. The patient was referred to our clinic with a diagnosis of catheter migration and thrombosis, but this could not be confirmed during surgery. Pathological analysis of the excised intracardiac mass revealed nonbacterial thrombotic endocarditis. Our case confirms the essentiality of controlling the location of the umbilical venous catheter after its insertion.


In Cancun, the widespread view of the local academia, business and government is that the destination has passed its maturity stage and has begun to show signs of being in its phase of decline. Coincidentally, these conclusions were performed based on Butler's life cycle model of a tourist destination. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to check, with data from the last 15 years, if the available information on number of received tourists and the economic income generated by them, supports these claims. The intention is to demonstrate Butler's proposal of 1980 regarding the life cycle of a tourist destination shows an association between the variables time, economic flow and number of tourists. Cancun's case shows an association between the time variable, represented by the years 1999-2015, with the economic flow; and in a second example; it shows an association in respect to the number of tourists. The above is necessary, since if it did not exist dependence between different variables with a destination's timeline, it would not be possible to argue the Butlerian postulate of the life cycle. To achieve this, we will establish hypotheses assuming independence among variables. The method to be used will be the formulation of contingency tables as support for critical analysis and probability value based on χ² better known as chi or chi square. The finding is that for the analyzed variables, it can be asserted that the tourist destination of Cancun does not show a significant decline, even though this contradicts the views of other researches and opinions.


This dissertation aims to study the Lake District as a prospective location for a lynx reintroduction, to do this a number of subsidiary questions and objectives are also to be answered in the study. This is important as past reintroduction feasibility studies have always been conducted in Scotland and never in northern England. A survey to establish local opinions towards the lynx and knowledge of ecological issues was carried out, and research was conducted into the Lynx effects upon ecology (specifically deer populations and the red fox) and habitat requirements, this was compared to the current ecology and habitat of the Lake District to establish whether a reintroduction is feasible.

It was found that; people's knowledge of issues related to the local ecology was poor; the same applies for knowledge of possible reintroductions and of the lynx. When asked their opinion about a lynx reintroduction into the Lake District, there was a large split between people being for, against and indifferent. This is probably largely due to the lack of knowledge on the issues. A Scottish feasibility study found that a population of 450 lynx is possible, In terms of a similar reintroduction into the Lake District, the author believes that given the over‐abundance of prey and similarity of habitats and land use between parts of Scotland and the Lake District, it is likely a reintroduction could take place, but more specific work into the habitats and ecology of the Lake District would be necessary.


We analyze the efforts of an international consortium of academics and activists to understand and address a transnational fisheries conflict in South Asia. The so-called REINCORPFISH project (2010–2016) focused on an asymmetrical conflict between trawler fishers from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu who frequently transgress into Sri Lankan waters and northern Sri Lankan fishers, whose livelihoods are affected by these intrusions as well as by a long history of civil war. Guided by notions of bottom-up governance and empowerment, the consortium engaged in action research focusing on three types of remedial activities: (a) facilitating dialogues between fishers from both countries, (b) supporting the creation of a unified fisher organization in northern Sri Lanka, and (c) engaging in an advocacy program promoting assistance for the northern Sri Lankan fishers. Although the consortium succeeded in creating widespread attention of the problem, we analyze how the project's rationale of bottom-up governance was thoroughly challenged by divisive national and transboundary politics. The fisheries conflict intertwined with geopolitical power play, military bluster, and ethnic tension, as well as with governmental suspicion toward NGO activity of any kind, marginalized civil society and compromised its assumed role as an agent of change. We therefore demonstrate how supporting marginalized resource users through action research requires handling a multiplicity of coexisting conflicts (resource, ethnic, and geopolitical) and that studying or dealing with such conflicts in isolation is both conceptually and practically flawed.


Many patients with sepsis are immunocompetent. They respond well to standard combinations of antibiotics and cardiovascular support. However, immunocompetent patients, particularly small-for-date newborns, are in need of stronger immune protection. Although the mechanisms due to which antibody preparations yield positive effects are not quite clear, clinical studies carried out in many countries and our own results indicate a high protective effect of intravenous immunoglobulins and necessitate their use at least in intensive care departments.


This study presents the results of an experimental program and analytical modeling for axial-flexural interactions of concrete-filled glass fiber-reinforced polymer tube (GFRP-CFFT) columns with and without reinforcing glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars. The experimental program included four steel RC specimens, four GFRP-CFFT specimens, and four GFRP bar-reinforced GFRP-CFFT specimens with an outer diameter of 205-206 mm and a height of 800-812 mm. The specimens were tested under concentric and 25and 50-mm eccentric axial loads and four-point load. The experimental results showed that GFRP barreinforced GFRP-CFFT specimens sustained higher peak axial loads, axial and lateral deformations at peak axial load, and flexural loads than GFRP-CFFT specimens without reinforcing GFRP bars and steel RC specimens. Axial load and bending moment (P-M) interactions of GFRP-CFFT specimens with and without reinforcing GFRP bars and steel RC specimens were analytically modeled. A parametric study was conducted to evaluate the effects of actual confinement ratio and GFRP bar reinforcement ratio on P-M interactions of GFRP-CFFT specimens. The P-M interactions were found to be significantly affected by both actual confinement ratio and GFRP bar reinforcement ratio.


What are the effects of the economic crisis on electoral turnout? The literature predicts both mobilization as well as withdrawal‐effects, and the aggregate findings are indeed inconclusive. However, while there is no uniform trend, we see levels of electoral turnout decrease particularly in those countries that have been affected most strongly by the global economic recession. Existing resource- and incentive- based theories explain this decline exclusively with regard to the declining participation of the losers of the crisis, i.e. voters with low socio-‐economic resources and who suffer increased economic risk.
In this paper, we argue that such a view neglects a second driver of declining turnout: anticipation of government inefficacy. Where economic austerity constrains governments, highly educated citizens with the necessary political knowledge and sophistication anticipate the inefficacy of the future government and they factor this knowledge in when deciding about electoral participation. Therefore, the positive effects of education on turnout decline with increasing international and domestic austerity constraints. We provide cross-‐sectional evidence for this argument on the basis of hierarchical regression models, based on ESS round 5 (2010) and SILC survey data, as well as different measures of government constraint in 22 European countries during the economic crisis.


Here, an approach to realize "smart" solid substrates that can convert their wetting behavior between extreme states under selective light irradiation conditions is described. Hybrid organic/inorganic surfaces are engineered by exploiting photolithographically tailored SU‐8 polymer patterns as templates for accommodating closely packed arrays of colloidal anatase TiO2 nanorods, which are able to respond to UV light by reversibly changing their surface chemistry. The TiO2‐covered SU‐8 substrates are characterized by a dual micro‐/nanoscale roughness, arising from the overlapping of surfactant‐capped inorganic nanorods onto micrometer‐sized polymer pillars. Such combined architectural and chemical surface design enables the achievement of UV‐driven reversible transitions from a highly hydrophobic to a highly hydrophilic condition, with excursions in water contact angle values larger than 100°. The influence of the geometric and compositional parameters of the hybrid surfaces on their wettability behavior is examined and discussed within the frame of the available theoretical models.


During the West-Bohemia/Vogtland earthquake swarms thousands of events are detected within short periods of few days, whose preliminary location is provided by an automated procedure. The manually verified high quality catalog is provided with some delay and is usually less complete than the automatic one.

We developed a template matching procedure combined with differential time measurement and double difference location whose application in real time will allow to provide precise hypocentre locations for much larger data set than provided by the manual processing. Among others, the template matching approach includes flexible setting of the time difference between P and S waves which allows for event detection in a wider distance to the template’s hypocentre. This makes the size of the template dataset small enough to allow for efficient detection process.

Our application of the template matching approach is aimed at identifying repeated activation of some patches during the swarms and weak background activity in the intermediate periods. Detecting and analyzing the repeating earthquakes will help revealing the continuing background activity and identifying fault areas that are active permanently. This will point to the possible sources of fluids or aseismic creep that are supposed to play significant role in swarm generation.


In this paper, I present an analysis of the so-called tense forms of Biblical Hebrew. While there is fairly broad consensus on the interpretation of the yiqtol tense form, the interpretation of the qdtal tense form has led to considerable controversy. I will argue that the qātal form has no intrinsic semantic value and that it serves a pragmatic function only, namely, signaling to the hearer that the event or state expressed by the verb cannot be tightly integrated into the discourse representation of the hearer, given the speaker's estimate of their common ground.


BACKGROUND & AIMS
Although Helicobacter pylori has already been declared a human carcinogen, the exact nature of the association with gastric cancer remains to be explored. The aim of this study was to determine if the association is confined to specific types of gastric cancer.

METHODS
The prevalence of H. pylori immunoglobulin G antibodies (HM-CAP immunoassay; Enteric Products Inc., Westbury, NY) was determined in prospectively collected sera from 279 patients with gastric cancer.

RESULTS
The overall prevalence of H. pylori seropositivity was 77%. The prevalence of H. pylori infection was significantly lower among patients with tumors of the gastric cardia compared with those with other gastric locations. Age-adjusted H. pylori seroprevalence among patients with the intestinal type of gastric cancer tended to be higher than among those with the diffuse type according to Laurén (P > 0.05). In both histological types, the seroprevalence decreased with increasing age. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that high age and proximal tumor location were independent predictors of absence of H. pylori.

CONCLUSIONS
The association with H. pylori infection is similar regardless of the histological features of the tumor, whereas it is stronger for noncardiac gastric cancer than for cardiac cancer. The apparent loss of H. pylori seropositivity among patients with gastric cancer is determined by age rather than tumor stage.


The computation of the final, friction saturated limit cycle oscillation amplitude of an aerodynamically unstable bladed-disk in a realistic configuration is a formidable numerical task. In spite of the large numerical cost and complexity of the simulations, the output of the system is not that complex: it typically consists of an aeroelastically unstable traveling wave (TW), which oscillates at the elastic modal frequency and exhibits a modulation in a much longer time scale. This slow time modulation over the purely elastic oscillation is due to both the small aerodynamic effects and the small nonlinear friction forces. The correct computation of these two small effects is crucial to determine the final amplitude of the flutter vibration, which basically results from its balance. In this work, we apply asymptotic techniques to consistently derive, from a bladed-disk model, a reduced order model that gives only the time evolution on the slow modulation, filtering out the fast elastic oscillation. This reduced model is numerically integrated with very low computational cost, and we quantitatively compare its results with those from the bladed-disk model. The analysis of the friction saturation of the flutter instability also allows us to conclude that: (i) the final states are always nonlinearly saturated TW; (ii) depending on the initial conditions, there are several different nonlinear TWs that can end up being a final state; and (iii) the possible final TWs are only the more flutter prone ones.


Prospects for the presence and detection of interstellar cyanovinylidene, CC(H)CN, a Y-shaped isomer of cyanoacetylene, are discussed. It is proposed that CC(H)CN can arise in interstellar clouds as one of the HC3NH+ + e− dissociative recombination products, by rearrangements of the neutral chain radical HC3NH into branched species HCCC(H)N, CC(H)C(H)N, and/or HCC(H)CN, and by the subsequent elimination of a hydrogen atom. It is deduced that the abundance of cyanovinylidene in molecular clouds should be confined between the abundances of its chain isomers HNCCC and HCNCC. Quantum chemical predictions regarding cyanovinylidene geometry, ground-state rotational constants, centrifugal distortion constants, spin–orbit coupling, IR absorption spectroscopy, and electric dipole moment are given. The spectroscopically observed molecules formyl cyanide, NC2(H)O, and propynal, HC3(H)O, with structures qualitatively resembling cyanovinylidene, served to prove the adequacy of the calculational procedures employed.


Increasing the pole thickness of film heads is effective in improving the strength of write fields. This is necessary to handle the high coercive force(Hc=63kA/m) thin film media utilized in the large-capacity, fast-access disk storage[1] nicknamed GEMMY. Film heads with thicker poles are designed for storage devices. These heads achieve a linear density of 1240bit/mm(940 fc/mm) and a transfer rate of 4.4MB/sec (26.3Mfc/sec).