In the Timaeus Plato describes the world as the 'most beautiful' ( kallistos, 29a5) of generated things. Perhaps indeed this is the first systematic description of the beauty of the world. It is, at any rate, one of the most influential statements of the theme. The Stoics were deeply convinced by it and later, in the third century A.D., at a time when contempt and hate for the world were propagated by Gnostic movements, Plotinus, interpreting the Timaeus, would write magnificent passages on the beauty and value of the world. But what does Plato mean by the 'beauty' of the world? What makes the world beautiful? In this paper these questions are approached first (1) by a brief discussion of the distinction which Plato appears to make in the Timaeus between beauty and the good. In one passage ( Tim. 87c) 'measure' seems to relate to this distinction. It is suitable then (2) to look at a section of another late work of Plato, the Philebus, where the themes of beauty, goodness and measure may be compared in more detail. The theme of measure then takes us back (3) to the Timaeus, in order to examine the role played by measure, in particular mathematical measure, in constituting the beauty of the world. I discuss in detail the way in which mathematical structures make for the beauty of soul and body in the living whole that is the world.


In the framework of the EU MOLAR Project on "Measuring and modelling the dynamic response of remote mountain lake ecosystems to environmental change" a three whole-year study (1996-1998) on the composition and dynamics of phytoplankton community of the high mountain lake, acid sensitive Lago Paione Superiore (LPS) was carried out. The data were analyzed and compared with those gathered during the years 1991-1993. The phytoplankton was made up by nanoplanktonic unicellular algae, the only exception being the colonial Dinobryon sertularia. Just four species, belonging to Chrysophyceae (Chromulina sp., Dinobryon sertularia and Mallomonas alveolata) and to Dinophyceae (Gymnodinium sp.) were important as biomass and density, and they were always present throughout the year. The prevalence of potentially mixotrophic species suggests an adaptive strategy to the low environmental concentrations of inorganic carbon and phosphorus. The seasonal variations of the total biomass were similar to those observed in the previous years. The total number of species has increased; this could be related with the recent increase of the pH and of the alkalinity.


The use of recycled rubber in preparation of acoustic absorbent materials will help to combat the existing environmental problems of both waste disposal and noise pollution. The focus of this work is to investigate the influence of mechanochemical pretreatment of ground tire rubber (GTR) on the acoustic absorption properties of polyurethane (PU)/GTR foamed composites. GTR subjected to pan-milling could be mechanochemically devulcanized by breaking up the crosslinked structures through inducing fairly strong shearing and compressing forces. The significant increase in sol fraction of GTR confirmed the partial devulcanization during pan-milling. Moreover, thermal gravimetric analysis indicated that rubber content in the soluble part of GTR was also remarkably increased. The devulcanization increased flexible chains of the GTR particles, which could help to improve damping properties as well as acoustic absorption ability of the PU/GTR foamed composites. Dynamic mechanical analysis and acoustic absorption measurements well confirmed this hypothesis. The loss modulus and sound absorption coefficient of PU/GTR foamed composites were remarkably increased through the mechanochemical pretreatment of GTR. The mechanochemical pretreatment also enhanced foamability of the composites as revealed by cell morphology. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013


It is a consensus among the major authors in the field of customer relationship management (CRM), or relationship marketing, the importance of strategic management of relationships between organizations and their customers, especially within the context of increasingly aggressive competitiveness. Thus, this study aims to build an overview of studies on CRM, presenting the results of a bibliometric review that covers syntheses of the state of the art and of the the empirical studies 2013 period to highlight the production in the new millennium. Such analysis allowed the design of a research agenda as well as the institutionalization of research on CRM in Brazil. The information extracted from the papers to be analyzed were: the name of the ournal, year of publication, the study characterization, home institutions of the authors and the most studied issues in the CRM theme. For the empirical studies, we added the nature of the study, the sector in which the researched industry is inserted in, its core business, data collection instruments used by researchers and the methods of data analysis performed. Fifty-two papers were found. Among journals, REAd, RAC and Faces are those with more papers on CRM and the University of Sao Paulo was the institution that led the publications in the analyzed period. CRM in the B2C (business-to-consumer) context and its related variables (e.g., satisfaction and loyalty) were the most discussed issues in the papers whose majority consisted of theoretical-empirical studies, quantitative in nature, and focusing on the private sector economy, especially in the banking and retail branches. The results indeed pointed to the strategic importance to organizations of studies on CRM, which was demonstrated by an increase in the interest of researchers on the subject, considering the creation of research groups of CRM in Brazil and its scientific, technical and advisory indicators of production from the database of the Lattes Platform.


The current study adopted system approach to characterize the current crop/livestock farming system of small scale farms and to assess its economical efficiency in the New Valley Governorate of Egypt. Four districts were identified, Elkharga, Eldakhla, Baris and Balat. A random sample of 120 farms was taken to represent the four studied districts (30 farms from each district). A questionnaire was designed to cover available production resources, farming activities, variable costs and revenues. Data were collected over the agricultural year from September 2015 to August 2016. Least squares analysis of variance technique using a fixed effects linear model was performed to derive technical coefficients of the considered productive traits for livestock and major crops. Whole farm budget was applied for financial assessment to determine the overall gross margin (GM) per feddan and benefit/cost ratio (B/C) of the four studied districts. Averages farm size were 7.17 feddan, 8.62 feddan, 4.45 feddan and 10.72 feddan for Elkharga, Eldakhla, Baris and Balat, respectively. Results showed that daily milk yield per head of cow were estimated as 3.29 kg, 2.45 kg, 1.78 kg and 1.99 kg for Elkharga, Eldakhla, Baris and Balat, respectively. On the other hand, the corresponding total milk yield of cow was estimated as 773 kg, 515 kg, 338 kg and 398 kg, respectively. Common crops in winter season were Alfalfa, wheat, barley and bean. While in summer season were Elephant grass, darawa, w-corn, cowpeas, fume and cash crops. The obtained values of the farm GM per feddan revealed that farmers of Baris district utilized their limited production resources more efficient than the other studied districts and achieved the highest gross margin per feddan with estimate of LE 15078, while the lowest was Balat district and achieved LE 4188 per feddan. The farm B/C ratio showed that Eldakhla district earned the highest return per unit of money with estimate of 2.22 ratio.


Previous research had shown that experiences of treatments vary between NHS and private practice. It was unclear whether different treatments might vary in the same or in different ways between healthcare sectors. This thesis explored how experiences of physiotherapy and osteopathy vary between NHS and private settings. Study 1: A systematic review of the literature identified psychosocial factors which are likely to be important within physiotherapy for lower back pain. Study 2: A qualitative interview study explored the experiences and appraisals of 35 patients who had received NHS or private physiotherapy or osteopathy for lower back pain. This study indicated that physiotherapy and osteopathy do not vary in the same ways between healthcare sectors. Study 3 and 4: Mixed methods were used to develop and establish the face validity, internal consistency and structural validity of a new measure of treatment appraisal, the Appraisals of Physical Treatments Questionnaire (APTQ). Study 5: The APTQ and other measures of treatment appraisal were then examined in a cross-sectional questionnaire study (n=91) which explored how and to what extent aspects of treatment appraisal vary between healthcare sectors and treatment types. There were ceiling effects in many of the measures, although some aspects of treatment appraisal varied in ways which were consistent, or partially consistent, with the hypotheses. Study 6: Finally, study 6 looked at practitioners' (physiotherapists' and osteopaths') experiences of treating lower back pain in the NHS and private practice. Practitioners' reports largely confirmed those of patients, indicating that physiotherapy and osteopathy do not vary in the same ways between healthcare sectors. Factors that might be responsible for the differences in patients' experiences of NHS and private physiotherapy and osteopathy were also identified and organised into a model. Physiotherapy and osteopathy did not appear to vary in the same ways between healthcare sectors, indicating that the healthcare sector might not have a uniform influence on treatments.


Within the framework of algebraic statistics, this work explores several statistical models, e.g. toric models, phylogenetic models, and variance components models, and focuses on the algebraic complexity problems that lie at the root of them. We begin our exploration by studying toric ideals of hypergraphs, algebraic objects that are used for goodness-of-fit testing for log-linear models. In this study, we use the combinatorics of hypergraphs to give degree bounds on the generators of the ideals, give sufficiency conditions of when a binomial in the ideal is indispensable, show that the ideal of the first tangential variety of n copies of the projective line is generated by quadratics and cubics in cumulant coordinates, and recover a well-known complexity theorem in algebraic statistics due to De Loera and Onn. Second, we explore phylogenetic models by viewing the models as sets of tensors with bounded rank. We show that the variety of 4x4x4 complex-valued tensors with border rank at most 4 is defined by polynomials of degree 5, 6, and 9. This variety corresponds to the 4-state general Markov model on the three-leaf claw tree and its defining polynomials can be used in model selection. This result also gives further evidence that the phylogenetic ideal of this model can be generated by polynomials of degree 9 and less. Finally, we look at the algebraic complexity of maximum likelihood estimation for variance components models, where we give explicit formulas for the maximum likelihood and restricted maximum likelihood degree of the random effects model for the one-way layout and give examples of multimodal likelihood surfaces.


This study was conducted in year 2021 -2022 in Keonjhar district of Odisha, in which 45% of the population belongs to tribal community. The study was conducted in five tribal dominated blocks of Keonjhar (Banspal, Keonjhar, Harichandanpur, Joda, Ghatgaon) among 301 adolescent girls aged between 16 and 18 years. The study revealed that the average height of the tribal adolescent girls was 149.82±2.265 cm, body weight was 39.126±0.022 kg and BMI was 17.43351±1.059 kg m -2 . The mean weight, height was found to be less than that of 50th percentile of NCHS standards in every age group. Only 20.6% of tribal adolescent girls were found to be within the normal range of BMI value (18.5-22.9 kg m -2 ) and the rest 79.4% were underweight (< 18.5 kg m -2 ) category. The research revealed that there was a statistically significant association between number of family members, family income and socio-economic status with BMI. However, no significant association was found in between age and educational qualification of the respondents with BMI value.


System reliability depends not only on the reliabilities of components in the system but also on their interactions. Generally, in a system, not only s-independent failures but also s-dependent failures among components can occur; thus there are many studies where the s-dependencies among components are taken into account in system reliability and availability analysis, but in which the failure and repair rates were assumed constant. Whereas, from a practical viewpoint, the constant failure rate assumption for components has been, and is repeatedly challenged by knowledgeable reliability practitioners. Therefore, there are other studies which handled the problem of time-varying failure rates, among which all concerned repairable systems did not involve s-dependent failures. In most cases, however, to combine s-dependent failures and time-varying failure and repair rates in system reliability and availability analysis is the most appropriate for real systems. But it is very difficult to obtain the analytic solution and, in most cases, the closed-form solution for system reliability and availability does not exist, so that numerical or simulation methods must be used. This paper studies one kind of system that endures environmental shocks, and where one or more components can fail simultaneously due to a cumulative shock-damage process. An approach for reliability and availability analysis of such kinds of repairable systems is presented, where failure and repair rates of components can be varied with time. One type of special vehicle with such mechanical systems illustrates system reliability and availability solutions.


Increasingly, organizational research is taking the linguistic turn in social sciences seriously. Consequently, the central role of communication in the constitution of the organization is also finding greater acceptance. Using conversation analysis as a research methodology and transcripts of naturally occurring talk as data, the purpose of this article is to add to this growing body of research and to explicate how orientation to epistemic rights talks the hierarchy of the organization into being. Findings indicate how the negotiation of rights to have and to display status-based knowledge of head office index the discursive identities of knowing participants, which enacts the situated identities of hierarchic superiors. Therefore, through the sequential properties of talk, status-based epistemic rights and obligations are enacted so that a management team is made relevant, which incarnates the lived hierarchy of the organization and "does" authority.


The effect of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) on the rate of glucose oxidation by cultured rat glomerular mesangial cells, human erythrocytes and peritoneal exudate cells was studied. Mesangial cells, erythrocytes and peritoneal exudate cells incubated with DMSO showed enhancement of 14CO2 production from D-[1-14C] glucose but not from D-[6-14C] glucose. The concentration of DMSO required to stimulate respiratory burst activity was lowest for erythrocytes and highest for peritoneal exudate cells. Studies utilizing tritiated deoxyglucose revealed that the increased glucose oxidation associated with DMSO exposure was not due to increased transmembrane glucose movement at low concentrations of DMSO, and only partially responsible at high concentrations of DMSO. This study documents the ability of DMSO to specifically enhance the activity of the hexose monophosphate shunt pathway in all cells studied. The precise mechanism whereby DMSO stimulates shunt activity remains unknown.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the outcomes of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based thrombolysis using recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA) in patients with acute middle cerebral artery (MCA) occlusion in 3-6 hours.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
MRI-selected patients (n=15) with acute ischemic stroke in MCA divided into two groups (<or=3 h and 3-6 h) were treated with intravenous rt-PA. MR was performed before rt-PA, at 24 hours, 7 days, and 14 days after stroke. Recanalization was assessed 24 h after thrombolysis, and clinical status was evaluated before rt-PA treatment, 6 hours, 24 hours, 7 days, and 14 days after thrombolysis by the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS). Modified rankin scale (MRS) was used to assess clinical outcome at 30 and 90 days after thrombolysis.

RESULTS
There was no significant between <or=3 h and 3-6 h group in length of hospital stay, recanalization, MRS, and favorable outcome at 90 days. Recanalization within 24 hours occurred in 9 (60%), and nonrecanalization in 6 (40%). One patient in recanalization group and three in nonrecanalization group had an asymptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) within 24 h after thrombolysis (P=0.235). Recanalization with thrombolysis was associated with a better outcome regardless of the time point of rt-PA treatment. Comparison with nonrecanalization group, recanalization was also associated with a lower NIHSS score at 14 days (P=0.003), a lower TIMI grade at 7 days (P<0.001), and a shorter length of hospital stay (P=0.018).

CONCLUSION
Our study suggested that MR-based thrombolysis using rt-PA was safe and reliable in patients with acute MCA occlusion in 3-6 hours.


Abstract In 2011, the Fathead Minnow nidovirus (FHMNV; Genus Bafinivirus, Family Coronaviridae, Order Nidovirales) was isolated from pond‐raised juvenile Muskellunge Esox masquinongy suffering from lingering mortality at the Wild Rose Hatchery in Wild Rose, Wisconsin. Moribund Muskellunge exhibited tubular necrosis in the kidneys as well as multifocal coalescing necrotizing hepatitis. The FHMNV was also isolated from apparently healthy juvenile Muskellunge at the Wolf Lake State Fish Hatchery in Mattawan, Michigan. The identity of the two syncytia‐forming viruses (designated MUS‐WR and MUS‐WL from Wild Rose Hatchery and Wolf Lake State Fish Hatchery, respectively) as strains of FHMNV was determined based on multiple‐gene sequencing and phylogenetic analyses. The pathogenicity of the MUS‐WL FHMNV strain was determined by experimentally infecting naive juvenile Muskellunge through intraperitoneal injection with two viral concentrations (63 and 6.3 × 103 TCID50/fish). Both doses resulted in 100% mortality in experimentally infected fish, which exhibited severely pale gills and petechial hemorrhaging in eyes, fins, and skin. Histopathological alterations in experimentally infected fish were observed mainly in the hematopoietic tissues in the form of focal areas of necrosis. Phylogenetic analysis of concatenated partial spike glycoprotein and helicase gene sequences revealed differences between the MUS‐WL FHMNV, MUS‐WR FHMNV, and two other FHMNV originally isolated from moribund Fathead Minnows Pimephales promelas including the index FHMNV strain (GU002364). Based on a partial helicase gene sequence, a reverse transcriptase PCR assay was developed that is specific to FHMNV. These results give evidence that the risks posed to Muskellunge by FHMNV should be taken seriously. Received May 1, 2015; accepted February 8, 2016


The Constitution of Ethiopia takes diversity seriously as a response to the country's history. On the other hand, the Constitution does not protect minority groups to the extent that it promised in its Preamble, as has been observed for many years. This necessitates a system that at best fosters the interests of minorities and thereby contributes to establishing a legitimate government. This article recommends that a consociational arrangement protects minorities by enabling them to exercise autonomy at the municipal level and be represented in the federal government, thereby allowing them to participate in the federal law-making process. Executive power sharing allows ethnic groups to participate in the federal executive and feel that they are part of the government. Finally, minority veto allows them to veto laws that affect their vital interests such as language rights.


Krista Wood, director of public relations for Colchester East Hants Health Authority in Canada's Nova Scotia, describes enthusiastically a new 124-bed health centre that opened late last year, which not only has the potential to conserve 44 per cent more energy than a 'traditional' hospital, but is also better equipped, and almost a third bigger, than the facility it replaces.


BACKGROUND
Exercise capacity is evaluated using the 6-minute walk test (6MWT) in various cardiovascular diseases. Bevacizumab (BEV) has been associated with significant risk of cardiovascular complications. The aim of this study was to investigate BEV-related influences on cardiac hemodynamic response to 6MWT.

METHODS
We prospectively studied 24 patients with intestinal carcinoma to assess the hemodynamic response during 6MWT, of whom eight underwent BEV treatment. Obtained data was analyzed to identify hemodynamic differences between BEV and non-BEV treated patients.

RESULTS
Twenty-four patients with stage IV intestinal carcinoma consented to assessment after the completion of three cycles of BEV-combined chemotherapy (age, 46.4±16.7 years) or standard chemotherapy alone (age, 56.4±13.7 years). In comparison with non-BEV treated patients, BEV-treated patients walked less (484.3±42.4 vs. 503.0±48.2, P=0.339). These two groups manifested similar hemodynamic response during the 6MWT. The change of hemodynamic parameters at 1 minute after completion of 6MWT was defined as hemodynamic parameter recovery. BEV-treated patients had significantly lower change of left cardiac work index (LCWi), cardiac index (CI), cardiac output (CO) and stroke volume (SV) after 6MWT. Interestingly, in BEV-treated patients CI change after 6MWT was predominantly related to the decrease in SV instead of heart rate (HR) as suggested by a higher standardized beta coefficient (0.883 vs. 0.657) and semi-partial correlations (0.821 vs. 0.677).

CONCLUSIONS
Estimation of hemodynamic response to 6MWT is feasible, and may provide useful information of myocardial damage in BEV-treated patients.


Abstract — By the increasing spread of information technology and Internet improvements, most of the large-scale companies are paying special attention to their reputation on many types of the information and communication technology. The increasing developments and penetration of new technologies into daily life, brings out paradigm shift on the perception of reputation and creates new concepts like e-societies, techno-culture and new media. Contemporary companies are trying to control their reputation over the new communities who are mostly interacting with social networks, web pages and electronic communication technologies. In this study, the reputation of top 30 Turkish companies, quoted to the Istanbul Stock Market, is studied, based on the information technology interfaces between company and society, such as social networks, blogs, wikis and web pages. The web reputation is gathered through 17 different parameters, collected from Google, Facebook, Twitter, Bing, Alexa, etc. The reputation index is calculated by z-index and f-scoring formulations after the min-max normalization of each web reputation parameter.


Background: Tumour excision with negative margins is the ultimate goal following soft tissue sarcoma excision, but obtaining this goal can come at a cost with high wound complication rates reported. There is however an emerging body of evidence that primary application of a negative pressure dressing can significantly decrease the risk of developing post-operative wound complications. This paper describes the study protocol for an interventional randomized controlled trial, comparing the efficacy of negative pressure dressings against standard dressings on primary closed wounds following soft tissue sarcoma excision. Questions/Purposes: Does primary application of negative pressure dressing to closed wounds post soft tissue sarcoma excision reduce wound complications when compared to standard dressings? Level of evidence: Level I, Prospective RCT


Based on galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 (SDSS DR7) and dark matter haloes in the dark matter only, cosmological and constrained ELUCID simulation, we investigate the relation between the observed radii of central galaxies with stellar mass & 10 8 h − 2 M ⊙ and the virial radii of their host dark matter haloes with virial mass & 10 10 . 5 h − 1 M ⊙ , and the dependence of galaxy-halo size relation on the halo spin and concentration. Galaxies in observation are matched to dark matter (sub-)haloes in the ELUCID simulation using a novel neighborhood subhalo abundance matching method. For galaxy 2D half-light radii R 50 , we find that early- and late-type galaxies have the same power-law index 0.55 with R 50 ∝ R 0 . 55 vir , although early-type galaxies have smaller 2D half-light radii than late-type galaxies at fixed halo virial radii. When converting the 2D half-light radii R 50 to 3D half-mass radii r 1 / 2 , both early- and late-type galaxies display similar galaxy-halo size relations with log r 1 / 2 = 0 . 55 log( R vir / 210 h − 1 kpc)+0 . 39. We find that the galaxy-halo size ratio r 1 / 2 /R vir decreases with increasing halo mass. At fixed halo mass, there is no significant dependence of galaxy-halo size ratio on the halo spin or concentration.


Poor prognoses for colorectal cancer patients with metastatic lesions have driven demand for the development of novel targeted therapies. Here, we demonstrate that expression of bone morphogenetic protein 4 (BMP-4) is universally upregulated in human colorectal cancer cells and tissues, resulting in activated BMP signaling. Inhibition of endogenous BMP signaling by the BMP type I receptor inhibitor LDN-193189 elevated expression of the phosphatase DUSP5 in colorectal cancer cells, inducing apoptosis via dephosphorylation of Erk MAPK. Administering LDN-193189 to mice diminished tumor formation of colorectal cancer cells. Our findings suggest inhibition of autocrine BMP-4 as a candidate treatment strategy for colorectal cancer. Cancer Res; 77(15); 4026-38. ©2017 AACR.


This paper presents a new method for fault diagnosis based on kernel principal component analysis (KPCA). The proposed method uses reconstruction-based contributions (RBC) to diagnose simple and complex faults in nonlinear principal component models based on KPCA. Similar to linear PCA, a combined index, based on the weighted combination of the Hotelling's T2 and SPE indices, is proposed. Control limits for these fault detection indices are proposed using second order moment approximation. The proposed fault detection and diagnosis scheme is tested with a simulated CSTR process where simple and complex faults are introduced. The simulation results show that the proposed fault detection and diagnosis methods are effective for KPCA.


The aim of this study was to analyze soybean seed physiological quality after being subjected to various mixtures of pesticides via industrial seed treatment. The experiment was performed at the seed laboratory of the company BioGrow, located at São Paulo-SP, using soybean seeds cultivar NS 6700 IPRO which were subjected to 11 different treatments. Seed treatment was carried out using a treater Momesso, model L5-K, calibrated to apply a spray volume of 0.5 L 100 kg-1 of seeds in which the volume of each treatment was adjusted using distilled water. After treatment, seeds were spread over plastic strays for drying for a period of 24 hours under environmental conditions. Once dry, seeds were packed in paper bags and stored for 0 (control), 45, 90, 135 and 180 days, under uncontrolled conditions of temperature and relative humidity, when seed physiological quality was evaluated using the following tests: germination, accelerated aging, seedling emergence, speed of emergence index and speed of emergence. Soybean industrial seed treatment before storage for up to 180 days is practicable using the mixtures of pesticides tested for storing seeds under environmental conditions. All treatments tested contribute to the maintenance of seed quality throughout storage.


Histopathological findings in 226 post‐meno‐pausal bleeding women were reviewed retrospectively. Ade‐nocarcinoma of the endometrium was diagnosed in 7% and hyperplastic endometrium in 15%. The incidence of malignancy showed a definite rise with advancing age, increasing amount and duration of bleeding, prolonged time interval between the menopause and onset of bleeding, and enlarged uterus. Adenocarcinoma of the endometrium was associated in 40% of the patients with either obesity, diabetes mellitus, or hypertension. The most frequent histopathological finding was atrophic endometrium (45%).


Through the process of developing and employing a leadership competency model, an organization defines its unique gold standard of performance. Too often organizations benchmark what others are implementing or what trade publications are advocating as the best approach to building the best leader. But the playing field of leadership development literature is overloaded with best practices, golden eggs and miracle cures. So what makes a good leader? What behaviors, attributes or skills can be sought out in the hiring process or developed in existing leaders? Is there a model that results in high leadership output that can be implemented across organizations? The purpose of this paper is to describe a process rather than a model. The process of creating a customized leadership competency model and the critical success factors innate in this process will be outlined. The paper advocates the leadership model must be very specific and unique to each organization, based on its culture and strategic direction.


Although documented rates of endometriosis in adolescent patients undergoing laparoscopy for chronic pelvic pain range from about 25% to 45%, adolescent endometriosis has received limited attention in terms of research activity and follow-up studies. In this manuscript, distinctive characteristics of adolescent and young endometriosis have been considered in order to define pathogenetic and scientific concepts that might be useful in clarifying some aspects of the adult disease as well. Some highlights relative to the cellular origin of the disease can be derived from reported cases before menarche, from the appearance of endometriotic lesions in teenagers (mostly stage I-II endometriosis), and from the relative infrequency of ovarian endometriotic cysts in this population. Adolescents and young patients might be also particularly useful for studying the natural course of the disease. To this end, clinical manifestations and recurrence patterns of the disease in adolescent patients need to be elucidated. Differences in clinical aspects of the disease between the adult and young populations are presented. Risk of recurrence and potential risk factors involved in the reappearance of the disease in teenagers are completely unknown. (Journal of Endometriosis 2010; 2: 19–25)


Tomato (Solanum lycopersicom L.) is one of the world's most widely cultivated crops. Among the inflicting disease, early blight caused by Alternaria alternata is a major yield-limiting factor in Sudan. Management of the disease has been hampered by use of ineffective fungicides. Chitosan is a natural nontoxic biopolymer derived by deacetylation of chitin. The effects of chitosan at different concentrations against the early blight pathogen A. alternata and growth promotion of tomatoes were evaluated in vitro and under field conditions. Three chitosan concentrations (1, 3 and 5mg/ml) were used in vitro. Chitosan at 3mg/ml and 5mg/ml, was found to have strong antifungal activity against A. alternata, and was selected for further studies. In addition, chitosan at the above concentrations and the commercial fungicide Ortiva ( 250g/l Azoxystrobin) were used in vivo as treatments and distilled water as control. Chitosan at 5mg/ml applied as foliar spray alone, or in combination with seed treatment or seed treatment alone, reduced disease severity by 46%, while fungicide spraying reduced severity by 46% compared to control. In general, regardless of the application method, tomato growth parameters were significantly increased by chitosan treatments compared to control. Application of chitosan at 5mg/ml as foliar spraying combined with 5mg/ml as seed treatment increased plant height and it is fresh and dry weight by 16%, 36%, 24% respectively; and when applied at 5mg/ml as foliar spraying combined with 3mg/ml as seed treatment increased plant height, fresh and dry weight by 16%, 13% , 14%, respectively. This is the first study on the use of chitosan for control of tomato early blight and promotion of growth of tomato plants in Sudan. In conclusion, chitosan shows promise for enhancement of plant growth and control of A. alternata in tomato particularly when applied at 5mg/ml.


Wild birds have been known to be carriers and reservoir hosts for many zoonotic viruses. This necessitated this study which is aimed at detecting some zoonotic viruses in the faeces of selected peridomestic wild birds within Ibadan, Southwest Nigeria. Peridomestic wild birds are defined for this study as wild birds that live close to, or are kept close to, human habitations, either for commercial purposes, entertainment purposes or as pets. In carrying this out, faeces and cloacal swabs were collected from 110 birds from the avian families Columbidae, Psattaculidae, Anatidae, Ardeidae, Ploceidae, Phansianidae and Accipitridae across different locations across the city of Ibadan for a period of 12 months and screened for Alphaviruses, Flaviviruses, Rift Valley fever virus and Avian Paramyxovirus (Newcastle Disease Virus) using genus-specific and species-specific primers in a rtPCR method. The amplicons were subjected to 3 – 5% agarose gel electrophoresis for detection of the targeted amplified sequences. None of the targeted viral sequences was detected in the samples, showing the absence of the suspected viruses among the birds screened in this city. It is recommended that further surveillances of other species and genera of birds be continually carried out in order for early detection before potential outbreaks.


Hermetic packages are required to protect sensitive electronic components from atmospheric constituents. The primary constituent of concern is water. Hermeticity requirements for large sealed assemblies are somewhat difficult to address because for normal leak rates, long bomb times are required in order to get enough helium into the package so that during leak rate measurement, a detectable concentration of helium comes out. Additionally, because many packaging houses seal in an atmosphere containing a significant partial pressure of helium, application of the current specification inadvertently requires larger packages to be more hermetic than smaller ones. Logically, small packages should have more stringent leak rate requirements than large packages, since for an equivalent leak rate the time to reach a given concentration of moisture in a larger package is longer. The trend in hermetically sealed assemblies has been to larger sizes. Examples include multi-chip modules (MCMs) and chip-on-board assemblies. This paper illustrates the inconsistencies which can occur when performing leak measurements on large packages. Also, the effect of gettering by moisture absorbing substances is evaluated both analytically and by examining residual gas analysis test results. It is found that moisture gettering by epoxies delays considerably the time for moisture build-up.


Combined structural, geochemical and isotopic studies have allowed an understanding of the timing and nature of an orogen-scale fault array. The results indicate that the deformation loci within the internal western Alps, during the Alpine collision, occurred as a foreland propagating thrust sequence. The east to west deformation migration within the internal zones is apparently in-sequence in relation to the external zones. Rb–Sr white mica dating of syn-kinematic greenschist-facies mineral assemblages from the Basal Briançonnais Thrust indicate that thrusting ceased between 27 and 32 Ma, several million years after shearing in the hinterland and several million years prior to shearing in the foreland. The Briançonnais Domain, which constitutes the hanging wall to the Basal Briançonnais Thrust, preserves two major shearing episodes. The first, with a top-to-the-northwest overshear, has been tentatively dated at 45 Ma. The second, a very pervasive, east–west orientated, greenschist-facies event was previously dated at 34 Ma on the hinterland margin of the Briançonnais Domain and has now been dated at 27–32 Ma on the foreland margin of the Briançonnais Domain. The period between 34 and 27 Ma apparently dates the migration of deformation through the relict European passive margin, represented by the Briançonnais Domain. This is believed to be in response to overthrusting of Adria/Africa and its associated subduction complex. Structural mapping indicates that the present Basal Briançonnais Thrust in the Col du Petit St Bernard region, Franco-Italian Alps, is a break-back thrust which cuts through an already imbricated pile. Geochronological evidence suggests that the early imbrication of the Briançonnais stratigraphy occurred prior to full interaction of the European and Adria/African plates, that is, during subduction, docking and escape from the subduction complex under Adria. Therefore, although the present Basal Briançonnais Thrust is a break-back thrust in terms of local structural geometries, it is an in-sequence foreland-propagating structure. Geochronological, micro-structural and micro-chemical data indicate that the Briançonnais Domain in the Col du Petit St Bernard zone is formed from granitoid material which intruded and cooled at approximately 320 Ma. During the Alpine event, deformation and metamorphism were insufficient to affect the Sr isotopic system. This suggests that this portion of the Briançonnais Domain was probably subducted to much shallower depths and underwent much less pervasive deformation than the other internal European basement material.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the efficacy of seminars on the international criteria for medical certification of the causes of death.

DESIGN
A pre-test/post-test evaluation, with no reference group.

SETTING
A primary care health district in Andalusia, Spain.

PARTICIPANTS
The 44 doctors in this district.

INTERVENTION
Training seminars and evaluation of the filling-in of the Statistical Decease Forms (SDF) during the six months after the seminar.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS
Four quality indicators were used to assess doctors' filling-in of the SDFs, which contain the international criteria for certification of the causes of death, six months before and six months after the holding of the seminars. The results were then compared. In 11.4% the legibility of the hand-writing improved; and in 16.5% there was less confusion between the mechanism of death and the cause. The clinical sequence of causes reported and the indicator of more than one diagnosis per line did not vary significantly.

CONCLUSIONS
Although the seminars on international norms of certification are necessary in order to improve the standard of mortality statistics, a change in the ways of certifying causes of death requires ongoing commitment to the training of certifying doctors.


The phosphoinositide 3‐kinase (PI3K) pathway is among the most commonly activated pathways in human cancer. The biological role of PI3K in growth and survival of cancer cells and the prevalence of activating mutations in human cancers are well documented and a significant proportion of tumors would be predicted to benefit from inhibition of this pathway. Here we report on the characterization of the pan‐PI3K pyridylsulfonamide inhibitor GSK2126458: a very potent (PI3K app K i = 19 pM), reversible, ATP‐competitive inhibitor of wild‐type PI3K and the 'hotspot' activating mutants of p110 found in human cancer. GSK2126458 demonstrated good selectivity for the PI3K family of enzymes including the mTORC1 and mTORC2 complexes, when evaluated in a large panel of protein kinases. Consistent with potent PI3K enzyme inhibition, GSK2126458 decreased the cellular levels of phosphorylated AKT, p70 S6K , PRAS40 and ERK in a concentration and time dependent manner, the IC50 for pAKT in the HCC1954 breast carcinoma cell line was 2 nM. GSK2126458 induced the nuclear translocation of the FOXO3a transcription factor in a concentration dependent manner that mechanistically appeared bimodal. Growth inhibition was time and concentration dependent with a 3 day exposure resulting in a growth IC 50 (gIC 50 ) of 9 nM in HCC1954 cells with evidence of cell death. Cell death correlated with induction of caspase 3 and 7 activity suggesting apoptosis was the mechanism of cell death. GSK2126458 had a breadth of activity for potent cell growth inhibition and induction of cell death in a variety of human cancer cells. GSK2126458 demonstrated robust, dose dependent in vivo pharmacodynamic activity as measured by inhibition of phospho‐AKT in advanced BT474 breast cancer cell xenograft tumors. Inhibition of AKT phosphorylation was rapid and lasted for several hours after a single oral administration of GSK2126458. Transient increases in plasma insulin and blood glucose were observed. Evaluation of in vivo tumor growth effects of GSK2126458 in xenograft models demonstrated dose dependent tumor growth delay in several models of diverse tumor lineage and tumor regression in a breast cancer xenograft. The biological profile of GSK2126458 supports the clinical advancement of this compound and GSK2126458 has entered Phase I human clinical trials. Citation Information: Mol Cancer Ther 2009;8(12 Suppl):C63.


The Gibbs phenomenon in the Fourier transform is due to a periodicity discrepancy between the waveform and its sinusoidal representations in the time domain. Data flipping, baseline tilting, or digital comparison completes the periodicity of the waveform and thus removes the Gibbs phenomenon. This facilitates digital filtering directly through the fast Fourier transform. Such a filtering is unique and exact, with its stop-band totally zeroed out and passband fully passed. It accomplishes lowpass, bandpass, highpass, bandstop, notch, or single-frequency-pass simply by manipulating the band limits.


Proc Amer Assoc Cancer Res, Volume 45, 2004

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The camptothecin derivative CPT-11 (Irinotecan/Camptosar) has shown clinical efficacy against a wide range of refractory neoplasms including carcinomas and hematologic malignancies. CPT-11 is a prodrug that is converted in vivo to the potent topoisomerase inhibitor SN38 by a variety of endogenous esterases. Despite its impressive efficacy, interpatient variability of prodrug activation and unpredictable toxicity are barriers to the effective use of this promising drug. Although CPT-11 is a logical candidate for antibody directed enzyme prodrug therapy (ADEPT), studies using cloned tissue carboxylesterases have underscored the need for an enzyme with higher specific activity for CPT-11 activation. Butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) is a human serum esterase that converts CPT-11 to SN38 with low efficiency. Using a system of directed evolution technologies in mammalian cells, we have optimized BChE for the activation of CPT-11. Libraries of BChE variants based on amino acids lining the active site gorge of the enzyme were expressed and screened for cytotoxicity mediated by enzyme-activated prodrug against SW48 colon carcinoma cells. Combinatorial screening of selected mutations led to the identification of variants exhibiting >3000-fold improvement in their ability to activate CPT-11 and a 5-fold improvement in Km for CPT-11 when compared with the wild-type enzyme. The optimized enzyme was used to used to construct an anti-CD20 antibody-BChE fusion protein which maintained potent binding specificity and enzymatic activity. Antigen-specific targeted killing of B-cell lines by bound fusion protein was demonstrated in vitro at pharmacologically relevant con\. centrations of CPT-11 (0.1-10uM). These studies support the further evaluation of antibody-BChE fusion proteins in animal tumor models for the targeted activation of CPT-11 in vivo .


In the late 1990s, companies often bought huge quantities of IT for reasons that had nothing to do with their business models or long-term strategies. There was a ?follow the pack? approach to IT investment that continues, to a lesser degree, today. For managers seeking to break away from fear-driven IT investment, the author suggests that they consider the operations of Inditex Group, a clothing manufacturer and retailer based in northwestern Spain and best known for its Zara stores. Although few would think first of this industry or region in a search for IT leaders, Inditex?s experience demonstrates that it is possible to select, adopt and leverage IT masterfully while spending very little on it.

Inditex has higher operating profit and much better recent stock-price performance than any of its competitors, and the author believes that there is a direct connection between its financial performance and its IT excellence. For managers weary of me-too IT investment, he lays out the five general principles that underlie Inditex?s approach to technology spending.


Background Schizophrenia is highly disabling. Though efforts at genetic mapping to identify those at risk of the illness have been promising but same cannot be said about predicting its associated disability before illness-onset (i.e., during premorbid phase). It is envisaged that Schizophrenia-related disability may be ameliorated if premorbid clinical markers are adequately predictive enough to identify those at risk and worked upon them. Aim This study aimed to determine whether there is a relationship between schizophrenia-related disability and premorbid adjustment. Setting This cross-sectional study was conducted at the out-patient clinic of the Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Aro, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria. Methods Three hundred patients with the diagnosis of schizophrenia and within the age range of 18–64 years were eligible for the study. Results Mean age of the participants was 41.9 ± 10.05 years with a slight female dominance (50.7%). Spearman's correlation revealed a direct correlation between disability and premorbid adjustment, albeit rather weak (rs = 0.130, p = 0.025). Conclusion Pre-diagnostic factors such as premorbid functioning may play a role in the subsequent functioning of an individual post-diagnosis. Other research efforts may focus on yet-to-be identified premorbid factors that may be targets of prevention to reduce disability in schizophrenia. Contribution This research serves as a pioneer work on disability and premorbid adjustment and has provided a template for the early identification of those at risk of schizophrenia by providing an intervention opportunity at the premorbid stage.


Mastering how to construct academic essays in specific genres is an indispensable part of EFL students' learning process (Tribble, 1996). However, in Vietnamese teaching and learning context, students have a hard time transferring their theoretical knowledge of academic writing into complete essays (Nguyen, 2009). This reality implies an urgent need for thorough instruction on genres in EFL writing classrooms (Trinh and Nguyen, 2014). To help students bridging the gap between knowing and creating, a focal EFL teacher in this study applied systemic functional genre-based pedagogy (Halliday, 1978) in teaching academic writing for undergraduate students who will then take English-as-a-medium-of-instruction (EMI) courses. This pedagogy is enacted through teaching and learning cycle (Martin, 2009). Data for this study includes students' interviews, students' essays and the teacher's field notes in the classroom. This paper presents partial results of a qualitative study which explored the focal teacher's and students' perception towards genre-based pedagogy in teaching academic writing. Textual analysis of students' essays and thematic analysis of interviews revealed that (1) the teacher realized and appreciated the benefits of genre-based pedagogy in improving students' writing ability; (2) students became more aware of genres and their accompanied linguistic features when writing essays; and (3) students are prompt to be more confident and effective in constructing academic essays. Findings from this study help re-conceptualize teaching and learning writing in EFL classrooms. Further research could be better by allocating more time to walk through the whole essays with students and examining the effects of students' motivations.


'I believe that we will increasingly understand good and evil, right and wrong, in scientific terms, because moral concerns translate into facts about how our thoughts and behaviors affect the well-being of conscious creatures like ourselves. If there are facts to be known about the well being of such creatures – and there are – then there must be right and wrong answers to moral questions. Students of philosophy will notice that this commits me to some form of moral realism (viz. moral claims can really be true or false) and some form of consequentialism (viz. the rightness of an act depends on how it impacts the well-being of conscious creatures).'


Quantum fluctuations in curved space-time cause the emission of particles. In order to understand how they may be detected in a laboratory experiment, we consider a moving refractive index perturbation in an optical medium, which exhibits optical event horizons. Based on the field theory in curved space-time we formulate an analytical method to calculate the scattering matrix that completely describes mode coupling leading to the emission of photon pairs in various configurations. We then quantify the spectrally resolved photon number correlations. Moreover, we apply our method in a case study, in which we consider a moving refractive index step in bulk fused silica. We calculate key observables in the moving frame as well as in the laboratory frame, such as the emission spectrum and the spectrally resolved quantum correlations of the photon number. We observe significant spectral correlations between modes of opposite norm, evidence of their vacuum origin. We find that emission from horizons is characterised by an increased photon flux, a signature spectral shape as well as a correlation with the partner photon mode approaching unity. These methods and findings pave the way to the observation of particles from the event horizon in dispersive systems.


The allocation of sugars from photosynthetic leaves to storage tissues in seeds, fruits, and tubers is an important determinant of crop yields. Genetically guided selection and transgenic modification of plant membrane transporters can help enhance crop yields and increase pathogen resistance. Yet, quantitative, systems-level models to support this effort are lacking. Recently, biosensors gained popularity for collecting spatiotemporally resolved information on cell physiology and validating computational models. Here, we report the design and use of genetically-encoded biosensors to measure the activity of SWEETs, the only family of sugar transporters known to facilitate the cellular release of sugar in plants. We created SweetTrac sensors by inserting circularly-permutated GFP into SWEET transporters, resulting in chimeras that translate substrate-triggered conformational rearrangements during the transport cycle into detectable changes in fluorescence intensity. We demonstrate that a combination of cell sorting and bioinformatics can be applied as a general approach to accelerate the design of biosensors for in vivo biochemistry. Finally, mass action kinetics analysis of the biosensors' response suggests that SWEETs are low-affinity, near-symmetric transporters that can rapidly equilibrate intra- and extracellular concentrations of sugars. Significance Statement Transporters are the gatekeepers of the cell. Transporters facilitate the exchange of ions and metabolites between cellular and subcellular compartments, thus controlling processes from bacterial chemotaxis to the release of neurotransmitters. In plants, transporters play critical roles in the allocation of carbon to different organs. Biosensors derived from transporters have been generated to monitor the activity of these proteins within the complex environment of the cell. However, a quantitative framework that reconciles molecular and cellular-level events to help interpret the response of biosensors is still lacking. Here, we created novel sugar transport biosensors and formulated a mathematical model to explain their response. These types of models can help realize multiscale, dynamic simulations of metabolite allocation to guide crop improvement.


Circadian timing is a fundamental biological process, underlying cellular physiology in animals, plants, fungi, and cyanobacteria. Circadian clocks organize gene expression, metabolism, and behavior such that they occur at specific times of day. The biological clocks that orchestrate these daily changes confer a survival advantage and dominate daily behavior, for example, waking us in the morning and helping us to sleep at night. The molecular mechanism of circadian clocks has been sketched out in genetic model systems from prokaryotes to humans, revealing a combination of transcriptional and posttranscriptional pathways, but the clock mechanism is far from solved. Although Saccharomyces cerevisiae is among the most powerful genetic experimental systems and, as such, could greatly contribute to our understanding of cellular timing, it still remains absent from the repertoire of circadian model organisms. Here, we use continuous cultures of yeast, establishing conditions that reveal characteristic clock properties similar to those described in other species. Our results show that metabolism in yeast shows systematic circadian entrainment, responding to cycle length and zeitgeber (stimulus) strength, and a (heavily damped) free running rhythm. Furthermore, the clock is obvious in a standard, haploid, auxotrophic strain, opening the door for rapid progress into cellular clock mechanisms.


The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not children diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD) can be distinguished from one another on the basis of both objective and subjective assessment of attention and behavior. First, children and adolescents diagnosed with ADHD, CAPD, and concomitant ADHD/CAPD were compared to participants with emotional problems on measures of attention/concentration, depression, anxiety, and parental reports of internalzing and externalizing behaviors. Overall, statistical analyses did not reveal significant differences between performances of children diagnosed with ADHD and those diagnosed with CAPD. However, clinical comparisons across groups of children diagnosed with ADHD, CAPD, comorbid ADHD/CAPD and Affective Disorders revealed condition-specific clinical profiles, thus providing some support for CAPD as a distinct clinical entity. Second, exploratory cluster analysis was performed to further investigate the relationship between ADHD and CAPD. This procedure lead to the identification of four distinct clusters. However, analyses of these clusters revealed no distinct pattern of performance for children diagnosed with either ADHD or CAPD. Rather, participants with these diagnoses were evenly distributed throughout the clusters. Additionally, no cluster clearly represented the expected clinical profile for a diagnosis of CAPD- namely, significant auditory attentional/processing problems in the absence of other attentional difficulties. Implications for the assessment and treatment of childhood attentional disorders are discussed and recommendations for future research provided.


Carnitine is a body-owned Betaine which is wide-spread in living nature in the form of a physiologic metabolit. On account of its central metabolic function, Carnitine has various effects in the intermediary metabolism. Toxicity of Carnitine is very low. DL-Carnitine hydrochloride (30 mg/kg body weight) was injected into 25 gravid Wistar rats and 24 gravid rabbits, 4 days before the Cesarean section. Compared to the group of controls, the group treated with Bromhexine metabolit VIII, as well as to the group treated with Betamethason, significantly higher values with regard to the content of total phospholipids, lecithine and palmitic acid could be found in the fetal rat lungs. Effects of Carnitine on the phospholipid metabolism are discussed.


The metaphorical phrases Daughter Zion and Daughter Jerusalem are to be understood as appositional genitives referring to the city of Jerusalem in spite of a recent proposal to the contrary. They are part of a larger literary and cultural deposit of personifying the city and should be interpreted in that light. The kinship connotations of the city as "daughter" are then explored and located in the larger root metaphor of YHWH's household, along with certain of the city's other roles (e.g. spouse, widow and mother).


Purpose of review The purpose of this review is to review recent literature related to mechanisms and treatment options for 'secondary' (i.e., WHO Groups 3 and 5) pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Recent findings Published randomized controlled trials, in general, do not support the use of approved therapies for 'primary' (i.e., WHO Group 1) PAH patients in patients with Group 3 PAH because of the small numbers of patients and inconsistent benefit. Therefore, we currently recommend against the use of these medications for Group 3 PAH. Similarly, there is limited evidence supporting the use of Group 1 PAH medications in Group 5 patients. In most patients with Group 5 PAH, treatment should be directed to the underlying disease. Summary The utility of PAH-specific therapy in WHO Group 3 PAH is unclear because of the small numbers of patients evaluated and inconsistent beneficial effects observed. There is limited evidence supporting the use of PAH medications in Group 5 patients, and they may be harmful in some cases.


We use measurements of sub-band gap primary photocurrent spectra on p-i-n devices to characterize defects between 1.0 and 1.4 eV above the valence band. The effect of light soaking is to increase the absorption due to lightinduced defects centered between 1.2 and 1.3 ev, consistent with the results from PDS.Degradation in FF is correlated with the increase in light-induced defects measured on the same solar cells. Although increasing i-layer deposition temperature reduces FF, we suggest that this is due to p/i interface degradation because bulk i-layer defects decrease with deposition temperature. The measurement is applicable to any a-Si:H or a-SiGe:H p-i-n solar cell and provides information about fundamental ilayer properties (defect density and Urbach energy) which can be related to the device performance.


A new device, the pneumatic escalator, for conveying solids pneumatically was examined from the viewpoint of solids mixing or residence time distribution of particles within a continuous gas-solid contacting apparatus. According to experimental results by tracer technique, the residence time of particles passing through the device could be adjusted by operational variables like solids feed rate, air velocity and inclination angle of the device in addition to material properties of particles and dimensions of the device. Among them, air velocity was found to be effective in controlling the shape of the distribution curve and the mean residence time of particles. The distribution function of residence time was mathematically expressed by applying a complete-mixing model to solids within a cell of the device and a binomial distribution model to solids bypassing flow through the cells. Thus, an appropriate distribution curve of residence time required in each case of gas-solid contact operation can be simulated by changing the operational conditions as well as the dimensions of the pneu-escalator.


Background Evidence suggests an association between periodontitis/tooth loss and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Periodontitis, a common chronic inflammatory process of the tooth supporting tissues, is a major cause of tooth loss; thus, the number of teeth is considered a surrogate marker for periodontitis. Whether periodontitis/tooth loss is associated with joint involvement in healthy individuals at increased risk of developing RA, is unknown. Objectives To estimate the prevalence of tooth loss, as a proxy for periodontitis, and to evaluate its association with joint involvement in a cohort of FDRs of patients with RA. Methods The study sample is based on an ongoing, prospective cohort study of healthy FDRs of patients with active RA, who had no established rheumatologic condition themselves at inclusion. Study participants are followed annually to assess the development of signs and symptoms of arthritis. Data collection included smoking status, number of present teeth, weight, height, morning stiffness (MS) lasting more than one hour (during at least 6 weeks), tender and swollen joint counts (TJC28/SJC28) on examination, and blood tests including antibodies (positive RF and/or ACPA) and shared epitope.The primary outcome was SJC28 on examination, dichotomized at presence of at least one swollen joint with no joint swelling as the reference group. The exposure was the number of present teeth at baseline, which was categorized as ≤20, 21-27, 28-31, and 32 teeth. Multivariate regression models were fit to test the association between tooth loss and swollen joints, adjusting for potential confounders such as age, sex, shared epitope, body mass index (BMI) and smoking status. A secondary analysis model with MS as the endpoint was also fit. Results The cohort included 366 FDRs (73% female, 93% Caucasian), with a mean age of 41 (SD±14) years. 15% were RF and/or ACPA positive. The mean number of teeth reported at baseline was 28 (SD±4). The categories based on number of teeth present at baseline were 6% (≤20 teeth), 20% (21-27), 46% (28-31), and 28% (32 teeth). FDRs with at least one swollen joint on examination had less teeth compared with those with no swollen joints (mean number of teeth 29 vs. 26, respectively; p=0.004). Compared to FDRs with no tooth loss, those in the lowest category of present teeth (<20 teeth) were more likely to have at least one swollen joint on examination (OR 8.1; 95% CI 1.1, 60) and morning stiffness (OR 5.3; 95% CI 1.1, 26), independent of potential confounders. Conclusions The results from this large cohort of FDRs of patients with RA demonstrate that individuals who have lost teeth are significantly more likely to have at least one swollen joint. While ascertainment of periodontal status is needed to confirm the role of periodontitis in this association, these results suggest that tooth loss is an independent predictor of joint swelling in individuals at increased risk of RA. Longitudinal studies are needed to establish the causal involvement of periodontitis on RA development. Disclosure of Interest None Declared


The distribution of channel deposits in fluvial reservoirs is commonly modeled with object-based techniques, constrained on quantities describing the geometries of channel bodies. To ensure plausible simulations, it is common to define inputs to these models by referring to geologic analogs. Given their ability to reproduce complex geometries and to draw upon the analog experience, object-based models are considered inherently realistic. Yet this perceived realism has not hitherto been tested by assessing the outputs of these techniques against sedimentary architectures in the stratigraphic record. This work presents a synthesis of data on the geometry of channel bodies, derived from a sedimentologic database, with the following aims: (1) to provide tools for constraining stochastic models of fluvial reservoirs in data-poor situations, and (2) to test the intrinsic realism of object-based modeling algorithms by comparing characteristics of the modeled architectures against analogs. An empirical characterization of the geometry of fluvial channel bodies is undertaken that describes distributions in (and relationships among) channel-body thickness, cross-stream width, and planform wavelength and amplitude. Object-based models are then built running simulations conditioned on six alternative, analog-informed parameter sets, using four algorithms according to nine different approaches. Closeness of match between analogs and models is then determined on a statistical basis. Results indicate which modeling approaches return architectures that more closely resemble the organization of fluvial depositional systems known from nature and in what respect. None of the tested algorithms fully reproduce characteristics seen in natural systems, demonstrating the need for subsurface modeling methods to better incorporate geologic knowledge.


The objective of the present study was to design and evaluate once daily sustained release tablet of carvedilol, using two molecular weight grades of hydrophilic polymers (methocel® K4M CR and methocel ® K15M CR) as release retarding materials. Two sets of formulations were prepared, where first set of four formulations (F1- F4) contained variable ratios of methocel ® K4M CR and methocel ® K15M CR (15% : 15%, 15% : 13%, 15% : 11% and 15% : 9%) to optimize the composition of polymers in the tablet matrices such that the drug and polymer interaction was sufficient for sustaining release up to 24 hours and second set of five formulations (F5-F9) contained variable percentages of sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) (1.0, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75 and 2.0%) to enhance the dissolution rate of the drug from the tablet matrices because of its poor aqueous solubility. The tablets were prepared by direct compression method and evaluated for hardness, thickness, friability, weight variation and in vitro drug release. The in vitro dissolution studies were carried out in simulated gastric fluid (900 ml, pH 1.2) for 24 hours using USP type II apparatus operated at 100 rpm and 37 ± 0.05°C. The release profiles were explored and explained by zero order, first order, Higuchi, Korsmeyer-Peppas and Hixson-Crowell models. From this study, the drug release profiles for formulations F6 to F9 were found to be satisfactory and the release mechanism followed both diffusion and erosion. Due to lower percentage of SLS used, F6 was considered as the best formulation. Dhaka Univ. J. Pharm. Sci. 16(1): 43-53, 2017 (June)


In recent years, the relationship between human papillomaviruses (HPV) and genital neoplasia has been explored intensively, and a molecular basis for the role of HPV in the genesis of these diseases has been convincingly demonstrated. These findings have provided justification for efforts to apply this molecular information to the early detection and possible prevention of HPV-related neoplasia. The technology of detecting viral nucleic acids in genital fluids brought with it initial hopes that it would serve to identify women at risk for having or developing precancers or cancers of the cervix. Subsequent studies, however, have demonstrated limitations of the technology for predicting future disease. Recently, molecular immunology has complemented these prior efforts, with the intent to identify serological indices of exposure to HPV and perhaps delineate individuals at risk. The molecular basis for this approach, its limitations, and future prospects for immunodiagnosis are the subject of this review.


We develop a formalism for the Schrodinger equation in an eight dimensional complex Minkowski space and discuss its relation to the Dirac equation, properties of nonlocality, remote connectedness, Young's double slit experiment, Bell's Theorem, the EPR paradox and anticipatory parameters of spacetime; and also identify an imaginary temporal component as a small nonlinear term and find soliton or solitary wave solutions. These coherent solutions can carry information over long distances, are consistent with Lorentz invariance and appear to provide a fundamental methodology for describing the issue of quantum measurement and a new context for the basis of quantum theory. In the Copenhagen view models of reality are not desirable. However our new approach may enable the redefinition of concepts of reality from a new nonlocal anticipatory quantum theory. Certainly the most desirable consequence of scientific discovery is the ability to redefine our concepts of reality.


We present a robust and accurate 3D registration method for a dense sequence of depth images taken from unknown viewpoints. Our method simultaneously estimates multiple extrinsic parameters of the depth images to obtain a registered full 3D model of the scanned scene. By arranging the depth measurements in a matrix form, we formulate the problem as a simultaneous estimation of multiple extrinsics and a low-rank matrix, which corresponds to the aligned depth images as well as a sparse error matrix. Unlike previous approaches that use sequential or heuristic global registration approaches, our solution method uses an advanced convex optimization technique for obtaining a robust solution via rank minimization. To achieve accurate computation, we develop a depth projection method that has minimum sensitivity to sampling by reading projected depth values in the input depth images. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method through extensive experiments and compare it with previous standard techniques.


Iron cations are essential for the high activity of nickel and cobalt-based (oxy)hydroxides for the oxygen evolution reaction, but the role of iron in the catalytic mechanism remains under active investigation. Operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations are used to demonstrate partial Fe oxidation and a shortening of the Fe-O bond length during oxygen evolution on Co(Fe)Ox Hy . Cobalt oxidation during oxygen evolution is only observed in the absence of iron. These results demonstrate a different mechanism for water oxidation in the presence and absence of iron and support the hypothesis that oxidized iron species are involved in water-oxidation catalysis on Co(Fe)Ox Hy .


Autologous stem cell transplantation as consolidation therapy for de novo AL is able to improve long-term survival especially after second complete remission (CR). In this study, we retrospectively analyzed the karyotyping results performed in 79 out of 101 harvested autologous PBSC from 38 de novo AML patients and 8 de novo ALL in CR. We secondly, analyzed their impact on overall survival (OS) and event-free survival (EFS) post-transplant. All patients had abnormal medullar karyotype at diagnosis. We determined two groups of patients: (1) group 1 with chromosomal abnormalities in harvested PBSC included 10 AML [4 males and 6 females, median age: 53 years (45–66.5)] with at diagnosis 3 favorable, 4 intermediate and 3 unfavorable-risk karyotype ; 2 M0, 3 M2, 1 M3, 2 M4, 2 M5 according to Fab classification ; and 9 autotransplanted patients in CR1 and 1 in CR2 and (2) group 2 without any chromosomal abnormalities in harvested PBSC including 27 AML+ 9 ALL [22 males and 14 females, median age : 44 years (19–70)] ; 1 M0, 1 M1, 4 M2, 5 M3, 11 M4, 5 M5 with at diagnosis 18 favorable prognosis, 1 intermediate and 8 unfavorable-risk karyotype ; among ALL patients, 7 B ALL and 2 T ALL and at transplant, 29 autotransplant in CR1, 6 in CR2 and 1 in CR3]. Cytapheresis products collected contained a median number of 7.7x 10 8 /Kg (5.2–17.3) and 6.79x10 8 /Kg (1.26–16.4) mononuclear cells and 19x10 6 /Kg (3–43) and 20.5x10 6 /Kg (1–4O) CD34+ cells in group 1 and in group 2 respectively. All PBSC harvested were reinfused. Conditionning regimen was quite similar in the two groups and most of the patients of group 1 (60%) and group 2 (70%) received cyclophosphamide and TBI. The hematopoietic reconstitution was similar in the 2 groups [neutrophiles > 0.5 G/l: 26 days in group1 versus 19 days in group 2 (p=0,86)]. At 3 years after transplant, there was a trend for a better OS (54.7% CI 95% 40–74.8) (p=0.06) and EFS (52.5% 95%CI 39.6–74) (p=0.05) in patients who received PBSC without any chromosomal abnormalities compared to patients receiving PBSC with abnormal karyotype (OS : 30% 95% CI 11.6–77.3 ; EFS : 30% 95% CI 11.6–77.3). In conclusion, results observed from autologous harvested PBSC karyotyping are promising but a larger number of patients and a longer follow-up could enable to reach a more important significance.


Background: South Africa has 7.06 million people who are HIV-positive, with those having a low CD4 count being susceptible to cryptococcal meningitis (CCM), which has an estimated mortality of 30–50%. This study aimed to establish the outcome of patients admitted with CCM to a regional hospital in Durban between June 2015 and May 2016, and the extent to which the National Department of Health (NDoH) protocol was adhered to in managing their condition. Method: This retrospective observational descriptive study reviewed the records of patients ≥ 12 years old admitted with CCM between June 2015 and May 2016, from which their demographic and medical data were extracted. Results: Seventy-six complete records were found of which 49 were men and 27 were women. The average CD4 count was 55.9 cells/mm3, 85.5% were treated with intravenous amphotericin B and high-dose oral fluconazole, 6.7% received only amphotericin B and 5.2% received only fluconazole. There was an in-hospital mortality of 31.6%, and the NDoH protocol was adhered to in 72.4% (55/76) of patients. There was, however, no significant difference in outcome between those who were and were not managed as per the protocol (p = 0.177). Discussion and conclusion: In-hospital mortality for CCM continues to be significant despite high rates of adherence to the NDoH protocol in the majority of patients. For this to be addressed, early diagnosis of HIV and initiation of ART to prevent the profound immunosuppression is essential.


In the frame work of TREDER's gravitational theory we consider two classes of field equations which are derivable from two classes of LAGRANGEian densities Ω(1)(ω1, ω2), Ω(2)(s1, s2). ω1, ω2; s1, s2 are parameters. Ω(2)(ω1, ω2) gives us field equations which are up to the post-NEWTONian approximation in the sense of NORDTVEDT, THORNE and WILL equivalent to the field equations given by BRANS and DICKE. For ω2 = −1 −2ω1 field equations follow from Ω(1)(ω1, −1 −2ω1) which are in the above mentioned sense of post-NEWTONian approximation equivalent to EINSTEIN's equations. The field equations following from Ω(1)(ω1, ω2) have a cosmological model with the well known cosmological singularities for T ± ∞ in case that ω1/(1 +3ω1 +ω2) γ > 0. For ω1/(1 +3ω1 +ω2) ≤ 0 cosmological models with no cosmological singularities exist.

From Ω(2)(s1, s2) we obtain field equations which at the best give us perihelion rotation 7% above EINSTEIN's value and light deflection 7% below the corresponding EINSTEIN's value. But in that case we are able to show the existence of a cosmological model without any cosmological singularity.


THE Nyanga are a tribe of only 27,000 people but their oral art is extraordinarily rich, on the evidence of this remarkable book. They live in a region of forest-covered mountains in the north-east Congo (Kinshasa), and relative isolation from the more subtly deleterious of Western influences probably accounts for the continued viability of their traditional culture, which is itself a tapestry woven from many different strands: some deriving from the Ugandan origin of this Bantu-speaking people, seemingly in Bunyoro or Toro, and others from their contact with Pygmy and Pygmy-influenced groups in their present home. Their experience has generated a complex cosmology, involving a fourfold division of the universe into sky (butt?), atmosphere (mwanyd), earth {oto), and underworld (kwiningd). These four divisions are ruled by various named divinities, some good and some evil, known generically, together with the relatively insignificant ancestral spirits, as bashumbii. This pantheon articulates directly with the social system through the institution of ' spirit marriage ' by which many Nyanga women are ' married ' to divinities, their children by human lovers belonging to their mothers' agnatic descent groups. (Inheritance and succession are normally patrilineal.) Politically the Nyanga are grouped in a cluster of autonomous petty states, each ruled by a ' sacred chief' (mwami), assisted by nobles (bartisj), counsellors (baiungti), and ritual office-holders (bandirabitambo), all based on a ' capital' village. The Nyanga ecology combines cultivation in cleared areas in the forest with hunting, trapping, and fishing.


Most computed tomographic (CT) scans of the chest show the inferior pulmonary ligament and an associated septum in the lower lobe, although CT descriptions of these structures have not been reported. Conventional radiography of the ligament has relied on indirect signs: the position of the lower lobe in the presence of pneumothorax or pleural effusion, soft-tissue peaks along the upper surface of the diaphragm, and the rare traumatic paramediastinal pneumatocele (attributed to air in the ligament). CT clarifies the anatomic relations of the ligament and alterations caused by pleural effusion and pneumothorax. The ligament is probably responsible for some long linear shadows at the lung bases, and CT helps to distinguish these from scars, walls of bullae, and normal structures such as the phrenic nerve and the interlobar fissures.


This paper addresses conceptual and analytical, discursive strategies based on intertextuality and interdiscursivity (parody, satire, irony, and others) which allows further unravel the effect. That sense reflected in significant materials-located, on one level, as "texts " (Veron) - is crossed by the conditions of production, circulation, reproduction and recognition. Through the analysis shows how certain digital Argentina"s publications down reading a contract through the construction of images of author and reader, how to absorb and transform socio-historical situations and how, at the same time, re (produce) assessments would be part of the social imaginary. Communication, being a culturally configured process, sets in motion a complex exchange relationships, differentiations and combinations of what is said and unsaid. The methodological approach is eclectic adapting methods used in discourse analysis, semiotics, sociology of literature and literary theory.


Background Pre-hospital research around the experience of transgender and non-binary (TNB) patients is scarce, with existing articles lacking input from TNB patients. This research aimed to collate TNB patients' experiences of interacting with the ambulance service. A secondary aim was to gather TNB patients' opinions regarding the education of ambulance clinicians on TNB health issues. Method An online-based, mixed-methods survey was created. A range of free text, multiple choice and Likert-scaled questions were used. Advertisement on social media was tailored to target TNB individuals who have had patient contact with the ambulance service. All respondents were anonymous and voluntary. This survey was conducted by TNB individuals in a personal capacity, without funding. Results 72% of the 25 respondents rated their experience as satisfactory or above. 40% reported that identifying as TNB affected the way they were treated and 40% reported that they were asked about their gender by the ambulance crew. In free text answers, the main themes identified were the misidentification of gender, the use of incorrect pronouns, hospital handovers, intrusive/irrelevant questioning and the need for training. Conclusions The responses suggest that TNB patients feel that being asked about their gender is important however ambulance staff sometimes struggled to address this sensitively. Positive experiences included having gender and pronouns addressed in hospital handover which can form a recommendation for best practice. Negative experiences were associated with being misgendered, using incorrect pronouns and intrusive/irrelevant questioning. Survey responses led to practical recommendations for ambulance staff interacting with TNB patients, including the authors creating a training session which has received positive feedback from clinicians. Limitations include small sample size, potential for response bias due to survey being self-selecting and missing demographic data. Recommendations for further research are to provide a more in-depth exploration of TNB experience and of ambulance staff views.


This chapter investigates the relative significance of two sets of variables – institutional variables and firm-specific variables – vis-a-vis their influence on the expected performance of American firms who announce their participation in international joint ventures. Using Dunning's OLI paradigm as its theoretical anchor, this chapter discusses the performance role of institutional as well as firm-specific factors and puts forward two propositions. Recognizing the tremendous diversity in the institutional architecture across emerging markets, this chapter tests its propositions across five distinct emerging market groups: (1) Asia, (2) BRICS, (3) Europe, (4) Latin America, and (5) the rest of the world. Results indicate that the expected performance of American firms is largely homogeneous across these five groups. However, the institutional profiles of these groups vary considerably more than those of partner firms. Thus, this chapter underscores the theoretical as well as empirical imperative to model the role of institutions in studies of firm performance.


Abstract This paper investigates how key actors perceive the future of the forest sector: how they position themselves in relation to climate, energy and demography related trends. Actors' perceptions of future challenges and opportunities influence their choice of strategy and action. Actors' relative capacity to realise their visions, in turn, shape future forest use. Frame analysis is used to explore selected actor's perceptions and strategies and the existence of major divisions, i.e. frame conflicts. Empirically, the study is based on the case of Sweden as a typical boreal forest producing region. Actors' perceptions of the challenges facing the forest sector diverge widely. Yet, most actors see the future of the forest sector as linked to broader issues of climate mitigation and energy transition. These issues trigger fundamental discussions about social change and the role of forests in future society. A major division separates actors who perceive biomass supply as unlimited, or at least not constraining, and those who stress scarcity and re-distribution of resources. This difference, or frame conflict, is reflected in actors' forest related strategies and may fuel future forest debates and conflicts.


The reaction mechanism of O3 with bromide ion in aqueous solution was studied by ion chromatography and UV-Vis spectrometry instruments. Ion chromatography analysis showed that only 10% of Br- which was oxidized by ozone was formed into bromate ion. The results demonstrated that the final products of the oxidation reaction were identified as Br2 and Br3- except for BrO3-. The formation of Br3- which was yielded from the reaction of Br2 with Br- was the major process in the reaction of Br attacked by O3. The characteristic absorption spectrum of Br3- with an absorption peak at 260 nm was also investigated. The results may provide helpful information about the mechanism of the oxidation reaction of Br- with O3 and fate of Br- or its derivatives in the environment by the oxidation processes.


iant cell arteritis (GCA) is a primary systemic vasculitis involving the large- and medium-sized arteries, particularly the temporal arteries. Imaging studies have proved useful to detect inflammatory changes in the temporal arteries, and are invaluable in demonstrating inflammation in large arteries, which are not easily accessible to biopsy. Color-Doppler sonography (CDS), magnetic resonance (MR) angiography (MRA) and contrast-enhanced computerized tomography (CT) angiography (CTA) can visualize both the arterial wall and the lumen. All these techniques can aid in diagnosing early arteritis by demonstrating inflammation of the arterial wall even before vascular complications such as stenoses and aneurysms develop. Precocious inflammatory signs of arteritis include vessel wall thickening and transmural edema, which shows as a hypoechoic "halo" surrounding the lumen of an inflamed artery on CDS and as contrast enhancement on MRA and CTA. CDS is particularly suited to investigate the superficial arteries (including the temporal arteries), while CT and MR are able to depict well deep, large vessels such as the thoracic and abdominal aorta, which can hardly or not be visualized by CDS. Alternatively, large-vessel inflammation can be assessed by 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (PET). However, PET cannot demonstrate changes in the temporal or renal arteries. Moreover, PET is unable to delineate the anatomical details of the arterial wall, and is thus not helpful in detecting stenoses or aneurysms. For monitoring purposes, CDS, MRI/MRA, and CT/CTA are helpful in that they can demonstrate both arterial wall and lumen changes. PET can also be used to monitor the extent and intensity of vascular inflammation in large vessels. Digital subtraction angiography has now been largely superseded by CTA or MRA, but may still have a role in guiding interventional procedures. Disclosure of Interest None declared DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.6168


The article is devoted to the research of problems of taxation of enterprises of agro – industrial complex in Ukraine. Peculiarities of the tax burden on agricultural enterprises are considered. The article also identifies the features and outlines the main problems of taxation of agricultural enterprises in Ukraine. Also, the historical stages of development of agricultural tax in modern Ukraine, the evolution of changes in regulations governing the payment of taxes by agricultural enterprises are analyzed. The process of formation of the system of taxation of agricultural enterprises is investigated. The key factors in the economic sphere of the agro-industrial complex of Ukraine, special regimes of taxation of agricultural producers, the order of payment of taxes and privileges that agricultural enterprises have are identified. The procedure for payment of income tax, value added tax and specifics of the fourth group of the single tax by agricultural producers has been studied. Particular attention is paid to the procedure and requirements for the transition of agricultural enterprises to the fourth group of the single tax and the consequences of increasing the tax burden for this group. The main elements of taxes for enterprises of the agricultural sector are revealed: taxpayers; objects of taxation; tax base; tax rate; the procedure for calculating the tax; tax period; term and procedure for tax payment; term and procedure for reporting on tax calculation and payment. It is concluded that the taxation of agro-industrial enterprises in Ukraine needs to be changed.The main goal is to make it optimal and acceptable for both the state and farmers, to simplify the system of tax administration, the establishment of tax benefits, especially for small agricultural producers, and to maintain predictability for the coming years. Keywords: taxation, agricultural commodity producer, simplified taxation system, agricultural enterprise, single tax, land tax, income tax, value added tax, tax rate, tax period, taxpayer, IV group of single tax payers


Background: Azathioprine, methotrexate, or rituximab is used for the maintenance therapy of antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis (AAV). Although the efficacy of tacrolimus (TAC) in various autoimmune diseases has been demonstrated, there have been few reports on the efficacy of TAC in AAV. We investigated the efficacy of TAC as maintenance therapy for AAV and compared its efficacy with that of AZA.Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the medical records of 81 AAV patients who received cyclophosphamide (CYC) as induction therapy and AZA or TAC as maintenance therapy. All-cause death, relapse, and progression to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) were analyzed.Results: Among 81 AAV patients, 69 patients received AZA alone, 6 patients received TAC alone, and 6 patients received TAC after AZA for maintenance therapy. Overall, 11 patients (13.6%) died, 30 patients (37.0%) experienced relapse, and 16 patients (19.8%) progressed to ESRD during a median of 33.8 months. No significant differences were observed in cumulative patients', relapse-free, and ESRD-free survival rates between patients administered AZA alone and TAC alone. There were no significant differences in the cumulative patients' and relapse-free survival rate between patients who received AZA alone and TAC after AZA. However, the cumulative ESRD-free survival rate was lower in patients who received TAC after AZA than in those who received AZA alone (P = 0.027). Conclusions: Patients who received TAC as maintenance therapy showed a higher incidence of ESRD than those who received AZA, but this might be attributed to the lack of efficacy of AZA rather than the low ESRD prevention effect of TAC.


Simultaneous static-mode mass spectrometric measurements of nitrogen, carbon, helium, neon, and argon, extracted from the same aliquot of sample by high-resolution stepped combustion, have been made for a suite of five lunar soils. Noble gas isotope ratios show that the majority of noble gases are derived from a solar wind source; for example, at peak release temperatures of 500–600 (cid:1) C, 21 Ne/ 22 Ne = 0.0313 ± 0.0007 to 0.0333 ± 0.0007, and 20 Ne/ 22 Ne = 11.48 ± 0.05 to 12.43 ± 0.07, with values at the lowest temperature steps less fractionated during implantation from, and therefore even closer to, solar values ( 21 Ne/ 22 Ne SW = 0.03361 ± 0.00018 and 20 Ne/ 22 Ne SW = 14.001 ± 0.042 (Pepin et al., 2012)). Despite the co-release of nitrogen and solar wind argon, measured nitrogen isotopic signatures at each temperature step, whilst variable, are significantly more enriched in 15 N compared to the measured solar wind nitrogen value from the Genesis mission. Therefore, mixing between a 15 N-enriched non-solar planetary nitrogen source with solar wind nitrogen is required to explain the measured isotopic values from the stepped combustion analysis of lunar soils. Binary mixing calculations, made under different assumptions about the degree of loss of solar wind 36 Ar, reveal that the majority (up to 98%) of the nitrogen released is derived from a non-solar source. The range of modelled non-solar end-member nitrogen compositions required to satisfy the measured d 15 N values varies between samples and temperature steps from +5 ‰ up to +300 ‰ , or between +87 ‰ and +160 ‰ for bulk samples. This range of modelled isotopic compositions for the non-solar source of nitrogen encompasses measured values for several different groups of carbonaceous chondrite, as well as IDPs. (cid:3) 2016 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/).


Natural and experimental rickettsial infections provide strong and cross-protective immunity if the individual survives the acute infection. Although resistance to rickettsial infections is attributed to the induction of antigen-specific T cells, particularly CD8+ T cells, the characterization of the cellular immune response has not been systematically addressed. Here, we report the systematic, kinetic and ex vivo analysis of CD8+ T cells from spleen, liver, lungs and lymph nodes by flow cytometry with specific panels to address the activation, effector, and memory phases of the anti-rickettsial response in C3H/HeN mice infected with R. typhi. Our findings suggest that the instauration of the effector phase occurs around 7dpi which coincides with the rickettsial clearance. This phase was characterized by an increased frequency of CD8+ T cells with a phenotype compatible with effector cells:CD44+CD43+CD27-/+ and CD44+CD43-/+CD127-; along with an increased production of IFN-γ and GZM B. A more robust production of IFN-γ and GZM-B was detected in the target organs, highlighting the compartmentalization of the immune response. Furthermore, at 7dpi, differences in the production of IFN-γ and GZM-B between controls and mice immunized with a vaccine candidate were also observed. These findings are relevant for vaccine development, providing insights about meaningful time points and specific correlates of protection that can be used as a paradigm for anti-rickettsial vaccine testing.


Dealing with inherently unmodeled dynamics and large parameter variations or faults, is a challenging task while controlling robot manipulators. Classical control techniques cannot usually provide satisfactory responses, and often external supervision systems have to be designed to handle the faults. Recent research has shown that active inference, a unifying neuroscientific theory of the brain, bares the potential of intrinsically coping with strong uncertainties in the system, mimicking the adaptability capabilities of humans. However, the current state-of-the-art regarding active inference in robotics is very narrow and limited. This thesis presents a novel active inference controller as a general adaptive fault tolerant solution for control of robot manipulators. The goal of this work is threefold. First, we demonstrate the applicability of active inference in robotics, deriving a control scheme which is computationally efficient and with high performance. Second, we verify the claimed adaptability properties of active inference against a model reference adaptive controller, in a simulated on-line pick and place task with a 7 degrees-of-freedom robot arm. Third, we propose a method to exploit the controller's structure to perform fault detection, isolation and recovery, without the use of external supervision systems. This work showed that not only active inference is applicable to robotics, but it also outperforms the model reference adaptive controller, and it allows to efficiently deal with sensory faults. This thesis represents a leap forward with respect to the current state-of-the-art of active inference for robotics, and it lays the foundations for further research in this direction.


Recently, quantum neural networks or quantum-classical neural networks (qcNN) have been actively studied, as a possible alternative to the conventional classical neural network (cNN), but their practical and theoretically-guaranteed performance is still to be investigated. In contrast, cNNs and especially deep cNNs, have acquired several solid theoretical basis; one of those basis is the neural tangent kernel (NTK) theory, which can successfully explain the mechanism of various desirable properties of cNNs, particularly the global convergence in the training process. In this paper, we study a class of qcNN composed of a quantum data-encoder followed by a cNN. The quantum part is randomly initialized according to unitary 2-designs, which is an effective feature extraction process for quantum states, and the classical part is also randomly initialized according to Gaussian distributions; then, in the NTK regime where the number of nodes of the cNN becomes infinitely large, the output of the entire qcNN becomes a nonlinear function of the so-called projected quantum kernel. That is, the NTK theory is used to construct an effective quantum kernel, which is in general nontrivial to design. Moreover, NTK defined for the qcNN is identical to the covariance matrix of a Gaussian process, which allows us to analytically study the learning process and as a consequence to have a condition of the dataset such that qcNN may perform better than classical counterparts. These properties are investigated in thorough numerical experiments; particularly, we demonstrate that the qcNN shows a clear advantage over fully classical NNs and qNNs for the problem of learning the quantum data-generating process.


This article examines the association between neighborhood characteristics at the census tract—level, couples' perceived neighborhood social cohesion and informal social control, and male-to-female (MFPV) and female-to-male (FMPV) partner violence in the United States. Data come from a second wave of interviews (2000) with a national sample of couples 18 years of age and older who were first interviewed in 1995. The path analysis shows that poverty is associated with perceived social cohesion and perceived social control as hypothesized. However, there is no significant mediation effect for social control or social cohesion on any type of violence. In the path analysis, Black ethnicity is associated with social cohesion, which is associated with MFPV. Intimate partner violence (IPV), as a form of domestic violence, may not be as concentrated in high-poverty neighborhoods as criminal violence. IPV may be more determined by personal and dyadic characteristics than criminal violence.