The recovery, or really rediscovery, of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed for German Jewry began in 1742, when Rabbi David Fraenkel, the teacher of Moses Mendelssohn, arranged for the publication of a new edition of Maimonides' work by the Wulff printing press—almost 200 years after its previous printing. This chapter concentrates on the Maimonidean background of the concept of God that the philosophers of liberal Judaism in Germany developed beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century. It shows how the ideas of Manuel Joel and David Kaufmann on this subject provided the foundations for the doctrine of ethical monotheism that would occupy the central place in Hermann Cohen's interpretation of Maimonides; and how, following Cohen, the reading of Maimonides was challenged by Cohen's student Benzion Kellermann. Keywords: David Kaufmann; ethical monotheism; German Jewry; Guide of the Perplexed ; Hermann Cohen; Maimonides; Manuel Joel; Moses Mendelssohn; nineteenth century; Rabbi David Fraenkel


acy of literary black lives" (298). For a study about a house, however, Me and My House contributes less to architectural history than one might expect. We never get a clear description of the interior arrangement, materials, date of construction, or context of Baldwin's home. In several chapters, Zaborowska relies on a 1987 Architectural Digest article as proxy for her own description of the house, although images from that article are strangely missing. Many of the book's illustrations are casual snapshots taken by the author during her visits to Chez Baldwin over the years, and these images are presented in a fragmented order. The book's impressionistic tone—a symptom of Zaborowska's autoethnographic method—is shaped by her own vivid experience of Baldwin's empty house. Perhaps as a result of this subjective approach, there are no architectural images of the house showing its plan or exteriors; these would have helped readers to better understand what Chez Baldwin looked like and how it functioned as a domestic space. MeandMyHouse is full of references toBaldwin's works, and it assumes that readers will be deeply familiar with his publications. Those new to Baldwin may therefore find the book hard to follow in places. In an indirect way, however, this literary emphasis strengthens Zaborowska's thesis by pointing out the ways in which the physical remains of Chez Baldwin are not enoughon their own.Wemust read both the texts and the home in order to understand Baldwin more fully.


A nonhomogeneous boundary‐value problem for the infinite slab of finite thickness is considered. In this problem, the slab receives radiation from a time‐dependent source on one of its surfaces. The intensity of this radiation increases from zero at time zero until a later time t′0, after which the intensity is a function of direction only. This problem is solved in the strong sense. The asymptotic behavior of the solution is determined and related to results for steady‐state problems in neutron transport theory and radiative transfer.


Significance Patterns of influenza outbreak are different in the tropics than in temperate regions. Although considerable experimental progress has been made in identifying climate-related drivers of influenza, the apparent latitudinal differences in outbreak patterns raise basic questions as to how potential environmental variables combine and act across the globe. Adopting an empirical dynamic modeling framework, we clarify that absolute humidity drives influenza outbreaks across latitudes, find that the effect of absolute humidity on influenza is U-shaped, and show that this U-shaped pattern is mediated by temperature. These findings offer a unifying synthesis that explains why experiments and analyses disagree on this relationship. In temperate countries, influenza outbreaks are well correlated to seasonal changes in temperature and absolute humidity. However, tropical countries have much weaker annual climate cycles, and outbreaks show less seasonality and are more difficult to explain with environmental correlations. Here, we use convergent cross mapping, a robust test for causality that does not require correlation, to test alternative hypotheses about the global environmental drivers of influenza outbreaks from country-level epidemic time series. By moving beyond correlation, we show that despite the apparent differences in outbreak patterns between temperate and tropical countries, absolute humidity and, to a lesser extent, temperature drive influenza outbreaks globally. We also find a hypothesized U-shaped relationship between absolute humidity and influenza that is predicted by theory and experiment, but hitherto has not been documented at the population level. The balance between positive and negative effects of absolute humidity appears to be mediated by temperature, and the analysis reveals a key threshold around 75 °F. The results indicate a unified explanation for environmental drivers of influenza that applies globally.


Abstract : During August 1968 nine flights with airborne radiation thermometers were made over the waters westof the island of Hawaii with the purpose of locating the cold spots formed in the centers of cyclonic eddies. Such cold spots were observed and found to be drifting westward at rates of between 2 and 7 miles per day. During the later part of the flights the formation of a new cold spot was observed. It appears, however, that the upwelling in the center of the eddies is not the only source of the cool water but that advection of cool water and cooling by evaporation due to strong winds are also contributing factors. (Author)


MARK A. RAIMER [*] ALFRED KORZYBSKI wrote in his magnum opus Science and Sanity that "on different orders of abstractions [words] may have different meaning, with the result that they have no general meaning; for their meanings are determined solely by the given context [ldots] " Korzybski called this ambiguity of words multiordinality. Korzybski and other authorities on neuro-semantics assure us that when we do not recognize the role context plays in language, much confusion and misunderstanding can result. This seems no less true in the graphic arts, a field notorious for its tricky techno-terminology. Here are a few examples, just to see what we're up against: In printers' lingo the word trap may mean a standard prepress technique or an anomaly in pressroom production, depending on who you talk to along the work path. Shadow has one meaning for a photographer, another for a retoucher. Likewise, the term PMT might refer to a proof type or a type of scanner. Ask a typesetter, an editor, and a multimedia artist what the word definition means and you will undoubtedly get three different answers. Even a "simple" word like red cannot escape Korzybski's multiordinal characterization. (Any lengthy conversation about "red" with a professional pressperson should be more than enough to convince the reader of this.) Of all the snags in the graphic arts, the term resolution seems to cause the most semantic static, perhaps because people -- amateurs and pros alike -- use the word to denote at least a half dozen different things. Only when we account for the specialized field or area from which the term derives can we determine the proper meaning for the term. Many people already know that resolution has something to do with the clarity of an image, be it on a photographic print, a television screen, etc. Thanks to the advent of the desktop publishing revolution, many people also associate dpi (signifying dots per inch) with resolution. Depending on its context, however, dpi may refer to a monitor's resolution or ruling, an imagesetter preference, a scanner's input quality, a printer's output quality, and so on ad infinauseum. In any case, most beginners tend to make the false inference that the higher the dpi the better the resolution. At first it sounds reasonable since a lower dpi can cause the notorious block-like "pixilation" phenomenon to occur, while a higher dpi should make an image more seamless and uniform as the pixels (those tiny little dots that make up an image) size drops below our visual threshold. But all this fuss about dpi and ppi, lpi, etc., deals directly with the matter of finding the proper resolution. And in actuality, resolutions that are too high devour hard drive space, bog down processing time, and more-often-than-not produce a poor end product. So how are we to know what resolution works best for an image? Unfortunately there are no absolute formulae we can employ to determine the "perfect" resolution settings. Instead, we must follow a few general guidelines and, as Korzybski would say, keep a keen eye on context. Resolution, in general, refers to the number of pixels per centimeter (or inch) in an image, or the total number of pixels in a document, or the number of dots per centimeter (or inch) used by an output device. So when someone says "resolution" they could be referring to, among other things, the quality of an image on their monitor, a scanner or digital camera setting, or the output of their printer. Fortunately, identifying a resolution problem seems a far easier task than trying to define the term resolution. Beginners should remember that the smaller the dots used to print an image, the less visible they become. The less visible the dots, the more "seamless" the image appears to the human eye. But, the smaller the dots in an image, the more difficult they are to print properly. For example, magazines can handle a smaller dot than newspapers because they print on better paper with better presses, higher-end hardware, etc. …


This paper investigates ethnic relations between Italians, Jews and Koreans in Bom Retiro, a neighborhood next to Sao Paulo downtown. From the end of the 19th century onwards, these groups have successively lived in this area, conferring to it an indisputable ethnic look. The author sustains that occupational and generational features favored the inter-ethnic sociability.


Aspect of the present invention provide an integrated circuit comprising a plurality of inactive cells and spares cells circuit a plurality of functional circuits. Function circuit cells each of which includes a first power rail (power rail) to electrically connected to the transfer transistor and the first supply voltage of the first set to define the first logical component. It is inactive spares circuit-cells, and a second logic adapted to define an electrical component connected to a second set of transistors and a second power rail to pass a first supply voltage. Electrically coupled to the transistors of the second set are connected via the conductive lines of the second set formed in the first conductive layer. Electrically coupled to the transistors of the second set are electrically connected to the release from the second power rail.


The eresid spider genus Loureedia (Miller et al., 2012) was described a decade ago, despite its type species being described in the mid-19th century, which illuminates the difficulties in obtaining specimens. The genus was initially described as monotypic. Ever since, four other species have been assigned to Loureedia, including three newly discovered ones. Primarily due to the extravagant appearance of the males, stories about the discovery of species of Loureedia have been the subject of relatively wide media coverage over the years, leading to numerous new populations and putative undescribed species being documented by naturalists and citizen scientists. These species, although bearing distinct differences in their coloration patterns, typically vary only slightly in the structure of their copulatory organs, the primary traits used in spider systematics. This highlights an important taxonomic problem: while it is easy to diagnose the genus or recognize the species that belong to it, it is challenging to differentiate the species from one another, particularly when using only a single line of evidence. In this paper, we have tackled this issue using an integrative approach, i.e., a combination of molecular markers (the mitochondrial COI) and traditional morphological characters. The effects of different observational angles on the perceived shape of the conductor are discussed. Except for one species, we obtained DNA data of all members of the genus. Based on these data, the first phylogeny for Loureedia is presented, and two North African species, Loureedia maroccana (Gál et al., 2017) and Loureedia jerbae (El-Hennawy, 2005), are revalidated from synonymy. The distribution records of all described species are mapped.


Goats are small ruminants with the capacity to transform forages of different types,
even those of poor quality such as cereal straw, residues and by-products from the
garden, Santa Elena has a dry tropical climate which prevents the proliferation of
natural grass, which is why has taken the initiative to produce hydroponic green
fodder (FVH), this technology is a nutritional alternative for animals in monogastric
and polygastric livestock farms in desert or semi-desert environments; the purpose of
this work was to design a Business Plan for a production and marketing company of
FVH in the parish of Colonche; for this, a descriptive investigation was carried out
that allowed establishing the feasibility; before all this it was possible to conclude
that the product has good acceptance, obtaining as a result that of 128 goat
producers, 96.88% indicated to agree and acquire the product at a cost of $ 0.12 per
kilogram; by evaluating the project, it was determined that the recovery period is 2
years and 8 months, with an IRR of 22.3%, considering values of raw materials used
for the preparation of FVH and other expenses such as depreciation, labor , basic
services and administrative expenses, it can be calculated that for every dollar
invested to produce 1kg of FVH, the benefit / cost ratio is 1.27, that is, an economic
benefit of $ 0.27 cents will be obtained for every dollar invested, It was also
determined that to produce 1 kilogram of hydroponic green forage, it is necessary to
invest $ 0.08.


FIELD: process engineering. SUBSTANCE: invention relates to clearing of off-gas containing ash particles. Process of off-gas ash particle (2) transformation comprises the steps that follow. a) Isolation of nitrogen dioxide or oxygen in off-gas. b) Ash particles (2) ionisation by electric field (16). c) Sedimentation of charged particles (2) on inner walls (17) of surface separator channels (6). d) Bringing nitrogen dioxide or oxygen in contact with deposited charged particles (2) on inner walls (17) of surface separator channels (6). Besides, this invention covers the appropriate device to this end. Note here that it incorporates surface separator (6) with several channels (7) for off-gas flows extending between inlet area (8) and outlet area (9). Note also that inlet area (8) has ash charged particles (2) deposition barrier (10). This allows a uniform deposition of said particles and a continuous recovery of surface separator. EFFECT: higher efficiency of separation. 14 cl, 8 dwg


Introduction: Solid pseudopapillary neoplasms (SPN/FRANTZ TUMOUR) of the pancreas are rare neoplasms of low grade malignant potential which were first described in 1959 by Frantz. These account for 0.13–2.7% of pancreatic neoplasms and approximately 13% of surgically resected cystic lesions of the pancreas. We present our experience with these rare tumors. Methods: Total 406 patients with pancreatic tumours were admitted in our department during the 10 year period (Between 2007 and 2017) were reviewed, only 18 were diagnosed as having SPN (4.4%). Clinicopathological details, intervention done and follow up of all the cases were studied and reported here. Results: 17 patients were woman and1was Man with median age of 23 years (range 11 to 54 years). The tumor size ranged from 3.8 to17cm (average 6.4 cm). 12 patients presented with pain in the abdomen, 4 presented with a painless mass, 1 was detected incidentally and1presented with Malena. In 7 patients the tumor was in the pancreatic head, in 3 it was in the neck, and in the remaining 8 it is in the body and tail. CECT was done in all cases. 8 patients underwent Distal pancreatectomy with splenectomy, 1 underwent a PPPD, 6 patients required classical Whipple operation. 3 underwent central pancreatectomy. Immuno histochemistry showed positivity for beta catenin, vimentin, PR receptor and chromogranin negativity. All 18 patients were free of d isease in a median followup period of 32 months (range 6 – 84) months. Conclusion: SPNs are rare neoplasms, typically affecting young women without notable symptoms, with a low malignant potential but excellent prognosis. Radical surgical resection with clear margins is the treatment of choice.


Motivation: Helix–helix interactions play a critical role in the structure assembly, stability and function of membrane proteins. On the molecular level, the interactions are mediated by one or more residue contacts. Although previous studies focused on helix-packing patterns and sequence motifs, few of them developed methods specifically for contact prediction. Results: We present a new hierarchical framework for contact prediction, with an application in membrane proteins. The hierarchical scheme consists of two levels: in the first level, contact residues are predicted from the sequence and their pairing relationships are further predicted in the second level. Statistical analyses on contact propensities are combined with other sequence and structural information for training the support vector machine classifiers. Evaluated on 52 protein chains using leave-one-out cross validation (LOOCV) and an independent test set of 14 protein chains, the two-level approach consistently improves the conventional direct approach in prediction accuracy, with 80% reduction of input for prediction. Furthermore, the predicted contacts are then used to infer interactions between pairs of helices. When at least three predicted contacts are required for an inferred interaction, the accuracy, sensitivity and specificity are 56%, 40% and 89%, respectively. Our results demonstrate that a hierarchical framework can be applied to eliminate false positives (FP) while reducing computational complexity in predicting contacts. Together with the estimated contact propensities, this method can be used to gain insights into helix-packing in membrane proteins. Availability: http://bio-cluster.iis.sinica.edu.tw/TMhit/ Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com Supplementary information:Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


Five varieties of sweet potato(the main varieties of sweet potato cultivation in Jilin Province)were adopted as the experimental materials,and their physiological response to saline-alkaline stress were investigated under potting cultivative condition.Used the subordinate function approach to evaluate the saline-alkali tolerance among the 5sweet potato varieties.The results showed that analysis of plant resistance by subordinate function method avoids inaccuracies caused by a single factor on the results,the analysis can be integrated plant resistance;saline-alkaline stress suppresses the growth of all 5sweet potatovarieties tested to different extent with the Ji1114 exhibiting the strongest tolerance while Jixushu 1was the most sensitive one.


Poly(lactic acid)-based polymers are highly suitable for temporary biomedical applications, such as tissue support or drug delivery systems. Copolymers of different molecular weight based on poly(lactic acid) and poly(ethylene glycol) were prepared by polycondensation, catalysed by hydrochloric acid. A chain-extension reaction with l-lysine ethyl ester diisocyanate was employed afterwards to obtain polyester urethanes with enhanced properties. The GPC results showed that the molecular weights of the products reached about 50,000 g·mol−1 and the hydrolytic progress was rapid in the first 2 weeks; the drop in Mn equalled approximately 70%. Additionally, elemental analysis of the buffer medium proved that hydrolytic degradation was more rapid in the first stage. Tensile-strength testing revealed that ductility increased alongside reduced molecular weight of poly(ethylene glycol), also suggesting that polymer branching occurred due to side reactions of isocyanate. Based on the envisaged biomedical applications for these polymers, cytotoxicity tests were carried out and the cytotoxic effect was only moderate in the case of 100% polymer extract prepared according to ISO standard 10993-12. In their research, the authors focused on preparing metal-free, catalysed synthesis of polyester urethanes, which could prove useful to numerous biomedical applications.


ADAMTS13 specifically cleaves plasma von Willebrand factor (VWF) and thereby controls VWF-mediated platelet thrombus formation. Severe deficiencies in ADAMTS13 can cause life-threatening thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Here, we determined 2 crystal structures of ADAMTS13-DTCS (residues 287–685), an exosite-containing human ADAMTS13 fragment, at 2.6-Å and 2.8-Å resolution. The structures revealed folding similarities between the disintegrin-like (D) domain and the N-terminal portion of the cysteine-rich domain (designated the CA domain). The spacer (S) domain forms a globular functional unit with a 10-stranded β-sandwich fold that has multiple interaction sites with the CA domain. We expressed 25 structure-based mutants of ADAMTS13-MDTCS (residues 75–685) and measured their enzymatic activity. We identified 3 VWF-binding exosites on the linearly aligned discontinuous surfaces of the D, CA, and S domains traversing the W-shaped molecule. Since the MDTCS domains are conserved among ADAMTS family proteins, the structural framework of the multiple enzyme-substrate interactions identified in the ADAMTS13-VWF system provides the basis for a common substrate recognition mode in this class of proteinases.


The solution-mediated synthesis and single crystal structure of (CN{sub 3}H{sub 6}){sub 2} {center_dot} Zn(HPO{sub 3}){sub 2} are reported. This phase is built up from a three-dimensional framework of vertex-linked ZnO{sub 4} and HPO{sub 3} building units encapsulating the extra-framework guanidinium cations. The structure is stabilized by template-to-framework hydrogen bonding. The inorganic framework shows a surprising similarity to those of some known zinc phosphates. Crystal data: (CN{sub 3}H{sub 6}){sub 2} {center_dot} Zn(HPO{sub 3}){sub 2}, AI,= 345.50, orthorhombic, space group Fdd2 (No. 43), a = 15.2109 (6) {angstrom}, b = 11.7281 (5) {angstrom}, c = 14.1821 (6) {angstrom}, V = 2530.0 (4){angstrom}{sup 3}, Z = 8, T = 298 (2)K, R(F) = 0.020, wR(F) = 0.025.


The invention relates to the field of high-molecular polymer reaction devices, and particularly relates to a chemical reactor with high shearing force. The chemical reactor comprises a rack, a material barrel and a screw rod, wherein the material barrel is horizontally fixed on the rack; the screw rod is arranged in the material barrel and is divided into a fusion section screw rod and a feeding section screw rod; a feed port is formed in the material barrel at which the feeding section screw rod is arranged; an opening of the material barrel at which the fusion section screw rod is arranged is connected with a connecting barrel; an inner cavity of the connecting barrel is circular arc-shaped; the connecting barrel is internally provided with a circular arc-shaped grinding rod; the grinding rod and the fusion section screw rod are fixedly connected; the outer surface of the grinding rod abuts against the surface of the inner cavity of the connecting barrel; one end, which is not connected with the material barrel, of the connecting barrel is connected with a high shearing barrel; the high shearing barrel is internally provided with a high shearing screw rod; the high shearing screw rod is connected with the grinding rod; one end, which is not connected with the connecting barrel, of the high shearing barrel is provided with a discharge port. The chemical reactor has the beneficial effects that the generated pressure field is more stable, the extrusion efficiency is higher, and the grafting ratio is also higher due to the adoption of a screw shearing method, thus hot melt adhesive products with high performance are prepared.


Abstract
Aim: Though genetic and environmental factors predominate, the pathogenesis of alopecia areata (AA) is not fully known and is associated with emotional stress. A secondary psychiatric disease in psychodermatological disease classification, AA is commonly encountered with depression and anxiety disorder. When the association of alopecia areata with psychiatric diseases is considered, metacognition may play an effective role in its etiology.
Materials and Methods: The study included 50 patients diagnosed with alopecia areata and 50 healthy volunteers. Both groups completed the Sociodemographic Data Form and the Metacognition Questionnaire, while the AA group completed the Structured Clinical Interview For DSM-IV (SCID-I). Both groups were compared in terms of sociodemographic, clinical characteristics and metacognition characteristics.
Results: Apart from familial AA and presence of psychiatric diseases, there was no significant difference between the groups. These were significantly high in the AA diagnosis group. The need to control thoughts was significantly high in the AA group compared to the HV group (p=0.022). When involvement percentage is compared in AA patients, there were significant differences between the groups for uncontrollability and danger, need to control thoughts and cognitive self-consciousness (p=0.01; P=0.002, p=0.009). When AA patients were compared in terms of remission, cognitive self-consciousness was significantly higher in the group without remission (p=0.018).
Conclusion: Many aspects of AA, a psychosomatic disease, have not been researched from a psychiatric viewpoint. Our study is a preliminary study on metacognition; research concerning the association of metacognition with other psychiatric diseases (OCD, GAD) will provide better understanding of AA.


In this project the steps taken toward the characterization, calibration and testing of two spectroscopy stations are presented. The first one is suitable for alpha spectroscopy, consisting of a large-window silicon surface  barrier detector (SSB), a goniometric arm and a movable multiple source-holder inside a dark vacuum chamber. The second station contains two small-size, thin-window NaI(Tl) scintillators, and it is suitable for low-γ ray spectroscopy.


Dispersants take on critical process roles. Surfactants' versatile stepchildren, the materials are finding uses in such applications as petroleum spill cleanup, pulp-and-paper making, industrial water treatment and the stabilization of solids.


A nonlinear shift in the dispersion relation of a surface phonon-polariton (SPhP) is observed with grating-coupled pump–probe reflection spectroscopy. Upon excitation of an SPhP on a 4H-SiC surface...


Specialty crops have been cited as means to diversify crop portfolios on the prairies. Lentils, a specialty crop, have high variability in yields and prices but are relatively uncorrelated with the yields and prices of other traditional Saskatchewan crops. In addition, yields and prices of lentils may be negatively correlated. These attributes have important but offsetting effects in crop portfolio selection. The objective of this article is to assess the relative profitability and riskiness of wheat and lentil rotations for a representative Saskatchewan farm and to select appropriate farmers who should consider production of lentils. The cumulative density function of net returns are simulated for both rotations assuming stochastic prices and yields. Stochastic dominance with respect to a function is used to identify the corresponding appropriate profile of agricultural producers for each crop rotation. The results indicate that lentils should be considered by a number of, but not all, Saskatchewan farmers.


Lightning is typically an atmospheric phenomenon and is a threat to human life, houses, historical monuments, electronic and electrical systems. Through a good will of research the scientific community has come to some conclusion about the cause of lightning and its hazards to system. In this paper the generation process of Cloud to ground lightning is described in brief and the most harmful one, the return stroke has been modeled. The reason behind taking return stroke in all formulation related to lightning is it's continuous nature. Other forms are branched and therefore discontinuous.


An ELISA assay is described for measuring the binding of influenza virus A-X31 to α-sialoside groups that are linked to biotin-labeled polyacrylamides. The efficacy of these polymers in inhibiting the adhesion of influenza virus to erythrocytes (as measured by a hemagglutination assay) was shown to be directly related to the binding affinity of the polymers for the viral surface:  the differences in inhibitory efficacy among the polymeric inhibitors and monomeric α-methyl sialoside, among fractions of a polymeric, polyvalent inhibitor with narrow molecular weight ranges, and among polymeric inhibitors prepared by copolymerization or modification of a preformed polymer chain, all correlated with differences in the affinity of the inhibitors for the surface of the virus. The polymeric inhibitors studied had affinities for the viral surface that ranged between 103 and >106 greater than α-methyl sialoside, on the basis of total sialic acid groups in solution. The role of steric stabilization in the mechanism ...


The rate for photoreduction of riboflavin 5′-phosphate is faster than flavin-adenine dinucleotide which can be effectively photoreduced to the hydroquinone level by: ethylenediaminetetraacetate > ethylenediaminetetrapropionate > l-methionine > nicotine > dimethylamino-propanol > dimethylglycine ethyl ester > triethylamine. The same compounds can be used to photoreduce flavoproteins, the rates for which are: d-amino acid oxidase > l-amino acid oxidase > glucose oxidase > oxynitrilase > Shethna flavoprotein. The oxidation, reduction stage achieved is characteristics of the protein.

Addition of free flavin markedly enhances the photoreduction of those flavoproteins which have a readily dissociable flavin-adenine dinucleotide. Urea enhances the photoreduction rate of flavoproteins in approximate corespondence to their ease of photoreduction in the absence of this reagent. Increase in temperature does not greatly enhance the rate of photoreduction of these flavoproteins. Benzoate decreases the rate of photoreduction of certain of the oxidases.


In the first part of the paper, comprising section 1 through 6, we introduce a sequence of functions in the tangent bundle TM of any smooth two-dimensional manifold M with smooth Riemannian metric g that correspond to the higher order Schwarzians of the linearized geodesic flow. With these functions and a classical theorem of Loewner on analytic continuation we are able to characterize the existence of the adapted complex structure induced by g on the set T^RM of vectors in TM of length up to R, equivalently for M compact, to the existence of a Grauert tube of radius R in terms of infinite Hankel matrices involving these Schwarzian functions. The basic characterization so obtained can be expressed as a sequence of differential inequalities of increasing order polynomial in the covariant derivatives of the Gauss curvature on M and in {\pi}/R that should be regarded as the higher order versions of a curvature inequality by L. Lempert and R. Sz\"oke. The second part of the paper, sections 7 through 11, includes a discussion of the rank of the infinite Hankel matrix of the Schwarzians from part 1 and of new Schwarzians defined now for purely imaginary radius, as well as some computations and examples. A characterization of the existence of the adapted structure on T^RM in terms of moment sequences with parameters R and v in TM is also noted.


The town of Gjakova is situated between the river Ereniku,Krena, and Llukac which is situated in west region of Kosovo,in the central part of Dukagjini valley in an attitude over 355 metres above the sea level.The pollution of the rivers by sweage and atmospheric waters as in the case in the Llukac and without proper maintencw brings to the thoughts about the future of the river,because the quality is very valuable and we have it in limited qualities.The evaluation of the quality ,traditionally was based in the measurement of the concentration of organicand inorganic ingredients.The study of the project was done during 2011 and it was monitored its condition during 12 months.The outcome of the results conducted at physical-chemical labs as wel as bacteriologic labgives an general evaluation of the quality of the water at Llukac river which flows onto Ereniku river.Based on analyses results,shows that the quality of polllution of Llukac river as results of urban sweages and quantity of flowing pullutants. Keywords: atmospheric, water, analyzes, quality, Llukac.


In the two-dimensional Yang-Mills theory, the mechanism of infrared slavery has been shown explicitly in the use of 'tHooft's solutionY •2) But the infrared cutoff procedure which was made use of therein is the "singular cutoff", which removes the infrared singularities by drilling a hole in q-space about q_=O, restricting lq-I>X and which sweeps out quarks from the mass spectrum in the limit of ,\ --+0. It was pointed out by Hagen31 that such cutoff procedure makes it impossible to construct the Poincare generators') and that a principal value prescription for the gluon propagator (i/q2)-the "regular cutoff" called by Callan et al. 21 -should be employed. With this regular cutoff, however, finite mass quarks exist, and so, it becomes necessary to show why bare quarks do not come out. In the following, we show this reason. The model consists of M quarks interacting via an SU (N) colour gauge group, and, in what follows, we conform to the notations of the paper of Callan et al. except slight changes. Our discussions are restricted to leading order in 1/ N expansions and to gauge invariant amplitudes. First, we consider the vertex of mesonq-q. In the regular cutoff,


Abstract.
 The role of structural coloration, which is produced by the optical interactions among micro- and nanostructures in the feather barb or barbules, is still unclear in the context of sexual or social signaling, because the mechanism of color production is complex and the factors affecting it are not fully documented. We investigated whether structural colors represent class signals related to age, sex, and territory ownership in a social, sexually monochromatic species, the Eurasian Magpie Pica pica. We examined the reflectance spectra from white scapulars, bluish iridescent secondary and greenish iridescent tail plumage, as well as size of white scapular patch. Significant color differences between age classes were found in all measured plumage parts, with adults having plumage with higher color score, that is brighter, shorter wavelength-directed, and more saturated color, than young magpies. Color differences between males and females and between breeding adults (territorial owners) and non-breeding adults were only detected in the tail plumage. Size of white scapular patch did not differ between age and sex classes. Color differences among individuals belonging to different social classes may lessen agonistic confrontations. Sex differences in coloration may enable prompt sex recognition and thus facilitate pair formation. Higher tail color scores of adults, particularly males, support previous suggestions that the tail characteristics of avian species with relatively long tails represent a visual signal of the bearer's quality.


(Objective) This experiment was conducted to study the effect of spent Coprinus comatus substrate in basal diet on intestinal morphology and intestine microflora in Tianfu ducks.(Method) Three hundred and twenty one-day-old Tianfu ducks were randomly divided into 4 groups.The control group was fed basal diet,and test groups Ⅰ,Ⅱ and Ⅲ were fed basal diets supplemented with 2%,4 % and 6 % spent C.comatus substrate,respectively.(Result) Compared with the control group,ducks in the three test groups had lower ileum villus height(V) on 14 days of age and increased crypt depth(C) on 28 days of age(p0.05).The number of Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli bacteria increased significantly in the caecum of test groupⅠand Ⅱ ducks(p0.05),and no significant effects were observed on the number of E.coli(p0.05).(Conclusion) Distiller's grain-based spent C.comatus substrate in basal diet may cause some injury to the morphology of ileum mucosa of Tianfu ducks,but may promote the growth of beneficial microflora in their caecum.


We present a new class of Erbium-doped optical fibers: the Hole-Assisted Carbon-Coated, HACC fibers. Optical fibers with this particular structure have been made by iXFiber on the basis of an appropriate choice of codopants in their core and claddings. By using an additional pre-treatment with deuterium (D2) loading authorized by the HACC structure, we highlight the efficiency of such components and demonstrated that this new type of fiber presents a strongly enhanced radiation resistance compared to the other types of erbium-doped optical fibers studied in litterature. We also built an Erbium-doped Fiber Amplifier (EDFA) with one of these HACC fibers and compared its radiation response to the one of the same fiber composition but without the HACC structure and D2 loading. We tested the performances of this EDFA under Υ-rays and characterize its gain degradation up to doses of 315 krad. Before irradiation, the amplifier presents a gain of about 31 dB that is comparable to the optical performances of amplifiers based on HACC fibers without the D2 pre-treatment and the HACC structure. During irradiation, our results demonstrate that the tested amplifier is nearly unaffected by radiations. Its gain slowly decreases with the dose at a slope rate of about -2.2×10-3 dB/krad. This strong radiation resistance (enhancement of a factor of ×10 compared to the previous or conventional radiation tolerant EDFA) will authorize the use of HACC doped fibers and amplifiers for various applications in space for missions associated both with low or large irradiation doses.


In previous research, our group developed a gamma-ray image reconstruction method using Compton events from a 3-D position-sensitive CdZnTe detector, which is capable of deconvolving the source image at any specific energy, as well as the incident spectrum at any specific direction. This gamma-ray energy-imaging integrated deconvolution method takes place in integrated spatial and energy space using the maximum-likelihood expectation maximization (MLEM) algorithm. By including Compton scattering events in the system model, the MLEM solution estimates the incident gamma-ray spectrum in the source direction free of the Compton continuum for source energies lower than 1.02 MeV. In order to correctly reconstruct images for higher energy events, pair-production effect needs to be included in the system model. Since it is impossible to pre-calculate the system response function due to the huge number of possible recorded events, analytic formulas are derived to allow the calculation of the system response function during the reconstruction. After including pair-production events in the system response function, the deconvolved spectrum reflects the incident spectrum and is free of single and double escape peaks.


FIELD: agriculture. SUBSTANCE: plant seeds are treated with ethylmethanesulphonate during 6 hours, then dried or greensprouted. The resulting plants M1 are self-pollinated and their seeds are obtained, which are used for growing the M2 wheat plants. The M2 plants are treated with imazamox, and plants with higher resistance to that as compared to the wild type plants are selected. The other version implies the transformation of plants with an expression vector containing one or more nucleic acids IMI. The said nucleic acids are preferably located in different genomes or obtained from different genomes. EFFECT: resulting plants have higher resistance to imidazolinone and may be used when controlling weeds using herbicide. 47 cl, 13 dwg, 5 ex


Stochastic Boolean satisfiability (SSAT) is an expressive language to formulate decision problems with randomness. Solving SSAT formulas has the same PSPACE-complete computational complexity as solving quantified Boolean formulas (QBFs). Despite its broad applications and profound theoretical values, SSAT has received relatively little attention compared to QBF. In this paper, we focus on exist-random quantified SSAT formulas, also known as E-MAJSAT, which is a special fragment of SSAT commonly applied in probabilistic conformant planning, posteriori hypothesis, and maximum expected utility. Based on clause selection, a recently proposed QBF technique, we propose an algorithm to solve E-MAJSAT. Moreover, our method can provide an approximate solution to E-MAJSAT with a lower bound when an exact answer is too expensive to compute. Experiments show that the proposed algorithm achieves significant performance gains and memory savings over the state-of-the-art SSAT solvers on a number of benchmark formulas, and provides useful lower bounds for cases where prior methods fail to compute exact answers.


The paper describes the flutter stability assessment of a steam turbine rotor and the application of a multi-disciplinary shape optimization procedure to obtain a new blade geometry with higher efficiency and an improved flutter stability. The investigated test case consists of a steam turbine last stage representative of modern industrial steam turbine blading, firstly presented by Durham University and intensively investigated during last years. The aerodamping results on the original geometry, obtained by a non-linear method, are compared with those already published by other researches with different flutter approaches. The present results are in complete agreement with numerical investigations already present in the literature and show a high blade instability for the first bending mode. Starting from this unstable geometry, a shape optimization procedure with aeromechanical constraints has been applied in order to obtain a blade with improved performances from both the aerodynamic and the flutter point of view. The optimum profile shows a higher efficiency and a flutter instability reduction. Those aspects are exhaustively discussed and comparisons with the baseline geometry are reported.


This paper investigates fretting wear performance of CoNiCrAlY-BN coating for aerospace components. Fretting wear tests are performed under experimental conditions similar to those found at the blade/disk interface of a turbofan engine. All samples are coated by two different thermal spraying techniques: an atmospheric plasma spraying process and a high velocity oxygen fuel thermal spraying process. Friction coefficients are measured and directly compared with those of a conventional thermally sprayed coating for aerospace components. It is identified that a plasma sprayed CoNiCrAlY-BN coating maintains better fretting performance than the conventional coating. Finally, exponential evolution law of fretting damage is applied to friction coefficient evolutions for investigating the effect of thermal spraying techniques. It is demonstrated that the damage rate constant is a useful indicator for comparing friction behaviors of CoNiCrAlY-BN coatings sprayed by two thermal spraying processes.


We have developed a new and self-consistent method to simultaneously derive the abundance of interplanetary hydrogen and its rate of ionization by the solar environment. Using the principle of invariance and the solar Lyα activity, we show that some properties of the interplanetary medium radiation field in the inner heliosphere depend uniquely on the ionization rate β and the local density and can therefore be derived by a self-consistent technique. Thanks to Voyager and IUE Lyα sky maps, we show that the H distribution in the solar neighborhood is well described by a hot model, characterized by nlocal = 0.159 ±0.05 cm-3 at 10 AU and β = (5.50 ± 1.65) × 10-7 s-1 near the period of maximum solar activity. When extrapolated to the outer region of the heliosphere, the same hot model provides a lower density limit of n∞ = 0.25 ± 0.08 cm-3. Any filtration effect should increase the density. Although our estimate of the ionization rate corresponds to the solar activity of the analyzed period, the IPM density derived is far larger than previously claimed since the discovery of the interplanetary medium 20 yr ago.


Objective:To develop simple and convenient application techniques of baits for the control of termites inhabiting in soil. Methods:Putting baits in the plastic tube designed according to demand, then insert bait tube into soil where the termite inhabit. Results:Termites of whole nests in bait tubes died within 30-60 days after the application. Conclusion:The bait tube could be used to control soil-inhabitated termites.


Controlling material thickness and element interdiffusion at the interface is crucial for many applications of core-shell nanowires. Herein, we report the thickness-controlled and conformal growth of a Sb2Te3 shell over GeTe and Ge-rich Ge-Sb-Te core nanowires synthesized via metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), catalyzed by the Vapor–Liquid–Solid (VLS) mechanism. The thickness of the Sb2Te3 shell could be adjusted by controlling the growth time without altering the nanowire morphology. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques were employed to examine the surface morphology and the structure of the nanowires. The study aims to investigate the interdiffusion, intactness, as well as the oxidation state of the core-shell nanowires. Angle-resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was applied to investigate the surface chemistry of the nanowires. No elemental interdiffusion between the GeTe, Ge-rich Ge-Sb-Te cores, and Sb2Te3 shell of the nanowires was revealed. Chemical bonding between the core and the shell was observed.


of the household, where the wife is generally left alone by the migrant husband, whose role is in turn limited to sending remittances home. Finally, and in relation to the latter point, the study does not fully explain the cultural, social and economic causes of such a skewed gender imbalance in the interviews. The vast majority (81%) of respondents were women and, while that could be a slight exaggeration of the general gender proportions at a time of considerable male labour migration, this point could have been explained more clearly, thus justifying the disproportionate use of female interviewees. In general, more nuance in the rationale and methodology behind the choice would have been welcome. In conclusion, the book presents an interesting snapshot of household economics, the original definition of oikonomia in ancient Greek terminology, in three major population centres of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan between 2011 and 2013. Major methodological shortcomings, such as the choice of the cases as representative of Central Asia, undermine the authors' efforts and the overall credibility of the study. The lack of accurate English-language proofreading of the final text exposes the book to questions regarding its revision process and renders some passages incomprehensible. The study remains a source of further research questions regarding strategies of survival employed by households in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, many of which could arise both from the quantitative study and from the quotes provided in the qualitative section.


Based on the data of the country's 31 provinces,cities,districts' status quo of agricultural technological innovation,using factor analysis,on the basis of the construction of the complete two types of agricultural science and technology measurement and evaluation system,China was divided into northern,central,southwest,the central south,east,northeast.For two types of agricultural scientific and technological innovation resources system,the system of environmental systems,running system,the output capacity of the system,resource-saving systems and environmentally friendly systems,the measurement of the 71 indicators were analyzed,and the recommendations to guide the nationwide regional two-types of agricultural scientific and technological innovation construction were concluded.


Three physiological factors (melatonin levels, tear mucus ferning quality and degree of asthenopia) were examined for their relationship to visual comfort. A lighting environment was created where the illuminance, illuminance uniformity and correlated colour temperature could be adjusted. A three-factor and three-level orthogonal experiment with 24 subjects was designed and carried out. The results indicated that the selected environmental factors had different impacts on the physiological factors. With the illuminance increasing, the melatonin level decreased significantly and the tear mucus ferning quality was improved. However, there is no general influence of illuminance uniformity and correlated colour temperature on the physiological parameters, only differential effects among the three levels were found.


Plastics play a very important role in the building industry. The properties and cost of pure plastics is uneconomical. Besides, its inadequate physico-mechanical properties make them suitable for their end applications. The tailoring of physico-mechanical properties of pure plastics is either done by addition of additives or by using reinforcement fibres. Fibre reinforced composites are abundantly being harnessed in a variety of structures. Composites have emerged as a valuable class of engineering materials because they offer many attributes not attainable with other materials. The cost of composites made by using fibre and matrix together alone is quite prohibitive and intends to be rejected for market acceptance. In order to make the composite cost effective as well as for providing processing ease, various filler additives are added in making composites. Effect of these filler additives has been studied and mathematical equations have been evolved to correlate the data thus generated.


This paper focuses on the Collaborative Data Publishing problem that occurs when the sensitive information has been shared between different data providers. The paper includes the different attacks and problems that exist when the private data is shared between the multiple data providers in anonymizing the horizontally partitioned data. The paper also discusses about the available techniques to preserve the private information from the attackers. Data publishing also relies on the policies and guidelines which are formed by the organisation, where there exists a situation for each data provider to violate the framed policies and guidelines during data publishing. This problem enhances the several researchers to introduce innovative techniques and tools to overcome the data distortion. This survey paper summarizes all the proposed methods and techniques, discusses about the requirements and differences between the approaches. Keywords— Collaborative Data Publishing, anonymization, horizontally Partitioned data, Data distortion.


'Plasma Healthcare' is an emerging interdisciplinary research topic of rapidly growing importance, exploring considerable opportunities at the interface of plasma physics, chemistry and engineering with life sciences. Some of the scientific discoveries reported so far have already demonstrated clear benefits for healthcare in areas of medicine, food safety, environmental hygiene, and cosmetics. Examples include ongoing studies of prion inactivation, chronic wound treatment and plasma-mediated cancer therapy. Current research ranges from basic physical processes, plasma chemical design, to the interaction of plasmas with (i) eukaryotic (mammalian) cells; (ii) prokaryotic (bacteria) cells, viruses, spores and fungi; (iii) DNA, lipids, proteins and cell membranes; and (iv) living human, animal and plant tissues in the presence of biofluids. Of diverse interests in this new field is the need for hospital disinfection, in particular with respect to the alarming increase in bacterial resistance to antibiotics, the concomitant needs in private practices, nursing homes etc, the applications in personal hygiene—and the enticing possibility to 'design' plasmas as possible pharmaceutical products, employing ionic as well as molecular agents for medical treatment. The 'delivery' of the reactive plasma agents occurs at the gaseous level, which means that there is no need for a carrier medium and access to the treatment surface is optimal. This focus issue provides a close look at the current state of the art in Plasma Medicine with a number of forefront research articles as well as an introductory review. Focus on Plasma Medicine Contents Application of epifluorescence scanning for monitoring the efficacy of protein removal by RF gas-plasma decontamination Helen C Baxter, Patricia R Richardson, Gaynor A Campbell, Valeri I Kovalev, Robert Maier, James S Barton, Anita C Jones, Greg DeLarge, Mark Casey and Robert L Baxter Inactivation factors of spore-forming bacteria using low-pressure microwave plasmas in an N2 and O2 gas mixture M K Singh, A Ogino and M Nagatsu Degradation of adhesion molecules of G361 melanoma cells by a non-thermal atmospheric pressure microplasma H J Lee, C H Shon, Y S Kim, S Kim, G C Kim and M G Kong The acidification of lipid film surfaces by non-thermal DBD at atmospheric pressure in air A Helmke, D Hoffmeister, N Mertens, S Emmert, J Schuette and W Vioel Reduction and degradation of amyloid aggregates by a pulsed radio-frequency cold atmospheric plasma jet D L Bayliss, J L Walsh, G Shama, F Iza and M G Kong The effect of low-temperature plasma on bacteria as observed by repeated AFM imaging René Pompl, Ferdinand Jamitzky, Tetsuji Shimizu, Bernd Steffes, Wolfram Bunk, Hans-Ulrich Schmidt, Matthias Georgi, Katrin Ramrath, Wilhelm Stolz, Robert W Stark, Takuya Urayama, Shuitsu Fujii and Gregor Eugen Morfill Removal and sterilization of biofilms and planktonic bacteria by microwave-induced argon plasma at atmospheric pressure Mi Hee Lee, Bong Joo Park, Soo Chang Jin, Dohyun Kim, Inho Han, Jungsung Kim, Soon O Hyun, Kie-Hyung Chung and Jong-Chul Park Cell permeabilization using a non-thermal plasma M Leduc, D Guay, R L Leask and S Coulombe Physical and biological mechanisms of direct plasma interaction with living tissue Danil Dobrynin, Gregory Fridman, Gary Friedman and Alexander Fridman Nosocomial infections-a new approach towards preventive medicine using plasmas G E Morfill, T Shimizu, B Steffes and H-U Schmidt Generation and transport mechanisms of chemical species by a post-discharge flow for inactivation of bacteria Takehiko Sato, Shiroh Ochiai and Takuya Urayama Low pressure plasma discharges for the sterilization and decontamination of surfaces F Rossi, O Kylián, H Rauscher, M Hasiwa and D Gilliland Contribution of a portable air plasma torch to rapid blood coagulation as a method of preventing bleeding S P Kuo, O Tarasenko, J Chang, S Popovic, C Y Chen, H W Fan, A Scott, M Lahiani, P Alusta, J D Drake and M Nikolic A two-dimensional cold atmospheric plasma jet array for uniform treatment of large-area surfaces for plasma medicine QY Nie, Z Cao, C S Ren, D Z Wang and M G Kong A novel plasma source for sterilization of living tissues E Martines, M Zuin, R Cavazzana, E Gazza, G Serianni, S Spagnolo, M Spolaore, A Leonardi, V Deligianni, P Brun, M Aragona, I Castagliuolo and P Brun Designing plasmas for chronic wound disinfection T Nosenko, T Shimizu and G E Morfill Plasma medicine: an introductory review M G Kong, G Kroesen, G Morfill, T Nosenko, T Shimizu, J van Dijk and J L Zimmermann


The last decade has been characterised by a progressive process of enlargement and regional integration in Europe and in the rest of the world. It is worth to notice that the EU, the world's largest single market, is the first exporting country and the second importing country in the world. It is worth to notice that according to the art 113 EC Treaty of Rome, all trade agreements with one or more States or international organizations are negotiated by the Commission representing all EU Member States. Since the post war period, the common EU trade policy has been taking two directions: a "deeper" (internal) trade integration process to reinforce the trade relationships among European countries (i.e. Custom Union, Single Market, European Monetary Union, Enlargement Process), and a "wider" (external) integration process to reinforce trade relationship with third countries (i.e. bilateral and multilateral preferential trade agreements ). The object of the paper is an empirical investigation on if and how the "wider" integration policy exerted a significant impact on European countries imports. According to our empirical analyses EU "wider" trade policy increased imports flows of about 60% on average ,while the EU deeper trade policy increased imports flow more that doubled. Therefore, as we expected, the wider effect has had a much lower impact than the deeper one.


Based on the stochastic models of Battese and Coelli,we first measured the technical efficiency covering China's 30 regions from 1992 to 2009 with balanced panel data from the view of fiscal expenditure structure and financial institution reform.Then we made a detailed statistical description on the technical efficiency level and its tendency.In addition,we analyzed the regional disparity of the technical efficiency and its tendency.The results show that there exists technical inefficiency in the regional economy and the regional technical efficiency is low on the whole.The efficiency disparity among the provinces and the efficiency disparity between the three regions are all reduced at the initial stage and widen continuously taking the mid 1990s as the turning point.But within the three regions the efficiency disparity among the provinces is reduced.Further we present several possible reasons from different views such as fiscal decentralization institution,financial expenditure structure,institution environment and economic transition.At last some policy suggestions are provided.


This paper proposes a multicast scheme for the packet forwarding mechanism in the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). The scheme relies on the introduction of the Permanent Multicast Routing List (PMRL) and Temporary Multicast Routing List (TMRL) in each node of the network except UEs. In the PMRL we record the nodes of the next level that the messages for every multicast group should be forwarded. The TMRL is useful for the temporary record of information from the path from the mobile users to the GGSN. Additionally, a Multicast Group List (MGL) is kept in the GGSN which records the members of each multicast group. These lists lead to the decrement of the transmitted packets and the more efficient use of the network resources in the multicast routing in UMTS. We analyze the exact steps that the multicast packets are transmitted to the members of each multicast group. Furthermore, special issues such as joining/leaving a multicast service are described


The work demonstrates results of reservoir properties evaluation using a complex of laboratory and multiscale digital core or digital rock analysis. Rock properties (including relative phase permeabilities) were studied at different scales: from nanometers to meter (whole core).
 For the first time, cores from Turonian formation were characterized with digital rock analysis, which provided stationary relative permeabilities for gas-water under reservoir conditions. Lab determination of relative permeabilities was rather challenging for some low-permeability samples (<0.02 md), while digital analysis was successful even for them. Gas recovery in a depletion mode from different rock types was studied on a whole core model for different capillary pressures. Such studies are not conducted in the lab.


Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis V V hen the journal published a special issue on supported employment 10 years ago (Drake. 1998), the field of psychiatric rehabilitation was just beginning to embrace this practice. Since then, supported employment has rapidly become established as one of the most effective interventions for people with schizophrenia and other severe mental disorders (Bond, Drake, & Becker, 2008; Cook et al., 2008; Crowther, Marshall, Bond, & Huxley, 2001; New Freedom Commission, 2003; Twamley, jeste, & Lehman, 2003).


INTRODUCTION: Conflicting results exist on the association between proton-pump inhibitor (PPI) and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID)-related small-bowel damage. The aim of this study was to determine whether PPIs increased the risk of NSAID-related small-bowel damage by meta-analysis. METHODS: A systematic electronic search in PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science was conducted from the time the database was created until March 31, 2022, for studies reporting associations between PPI use and outcomes, including the endoscopy-verified prevalence of small-bowel injury, mean number of small-bowel injuries per patient, change in hemoglobin level, and risk of small-bowel bleeding in subjects taking NSAIDs. Meta-analytical calculations for odds ratio (OR) and mean difference (MD) were performed with the random-effects model and interpreted with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). RESULTS: Fourteen studies comprising 1996 subjects were included. Pooled analysis demonstrated that concomitant use of PPIs significantly increased the prevalence and number of endoscopy-verified small-bowel injuries (prevalence: OR = 3.00; 95% CI: 1.74–5.16; number: MD = 2.30; 95% CI: 0.61–3.99) and decreased hemoglobin levels (MD = −0.50 g/dL; 95% CI: 0.88 to −0.12) in NSAID users but did not change the risk of small-bowel bleeding (OR = 1.24; 95% CI: 0.80–1.92). Subgroup analysis demonstrated that PPIs significantly increased the prevalence of small-bowel injury in subjects taking nonselective NSAIDs (OR = 7.05; 95% CI: 4.70–10.59, 4 studies, I2 = 0) and COX-2 inhibitors (OR = 4.00; 95% CI: 1.18–13.60, 1 study, no calculated I2) when compared with COX-2 inhibitors alone. DISCUSSION: PPIs increased the risk of NSAID-related small-bowel damage, and the clinical significance of higher prevalence of small-bowel injuries should be studied in the future.


Since its enactment by the legislature of Ontario in 1885,1 section 16 of the Mercantile Law Amendment Act2 has been one of the great conundrums of the law of contract. There is no English equivalent. Its purpose is said to be to correct the deficiencies in Foakes v Beer,3 the 1884 decision of the House of Lords that part payment alone cannot constitute full settlement of a debt, yet its meaning and scope of application remain both contested and not entirely tested in the courts. Discernment of the meaning of section 16 requires wading into the murky waters of a number of principles relating to consideration: accord and satisfaction; the rule in Stilk v Myrick4 that performance of a pre-existing contractual duty is not good consideration; the rule in Williams v Roffey Bros & nicholls (Contractors) Ltd5 that a practical benefit can be good consideration; the rule in Central London Property Trust Ltd v High Trees House Ltd6 that a promissory estoppel can prevent the restoration and enforcement of the original agreement; as well as the various situations in which courts have been prepared to find consideration including promises to do more or to do something different,7 forbearance to sue,8 and mutual agreement to replace an old contract with a new contract.9 But the Case Comment Commentaire d'arrêt


A top comb (1) of a combing machine with a distance next to one another arranged on a carrier element (3) fixed teeth (2), wherein in each case between two adjacent teeth of a free passage opening (D), characterized in that the teeth (2), in its the longitudinal direction (L) seen, having in the area of the free passage opening of at least two differently constructed sections (A1, A2), wherein in the foot region (5) of the teeth (2) is leaking portion (A2) formed such that the tooth width (B1 ), as seen in the transition from first to second gear portion transversely (to the conveying direction F) to the end (5) of the second section (A2) increases, so that a settling of impurities, in particular of fibers in this region is prevented.


Antizyme (AZ) directly binds ornithine decarboxylase (ODC), the key enzyme in polyamine biosynthesis, and inactivates and degrades ODC by the 26S proteasome without ubiquitination. The production of full-length functional AZ protein depends on polyamine levels and AZ gene requires +1 translational frameshifting. However, the delicately cellular function of AZ is still unidentified. Mammalian cells in response to various stimuli such as double-stranded RNAs or viral infection can stimulate the induction of interferons (IFNs). In most viral infections, T cells can be induced to activate, differentiate and produce a number of cytokines that defend against viruses. Previous studies have shown the antiviral and antiproliferative effects of IFNs are mediated by the 2'-5'oligoadenylate RNase L RNA decay pathway. Recently, this pathway is confirmed to increase translational readthrough efficiency at premature termination codons and increase +1 frameshift efficiency at the AZ +1 frameshift site. To elucidate the role of full-length functional AZ in T cell activation, we examined whether conditional expression of full-length AZ protein could elucidate the hallmarks of Jurkat T cell activation. Using Jurkat Tet-On System, AZ overexpression was found to affect the expression of cytokines, especially the cytokines of immuno-activation, including IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-12 (p40) and IFN-γ. The specific activation of IL-2 is a pivotal cytokine in Jurkat T cell activation. This study demonstrated that AZ-triggered expression of IL-2 might be through the transcriptional modulation of IL-2 gene. Further analysis on the signaling transduction revealed that phosphorylation of IKKα/β and IκB-α were increased, total IκB-α was degraded and the nuclear translocation of NF-κB was moderately increased at early stage of activation after AZ induction. Taken together, we suggest that AZ may own the capacity of immuno-regulation and influence IL-2 expression to regulate T lymphocyte surveillance and activation.


summary Temporal changes in species composition, abundance and biomass of planktonic ciliates in Western Basin of Lake Ringsjon, Sweden, were studied in 1988-1990 and 1998-2000. In total, 49 species were found. The most common species were Tintinnidium spp., Halteria grandinella, Strombidium spp., Strobilidium spp., Coleps hirtus and Vorticella spp. The planktonic ciliates ranged in abundance from 1.2 and 1.6 to 82.0 and 41.0 cells l -1 ×10 3 during the investigation, with a mean of 16.38 and 9.74 cells l -1 ×10 3 , respectively. Biomass of the ciliate communities ranged from 27.6 and 50.0 to 1939.3 and 2182 µg l -1 . In terms of abundance and biomass, small Oligotrichida species were very important for the lake. The seasonal dynamics of the ciliates in Lake Ringsjon had a pattern typical of eutrophic lakes. Species composition in 1988-1990 and in 1998-2000 was very similar. The annual mean abundance and biomass of ciliates decreased at a large scale. The patterns of temporal distribution of some dominant species showed some changes.


The circuit board for use in an electrical machine, preferably an external rotor motor, having a board body on which an electric / electronic component is provided, which is electrically conductively connected to a terminal. To form the circuit board and the electric machine so that an inexpensive and simple manufacture and assembly is guaranteed, the circuit board can be housed even in tight spaces, the board body has at least two relatively movable rigid segments which are interconnected by a bending point. They are formed by a cross-sectional narrowing of the board body. It can manufacturing technology simply be provided on the board body, for example by a milling or scoring or cutting operation, so that the circuit board can be manufactured inexpensively. The electric machine with such a circuit board can be manufactured inexpensively.


ABSTRACT
 Collective moral agents can cause their own moral incapacity. If an agent is morally incapacitated, then the agent is exempted from responsibility. Due to self-induced moral incapacity, corporate responsibility gaps resurface. To solve this problem, I first set out and defend a minimalist account of moral competence for group agents. After setting out how a collective agent can cause its own moral incapacity, I argue that self-induced temporary exempting conditions do not free an agent from diachronic responsibility once the agent regains its moral faculties. For collective agents, any exempting condition is potentially temporary due to the 'malleability' of their constitution. Therefore, in cases of self-induced moral incapacity and subsequent wrongdoing, unlike individuals, every collective agent can be (made) morally responsible for its actions even though it did not qualify as a moral agent at the time of wrongdoing. Hence, this is no reason for skepticism concerning corporate responsibility.


Introduction: Physical frailty is a syndrome characterised by deterioration in multiple physiological domains, including muscle mass and strength, flexibility, balance, neuromuscular coordination, and cardiovascular function. Evidence suggests that regular exercise provides substantial health benefits, reducing the risk of many chronic diseases and medical costs, especially for frail older adults. However, the effect of exercise on functional status in this population is not well explored. Need of the study: Population aging in India is rapidly accelerating, and frailty is a significant clinical condition associated with aging. Frailty increases the risk of institutionalisation, morbidity, and mortality. Regular exercise has been shown to improve functional fitness in older adults, but exercises performed while standing unaided can be challenging for individuals with compromised balance and mobility. Chair Suryanamaskar, a form of exercise performed while seated, may be an alternative mode of exercise for this population. Although aerobic and resistance exercises have shown benefits, there is growing interest in exploring the potential benefits of a multicomponent intervention for frail older adults. Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of chair Suryanamaskar with strength training on functional fitness in community-dwelling frail older adults. Materials and Methods: The study will be conducted from March 2021 to March 2024. This two-group parallel singleblind randomised controlled trial will take place at MAEER's Physiotherapy College in TalegaonDabhade, Maharashtra, India. Approximately 400 older adults will be screened for frailty using the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) test. Participants with an SPPB score ≤7 will be considered frail and a total of 108 participants aged 65-84 years will be recruited based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. The participants will be equally divided into two groups (54 participants in each group) using computer-generated random tables. The experimental group (group A) will receive a 45-minute Chair Suryanamaskar with strength training protocol three times a week for 12 weeks. Before the study begins, participants will have two practice sessions of 20 minutes each to become familiar with Chair Suryanamaskar. The control group (group B) will participate in two 20-minute health education program sessions and receive weekly telephonic follow-ups to monitor for adverse events. Additionally, a health education program booklet will be provided. The primary outcome of the study is the Senior Fitness Test (SFT). Assessments will be conducted at baseline (0 weeks) and post-intervention (12 weeks). Intentionto-treat analyses with mixed linear modeling will be used for statistical analysis.


GaAs provides a versatile platform for developing on-chip integrated quantum-optical circuits. In this paper we review progress in developing spin-photon interfaces, on-chip beam-splitters and coherent single photon sources based on GaAs photonics.


This article describes current models and methods for productivity measurement in health care research, examines different methods of data collection, and assesses the ease in which they may be used in research. Specific issues regarding the validity of current measurement tools and self-reported data are examined. Concerns about the interpretation of study results, international adaptation of work productivity questionnaires, and regulatory issues also are reviewed.


We present our experiments in the scope of the news translation task in WMT 2017, in three directions: German → English, English → German and English → Latvian. The core of our systems is the encoder-decoder based neural machine translation models , enhanced with various modeling features, additional source side augmentation and output rescoring. We also ex-periment various methods in data selection and adaptation.


Microorganisms are important source of proteases which are employed in detergent, food, pharmaceutical, leather and photographic industries. Among microorganisms, bacteria have been widely explored globally for their protease production that leads to discovery of several novel proteases. The present research work was carried out to explore the indigenous protease producing soil bacterial flora of Karak, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. A total of 60 bacteria were isolated from 16 soil samples collected from different sites in district Karak. The isolates were screened for protease production by using skimmed milk agar. Among all the isolates, 18 bacterial isolates were found protease producers with various degree of protease activity. These isolates were further identified through their morphological, microscopic and biochemical examination. It was concluded that soil of Karak is rich in protease producing bacteria that exhibit diversified proteolytic activities and biochemical features. Further optimization of protease activity and their structure elucidation may be performed which will be helpful to identify novel protease.


The relaxation of magnetic permeability has been followed over a wide temperature range on amorphous magnetic ribbons (composition Fe 81.5 B 14.5 Si 4 ), prepared with different quenching rates, and thus characterized by thickness varying between 21 and 61μm. The measurements were performed on as quenched and annealed (2 h at 330°C in vacuum) samples, by taking the Fourier transform of permeability pulse envelopes, having a repetition time τ = 25 s. The magnitude F(ω, T) at an appropriate frequency \omega_{o}=4\pi at each temperature T is proportional to the decay of permeability after a time τ. By plotting this quantity vs. temperature (between 4 and 600 K), significant differences are found in the relaxation behavior of the examined samples, the relaxation effects being much more pronounced on thinner specimens. The room temperature relaxation is actually found to be closely proportional to the inverse of thickness, that is to quenching rare. These differences are somewhat, but not completely, eliminated on the annealed samples. These results thus provide evidence of structural differences in amorphous alloys due to different preparation procedures. The presence of maxima at higher temperatures on the curve of the permeability relaxation vs. T also provides evidence of differences in structural relaxation due to annealing in the amorphous state of the various samples.


The accurate determination of unit cell parameters and xse position parameter is reported for the chalcopyrite AgInSe2. The structure refinement has been performed with 175 independent reflexions and their Friedel's pair measured on a single crystal with an automatic diffractometer. The unit cell parameters were found equal to a=6.1038 (15) Å, c=11.7118 (47)Å and Se position x to 0.25845 (16).


Submitted for the TSF16 Meeting of The American Physical Society Investigation of Shock Induced Amorphization in Metallic Single Crystals1 CELIA GARCIA AMPARAN, RAMON RAVELO, Physics Department, University of Texas, El Paso, TX 79968 — Recent large-scale non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of shock propagation in metals (Cu, Al, Ta) have shown melting at the shock front for temperatures much lower than the equilibrium melt temperature of the material, at the corresponding shock pressure. The nature of this phenomenon can be associated with amorphization of the material brought about by the loss of shear rigidity at the very high elastic deformations reached in the pressure range where this phenomena is observed. In this work amorphization is examined by evaluating phonon dispersion and sound velocities in single crystal Copper as a function of compressive strain along the (110) direction. Phonon instabilities were characterized by eigenmodes which describe the behavior of the system in a coordinate space. We show that above a critical strain, the shear modes become imaginary, indicating a dynamical instability in the wave propagation of shear waves in the sample. 1Physics Department and the MARC program, University of Texas, El Paso, TX 79968 Celia Garcia Amparan The University of Texas at El Paso Date submitted: 22 Sep 2016 Electronic form version 1.4


T HE FIRST open-heart operation with the use of temporary cardiopulmonary bypass was performed on April 5, 1956, on a 49-year-old man who had been admitted for emergency surgery because of an acute post-myocardial infarction causing perforation of the interventricular septum.' He entered the operating room in frank, intractable pulmonary edema and cardiogenic shock, and was terminally ill. The operation was conducted with a DeWall-Lillehei oxygenator and Sigmamotor pump.2'3 The patient recovered from the operation, but expired 6 weeks later from extension of the myocardial infarction. Twenty-seven years later on February 16, 1983, a 46-year-old man with myocardial ischemia due to coronary artery occlusive disease underwent an elective and routine procedure. A double bypass with a reversed segment of saphenous vein was performed uneventfully, and he was dismissed from the hospital 7 days later in good condition. His convalescence has been smooth. The contrast between the two patients is striking: The first operation was performed on a patient with a fatal complication of a severe myocardial infarction, while the second was done more as a preventive measure against myocardial infarction to provide relief of angina pectoris and restore a comfortable, symptomfree life. Since that first operation, the volume of open-heart surgery at this institution has increased each year until 1982, when a slight decrease occurred due to many factors, some economic and others medical. During the period of this experience, certain concepts have prevailed. Emphasis has been placed on simplicity, expeditiousness, and efficiency, both of performance and patient cost. From the outset, surgery was conducted with the briefest possible periods of cardiopulmonary bypass and perfusion. Bubble oxygenators have proved to be the most effective under these circumstances, although in some instances, predominantly of anticipated prolonged perfusion, membrane oxygenators have been employed. Development of disposable equipment, both in the extracorporeal circuit and in operating room supplies, has contributed to economy of time. Whenever possible, disposable drapes, surgical gowns, instrument trays, and some instruments have been developed to avoid delay and the time-consuming inefficiency of on-site hospital laundries, instrument clean-up personnel, etc. During the earliest period, only one operating room was assigned for cardiovascular procedures, while at present ten operating rooms routinely conduct open-heart procedures simultaneously. Analysis of open-heart procedures has revealed a striking diversification between acquired and congenital cases (Table I), which has been possible through affiliation with a general hospital (St. Luke's Episco-


A novel magnetic nanoabsorbent with abundant amino groups(Fe3O4@PAA-EDA) is prepared by covalent binding of polyacrylic acid(PAA) on the surface of Fe3O4 nanoparticles and then followed by amino-functionalization using ethanediamine(EDA) via carbodiimide activation.The absorbent is characterized by FT-IR,TEM,XRD,and VSM.Moreover,the absorption properties of the absorbent for Cu(Ⅱ) ions are also investigated.The results show that the absorption capability is significantly affected by pH,the optimum pH value is 5;With the competitive reaction under the corresponding pH conditions,the absorption mechanism of Cu(Ⅱ) ions including chelating and electrostatic gravitation are also discussed.The absorption data obey the Langmuir equation with a maximum absorption capacity of 11.88 mg/g and a Langmuir absorption equilibrium constant of 0.0183 L/mg.


When the manufactories are planning their materials resource,they may find that to lower the materials' stock and to shorten the ahead accumulated period of final products are two conflicting target.It was pointed out that the MRPⅡ/ERP system did not run effectively when the classic MRPⅡ/ERP theory was applied the manufactories who produced the half-customized products.A new materials management solution was also presented.The new solution combined ORDER-POINT stock management method and classic MRP management pattern.The scheme of the main core of the mixed MRP system has been designed with unified modeling language.The mass and clump in the process of system design were proposed and solved.


THE primary object of any industry is production-production of commodities or of services. In these commodities or services three groups in society have an economic interest. These three groups are the capitalist whose money is invested, the worker who supplies the labor, and the consumer who pays the price for the commodity or service. As viewed from the welfare of these three classes, which combined comprise all members of society, the fundamentals of the finances of production should be a fair return to the owners of the capital, a fair wage to the possessors of labor, and a fair price to the consumers of the commodity or service. These finances should be so organized that the attainment of any two of these fundamentals or objects would automatically produce the third. That is, a fair interest or dividend and a fair wage should of themselves in combination result in a fair price; a fair interest or dividend and a fair price should of themselves in combination result in a fair wage; and a fair price and a fair wage should of themselves in combination result in a fair return to capital in interest or dividends. If this is true then it is equally a fact that the prime essential of the finances of any corporation engaged in production is to show the actual true capital investment of money and services. If the finances do not show this-if the true capital investment is arbitrarily increased by paper capitalization and hidden or concealed by corporate organization and similar methods-then it is impossible to ascertain what is a fair return to any single one of the three elements to successful production. If, for example, only one million dollars of money and services are invested in a corporation, with its finances showing a capitalization of, say, ten million dollars, and an endeavor is made to pay a return on the ten million, there cannot possibly be a fair return on capital, a fair wage, and a fair price-every one of the three is most likely to be unfair. So at the very outset it is impossible, for any industry so capitalized 271


The relationship between television news producers and anchors/reporters has been studied at the local level, but it hasn't been examined at the national level. This study's authors surveyed correspondents of the traditional news offerings at ABC, CBS, CNN, PBS, and NBC and of newsmagazine offerings at ABC, CBS, and NBC. We found that most respondents reported at least a good relationship with their producers and thought the producers improved their story quality and edited the stories adequately. However, there were differences between the two groups. Newsmagazine correspondents had a better relationship with their producers and felt producers improved the quality of the product more than traditional news correspondents believed the same of their producers. Correspondents who reported a poor relationship with a producer had lower job satisfaction than those with a good relationship. In fact, more than one-fourth of the correspondents' job satisfaction was linked to the producer relationship.


Recent discussions about justice beyond borders are not just about the scope or the content of justice; in addition, they also concern how the very concept of justice should be understood in the first place, how the injustice existing in the world we live in should be understood and what function justice ought to have in this world. In what follows, I will try to shed light on the conceptual, normative and empirical issues at stake in this debate. In doing so, I want to develop further what I call a "critical theory of transnational justice."1 By this I understand a theory of justice as justification grounded in a constructivist conception of reason which is at the same time "realistic" when it comes to assessing the current world order as one of multiple forms of domination. There is no contradiction in combining abstract reflection in moral philosophy with sociological empirical realism in a single theory; on the contrary, that should be our aim. If we lack a clear picture of the reality of the injustices surrounding us our normative thinking is situated in a void or will lead us astray; at the same time, if we don't have a context-transcending normative idea of justice to orient us and enable us achieve distance from the status quo, realism becomes a form of thinking that affirms this status quo.


The objectives of the research are to know types and causes of students"
errors in answering question on descriptive reading comprehension which were
done by the eight year students of state junior high school 14 Pekalongan in the
2013/2014 academic year.

 The research used descriptive qualitative research design to find out the
description of the students" errors in answering question on descriptive reading
comprehension test. The test used as the research instrument. The students were
given one kinds of the test namely, essay. The total of the items were 10 items.
The population of this research is the eight year students of state junior high
school 14 Pekalongan in the 2013/2014 academic year. The total number of
population was 213 students and the researcher taken as sample by using
purposive sampling technique. 30 Students of class D were chosen as the sample.

The result of study about errors analysis in answering question on
descriptive reading comprehension test of the eight year students of state junior
high school 14 Pekalongan were error of omission, addition, misformation and
misordering. Total of errors made by the students are 30 errors, there are 2 errors
omission, 17 errors of addition, and 10 errors misformation, and 1 error
misordering. It could be concluded that error of addition was the dominant type of
errors made by the students. The researher also found two causes of students"
errors, they were 8,7% errors of interlingual and 91,3% errors of intralingual. It
could be concluded the dominant cause of student"s error is intralingual. It was
followed by 34,8% with errors of over generalization, 4,3% with errors of ignore
of rule restriction, 8,7%with errorsof incomplete application of rule, and 43,5%
with errors of false concepts hypothesized.
To improve the quality of students in reading descriptive text, the students
have to motivate selves them in learning reading. They have to enrich their
vocabularies and English grammar if they want to write correct answer on reading
comprehension test. The teachers have to be wise in choosing or determining the
methods they want to use in presenting to comprehend descriptive text. The
researcher can improve knowledge and experience about types and causes of
students" errors for making better from their errors.

Keyword: Descriptive qualitative, descriptive text, reading comprehension.


The theory for the electrical conductivity of bond-type disordered systems is formulated in the single-bond coherent-potential approximation and applied to calculate the conductivity of some model systems as functions of the energy and the degree of disorder. The results are discussed in connection with the electron localization problems such as the bond percolation problem and the Anderson localization problem with fluctuatuon of transfer energies.


An electronic controller is proposed which is used in motor vehicles, for example in the case of electronic ignition and fuel-injection systems, complete-coil ignition systems and digital engine electronics. The controller has a housing (1) which consists of insulating plastic and is closed by a sheet-metal cover (5). The sheet-metal cover (5) has attachment flaps (7) which are bent around the housing edge (3) and are flanged in recesses (11) of the housing (1) in which the free ends (16) of the attachment flap (7) are pressed against an opposing wall (13), which runs parallel to the housing edge (3), of the recess (11). The cover (5) which is attached in this manner is seated in a positively-locking and vibration-resistant manner on the housing (1), without any additional attachment parts being required.


Information and communication technologies have a vital contribution to the development and performance of the new economy, as they are an engine of productivity and competitiveness that characterize all economic sectors. Information and communication technologies are constantly evolving, being a vector of organizational change, of economic and social growth. In this context it is necessary to define the indicators measuring ICT development and spread nation-wide, to study and compare the impact of ICT on the competitiveness of nations. Studying the diffusion of information and communication technologies in both business and the individual level is a major concern for statistical institutes and international organizations. Representative indicators that measure the growth and spread of ICT are Network Readiness Index (NRI), the Index of Digitization and the ICT Development Index. In contrast to industrial economy based on direct transactions and physical assets, in the new economy transactions are digital, allowing virtual relationships and new business environments that were not possible before. The increase in the new economy is supported by several factors, compared with the industrial economy. Traditional physical factors like work, capital reserves, and natural resources were very important during the industry. They are important in the new economy, but there are new factors with essential role such as information, innovation, information and communication technologies, intangible assets. The ICT sector has experienced exceptional growth in recent years due to the expansion of computer networks, Internet development, and high technology sector. ICT development influences the new economy's infrastructure, competitive market behavior, organizational processes emphasizing the essential contribution of ICT to determine the competitiveness of organizations and nations. Given that ICT contributes to reducing costs, increasing competitiveness and productivity, investment in this sector will generate growth and new employment across the economy. The ICT sector has a major contribution to economic development. In 2010 world exports of ICT goods accounted for 12% of all goods traded. Regarding ICT services, telecommunications industry revenue in 2010 reached 1.5 trillion which is 2.4% of world GDP. In the specialized literature there is no universally accepted definition of information and communication technologies. The most relevant of all is: "collection of technological fields that develop simultaneously and interdependently." Among the most important areas are included computer science, communications and electronics. Department of Trade and Industry of Great Britain believes that "information technologies enable the collection, storage and transmission of information in the form of voice, image, text and numbers using microelectronics, by combining informatics with telecommunications." To summarize, ICT is mainly based on two main components: information technology (hardware and software), communications technologies (communication standards, networks, optical transmission, wireless transmission, etc.).


The solutions to solving the three farmer-related problems in China should rely on the democratic and marketing process in the countryside. Thus, the private-owned resources, the circulation of the key elements, the industrialized economy, the integration of the market, the establishment of the society by law and the political democracy are the keys. Otherwise, there would be no modernization in the countryside.


debulking was performed by a joint team of otolaryngology and oculoplastic surgeons using transnasal and transcutaneous approach. Intraoperatively, there was an invasive tumour involving the right medial orbit, lacrimal sac, nasolacrimal duct, ethmoid and maxillary sinus. Endoscopic right modified medial maxillectomy and frontal recess clearance was performed. The skull base was intact. Histological evaluation of the tumour confirmed recurrent pituitary adenoma invading through the inter-trabecular marrow spaces. Immunophenotyping did not show any atypical lymphoid marker expression. Postoperative recovery was unremarkable. Two weeks following surgery, examination revealed visual acuity 6/9 OD 6/6 OS, normal pupillary responses and a full range of extraocular movements. This case represents an atypical presentation of orbitallyinvasive pituitary adenoma presenting as a solitary sinoorbital mass. Previous cases typically describe pituitary adenomas originating from the hyophyseal fossa with orbital extension via the suprasellar space, optic canal or superior orbital fissure. One possible explanation for this presentation is seeding of the tumour cells along the previous excisional tract, suggested by the presence of a previous Chiari incision scar. Bernaidini et al reported a similar case of orbitally-invasive recurrent pituitary adenoma with normal radiological appearance of the sella. They described a tumour extending from the optic canal, involving the orbital apex and consuming most of the right lateral orbit. Moreover, Das et al reported a case of ectopic pituitary adenoma extending into the paranasal and nasopharynx associated with empty sella. Although similar in presentation, the authors hypothesized the phenomenon resulted from aberrant development of the anterior pituitary gland. Symptoms of orbitally-invasive pituitary adenomas include headache, vision loss, diplopia, proptosis, weight loss, nausea and vomiting. Physical examination may reveal afferent pupillary defect, ptosis, optic disk pallor/oedema, visual field changes and nerve palsies. Transphenoidal resection is the preferred surgical approach for pituitary adenomas located in the pituitary fossa however orbital invasion necessitates orbitotomy. Our case involved a combined endoscopic and external excision of the tumour facilitated via transcutaneous incision. A review by Naguib et al revealed that out of 22 total cases of orbitally-invasive pituitary adenomas, nine cases required surgery and radiation whilst seven cases required surgery only. Prognostic data is generally lacking however Naguib et al suggested early surgical intervention was associated with better visual outcomes with seven cases having visual acuity 6/12 or better postoperatively. In summary, our case highlights the need to be vigilant of pituitary adenoma in the differential diagnosis of a sino-orbital mass in patients with a history of recurrent pituitary adenomas.


Smoking during pregnancy remains one of the most significant risk factors for poor birth outcomes. The Loma Linda University Health Comprehensive Tobacco Treatment Program (CTTP) is the largest maternal tobacco cessation program in San Bernardino County – the largest county in the contiguous US. CTTP is an eight week, incentivized, behavioral intervention for tobacco cessation for pregnant smokers. As part of program evaluation, we used a retrospective cohort design to assess smoking abstinence and to identify predictors of relapse/smoking after enrollment. Among CTTP cohort enrollees (n=233) from 2012-2013 we found: 1) a 28.4% 8 week point prevalence abstinence (PPA), and at a median of 9 months of follow-up after the PPA, 81.6% continued to indicate tobacco cessation, and 2) a high rate of relapse or loss to follow-up (56%). Our modeling of relapse/smoking after enrollment indicated that this was higher in young mothers, non-Hispanic mothers (White, Black), first/third trimester mothers, and rural mothers. The evaluation identified efficacy of the behavioral model at 8 weeks, but that relapse/smoking was occurring in disparity populations. Formative research is needed to expand the programmatic outreach and enrollment of mothers wanting to quit smoking.