Rhododendrol (RD), 4‐(4‐hydroxyphenyl)‐2‐butanol, inhibits melanin synthesis and has been used for skin‐whitening cosmetic products. RD has been very effective in lightening skin pigmentation, but some persons have developed so‐called RD vitiligo, in which vitiligo starts on the face, neck and hands where topical RD has been applied and even extended over skin areas where RD has not been applied. RD vitiligo lesions in some patients have lasted for years and have been resistant to conventional vitiligo treatments. We examined the effects of cholecalciferol on RD vitiligo in a blinded randomized clinical trial. Forty‐eight female RD vitiligo patients were recruited for the trial and were randomized into two groups: the vitamin D (VD)‐intervention group that received daily 5000 IU cholecalciferol for 5 months and the control group. Three blinded investigators scored vitiligo improvement by comparing photographic images of baseline and at 5‐month observation. Serum 25(OH)D3 of RD vitiligo patients was not significantly different from age‐matched healthy volunteers. Twenty‐two in the VD‐intervention group and 23 in the control group completed the 5‐month observation. Serum 25(OH)D3 levels were significantly increased after the 5‐month VD intervention, while the control group did not change. The improvement scores were significantly higher in the VD‐intervention group than the control group. The improvement scores were positively correlated with the serum 25(OH)D3 levels after the 5‐month intervention period but not before the treatment. This blinded randomized clinical trial showed favor in administrating 5000 IU cholecalciferol daily to RD vitiligo patients.


AIM
The present study reports factors affecting nurses' ability and willingness to work during pandemic flu (PF).

BACKGROUND
Previous studies suggest some nurses may be unable or unwilling to work during PF.

METHOD
A questionnaire was mailed to nurses during October to December 2009, the second wave of the 2009 A/H1N1 flu pandemic.

RESULTS
Most (90.1%) reported they would work. Willingness decreased primarily as personal protective equipment (PPE) dwindled, family or nurse were perceived to be at risk and when vaccine or antiviral medication was not provided to both nurse and family although many other factors also affected willingness to work. Ability decreased primarily when the nurse was sick, a loved one needed care at home or transportation problems existed although many other factors also affected ability to work.

CONCLUSION
Certain factors can decrease willingness and ability of nurses to work during a flu pandemic.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT
Managers can anticipate factors that may decrease nurse's ability and willingness to work during pandemic flu. Preparing for staffing during emergencies can retain the health care workforce when it is needed most.


A large number of studies have now documented that atrial fibrillation (AF) is often associated with inflammation.1 Given that AF predisposes to stroke and thrombo-embolism and is associated with a hypercoagulable or prothrombotic state, the causal relationship among these 'partners-in-crime'—that is, inflammation and thrombosis—is still a matter of intense debate. Besides its intellectual thrill, this quest may have very practical implication in pinpointing specific targets for the prevention of AF or stroke.

The relationship between AF and inflammation is evident when studied locally in atrial tissue or at the level of 'whole' organism, using biomarkers in the systemic circulation. Examination of atrial biopsies from subjects with paroxysmal AF but without other cardiovascular disease documented myocarditis confined to atria in almost 2/3 of cases.1 Another example is AF in post-thoracotomy patients where inflammatory pericarditis is a significant contributor. Indeed, sterile pericarditis induced by talcum dust in dogs is associated with increased ability to sustain AF.2 This suggests that focal atrial inflammation per se can be the primary cause of AF in a part of AF subjects.

Besides this local milieu, AF patients often demonstrate signs of low-grade systemic inflammation as evidenced by the elevation of inflammatory biomarkers in the systemic circulation, such as C-reactive protein …

*Corresponding author. Tel: +420 236 055 190; fax: +420 261 362 985. E-mail address : vojtech.melenovsky{at}ikem.cz or vome{at}medicon.cz


The Shiga-like toxin I (SLT-I), which had an unnicked A subunit, was purified from Escherichia coli O157: H7. After incubation of the unnicked SLT-I with trypsin, the A subunit of the toxin was nicked and converted to A1 and A2 peptides, which were linked by the disulfide bond. The effects of nicking of SLT-I on its heat stability and cytotoxic activity against Vero cells were examined. The trypsin treatment of SLT-I neither reduced nor increased the ability of cytotoxic activity or the heat stability of the toxin. The time course of binding of the toxin to Vero cells also was not affected by nicking of the toxin. These results indicate the absence of a difference in biological or physical properties of SLTs between nicked and unnicked conditions.


Members of safe staffing pressure group 4:1 protested last week against the government's decision not to introduce minimum staffing levels.


The deregulation of broadcasting in 1985 Finland introduced competition between two different systems: the European public service tradition and American commercial radio. Because of the rivalry the music contents were changed both in commercial stations and in the publicly funded YLE (Finnish Broadcasting Company). Freedom of speech, musically diverse, unconventional and almost uncontrolled program policies dominated radio from the mid1980s. Five years later the form and content were changed. Special music programs hosted by individual disc jockeys were converted to streamlined broadcasting and the variety of music genres diminished. American-style format radios were introduced with automated music control, rotation clocks, playlists and audience music testing. The changes were fostered by the increased competition caused by the change of broadcasting regulations, the unexpected economic recession and technical innovations such as automated music jukeboxes. These business policies form the foundation on which contemporary Finnish commercial radio still rests. The article deals with the change of music culture of the early 1990's commercial radios. It focuses on the following main questions: How was the process of music selection and radio music management changed? What were the economic, technological, organisational and cultural constraints that regulated the radio business and especially radio music in 1990s Finland? The questions will be answered by empirical data consisting of interviews with the radio station personnel in the 1990s and music copyright reports supported by printed archive material.


The main objectives of this study are to examine mobility problems of the elderly people in four residential areas of the city of Sheffield, based on questionnaire surveys of the elderly and of those who organise activities for them. The four case study areas were chosen to provide a contrast in distance from city centre, levels of public transport, housing tenure and facilities available to the elderly. In order to accomplish the broad aim of this study, the following objectives were formulated: to identify main activities, transport problems, the effect of personal disabilities, and their impact in creating transport mobility needs.


Western views of Russia – especially in the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries – presented Russia to the world as being backward, barbarous, and rude. They missed the nuance of Russia's culture and empire, which set a pattern of interpretation of Russia's actions in the world that has lasted well into the twentieth century and beyond. Starting with chapter four and continuing through the remaining chapters, the author presents an excellent survey of Russia's history through its major chronological eras, focused always on the theme of how empire shaped the region's development. It must be noted that this is not a complete history of Russia, and it does not attempt to be. Instead, it stresses the reality of the developing multi-ethnic empire that emerged as Russia took in more and more non-Russian territory over the centuries. The Soviet and post-Soviet sections are the most complicated. Since 1991, Russia has been one of fifteen countries formed out of the failed Soviet Union, but it inherited the foreign policy portfolio of the entire Soviet Union. Current tensions with neighboring countries, especially Ukraine, reignite the discussion of Russia as an empire during the reign of Vladimir Putin. This work was published after the first seizure of territory in 2014, but before the invasion of February 2022. Boterbloem's study is an excellent introduction to the concept of empire in the Russian space. This book is a welcome addition to the literature on this subject for both the scholar and student.


Objective To discuss the effect of somatostatin combining with Honghua injection in the treatment of acute pancreatitis. Methods 52 patients with acute pancreatitis admitted into our hospital from January 2012 to June 2013 were selected and evenly divided into observation group and control group based on different therapeutic methods. In the control group, conventional treatment like somatostatin was provided, while in the observation group, on the basis of the control group, honghua injection was added. The therapeutic effects in both groups were compared. Results The blood and urine amylase recover time, white blood cell normal time, abdominal pain alleviating time, and average hospital stay in observation group and control group were significantly different( P0.05). The total effective rate in the observation group was 88.46%(23/26), while in the control group, it was 65.38%(17/26), the difference was significant(P0.05). Conclusion Somatostatin and honghua injection can has reliable effect in treatment of acute pancreatitis, which is worthy of expansion in clinic.


Since the early 1990s, the drivers for outsourcing maintenance have grown and there has been a pronounced shift to maintenance being a noncore activity. Yet there is dissatisfaction across many market sectors with the way outsourced maintenance has turned out. Even so, the trend seems irreversible; successful contracting organisations of the future will have to be prepared to take on risk to ensure the client gets best value from their maintenance service. Maintenance embraces both long and short-term planning, operational expenditure and capital investment costs, and a diverse range of skill requirements for varying types of asset. Given this level of complexity, the question is: how can we move to asset based performance contracts where the supplier carries risk and has a stake in the successful performance of the assets it maintains? Asset based performance contracts focus the contractual effort on ensuring the assets perform, and suitably reward the contractor for the risk taken in meeting the agreed performance criteria. Significantly, a deeper and more mature understanding of the contractual relationship works to the benefit of both parties.


Paper impregnated and coated with thermosetting resins is commonly used as a decorative and protective laminate for wood composites. The paper laminates are manufactured in a paper treater by impregnating décor paper with a mixture of melamine (MF) and urea formaldehyde (UF) resin or UF resin. This resin is then cured, and the paper is coated with a protective layer of MF resin. There is ongoing pressure to reduce the production cost of the laminates by increasing paper treatment speeds and minimizing the consumption of the expensive MF resin. Attempts to implement such strategies often result in poor quality laminates that contain defects (unfilled pores) in the MF coating. Examination of the relationship between UF resin treatment and paper type on the surface quality and distribution of MF resin in treated and pressed laminates revealed that the level of UF resin treatment strongly influenced the quality of the MF coating in laminates. Low levels of UF resin treatment (!25.0 g m) are associated with high levels of coating defects, and certain paper types in particular are prone to develop such defects. Scanning electron microscopy and Raman microscopy reveal that defects in MF coatings occur when MF resin flows from the surface of paper into voids that have not been filled by UF resin. The implications of these findings for the manufacture of protective laminates for use in low-pressure melamine panels are discussed briefly. q 2004 Published by Elsevier Ltd.


Book Physics of the learners or abbreviated BFPD is the support system used in Indonesia in the discharge of educator learning process, including on subjects of Physics in high school. The main product produced is BFPD-based local wisdom to improve science literacy learners comprising: a) lading local wisdom; b) science content; c) context of sins; d) competence of science; and e) attitude of science. For the purposes of product quality, the researchers adapted the criteria according to which Nieeven mengcakup kevalidan and the practicality of the products developed. The instruments used in this study, includes assessment sheet BFPD-based local wisdom to improve science literacy learners and literacy ability test sheet science learners. The subject of learners targeted development BFPD are those that have the most science literacy is low and most highly each 1 (one) person based on preliminary tests, educators, and school principal in SMA Negeri 8 Maros. The results of this research show that BFPD-based local wisdom developed with very valid based on expert judgement, based on practical use of keterlaksanaan BFPD, and effectively based on the increase in science literacy learners. So BFPD-based local wisdom is declared valid, practical, and effective way to improve science literacy learners from high school.


Objective:To simulate incomitant strabismus with Orbit TM1.8 Gaze Mechanics Simulation,thereby clarify diagnostic and treatment possibilities.We want to discuss the methods of different simulations and evaluate the clinical value of Orbit TM1.8. Methods:Fifteen patients with congenital superior oblique paresis,one with traumatic medial rectus disinsertion,one with six nerve paresis and one with Brown′s syndrome were enrolled.Hess Test and other strabismus tests were performed before and after surgery.In Orbit TM1.8,which was designed by Miller JM from the United States,parameters such as contractile force,elasticity,innervation of extraocular muscles were modified to simulate the preoperative disorder.In experimenting with diagnosis we incorporated whatever we know or suspect:not only changes of the paresis muscle,but also secondary changes in other muscles should be considered.As Orbit TM′s simulated alignment matched clinical data well,preoperative biomechanical strabismus models were created.Surgical manipulations were then applied to the models,so postoperative outcomes could be predicted.After surgery,simulated and actual outcomes were compared. Results:In all the 18 patients,preoperative simulations clarified the diagnosis or hypotheses.As for the 17 patients who had strabismus surgery,their simulated and actual postoperative alignments matched well. Conclusions:Orbit TM1.8 Gaze Mechanics Simulation can be used to reflect supposed causes of strabismus and proposed treatments,thus test the diagnosis and predict the outcome of surgery.It is valuable for diagnosis and treatment of incomitant strabismus.


The improved bit-plane complexity segmentation (BPCS) steganography carries on different processings to different bit-planes, with setting high threshold value at the high bit-plane and low threshold value at the low. Not only provides good visual imperceptibility and data embedding capacity, this scheme also is capable of resisting the analysis of the whole complexity histogram. However, it still exists safe loophole. Experimental results show that, the partial statistical analysis the paper mentioned can analysis the existence of secret information; furthermore, it can estimate the embedding threshold value accurately.


Refractive disorder is the most common cause of visual impairment in the world, and one of them is myopia. Myopia is a condition of the eye failing to focus light from an object causes it to focus in front of the retina. The elongation of the axis of the eyeball and the high refractive power of the cornea and lens might be the cause of myopia. Myopic patients often complain of blurred vision when looking at a far objects. There are several risk factors of myopia, including genetics, gender, age and environment.This article is literature review. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview related to refractive disorders, especially myopia. The management of myopia patients can be divided into 2, including optical therapy and pharmacological therapy. Optical therapy includes the smallest negative spherical glasses that provide maximum visual acuity, contact lenses, and orthokeratology. Management of myopic patients aims to reduce progression and complications by providing optical therapy in the form of spherical glasses, contact lenses, and orthokeratology


One of the major obstacles in exploring the ocean, and therefore understanding ocean processes, is the difficulty associated with our inability as humans to travel freely in the watery world. Because of this, ocean research relies on platforms that help researchers and sensors extend their reach across larger areas, deeper depths, longer durations, and more channels (properties). Instruments that can best utilize these platforms, with better resolution in spatial and temporal domains, have been constantly sought after and invented. The fundamental physical limitations for underwater research discussed in previous chapters are primarily due to the density difference between the air and water by a factor of a thousand, and the associated strong attenuation of most EM waves in the water. This limits the majority of ocean sensing from space to the surface of the ocean, with lidar's maximum penetration likely extending to the bottom of the mixed layer as the only exception. For this reason, in situ sampling is an integral part of ocean research, and will most likely never be replaced.

Oceanography has come a long way in terms of sampling platforms, discussed briefly in Chapter 1. Ship-based data and sample collection has been complemented by airborne and spaceborne remote sensing methods to gain fast and synoptic coverage. Surface vessels have been supplemented with various UUVs, ranging from remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and various types of buoyancy-driven gliders. Stationary sampling stations, or moorings, are deployed on a continuous basis, along with other vertical profilers and floats, to complete larger in situ monitoring areas. These are the basic elements of observatories and provide long-term sensing and monitoring capabilities of the ocean.

Various instruments, starting with the simple Secchi disk, have been used in exploration of the ocean and have enriched our understanding of the ocean. To improve the quantification of various properties and processes, more sophisticated instruments and sensors have been developed to enable the collection of temperature, salinity, visibility, and optical properties of the ocean with higher accuracy and broader coverage, spatially, temporally, and often spectrally as well. Key instruments in ocean sensing applications, especially those related to the field of ocean optics, are explored in this chapter, along with the platforms that are best suited to their requirements.


Abstract : The feasibility of remedial movement, i.e., transfer of people from inadequate fallout shelters to areas providing greater protection, was investigated. Within the limitations imposed by the conditions of the study, certain conclusions were drawn: (1) As might be expected, the maximum opportunities for payoff are related to refuges having lower protection factors. (2) Maximum payoff conditions are related to fallout arriving at early times. (3) Maximum payoff conditions generally involve reference radiation intensities of 350 r/hr or greater, with the upper limit of about 2000 r/hr. (4) For one- hour arrivals the maximum allowable travel time for maximum payoff is about 1.3 hours.


We address the problem of multiuser scheduling in a cellular downlink system with partial channel information. In our setting, the channel of each user is modeled by a two-state Markov chain. The scheduler indirectly estimates the channel via accumulated automatic repeat request (ARQ) feedback from the scheduled users and uses this information in future scheduling decisions. This problem is a special case of the restless multi-armed bandit processes that have been shown to be PSPACE-hard to solve in general. By modeling the scheduling problem as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP), we formulate a throughput maximization problem and show that, despite the visible complexity of this problem, a simple round-robin fashioned scheduling policy optimizes the system for the special case of three or less users in the system. We study the structure of this policy for an arbitrary number of users and establish a sufficient condition for the optimality of this policy. Drawing equivalence with a genie-aided system, we derive an explicit expression for the sum capacity of the downlink.


1094Background: Napabucasin (BBI-608, BB608) is a first-in-class cancer stemness inhibitor that targets the STAT3 pathway that has shown potent synergistic preclinical anti-tumor activity with paclitaxel. In a phase Ib dose escalation study in patients (pts) with advanced solid tumors, BB608 plus weekly paclitaxel was well tolerated. Methods: Pts with metastatic triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) who progressed on prior systemic therapy (including prior taxanes) were enrolled to assess safety, tolerability, and preliminary anti-cancer activity. BB608 was administered orally at 480 mg twice daily with paclitaxel 80 mg/m2 IV weekly 3 of every 4 weeks. A sample size of 40 set the bounds of the 90% CI at ±10% to 14%, assuming a disease control rate (DCR) of 60% to 80%. Disease control is defined as stable disease (SD) for at least 8 weeks, or objective partial (PR) or complete response (CR) per RECIST 1.1. Results: 35 pts enrolled, having received a median of 4 prior lines of therapy, including 33 pts (94%)...


Novel view synthesis (NVS) is renowned for its variety of applications, and recent techniques are based on an image-based approach, which uses multiple input images to synthesize novel views, with the help of 3D geometry. View-dependent texture mapping is one of the most well-known techniques of this kind. However, it sometimes suffers from blurry or duplicated edges when the geometry is inaccurate because it blends several input images for alleviating inconsistent lighting conditions among input images. This paper presents a view-dependent texture mapping-based method for NVS that leverages geometry-aware color continuity in texture selection. Our color continuity constraint suppresses noticeable texture boundaries in resulting novel views without blending, while our method relaxes the constraint on steep geometric changes. Since such geometric changes are often followed by surface property changes, our new color continuity constraint can lead to more natural novel views. We formulate our texture selection by an energy minimization problem and solve it with the graph cut algorithm. Our experimental results have demonstrated the superiority of our method.


The objective of the study is to develop the teaching materials in writing descriptive texts in Grade X students of SMK Binaan UMN Al-Washliyah 3, Medan. The study is conducted by  the Development Research method, and the evaluators are the instructors of the Indonesian Subject (specific instructors), and the subjects are Grade X students. Pre-test and post-test are done to find out the effectiveness of the result. The result of the pre-test shows that the average score is 67% with the category of satisfactory; the result of the post-test shows that the average score is 85% with the category of distinction. The process of developing teaching materials includes three aspects of assessment: 1) teaching materials, 2) presentation, and 3) language structure. The validation of material experts includes content with an average score of 4.9% and a percentage of 82.2% with the category of distinction. The feasibility of presenting teaching materials has an average score of 113% with the category of distinction, and the language element has an average score of 11.4% with the category of distinction. The conclusion indicates that the design for developing teaching materials of descriptive texts by using a scientific approach in the subject of Indonesian is very effective.


Graph signal processing has attracted attention in the signal processing community, since it is an effective tool to deal with great quantities of interrelated data. Recently, a diffusion algorithm for adaptively learning from streaming graphs signals was proposed. However, it suffers from high computational cost since all nodes in the graph are sampled even in steady state. In this paper, we propose an adaptive sampling method for this solution that allows a reduction in computational cost in steady state, while maintaining convergence rate and presenting a slightly better steady-state performance. We also present an analysis to give insights about proper choices for its adaptation parameters.


While recent proposals in the California legislature have been successful in adding nominal dollars to the foster care system, a more radical and comprehensive initiative must be undertaken to address the issue of inadequate foster care funding in the state. Perhaps the only issue more disconcerting than the lack of resources is the looming threat to existing resources. The federal mechanisms which provide the bulk of funding for foster care services are exceedingly vulnerable to curtailment. Consequently, the resource problem afflicting the foster care system is two-fold: (1) An under funded system is providing limited and substandard care to foster youth and (2) the federal funding mechanisms providing the bulk of existing funds will soon face challenges. Work must be undertaken to provide additional and stable sources of funding to ensure the viability of existing services and to facilitate the implementation of new services for this underserved community. The long-standing "scattered" and "reactive" nature of policy making in this field makes it imperative that advocates take an aggressive grassroots posture to proactively improve and protect foster care services before they are completely crippled.This proposal seeks to introduce a ballot initiative to impose a 3.5% monthly internet access fee for all high-speed data lines servicing businesses and residences in California. The funds raised would be earmarked for new foster care services and programs in the state. Unused funds would be placed in a reserve account earmarked for future foster care services.


PURPOSE
Gentiopicroside is an important plant secondary metabolite and has been reported to exhibit tremendous pharmacological potential. In the present study we investigated the anticancer effects of gentiopicroside against ovarian SKOV3 cancer cells.

METHODS
Anticancer effects were determined by MTT assay. Apoptosis was investigated by DAPI and annexin V/propidium iodide (PI) double staining. Mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) determination and cell cycle analysis were carried out by flow cytometry. Protein expression was examined by western blotting.

RESULTS
The results showed that gentiopicroside exerted anticancer effects on SKOV3 cancer cells in a dose-dependent manner. The IC50 of gentiopicroside was 20 µM against the SKOV3 cancer cells. The anticancer effects were mainly found to be due to loss of MMP and induction of apoptosis. The Bax/Bcl-2 expression ratio was also altered upon gentiopicroside treatment. Furthermore, gentiopicroside could arrest the SKOV3 cells in G2/M phase of the cell cycle and prevent their migration and invasion.

CONCLUSIONS
These results indicate that gentiopicroside could prove a potential lead molecule in the treatment and management of ovarian cancer.


Objective:To detect the expression of matrix metalloproteinase(MMP)-1,-3,-7 and urokinase plasminogen activator receptor(uPAR)in non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC),to analyze the correlation between their expression with clinical pathological characteristic,invasion and metastasis.Methods:To detect proteins expression levels of the 4 genes in paraffin blocks of sixty-six NSCLC and 10 normal lung tissues by immunohistochemistry.Results:The results of immunohistochemistry showed that positive percentage of MMP-1 and MMP-3 was lower;however,MMP-7 and uPAR had higher positive percentage,55% and 61% in NSCLC,respectively.Expression of MMP-7 closely correlated with lymph node metastasis,differentiation degrees and prognosis of NSCLC;expression of uPAR only correlated with prognosis of NSCLC.Expression of MMP-7 was positive correlation with expression of uPAR in NSCLC.Conclusion:Expression of MMP-7 and uPAR indicates poor prognosis of NSCLC,which may be good targets for anti-tumor treatment.


Necessary and/or sufficient conditions for the onset of shear flow localization in thermal viscoplastic materials were derived by Shawki (1994) through the analysis of a one-dimensional model of dynamic simple shear with velocity-controlled boundaries. In the former work, an energy-based viewpoint of localization allows for the association of the positive rate of change of the total kinetic energy of the absolute perturbations with the onset of shear strain localization. Here, we derive explicit conditions for the onset of shear localization without the need to obtain exact linear solutions. Explicit localization conditions are then applied to a number of empirical constitutive descriptions of material response. The effects of inertia, heat conduction, thermal softening, strain hardening, and strain rate sensitivity as regards the onset of shear localization are thoroughly discussed. Furthermore, the validity of conclusions based on a constant homogeneous solution is quantified together with the validity of conclusions based on a quasi-static approximation. Moreover, we examine the inadequacy of the notion of asymptotic stability for shear localization in the presence of heat conduction effects. A critical wavelength threshold is derived, for a general description of material response, below which perturbations will not grow. This threshold may also serve as a lower bound for shear band thickness.


Based on the research of the VRML and OpenGL showlist, a method to extract the datas including points materials and maps from the model made by 3DMAX through the model of VRML, and then save these datas in order to build the virtual image of 3D model in the virtual scene of OpenGL. This method can transplant the 3Dmax models into the programming environment that supports OpenGL conveniently and quickly and is valuable to the building of models in the virtual scene.


We have carried out a survey of the photometric (V) variability of 61 "known" or suspected small-amplitude red variables, mostly M giants. Approximately two-thirds appear to be variable; several suspected variable comparison stars have also been identified. The incidence and average amplitude of variability increase rapidly from spectral type M0 III to M6 III.


This work has as axis of reflection the evaluation of university research professors through the categorization processes developed since late last century in Argentina. It considers that such a practice manifests in a crystal clear way an instrumental rationality with important practical consequences that compromise, among other aspects, the identity of the public university, the teaching professional condition and the relation that professors have with respect to knowledge, matters which would justify their approach from the philosophy of technology frame.


Billions of people around the world are affecting from various joint diseases among which osteoarthritis is one of the most common condition. Osteoarthritis (OA) affects a patient's quality of life and have significant impact on individuals and on the society as well. For evaluation of patient's condition with OA, patient reported outcome measures (PROs) are a useful measure which is widely used in clinical settings. This review focuses on the validity, reliability of seven scales that are used for evaluation of knee osteoarthritis and availability of these scales Bengali translated version for using in Bangladeshi population. From the seven English version scales only four scales (WOMAC, KOOS, SF-36 and SF-12) are having Bengali translated version. Among which only three (WOMAC, SF-36 and SF-12) scales are proved to be reliable and valid for general use. But a matter of fact that among the Bengali translated versions only SF-12 Bengali version is easily available in the internet for regular use but it lacks in measuring the pain intensity of patient. So, Bengali translation of other new outcome measures like ICOAP, KOOS-PS should be done and already translated and validated versions should be made available for public use.


Treatment of rabies virus with the nonionic detergent Nonidet P-40 resulted in solubilization of viral lipids and in a preferential release of the envelope glycoprotein. The other viral proteins and the viral ribonucleic acid remained associated in "core" particles sedimenting at a rate similar to that of intact virions. After fractionation of treated virus by velocity centrifugation in a sucrose density gradient, the amount of residual glycoprotein recovered in the "core" particle fraction and the extent of contamination of the glycoprotein fraction by other viral components were dependent on the ratio of detergent to viral protein used.


This article reports the limit of fatigue for woven carbon fiber epoxy composite specimens with a hole of 6 mm diameter at its centre using the self-heating methodology. The self-heating methodology is a relatively new and economical method to determine the fatigue limit of materials [1-4]. The conventional method to determine the limit of fatigue, like the Wohler curves, would require one to perform classical fatigue tests on several specimens for many months to obtain the S-N curve. Whereas, only two to three specimens are required to determine the limit of fatigue using the self-heating methodology and each experiment takes only a few hours to a day's time. The carbon fiber reinforced polymer matrix (CFRP) composites specimens are subjected to a constant amplitude block load cycling sequence, with increasing levels of mean stress () in the subsequent blocks and the temperature response is monitored. The stabilised surface temperatures or the peak point surface temperatures are plotted against the maximum stress amplitude in each loading block. This plot is called the self-heating curve. CFRP specimens of both [0/90] and quasi-isotropic configuration with and without centre hole are tested. The results are compared with the results of the CFRP specimens without a hole to draw conclusions. It is observed that for the specimens with the centre hole, more number of cycles per loading block is required for the stabilization of specimen's surface temperature. The stress concentration around the centre hole plays a critical role in the stabilization of the surface temperature. The robustness of an innovative "peak-temperature point" approach under the self-heating methodology is also investigated. This novel approach which is well suited for CFRP specimens with an inherent defect or flaw is found convenient for investigating the limit of fatigue of CFRP specimens with a hole as well.


An electrochemical sensor for determination of ceftazidime (CFD) was fabricated by polymerizing crystal violet (PCV) and platinum nanoparticles (nanoPt) on a glassy carbon electrode (GCE). The nanoPt/PCV composite film exhibited excellent catalytic performance toward CFD. On this modified electrode, the CFD had an irreversible oxidation peak at 0.8 V with a dramatically amplified current value. The electrochemical behaviors of CFD and the conditions that may affect these behaviors were investigated detailedly on the nanoPt/PCV/GCE. Under the optimized conditions, the sensor showed a wide linear range over the concentration of CFD from 0.25 to 10 μM. The detection limit was 0.01 μM. The sensor can be applied for detecting the content of CFD in meat samples with good selectivity and stability. The recovery was between 97.8% and 103%.


Department of Homeland Security Press Office. (2016). Statement by Secretary Jeh C. Johnson on Southwest Border Security[Press release]. Retrieved from: http://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/01/04/statement-secretary-jeh-c-johnsonsouthwest-border-securityDunton, E. S. (2012). Same sex, different rights: Amending U.S. immigration law to recognize same-sex partners of refugees and asylees. Family Court Review, 50(2), 357-371. doi:10.1111/ j.1744-1617.2012.01441.x


Ocean Bottom Node (OBN) acquisition requires a very detailed understanding of the shot and receiver positions, receiver timing, and water column velocities. Knowledge of the water column velocities is necessary for processing and accurate imaging of OBN data. Processes that refine the shot positions, receiver positions, receiver timing, and water column velocities individually are subject to leakage of errors in the other domains. A process must be used that refines all values simultaneously. A traveltime inversion process is shown on an example deep water dataset. The lessons learned for preparing the data and conditioning the variables in the traveltime inversion process are shown. The result of the inversion is a detailed time and depth dependent water column velocity model, correct shot and receiver positions, and accurate receiver timing. These results are necessary for regularization, designature, and imaging of OBN data, and vital for full exploitation of 4D analysis.


Success of Sanming's healthcare reform relies heavily on the government's dominant role. Based on this inspiration, the paper discussed the responsibilities expected of the government in health protection of the people as required by national strategy, public interests and market demands, and presented the corresponding responsibilities of the government in the protection, leadership, scrutiny and management for the sake of public health. In addition the paper recommended on policies to make up for the absence and dislocation of governmental responsibilities, including all-out efforts for legislations in health protection, greater government subsidy for health protection, development of a comprehensive supervision system, and establishment of entities accountable for people's health in general.

Key words:
Sanming; Healthcare reform; Health protection; Governmental responsibility


In recent years, there has been demonstrated a rapid progress of the AlGaN/GaN system applications in optical and electronic device research due to its unique features. One of unique features of AlGaN/GaN system includes chemically stable where stability of surface is essentially important for liquid-phase sensor applications. Besides, AlGaN/GaN also allows highly sensitive detection of surface phenomena with the presence of a high-density two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in the high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) structure [1]. The material itself is found as environment-friendly and bio-friendly. Furthermore, the GaN material allows sensing operations at high temperatures due to large bandgap energies [2]. In future, realization of wireless sensor chips by on-chip co-integration of circuits for sensor signal processing and wireless communications also will be possible with the HFET technology. Regarding to these features, GaN-based HEMT motivates an interesting area to be studied particularly to be used in biochemical sensing applications.


Ostracism has been found to have negative consequences for employees, such as decreases in performance and job satisfaction, as well as increases in withdrawal (Ferris, Brown, Berry, & Lian, 2008)....


We prepared a solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) composed of a lithium borate salt and a polymer matrix, which can be employed for all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries. The lithium borate salt was made from lithium cations and bis (maleic acid) borate anions, and exhibits an excellent thermal stability as well as high ionic conductivity. The polymer matrix is an amorphous polymeric material having no crystalline regions, which is beneficial for the movement of lithium ions in the SPE. The polymer matrix also has good mechanical performance and thermal stability. Moreover, the SPE also has a relatively high ionic conductivity.


Many steel–concrete hybrid buildings have been built in China. The seismic performance of such hybrid system is much more complicated than that of steel structure or reinforced concrete (RC) structure. A steel–concrete hybrid frame‐tube super‐tall building structure with new type of shear walls to be built in a district of seismic intensity 8 in China was studied for its structural complexity and irregularity. Both model test and numerical simulation were applied to obtain the detailed knowledge of seismic performance for this structure. First, a 1/30 scaled model structure was tested on the shaking table under different levels of earthquakes. The failure process and mechanism of the model structure are presented here. Nonlinear time‐history analysis of the prototype structure was then conducted by using the software PERFORM‐3D. The dynamic characteristics, inter‐story drift ratios and energy dissipation conditions are introduced. On the basis of the comparison between the deformation demand and capacity of main structural components at individual performance level under different earthquake level, the seismic performance at the member level was also evaluated. Despite the structural complexity and code‐exceeding height, both experimental and analytical results indicate that the overall seismic performance of the structure meet the requirements of the Chinese design code. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


In this paper, the linearization of product polar quantizers is presented. Product polar quantizers are very important in A/D (analogue-to-digital) conversion and compression of measurement signals with Gaussian distribution, as they have much better performances than scalar quantizers and can be widely used in many modern measurement systems such as telemetry, telemedicine, wireless sensor networks, distributed measurement systems and remote control systems. The key limiting factor in the realization of product polar quantizers is the fact that the companding function for the magnitude quantization is non-linear. To decrease complexity of realization of product polar quantizers, we suggest the linearization of the companding function. Two methods of linearization are proposed. Although both methods are good, we highlight the second method, which achieves high performances with a small number of linear segments, due to optimization of the last linear segment. The convergence of expressions for the distortion before and after linearization is proved. The analysis is developed in the general manner (for any companding function) and applied on a µ-law companding function. The influence of linearization on the robustness of product polar quantizers is analysed. The best solutions for the design of the linearized product polar quantizers, considering complexity and quality, are proposed. The linearization of product polar quantizers compatible with the widely used G.711 standard is performed. It is shown that linearized product polar quantizers, although much simpler, can achieve performances very close to those of the corresponding non-linearized quantizers. Theory is proved by the simulation and experiment.


Objective To investigate the effects of β-blocker on Pmax and P wave dispersion(Pd) in chronic cardiac insufficiency patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation(PAF). Methods 64 patients were randomly divided into metoprolol treatment group(A group,n=32) and control group(B group,n=32). Basic treatment of chronic cardiac insufficiency in two groups was comparable.The patients(A group) were treated by metoprolol 12.5~75mg/d. Pmax and Pd were measured based on the 12-lead electrocardiogram at the beginning and at the six months、twelve months after taking medicine. Results At the beginning there was no significant difference between two groups (P0.05);Pmax and Pd were significantly decreased in group A after 6 months,12 months of treatment,compared to that of group B(P0.01); the difference of Pmax and Pd was significant in A group between, before treatment and at the end of treatment(P0.01),but it was not significant in B group(P0.05). PAF rate was decreased after 6 months,12 months of treatment. The difference was significant between two groups(P0.01). Conclusions Pmax and Pd were obviously decreased in chronic cardiac insufficiency patients with PAF. Metoprolol can decrease PAF rate by decreasing Pmax and Pd.


The commercial active dry yeast strains used for cider production in China are far behind the requirements of the cider industry development in recent decades. In this study, eight yeasts, including Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, Pichia bruneiensis, and Pichia kudriavzevii, were screened and assessed by growth performance, methanol production, aroma analysis, and their transcriptive characterization. Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains WFC-SC-071 and WFC-SC-072 were identified as promising alternatives for cider production. Strains WFC-SC-071 and WFC-SC-072 showed an excellent growth capacity characterized by 91.6 and 88.8% sugar utilization, respectively. Methanol production by both strains was below 200 mg/L. Key aroma compounds imparting cider appreciably characteristic aroma increased in cider fermented by strains WFC-SC-071 and WFC-SC-072. RT-qPCR analysis suggested that most genes associated with growth capacity, carbohydrate uptake, and aroma production were upregulated in WFC-SC-071 and WFC-SC-072. Overall, two Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains are the optimal starters for cider production to enable the diversification of cider, satisfy the differences in consumer demand, and promote cider industry development.


14 Introduction 14 Materials and Methods 15 Bacterial strain and DNA extraction 15 Selection and screening of genes for potential use in MLST 15


Jacobi conditions for singular optimization problems by transforming singular accessory minimum problem into nonclassical nonsingular form, considering optimal control theory applicability


OBJECTIVE:To strengthen the clinical rational use of drug and to ensure safety of drug use.METHODS:The irrational medication orders of PIVAS in our hospital from Mar.to Aug.in 2009 were analyzed statistically.RESULTS:Of total 859 339 medication orders,771 irrational medication orders accounted for 0.94‰,including excessive dosage,irrational compatibility and improper solvent selection,etc.CONCLUSIONS:Pharmacists can correct irrational medication order to improve rational use of drug by PIVAS.Moreover,PIVAS plays an important role in training clinical pharmacists.


In this work, we present a systematic study on the oxidation of solid-state reaction silicon nanocrystals (Si nc) embedded in tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) thin films. The 12.8nm Si nc are spun coated in TEOS thin film and hard baked in O2 ambient at 900°C with varying times. The resulting grain size is investigated using x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. Si nanoclusters are observed. Upon 900°C oxidation with varying times, three main regions of grain size transition are identified. With short oxidation time, sintering with oxidation at the rim of the agglomerate dominates; at medium oxidation time, full sintering in the agglomerate with pure oxidation retarded by interfacial stress and strain dominates; at long oxidation time, self-limiting effect prevails. Study has been carried out using a combination of classical sintering model and Kao's two dimensional oxidation model considering the decrease of reaction rate with increasing stress perpendicular to the Si surface. In our developed model, the critical stress for self-limiting oxidation is found to be 2.9×109Pa.In this work, we present a systematic study on the oxidation of solid-state reaction silicon nanocrystals (Si nc) embedded in tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) thin films. The 12.8nm Si nc are spun coated in TEOS thin film and hard baked in O2 ambient at 900°C with varying times. The resulting grain size is investigated using x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. Si nanoclusters are observed. Upon 900°C oxidation with varying times, three main regions of grain size transition are identified. With short oxidation time, sintering with oxidation at the rim of the agglomerate dominates; at medium oxidation time, full sintering in the agglomerate with pure oxidation retarded by interfacial stress and strain dominates; at long oxidation time, self-limiting effect prevails. Study has been carried out using a combination of classical sintering model and Kao's two dimensional oxidation model considering the decrease of reaction rate with increasing stress perpendicular to the Si surface. In our deve...


The development of capsule for gastric ulcer provided in the invention is based on 36 subjects of science such as tradition traditional Chinese medicine theory, pathology, anatomy, internal medicine, surgery, gynaecology, science of prescription, traditional Chinese pharmacology, Chinese pharmaceutical chemistry, botany, Chinese pharmacy, etc. The capsule contains active components like bioactive alkaloid, polypeptide, glycyrrhizin and the like and can significantly increase the portion of CMP in helicobacter; the ratio of two different annular thymidylic acids in CMP increases through adjusting, which is favorable for inhibiting tumor cells, thereby realizing efficacy of curing stomach cancer, gastric ulcer and other stomach troubles.


This paper is written with the end user-particularly the smaller end user (who probably accounts for well over 50% of all hazardous areas)-firmly in mind, and aims to highlight some of the key aspects which, if they are not already being so, should be considered and given careful attention. The real safety of electrical apparatus in hazardous areas is far more a function of installation, inspection and maintenance, than it is of the apparatus certification. However, the certification does have a very important part to play, providing that both the equipment supplier and the end user understand what the certification means. In determining the inspection and maintenance required, once the apparatus has been correctly installed, there is no substitute for understanding the protection concept applied, and ensuring that it is maintained in a condition which continues to offer that protection concept's assurance. A study of the type of faults which do come to light, especially faults noted by audit personnel and others who are not familiar with the site provides useful guidance and feedback to the responsible engineer for future installation, inspection and maintenance work.


The flotation codition as applied to the concentration of manganese ore has been taken high pulp density, fine size and high power compared with other sulfide flotation in Oe flotation plant.The reason for this is considerated that manganese flotation is affected by the pulp viscosity, formed by suspensing the mineral particle in water.In the flotation cell, the movement of the bubble may be effected to greater or lesser degree by the pulp viscosity.Assuming that a film of the pulp is formed on the bubble surface, the equation (3) is given among the pulp density, particle size and the power demand etc.These relationship may be served to obtain the estimation of the physical condition in manganese flotation.


1 Mork C, Kvernebo K. Erythromelalgia – a mysterious condition? Arch Dermatol 2000; 136: 406–409. 2 Kurzrock R, Cohen PR. Paraneoplastic erythromelalgia. Clin Dermatol 1993; 11: 73–82. 3 Davis M, Michael O, Roy SR, et al. Natural history of erythromelalgia. Arch Dermatol 2000; 136: 330–336. 4 Mork C, Kalgaard OM, Kvernebo K. Erythromelalgia as a paraneoplastic syndrome in a patient with abdominal cancer. Acta Derm Venereol 1999; 79: 394. 5 Kalgaard OM, Seem E, Kvernebo K. Erythromelalgia: a clinical study of 87 cases. J Intern Med 1997; 242: 191– 197. 6 Cohen JS. Erythromelalgia: new theories and new therapies. J Am Acad Dermatol 2000; 43: 841–847. 7 Lantrade P, Didier A, Ille H, et al. Malignant thymoma and paroxysmal peripheral disease, a case report. [In French]. Ann Med Interne (Paris) 1980; 131: 228–230. 8 Levine AM, Gustafson PR. Erythromelalgia: case report and literature review. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 1987; 68: 119–121.


There were numerous singing girls in Song Dynasty,who improved their own culture of literature and art in the communication with literators.First,they were the main forte in spreading the Song-ci;Secondly,they were the participators in composing the Song-ci;Thirdly,they were the promoters in thriving the Song-ci.Therefore,the singing girls should not be neglected when the prosperity of Song-ci is talked about.


Abstract The convergence and summability of N-dimensional Walsh–Fourier series in the metrics LP ([0, 1] N ), p ∈ [1, + ∞], are studied by the negative order Césaro method. Getsadze's theorem and a generalization of Moricz' theorem are obtained as special cases.


The synthesis of soluble proteins in the uterus of the pseudopregnant rat after decidual induction has been examined by means of a polyacrylamide electrophoretic technique with double-labeling incorporation of amino acids. It has been shown by the incorporation of lHI -leucine into soluble proteins that the endometrial tissue synthesizes a single protein band 1 h after the decidual stimulus. This protein migrates ahead of the bulk of the proteins, and slightly faster than serum albumin during the 6 percent polyacrylamide electrophoretic run. The protein(s) neither shows up when the whole uterus is examined 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 h after decidual induction nor in the endometrium on day L3 of pseudopregnancy, the day on which the uterus is insensitive to the decidual stimulus. It is suggested that this protein is synthesized only when the endometrial cells differentiate to form the decidual tissue. The antimesometrial region of the endometrium previously subjected to the decidual stimulus seems to show a higher capacity to synthesize this protein than in the mesometrial region of the same stimulated tissue.


This paper studies geological disaster investigation site of Taibai county,discusses investigation results and determination on forewarning grading,and puts forward the combination method of investigation and forewarning,which is in accordance with actual site investigation results.Thus,it has solves the grading forewarning problem on disaster supervision spot.


A pilot biomagnetostratigraphic study has been performed on the paleontologically well constrained Early-Middle Miocene sequence at Sayula-Isla (southern Veracruz, Mexico). Rock magnetic investigations included isothermal remanence (IRM) acquisition and hysteresis experiments. IRM acquisition curves were found very similar for all samples. Saturation is reached in moderate fields of the order of 150-200 mT, which points to some spinels as remanence carriers. Judging from the ratios of hysteresis parameters, it seems that all samples fall in the pseudo-singledomain (PSD) or multidomain (MD) grain size region. In most of studied units one to two paleomagnetic components could be recognized. Small secondary components were easily removed applying 100-180°C. Some of the samples yielded unstable thermal behavior suggesting evidence for multicomponent magnetization. Characteristic remanent magnetization components have been defined after 250°C for these samples. The comparison of the Sayula-Isla polarity zonation poses some problems because of scarce microfossil content in studied sections. More data are required to better constrain the local Geomagnetic Polarity Time Scale, but reasonably good correlation was obtained for the Early-Middle Miocene biozones in the Salina del Istmo basin.


Three dimensional finite-difference program of FLAC3D was applied to study pile groups behaviors due to excavation-induced lateral soil movements,including two piles in a row parallel to excavation slope or in a line perpendicular to slope,four-pile,five-pile,3×2 and 2×3 pile groups.Comparing the response of a pile among pile groups with that of a single pile located in the same position on slope,the interaction effect in pile groups had been found.Namely,when piles were arranged in a row parallel to slope,the interaction effect between piles was insignificant,while in other arrangements,the existence of either a front pile(a row front piles) or a rear pile(a row rear piles) could all reduce the displacement and maximum bending moment of the adjacent pile,and when a pile was located in groups with small space or among a number of piles,the interaction effect would increasey significantly.These conclusions were explained by arching effects of soil between piles theoretically,and verified by a practical project.


In the presence of the Ru catalyst (RUC), ketonitrones of type (I) are found to react with methacrolein with high regio-, diastereo-, and enantioselectivity.


[Purpose] To clarify the effect of a kyphotic posture on the measured values of body composition. [Subjects and Methods] The subjects were 50 healthy males. Body compositions were measured and calculated for three postures: normal posture (N); kyphotic posture, index of kyphosis 19.4±2.0, artificially induced by a jig and normal height (KN), and the kyphotic posture and the kyphotic posture height (KH). [Results] No significant differences in any of the measures were found for the N and KN postures. For the KH posture, the somatic fat mass was significantly higher, and the lean body mass, appendicular muscle and skeletal mass, and the skeletal muscle index were significantly lower than those of the other postures. [Conclusion] Decrease in height due to kyphosis affects body composition measurements, and for cases with large kyphotic deformity, estimation of normal height is recommended.


This master project is a part of a EU-LIFE project, called 'Short circuiting the carbon and nutrient cycle between urban and rural districts by establishing three new systems for sourceseparation, collection and composting of organic waste in the greater Copenhagen area',where KTH and KVL are co-operating with commercial participants in Denmark. The main purpose of the Short-Circuit project is to optimise the Community strategy for recycling nutrients and organic carbon from organic waste. KTH's part of the project is to run the computer-based ORWARE model for three different composting systems in order todetermine the environmental impacts. ORWARE stands for ORganic WAste REsearch, and isa simulation model for environmental system analysis of waste management systems. In this master project, custom-made simulation models are developed for two systems in order to calculate and compare the environmental impacts. One of the systems describes composting at Krogerup Farm and the other incineration of the same waste.When performing a system analysis in ORWARE, both Substance Flow Analysis (SFA) andLife Cycle Assessment (LCA) are used. As in a SFA, chemical elements and substances aretraced through the systems, and the changes in amount and composition, as well as emissionsto water and air are monitored. The emissions from the different activities in the systems are summarised and the environmental impacts are calculated. This part of the system analysiscorresponds to the life cycle inventory in a LCA.The studied impacts on the environment are global warming potential, acidification potential,eutrophication potential and the formation of photochemical oxidants. The amounts of heavymetals in the composted material are calculated and presented. Recycled nutrients and organic carbon are determined as well.Three simulations are performed, one for each studied scenario. Scenario 1 describes thecollecting of separated vegetable and fruit waste by Aarstiderne Ltd. in Copenhagen. Thecollected waste is transported to Krogerup Farm, where it is composted in an open air compost, windrow compost. The composted material is spread on a field at Krogerup Farm asfertiliser. Scenario 2 is based on the same system as Scenario 1, but with a shorter distance travelled on the collection route and a higher amount of waste collected on each trip. Scenario 3 describes an alternative treatment method, where the waste ends up as household waste andincinerated.The emissions to air and to water from the different activities are presented in kilogram per100 kilograms collected waste. Depending on the studied environmental impact,characterisation factors are multiplied to emitted substances, in order to calculate and comparethe effects on the environment from each scenario. The recycled amounts of nutrients are multiplied to emission factors to receive avoided emissions from Scenario 1 and 2. Emissions from the production of electricity, heat and diesel used within the scenarios are also taken into account and valuated.For the given data, Scenario 3 becomes the less favourable from an environmental point of view considering all four studied impacts. The main reason is the high water content of thewaste, which leads to electricity and heat consumption in the incineration process. In order to conclude the importance of different parameters, a number of sensitivity analysis where conducted. • For a lower water content, 84%, Scenario 3 changes to the better considering the global warming potential, acidification potential and the formation of photochemicaloxidants, because both electricity and heat are produced during the incineration. • The acidification and eutrophication potential for Scenario 1 and 2 are influenced at ahigh degree when the nitrogen content is varied. A higher content leads to higheremissions of NH3/NH4 from the compost gas and during the spreading process. • The distances travelled on the collection route and the transportations are directly connected to the amounts of emissions from each Scenario. The longer the distances,the higher the emissions. • Originally, values for the emissions for production of electricity in eastern Denmarkare used. In the sensitivity analysis, values for western Denmark are used instead. This leads to higher emissions to the acidification and eutrophication potential and the formation of photochemical oxidants for Scenario3. • The amount of recycled slag affects the eutrophication potential of Scenario 3. The result of the completeness check gives that a larger part of the data and information usedin Scenario 1 and 2 are measured and site-specific compared to Scenario 3.The consistency check leads to that data concerning the waste fraction and the compost, soiland incineration process are inconsistent, since the purpose from the beginning was to use measured and site-specific data. Some of the activities that are excluded from the system might be relevant for the final results.The production and treatment of the plastic bags, composed of maize starch, used in thecollection are not accounted for in this study. Neither is the environmental impact from thepart of the slag from the incineration process that ends up in roads. At first, recycled organiccarbon was supposed to be evaluated as produced carbon in peat, but since the amount is toosmall to have an effect on the results, this activity is excluded. However, if the amount is evaluated as a carbon sink, the results might change.The sum of all results is that the small scale treatment systems, Scenario 1 and 2, are competitive from an environmental point of view compared to the large scale system,Scenario 3.


Reproductive female 15-spined sticklebacks Spinachia spinachia chose water flowing from an unmated nesting male rather than water flowing from no male. Since the female could see neither the male nor his nest, this result suggests that she received non-visual signals.


This paper aims to identify semantic categories that compose a sentence or that a sentence can connote. At the same time, this criteria is intended to classify adverbials into small groups. In this paper, on classifying adverbials, sentence was considered as an information unit that had a compositional completedness. A sentence that had a compositional completedness can connote event, proposion, fact, or speech act according to various context. This means that sentential adverbials can be classified into speech act adverbial, evaluative adverbial, modal adverbial, temporal adverbial, and spatial adverbial according to the scope that each adverbial has scoped over. As for inner sentence, event can be devided into process and result. Then we could get to know that adverbials that scope over process are manner adverbial and adverbials that scope over result are resultative adverbial. Whether time and space features can be added distinguishes events from propositions. Propositions can be devided into modal-propositions(propostion) and factive-proposition(fact). Facts are propositions that have truth values, and propositions are propositions that still don't have truth values. Finally, speech acts are the category that concentrates on only seech act character regardless of the contents that a sentence contains.


Recently, novel hybrid thiol peroxidase (TPx or Prx: Peroxiredoxin) fused with a glutaredoxin (Grx) (TPx‐Grx fusion) was found from some pathogenic bacteria. The hybrid protein reduces peroxides with the use of GSH as the proton donor to the Grx domain. A sequence coding for a hybrid thiol peroxidase was isolated from Anabaena sp. (PCC7120) genome and subsequently inserted into an expression plasmid. The recombinant protein was produced in Escherichia coli cells and purified to homogeneity. It was shown that the protein is dimeric and possesses two conserved cysteines (Cys) in the TPx domain and two Cys (CxxC) in the Grx domain. The hybrid protein can reduce various hydroperoxides, but with a much better efficiency for hydrogen peroxide than t‐butyl hydroperoxide, cumene hydroperoxide, and linoleic acid hydroperoxide (hydrogen peroxide > t‐butyl hydroperoxide >> cumene hydroperoxide > linoleic acid hydroperoxide) in the presence of GSH as the unique exogenous proton donor. The protein expression level of the hybrid protein in the cyanobacteria upon oxidative stress was assayed using an immunoblot. The protein is very highly expressed in response to oxidative and heat‐shock stresses. Based on this finding, we propose that Anabaena TPx‐Grx fusion, which represents a GSH‐supported hydrogen peroxide peroxidase, plays a vital role in the defense of cyanobacteria against oxidative damage.


Background: Patients with both diabetes and depression have poor adherence to self-care regimens. Depression is often unrecognized and untreated in diabetes patients. The reported prevalence of depression in patients with diabetes varies widely; a meta-analysis that included 39 studies demonstrated that 31% of patients with diabetes experienced depressive symptoms. Objectives: The objectives of the study were to assess the prevalence of depression among diabetes patients and to study the sociodemographic and clinical factors leading to depression. Materials and Methods: This population-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 600 known diabetic patients in two Urban Health Centers attached to Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, KLE University Belagavi, India. A predesigned pre-tested questionnaire (Hamilton rating scale for depression) was used to assess depression in diabetics after taking a written informed consent. Results: A total of 48% were found to be under depression. Mild and moderate depression was accounted for 16% each, while severe and very severe depression was seen in 9% and 7% of the total participants, respectively. Conclusions: A positive correlation of depression among diabetics was found for age, marital status, duration of diabetes, and hypertension. Almost all the patients have not consulted a psychiatrist yet and were not on any medications for depression.


Numerous scenes have been measured with the mmW radar MEMPHIS of FGAN-FHP in SAR geometry. During the last two years special emphasis has been put on the sea surface, inland water, and ships. This research was mainly aimed to investigate the ability of SAR imaging of natural and man-made disturbances of the water surface also at mm-wave radar bands. As for classical wavelengths, SAR imaging of the sea surface can be harnessed without a full understanding of the phenomena involved, but an adequate understanding is required for oceanographic purposes or for the utilization of responses of ships, ship traces etc. For the measurements used, the environmental data like wind speed, wave height and wind direction are available so the interdependence of scattering at mmW frequencies with these parameters can be assessed. The observations discussed give experimental data which are used to validate empirical models and allow to emphasize the differences and similarities between scattering at mm-waves and traditional radar bands employed for SAR. In addition SAR data on ships and their traces are available. The latter is used to point out the specific features of mmw-radar in a maritime environment.


Rheological properties of Saudi Arab-Light, Arab-Berri and Arab-Heavy crude oils were measured with Brookfield Viscometer (LVT Model) at temperatures 10, 15, 20, 25, 38, 55 and 70°C. Saudi Arab-Light and Arab-Heavy exhibit non-Newtonian behavior at temperature less than or equal to 20°C, while Saudi Arab-Berri behaves as a non-Newtonian fluid at all temperatures. The main reason for this rheological behavior can be attributed to the thermal and shear histories; the relative amounts of wax and asphaltene content in Saudi crude oils as well. Therefore, Statistical Analysis (t-test) was used to check the variability of the change in rheological behavior of Saudi non-Newtonian crude oils at a confidence level of 95%. The evaluation ensured that, all non-Newtonian data were statistically not different and were correlated with power-law model. Under turbulent flow conditions the pipeline design calculations were carried out through a computer program.


In the field of health and medicine, there is a long tradition of collaboration between developing countries and Western nations. These collaborative efforts have embraced teaching, research, and provision of training and personnel, as well as donations of resources and technological help.

In the late 1990s, the medical press began to allocate significant space in their journals to the issue of such collaborations between health‐care workers. Are inputs and outputs equal?1 How much of any assistance that has resulted has been based on the needs of, and is at the request of, the recipient health worker or institution?2 How has the 'information gap' been reduced?3 How can the problem of 'Without funds you cannot carry out good research, but without good research you cannot attract funds' be solved?4

We believe that links formed on the basis of the hopes and aspirations of those doctors and other personnel practising in their own countries—whether working in village settings, district hospitals or medical schools—will produce the best results. Table 1 summarizes the important components of a mutually beneficial link.

In all developing (as in many developed) countries, medical schools have considerable difficulty in recruiting teaching staff. This means that career development opportunities are likely to be limited. Similarly, research opportunities, if available, may only be short‐term. There are also likely to be considerable difficulties in providing high quality clinical care. A link works best in the context of existing structures, rather than by creating parallel health systems or research centres.

View this table:

Table 1
Components of a successful link

International collaborative links often start with two individuals, but are unlikely to be sustained unless there are identifiable achievable gains for both parties involved. What are these gains? What is needed at each end of the link?

### Less developed country

A link with a sister institution in a …


Abstract The present paper argues for an integration between the behavioural and the cognitive perspectives on psychotherapy. Both perspectives are necessary but neither is sufficient. The behavioural perspective is necessary, since no therapy is neutral to the client's behaviour; therapists of all schools are selective in what they attend and respond to, which leads to a selective reinforcement of certain kinds of behaviours. The cognitive perspective is also necessary, since all kinds of psychotherapy involve some kind of change of the client's beliefs and expectations. The behavioural perspective is insufficient, since empirical research indicates that even basic forms of conditioning depend on changes in beliefs and expectations, and since it is unable to handle the representational nature of beliefs and expectations. The cognitive perspective is insufficient since cognitive change is seldom therapeutically sufficient, and since there are some kinds of behaviour change (e.g., evaluative conditioning) ...


Today public security information is increasingly important and prevalent. Information is not only the symbol of policing force, but also the sources of it. When information is used policing force can be create non-straightly, as well as straightly. Information can create policing force. It can also waste and even destroy policing force.


The invention discloses an online calibration system and an online calibration method for ununiformity of an LED (light-emitting diode) display screen. The online calibration system and the online calibration method mainly solve problems that an existing test method is only used for testing brightness uniformity, tested brightness uniformity index cannot reflect an overall performance of an LED display screen, and ununiformity calibration cannot be carried out according to tested data. The online calibration method includes steps of acquiring test images displayed by the LED display screen by a camera, and dividing LED lamp points by a method based on background prediction after noise is eliminated; repositioning luminous zones of the lamp points and component pixels of the luminous zones; and then mixing the lamp points to form colors of the pixels, and fitting acquired chromaticity coordinates of the lamp points to form a Gaussian curve after gross errors are eliminated, and solving a mean value of the chromaticity coordinates; substituting the mean value of the chromaticity coordinates into a uniformity evaluation formula to evaluate the uniformity; and finally generating a calibration matrix and performing online real-time online ununiformity calibration point by point. The online calibration method for the ununiformity of the LED display screen is high in precision and efficiency and good in stability, is simple, convenient and feasible, and is capable of being used for testing a uniformity display performance and ununiformity calibration for the LED display screen.


Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems are a boon to the modern scientific domain as it provides a strong base for understanding the Earth's behavior in so many ways and help us to understand its response to certain conditions. With the exploitation of these two modules important spatial decisions can be made at ease with quite a satisfactory accuracy level. With the context of global warming water scarcity is being identified as sector demanding strategical implementation of plans for sustainable development. To ensure water supply water conservation is required. Runoff harvesting could be an option to that if the area under plan experience substantial runoff in a year. Lower Kasai Keleghai interfluve situated in West Bengal falls under monsoonal climatic regime. GIS based site-suitability analysis was adopted here based on LULC and Curve Number to identify potential zones for runoff harvesting. The result shows that 18.71% of the interfluve is suitable for providing a base for runoff harvesting. Shreyashi Santra Mitra Haldia Institute of Technology, India Site-Suitability Analysis


Compton profiles and autocorrelation functions for a N2 molecule are calculated using the discrete variational Xα (DV-Xα) method and compared with recent and accurate measurements of the Compton profile of N2 gas and Compton profiles calculated using the Hartree–Fock and the configuration interaction methods. The autocorrelation function shows a position dependence on the electron correlation. The molecular orbital dependence of the autocorrelation function reveals that the π molecular orbitals are the most sensitive to α values in the DV-Xα method.


A system forclassifying different types ofcranemo- tionispresented. Theclassification system provides aframework toassess theinfluence thatdifferent craneinterface devices have onefficiency. Theefficiency effects ofajoystick, pendent, and experimental visual interface areinvestigated forcertain classes ofcranemotion. Experimental results suggest thatsignificant efficiency benefits exist forcranes utilizing thevisual interface.


Since the mid-1970s, the United States has resettled over 400,000 refugees and immigrants from former Soviet Republics, a quarter of whom have settled in New York City. The focal point and economic center of the former Soviet community has become Brighton Beach, a neighborhood in southern Brooklyn where a growing number of Russian and Ukrainian small businesses have emerged. This study examines ethnic entrepreneurship among the former Soviets in light of three models: human capital model, disadvantage theory, and culture theory. These models are applicable to the former Soviet population only when understood in light of federal refugee assistance programs.


The growing share of installed wind power in the Swedish electricity system hascaused concerns whether the available regulating power will be sufficient. Severalstudies have examined the need of re ...


Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in Europe [1]. Recommendations for systemic adjuvant therapy are currently based on the analysis of primary tumor characteristics [2]. For example, the administration of trastuzumab in women with breast cancer relies on the analysis of HER2 protein overexpression or HER2 gene amplification in the primary tumor [3]. However, the target of adjuvant systemic therapy is thought to be the minimal residual disease (MRD), which is present after primary surgery but undetectable by currently used conventional imaging approaches [4]. Recent technological advances have enabled the detection and characterization of bone marrow disseminated tumor cells (DTCs) and peripheral blood circulating tumor cells (CTCs), which are thought to be surrogate markers of MRD. Clinical trials studying the effect of different treatments on DTCs or CTCs have been recently reported. In two studies, the effect of a bisphosphonate, zoledronic acid, on bone marrow DTCs, was examined [5, 6]. The investigators used novel end points such as the difference in the detection rate of DTCs after a predefined treatment period between a control arm of (neo) adjuvant chemotherapy and an experimental arm of the same chemotherapy plus zoledronic acid. Interestingly, both studies showed that the detection rate of DTCs was lower after treatment with zoledronic acid, supporting the hypothesis that zoledronic acid antitumor efficacy might partly depend on DTC elimination. Both clinicians and patients more easily accept a blood draw than a bone marrow aspiration. Therefore, CTCs could potentially be used as a liquid biopsy to assess new treatment strategies. This innovative approach was used in the study by Georgoulias et al. [7], in which the decision about secondary adjuvant treatment was based on the results of a liquid biopsy rather than primary tumor analysis. The authors should receive credit for initiating such a study in 2003. In the trial, they used a RT-PCR to detect cytokeratin (CK) 19 messenger RNA (mRNA) in blood samples from patients with early breast cancer who were receiving adjuvant chemotherapy [7]. They screened 378 patients to identify 100 (26%) with detectable CK19 mRNA both before and after they received chemotherapy. Only patients whose blood was CK19 mRNA positive at both timepoints were randomized between six cycles of trastuzumab versus observation. The authors reported the analysis for patients with HER2negative primary tumors (36 randomized to trastuzumab and 39 to observation). Of the women who received trastuzumab, 27 (75%) tested CK19 mRNA negative, compared with only 7 (18%) in the observation arm. At a median follow-up of 67.2 months, patients on the observation arm had an almost four times higher risk of relapse than the patients who had received treatment [7]. The authors also carried out double immunofluorescence staining for CK and HER2 in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PMBCs) cytospins from a subset of the patients showing CK19 mRNA positivity. They found that 51 (89%) of those 57 patients had CK-positive/HER2-positive cells, suggesting that the trastuzumab benefit was associated with their presence. Although the results of this trial are intriguing, it should be noted that only 75 patients were randomized, and independent validation is needed. Moreover, there are concerns about the methodology used for CTC detection. No independent laboratories have validated the sensitivity and specificity of the method for CTC detection in early breast cancer using the same procedure to identify CK19 mRNA in peripheral blood. Another group of investigators have shown that CK19 mRNA can be expressed in normal PBMCs, particularly in the lymphocyte population. By using immunomagnetic enrichment for epithelial cells, these investigators were able to reduce the level of background signals to <5% in the PBMCs of healthy donors [8]. However, in the study by Georgoulias et al., no such immunomagnetic enrichment for epithelial cells was carried out. Instead, CK19 mRNA was detected by RT-PCR in RNA extracted from PBMCs, hence raising concerns about the specificity of this method for CTC detection. The only technology that has received Food and Drug Administration approval for CTC detection as an aid in monitoring women with metastatic breast cancer is CellSearch® (Veridex, Warren, NJ) [9]. This is a semi-automated system that first uses immunomagnetic separation to isolate epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM)-positive cells from whole blood followed by an immunofluorescent staining of captured cells with antibodies specific for CKs 8, 18, 19 (pan-CK) and CD45 (specific for leucocytes). The same cells are also stained with 4⍰,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole-2 (DAPI; to confirm the presence of a cell nucleus). A CTC is defined as an EpCAMpositive cell staining for pan-CK and DAPI but not for CD45. Two independent studies have validated the analytical performance of CellSearch® for clinical use in metastatic breast cancer [10, 11]. Data on the role of CTC detection and characterization using CellSearch in nonmetastatic cancer are only recently emerging [12–15]. An international collaborative study involving 30 readers from 15 academic and 2 industry labs is currently being carried out to harmonize CTC ed ito ria ls editorials Annals of Oncology 23: 1653–1655, 2012 doi:10.1093/annonc/mds111 Published online 19 April 2012


Biological systems have very different internal ion compositions in comparison with their surrounding media. The difference is maintained by transport mechanisms across the plasma membrane and by internal stores. On the plasma membrane, we can classify these mechanisms into three types, pumps, porters, and channels. Channels have been extensively studied, particularly since the advent of the patch clamp technique, which opened new windows into ion channel selectivity and dynamics. Pumps, particularly the plasma membrane Ca2+‐ATPase, and porters are more illusive. The technique described in this paper, the self‐referencing, ion‐selective (or Seris) probe, has the ability to monitor the behavior of membrane transport mechanisms, such as the pumps and porters, in near to real‐time by non‐invasively measuring local extracellular ion gradients with high sensitivity and square micron spatial resolution.


For 30 years the dominant approach to Aboriginal affairs in Australia has been to support cultural recovery and accommodate cultural difference in the expectation that this will enhance Aborigines' and Torres Strait Islanders' equality as citizens.This approach has been driven by a dialectic of progressivist desire to ameliorate the effects of earlier colonialist policy and Aboriginalist discourse that assumes isolable cultures, unitary identities and uni-directional causes of marginalisation. That discursive formation, once counter to dominant colonialist discourse, has now itself become normative, internally repressive, counter-productive and resistant to change. This is the national misadventure with Aboriginalism. This paper argues that this unexpected development is a product of the national governing attempt to gain control through public policy that is inadequate to Aborigines' contemporary lived reality of interculturality, post-ethnicity and political agency. It uses an indicative case study and an analysis of the national misadventure to propose a deliberative intercultural approach to public policy in respect of Aborigines.


Howard University, under the auspices of the Center for Energy Systems and Controls runs the Energy Expert Systems Institute (EESI) summer outreach program for high school/pre-college minority students. The main objectives are to introduce precollege minority students to research in the power industry using modern state-of-the-art technology such as Expert Systems, Fuzzy Logic and Artificial Neural Networks; to involve minority students in space power management, systems and failure diagnosis; to generate interest in career options in electrical engineering; and to experience problem-solving in a teamwork environment consisting of faculty, senior research associates and graduate students. For five weeks the students are exposed not only to the exciting experience of college life, but also to the inspiring field of engineering, especially electrical engineering. The program consists of lectures in the fundamentals of engineering, mathematics, communication skills and computer skills. The projects are divided into mini and major. Topics for the 1995 mini projects were Expert Systems for the Electric Bus and Breast Cancer Detection. Topics on the major projects include Hybrid Electric Vehicle, Solar Dynamics and Distribution Automation. On the final day, designated as 'EESI Day' the students did oral presentations of their projects and prizes were awarded to the best group. The program began in the summer of 1993. The reaction from the students has been very positive. The program also arranges field trips to special places of interest such as the NASA Goddard Space Center.


Neural ranking models have recently gained much attention in Information Retrieval community and obtain good ranking performance. However, most of these retrieval models focus on capturing the textual matching signals between query and document but do not consider user behavior information that may be helpful for the retrieval task. Specifically, users' click and query reformulation behavior can be represented by a click-through bipartite graph and a session-flow graph, respectively. Such graph representations contain rich user behavior information and may help us better understand users' search intent beyond the textual information. In this study, we aim to incorporate this rich information encoded in these two graphs into existing neural ranking models. We present two graph-based neural ranking models (\emphEmbRanker and AggRanker ) to enrich learned text representations with graph information that captures rich users' interaction behavior information. Experimental results on a large-scale publicly available benchmark dataset show that the two models outperform most existing neural ranking models that only consider textual information, which illustrates the effectiveness of integrating graph information with textual information. Further analyses show how graph information complements text matching signals and examine whether these two models can be adopted in practical applications.


Introduction The Delta variant posed an increased risk to global public health and rapidly replaced the pre-existent variants worldwide. In this study, the genetic diversity and the spatio-temporal dynamics of 662 SARS-CoV2 genomes obtained during the Delta wave across Tunisia were investigated. Methods Viral whole genome and partial S-segment sequencing was performed using Illumina and Sanger platforms, respectively and lineage assignemnt was assessed using Pangolin version 1.2.4 and scorpio version 3.4.X. Phylogenetic and phylogeographic analyses were achieved using IQ-Tree and Beast programs. Results The age distribution of the infected cases showed a large peak between 25 to 50 years. Twelve Delta sub-lineages were detected nation-wide with AY.122 being the predominant variant representing 94.6% of sequences. AY.122 sequences were highly related and shared the amino-acid change ORF1a:A498V, the synonymous mutations 2746T>C, 3037C>T, 8986C>T, 11332A>G in ORF1a and 23683C>T in the S gene with respect to the Wuhan reference genome (NC_045512.2). Spatio-temporal analysis indicates that the larger cities of Nabeul, Tunis and Kairouan constituted epicenters for the AY.122 sub-lineage and subsequent dispersion to the rest of the country. Discussion This study adds more knowledge about the Delta variant and sub-variants distribution worldwide by documenting genomic and epidemiological data from Tunisia, a North African region. Such results may be helpful to the understanding of future COVID-19 waves and variants.


Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Background and Purpose: Enlarged perivascular spaces (EPVS) are considered subclinical markers of small vessel disease, associated with increased risk of stroke and dementia. Increasing evidence links chronic kidney disease (CKD) to small vessel disease. We explored the relationship between CKD and EPVS burden and the influence of racial group in this relation. Methods: Consecutive patients with stroke who underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging were included (n=894). Racial group was categorized as White, Black, or other (other racial groups). CKD was defined by glomerular filtration rate <60 mL/minute per 1.73 m2 for >3 months. EPVS were rated following a standardized method, dichotomized for analyses (mild [<20] versus severe [≥20]), and stratified by brain region (basal ganglia and centrum semiovale). Results: In multivariable-adjusted analysis, the association of CKD with severe EPVS varied across racial groups. Comparing patients with and without CKD within racial groups, we found that Whites with CKD had higher odds of severe centrum semiovale EPVS (odds ratio [OR], 2.41 [95% CI, 0.98–5.88]). Among patients with CKD, Black patients had higher odds of severe EPVS in the basal ganglia and centrum semiovale compared with Whites (OR, 1.93 [95% CI, 1.18–3.16] and OR, 1.90 [95% CI, 1.16–3.11], respectively) and other racial groups (OR, 2.03 [95% CI, 1.23–3.36] and OR, 2.02 [95% CI, 1.22–3.34], respectively). Conclusions: CKD was more prevalent in our sample of patients with stroke with severe EPVS in the centrum semiovale. The relation differed when stratified by racial group and brain topography. Further studies are needed to confirm that CKD may relate differently to subclinical measures of small vessel disease according to race.


In our previous work, we proposed an approach that consists in using feature extraction to reduce the magnetic-field signal data to generate a signature, which can be used to estimate the user location in an indoor environment. Each signature contains 10 seconds of magnetic-field data. In this paper, we investigate whether by reducing the time signature length decrease or not the accuracy of the indoor location system (ILS). In order to find out, we perform experiments in two indoor environments: an office building and a residential home. In both environments, we collect information of the magnetic-field and we variate the fingerprint length in 0.1, 1, 2, 5 and 10 seconds, to verify whether its length affects the accuracy of the ILS Model. The results indicate that signature length is an important issue to be considered in the development of the ILS, since it does affect the accuracy of the system. c © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Elhadi M. Shakshuki.


The Environment Minister Robyn Parker and Blue Mountains MP Roza Sage are encouraging holiday makers and Sydney siders to visit the Blue Mountains to help the region's tourism economy following last year's fires.


The world of anti-inflammatory drugs is a strange one. Non-selective non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) kill over a thousand patients, annually through upper gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding. Selective cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 inhibitors should have replaced NSAIDs on formularies because they lack this toxicity, cause no more cardiovascular harm than NSAIDs, and indeed lack the ability of NSAIDs to abrogate the benefits of aspirin. However, their use is actively discouraged. Faced with this muddled thinking, Pfizer has sought additional selling points for celecoxib. As reported by Lanas and colleagues in AP&T, selective COX-2 inhibitors are less likely to be associated with anaemia, a worthwhile additional benefit. They characterise the fall in haemoglobin as the 'most frequent component/event forthe composite GI primary endpoint' known as a CSULGIE (Clinically Significant Upper or Lower GI Event). This is a contentious statement because there is no evidence that the anaemia is due to bleeding or associated with iron deficiency or a low MCV. Moreover, the strongest risk factors they identify (albeit with non-stringent statistics) C-reactive protein and body mass index more plausibly suggest suppression of haemopoeisis by chronic inflammation. The authors would be wise to keep an open and critical mind on mechanism. Although less anaemia (by whatever mechanism) is appealing, it is the dominant focus on and lazy belief in a differential cardiovascular risk that has foreclosed proper evaluation of selective COX-2 inhibitors. Two observations encapsulate the problem. In a recent metaanalysis, direct comparisons actually showed a higher incidence of myocardial infarction with naproxen than celecoxib, but complex statistical adjustments allowed the authors to draw an opposite conclusion. On the basis of that conclusion, the UK's QIPP scheme now rewards GPs for increasing proportional prescribing of naproxen or ibuprofen. Although differences in anaemia are interesting, in a situation as unsatisfactory as this, Pfizer's responsibility is to give continued support to the large trials (PRECISION and SCOT) that can finally provide an answer to this question. They should not waver.


In many ways, the Clean Water Act of 1972 has been a tremendous success. Discharges of water pollutants from both industrial and municipal point sources have plummeted; the loss of wetlands has been cut decisively; and water quality has improved broadly across the nation. Despite all of this progress, the quality of many of our waters remains impaired. In other words, a significant proportion of our rivers, lakes, and smaller streams are simply not clean enough to fully support their designated uses such as fishing or recreation. The primary reason for this lies in the failure of the Act to effectively tackle two significant sources of water pollution: nonpoint source pollution diffuse runoff from, for instance, fields and logging operations and hydrologic modifications such as water withdrawals, impoundments, and diversions for off-stream uses. In both cases, Congress bowed to old concepts of federal and state responsibility and left control of both kinds of pollution primarily in state hands. While some states have responded well to the challenge, most have not proven equal to the task. New approaches are thus needed to deal more effectively and more comprehensively with these two problems, the magnitude of each of which is staggering: over 40,000 nonpoint source impaired waterbodies and thousands of flow impaired waters. Both problems, moreover, are just going to get worse since climate change will exacerbate each problem. Climate change has already brought more intense precipitation in its wake, and this national trend toward heavier precipitation events will intensify in the future producing even more runoff and nonpoint source pollution. In addition, hotter and drier conditions, especially in the West, will place greater strains upon streamflows, wreaking increasing damage on aquatic ecosystems as well as creating more conflict among those who use water. Progress on creating a more effective federal-state partnership to combat both problems has proven impossible for over forty years. Many states and their allies in Congress have successfully resisted such efforts citing traditional state interests over land use and water allocations. The problems, however, are growing more severe. Action is becoming imperative if the nation is going to respond in a rational fashion to both challenges. This article, therefore, concludes with an exploration of a number of administrative and legislative approaches for creating more dynamic and integrated strategies for dealing with both of these national problems.