Satisfaction is a person's feeling of pleasure or disappointment resulting from comparing a product's perceived performance or outcome in relation to his or her expectations. Whether the customer is satisfied after purchase/buying or not depends on the product's or service performance in relation to the buyer's expectations. It implies that satisfaction is a function of perceived performance and expectations. If the performance falls short of expectations, the customer is dissatisfied. If the performance matches the expectations, the customer is satisfied. If the performance exceeds the expectations, the customer is highly satisfied or delighted. Those who is highly satisfied are much less ready to switch. High satisfaction or delight creates an emotional bond with the brand or services, not just a rational preference (Philip Kotler, 2000). Customer satisfaction is the extent to which a firm fulfills a customer's needs, desires and expectations. A customer is likely to be more satisfied when the delivered customer value is higher than its total customer cost. Since, delivery of desired customer satisfaction coupled with superior customer value is an essence of businesses and marketers, marketing's effectiveness need to be critically measured in terms of how well a given offering satisfies identified need and want of a customer in a superior, creative and most important an innovative way on a continuing basis (William D. Perreault, 2002). The services of carrying letters and parcels, arranging remittance of money, accepting deposits of money, etc. are the various services offered by the post office, which the public can avail of. All these services are known as postal services (www.nios.ac.in). Postal Service sector in India can be broadly classified into two distinct constituents namely the Postal services and the Courier Services. The Postal Services include varying services such as viz., picking up letters, parcels&packages, and its prompt and timely delivery at the destined destination within and outside India (http://eaindustry.nic.in). The changes in the business related environment concerning the public utilities or services including postal services require altogether a new kind of attitude and outlook as well as formulation of business and service strategy from the organizations perspective considering the new challenges being faced by them in order to provide services to everyone without discrimination by remaining within the policy framework as formulated by the Central Government of India especially in case of Postal Services. The variance in service quality of postal services needless to state directly affects customers' satisfaction. The delivery of desired customer satisfaction and Customers' retention are crucial issues for India post too which calls for developing innovative ways of assessing consumers' satisfaction aimed at to extend help in facilitating improved and innovative postal services to citizens of India. An understanding on the prevalent business practices concerning Indian Postal Services in the post offices in relation to customers' ever increasing expectations, and search for rewarding experiences would be certainly crucial and critical in identifying gap and suitable measures that can be offered for improvement in delivery of Indian Postal Services in and outside India Post to citizens of India. The researchers have therefore decided to conduct an empirical study to measure selected customers' satisfaction/dissatisfaction in City of Baroda also called as Vadodara city of the Gujarat State. Its key objective was to identify the various facets concerning customers' satisfaction/ dissatisfaction on Postal services. The researchers have used secondary and also primary data that were gathered using structured non-disguised questionnaire to from conveniently drawn from amongst the selected customers who are residents of the Vadodara City. The collected primary were further classified, tabulated and analyzed with the help of suitable statistical tools and techniques to offer results and implications based on outcome of the testing of hypotheses to offer results&implications.


Abstract 1323 V(D)J recombination of antigen receptor loci confers diversity to the mammalian immune system. However, off-target, illegitimate V(D)J recombination between non-antigen receptor loci, leading to site-specific interstitial deletion has been reported in humans and mice with lymphoid malignancies. These recurrent, site-specific interstitial deletions are thought to be oncogenic, leading to activation of proto-oncogenes or deletion of tumor suppressor genes. Notch1 and Bcl11b are known targets for illegitimate V(D)J recombination in murine precursor T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (pre-T-LBL). The Notch1 59-deletions remove exon1 and 2; as a consequence Notch1 transcription initiates from a cryptic promoter immediately 59 of exon 25. These alternative transcripts are translated from exon 28, and lack the N-term ligand binding domain, resulting in a Notch1 protein that is independent of ligand binding. The known Bcl11b deletions excise exon2 and 3, and result in loss of function of the Bcl11b tumor suppressor gene. The frequency with which Notch1 and Bcl11b deletions occur in concert is unknown. Here we examined both Notch1 and Bcl11b deletion mutations, as well as Notch1 mutations involving the PEST, HD, and TM domains in primary murine pre-T LBL samples (N=44), and murine pre-T LBL cell lines (N=21), that arose in specific genetically engineered mouse strains (Scl-Lmo1, NUP98-PHF23, HoxA9, Lin28B, Survivin-TCR). Analysis of 44 primary tumor samples identified 17 Notch1 59-interstitial deletions (38.6%) and 8 Bcl11b deletions (18.1%), while analysis of 21 cell lines revealed 10 Notch1 59 deletions (47.6%) and 5 Bcl11b deletions (24%). The percent of Notch1 PEST, HD, and TM mutations were 84.1%, 13.6%, and 4.5%, respectively, in the primary tumors and 95%, 5%, and 0% in the cell lines. Two primary tumor samples showed several different 59 deletion mutations, representing multiple independent leukemic clones. Of the 13 primary tumor/cell line pairs we analyzed, 5 pairs showed identical Notch1 and Bcl11b mutations. However, for 7 pairs, the primary tumor was oligoclonal with respect to Notch1 and Bcl11b mutations, with one clone being biologically selected for growth in vitro. In 3 cases, Bcl11b deletion was not detected in primary tumor but was detected in the cell line, suggesting that the Bcl11b deletion was a secondary event in these cell lines. Notch1 PEST mutations were present in almost all cell lines, and were often accompanied by an additional Notch1 mutation (59deletion, HD, or TM). Conversely, 59 deletion, HD, and TM mutations were mutually exclusive. These findings support the hypothesis that the 59deletion, HD, and TM mutations lead to ligand independent activation, while the PEST domain mutations prevent proteasomal degradation leading to persistence of the transcriptionally active intracellular Notch1. In several cases, samples had an identical PEST mutation, but distinct 59 deletion or HD mutations, indicating the PEST mutation preceded the 59 deletion or HD mutation. Three of 21 cell lines had both a 59 deletion and Bcl11b deletion, however there was no statistically significant correlation between these events. One 59-recombination recognition sequence (RSS) and 2 39-RSSs have been reported for Notch1 59 deletions. H3K4me3 ChIP-sequence data clearly demonstrated alternative transcript initiation from exon 25 in cell lines with a 59 Notch1 deletion. Curiously, one cell line (106A) which was negative for the 59 deletion showed a marked increase of H3K4Me3 at Notch1 exon25, suggesting transcription initiation at this alternative site, and leading to the hypothesis that this cell line may have a variant form of Notch1 59 deletion which was undetectable by conventional assays. We were able to identify an alternative RSS for this cell line, leading to a novel 59 Notch1 deletion. We then reanalyzed our samples and found an additional example of this alternate 59 deletion, and a third sample which displayed yet another form of Notch1 59 deletion. Of note, this deletion did not have a cryptic RSS, and had developed in a RAG1 deficient mouse. In summary, we have identified three novel forms of Notch1 59 deletions, shown that Notch1 mutations are very common in murine pre-T LBL, shown that PEST mutations generally precede 59deletion mutations, and shown that 59 Notch1 deletions are not consistently associated with other illegitimate VDJ recombinase-mediated events (such as Bcl11b deletions). Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Over the last decade, zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films have attracted considerable attention owing to large band gap of 3.37 eV and large exciton binding energy of 60 meV at room temperature [1-3]. Recent interest in ZnO related researches has been switched into the fabrication and characterization of low-dimensional nanostructures, such as nano-wires and nano-dots that can be applicable to manufacture the optoelectronic devices such as ultraviolet lasers, light-emitting-diodes and detectors. Since the optical properties of ZnO nano-structures might be distinct from those of bulk materials or thin films, the low-dimensional phenomena should be examined further. In order to utilize such advanced optoelectronic devices, one of the challenges is how to control the surface state related emissions that are drastically increased with increasing the density of the nano-structures and the surface-to-volume ratio. This paper reports the synthesis and characterization of self-assembled ZnO hexagonal nano-disks grown by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering. X-ray diffraction data and scanning electron microscopy data showed that ZnO hexagonal nano-disks were nucleated on top of the flat surfaces as the film thickness reached to 1.56 μm and then the number of nano-disks increased with increasing the film thickness. The lateral size of hexagonal nano-disks was ∼720 nm and height was ∼74 nm. The strong photo luminescence spectra obtained at 10 K was also observed, which was assigned to a surface exciton emission at 3.3628 eV arising from the surface sites of hexagonal nano-disks.


The aim of this study was to determine the effects of socioeconomic status and parental education considering gender on the dental anxiety of the children aged between 3-12 years old and who had their first dental visit. 120 children (61 boys and 59 girls) from two age groups (Group I: 3-5 years, Group II: 6-12 years) were participated in this study. To determine the dental anxiety level of the children, Venham Picture Test (VPT), sitting pattern test and Frankl's Behavioral Scale were used in Group I and Children's Fear Survey Schedule-Dental Subscale (CFSS-DS) and Frankl's Behavioral Scale in Group II. Gender of children, socioeconomic status and education levels of the parents were also recorded. All data were determined statistically by using SPSS 10.0 software program with chi-square test, Mann-Whitney test, Fisher's Exact test and Kruskal-Wallis test. Negative correlation was found between children's dental anxiety and socioeconomic status and education levels of the parents (p<0.05). According to the results of VPT, it was found that, boys were more anxious than girls in Group I (p<0.05). On the other hand, it was also determined that, girls were more anxious than boys according to the results of CFSS-DS in Group II (p<0.05). As a result, it is thought that, socioeconomic status and education levels of the parents and gender of children were important associated factors in the development of dental anxiety in children.


This paper aims at the idea of developing a Wound Healing Therapy Machine based on NPWT (Negative Pressure Wound Therapy) technique for treating traumatic wounds and deep cuts. The machine will be used for medical purposes, but the working and design philosophy is of electronic, communication, mechanical, control systems and IoT background. The necessary information required for building a fully functional machine like the components required, conceptual working, the detailed design and schematics are given in this paper.


The study focuses on the issue of designing a syllabus for English for specific purposes courses and shares the view that according to the nature of such courses, their content should be based on a thorough investigation of the learners' needs. The aim of the research is to launch a firm base for the subsequent production of a syllabus for an ESP course for Law at South East European University by exploring and investigating the needs of course participants or respondents to this research. The research examined needs analysis views of ESP students and teachers involved in ESP program.
The study consists of two parts, theoretical and empirical part. The theoretical part draws out the general structure of syllabi, determines the place of needs analysis in the process of ESP syllabus design, and clarifies the difference between objective and subjective needs analysis. It describes the conventional techniques engaged for conducting a needs analysis. The theoretical part forms a strong basis for an empirical study, the main findings of which are reported in the following part of the research. The study applies both quantitative and qualitative research instruments The survey about ESP learners' preferences and needs and the Individual Background Questionnaire provided a good quantitative basis for needs analysis in order to help ESP course designers to design a syllabus with more relevant content. Qualitative data was provided from semi-structured, open-ended interviews to reveal learners' views and expectations for ESP subject. Data were analyzed using descriptive analysis, cross tabulation and content analysis. The findings of this study firmly suggest that there are many perceived subjective and objective needs of ESP learners' at law faculty which should be considered in the design process of the new syllabi for ESP. Most students and teachers seemed to believe that their needs for ESP do not entirely match the general learning outcome of ESP course at law faculty and the study suggest the general learning outcome be tailored in line with the beliefs of what students think they need in ESP for Law. Most importantly, this study suggests that the needs analyses of learners' and teachers' views for ESP syllabi, facilitates the process of designing a better syllabus for ESP students in Law. The idea is to conform learners' "wants" with those perceived by teachers or courses designers in the learning outcome. Keywords: English For specific Purposes, Learners' needs, Needs analysis, Syllabus


The output of logistics is performed by the appropriate and proportional use of material and information flows. Important issue is to determine the proper equilibrium between the resources devoted to the two main system elements. The necessity of continuous improvement of informatics and logistic flows is not questionable since the efficiency of logistics control systems can be increased by reducing the time gap between the time of gaining the data and use of information for planning purposes. In different logistics subsystems the role and importance of time gaps differ. Having generally overviewed the subsystems the papers introduce the efficiency of informatics based on Cobb-Douglas production function in order to spot the elements of logistics where the reduction of time gap is of economic interest, that is under what conditions can the IT developments and investment be efficient. Finally a draft framework is described as a general solution that can use informatic means in order to increase road transport system capacity usage. For the covering abstract see ITRD E140665.


The relationship of sediment oxygen demand(SOD) and physical and chemical factors(dissolved oxygen,temperature,pH,oxidation-reduction potential) of bottom water and sediment characteristics(sediment organic matter,sediment depths) in 10 fish ponds were studied by measuring sediment oxygen demand in situ.The results showed that:The average of SOD rate was 0.91 g/(m2·d) in all ponds and the range of changes in different ponds were from 0.76 to1.09 g/(m2·d).Bivariate correlation analysis showed that the relationship between the SOD rate and the physical and chemical factors of the ponds bottom water veried significantly(P0.01),and the Pearson correlation coefficient with DO was the highest(R=0.779),followed by temperature(R=0.587),pH(R=0.557) and ORP(R=-0.421).The correlation between SOD rate and sediment depth was significant(P0.05).The partial correlation analysis results showed that the correlations of SOD rate and dissolved oxygen and temperature were highly significant(P0.01),and other factors did not reach significant levels.The most important environmental factor affectting the SOD rate was dissolved oxygen,followed by temperature.Using BP neural network to analyze the physical and chemical factors influencing the SOD rate,dissolved oxygen,temperature,and sediment depth were regarded as the input variables to establish the BP neural network model and predict the SOD rate.The BP neural network model' s training and testing correlation coefficient were 0.911 and 0.879,and the average relative error were 11.6% and 10.4%,respectively.There were small differences in the predictive value and the true value,and the model had high accuracy.It can effectively predict the SOD rate.


Objective:To test the positive rates of Ezrin and CD44v6 protein in malignant and benign lesion of gallbladder;investigate the relation between the positive rates of Ezrin and CD44v6protein and the occurrence of gallbladder carcinoma;study the relation between rates of Ezrin and CD44v6 protein and biological behaviors such as invasion,metastasis of cholangio carcinoma by combining the analysis of clinical pathology features.Methods:Using SABC to test the positive rates of Ezrin and CD44v6 protein in 31 cases of gallbladder carcinoma and 10 cases of paraffin samples of chronic cholecystitis.Make a statistical analysis of the rates of Ezrin and CD44v6 protein,and investigate the rates of Ezrin and CD44v6 protein and clinical pathological data of cholangio carcinoma.Results:1)The positive rate of CD44V6 or Ezrin in Gallbladder cancer groups is obviously higher than that in chronic cholecystitis groups,P0.05;2)The discrepancy of CD44v6 or Ezrin protein in Gallbladder cancer with or without a lymph node metastasis group is obvious and P0.05;3)The analysis of Ezrin and CD44v6 protein in different gallbladder cancer pathology types shows that the discrepancy of Ezrin protein or CD44v6 in well-differentiated,moderately differentiated,and poorly differentiated gallbladder cancer groups is not obvious,P0.05;4)The discrepancy of Ezrin or CD44v6 protein in Nevin(by stages)Ⅰ+Ⅱ、Ⅲ+Ⅳ、Ⅴ groups is obvious and P0.01;5)Ezrin or CD44v6 are interrelated with tumor marker CEA and CA199 in Gallbladder cancer,P0.01;6)The positive rate of Ezrin and CD44v6 protein in gallbladder carcinoma has nothing to do with the patients'age and gender.7)CD44v6 and Ezrin in Gallbladder cancer is not positively correlated(P0.05).Conclusions:1)The positive rate of Ezrin and CD44v6 protein in gallbladder carcinoma is obviously higher than chronic cholecystitis.2)The close relation between the positive rates of Ezrin and CD44v6 protein and the infiltration metastasis of cholangio carcinoma can be used as biological indicator which reflects infiltration metastasis of gallbladder carcinoma.3)Ezrin and CD44v6 protein in gallbladder carcinoma is not positively correlated.


In this paper, we propose a new approach for brain image segmentation based on 3D U-Net deep learning architecture. The proposed approach takes into consideration both the neural network's optimizer as well the biological context of the segmentation tissue, by modeling the structured nature of glioma and edematous tissue around the enhancing and non-enhancing tumor within the U-net model. By training multiple deep neural networks based on 3D U-Nets, with a two-stage design, with whole tumor segmentation as the first stage, followed by segmentation of enhancing and non-enhancing tumors in the second stage, along with data augmentation, it was possible to build sparse deep learning model with few images, and achieve better tumor detection performance as compared to other deep learning models reported for BraTS 2018 challenge task, involving the usage of large dataset for building the models.


The policy of Development of Western Region is a golden chance for Qinzhou,the only coastal district in the western region of China.As for how to seize it and take the initiative for a faster development of Qinzhou,the Municipal committee of Qinzhou has put forward a target involving setting up coastal industries and speeding up the progress of Qinzhou's industrialization and urbanization,namely the city should be strengthened by industry.This gets to the point of Qinzhou's modernizational construction.


The remarkable effect of anions on the transition from supramolecular gels to crystalline phases has been described. An amino acid-based metallohydrogel was transformed into different metal-organic frameworks through the selective picking of anions. The metallohydrogel and the resulting metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) were thoroughly characterized. The results demonstrated controlled access over the binding of a particular anion to selectively form a particular MOF.


Objective We attemp to comprehensively and systematically investigate the latest research progress of the ECG performance in sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome (SAHS).Methods Articles on the study of SAHS published in major journals of china from Jan.2000 to Dec.2010 and Pubmed articles from Jan.2005 to Dec.2010 were retrospectively analyzed.Results SAHS can increases the heart rate,but it reduces the heart rate variability.The probability of various complicated arrhythmia significantly increased,and SAHS is an important risk factors and incentive which can cause angina,myocardial ischemia,acute myocardial infarction and acute coronary syndrome.The arrhythmia in SAHS patients is often paroxysmal,and it offen occurs during sleep or the apnea.The more common kinds of arrhythmia is sinus bradycardia,sinus arrest,frequent atrial premature beats and atrioventricular block.Conclusions Judging from the current research,we conclude that the ECG changes of SAHS patients have no specific,but it still have some rules to follow.The etiology of SAHS is more complex,and the exact mechanism about the ECG changes have not be resolved.We needs more stronger basic research,and the implementation of large sample,multicenter,prospective randomized study should be pay more attention to.

Key words:
Sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome; ECG


This paper describes an end-to-end voice conversion system, which involves three main ideas: transformer, context preservation mechanisms, and model adaptation. Self-attention in the transformer architecture directly connects all positions, making it easier to learn long range dependencies and improve training efficiency. Context preservation mechanisms accelerate and stabilize training. Adaptation techniques are conductive to the training of the conversion mapping with limited training data. The results show that the proposed method obtains a higher MOS and the training speed is 2.72 times faster than LSTM based baseline system.


A second-order adaptive filter structure that can be used for frequency estimation and enhancement of an input sinusoid is proposed. Unlike other gradient-based adaptive line enhancement schemes, this filter has the advantage that it can be made to converge arbitrarily fast by increasing the step size of the update, while still retaining stability. This is possible because the adaptation strategy has its roots in hyperstability theory. A limitation of the scheme is that it gives a biased estimate in the presence of noise; however, some techniques that bring the bias down to a low level are described. >


Abstract A 7-yr-old girl with a complex disorder of mesenchymal tissues characterized by recurrent life-threatening infections, growth retardation, difficulty in healing, hemangiomata, anemia, thrombocytopenia, and severe leukocyte dysfunction was studied. Detailed studies of her leukocytes revealed previously undescribed ultrastructural and metabolic adnormalities. Centriole-associated microtubule counts in granulocytes prepared under conditions of directed migration were markedly increased (over 300%). Basal mononuclear cell cyclic GMP levels were 400% greater than those observed in cells from age-matched controls. These abnormalities were associated with multiple defects of leukocyte function. Neutrophils were unable to orient in response to a gradient of chemotactic factor. In neutrophils and monocytes both random and directed locomotion of the cells were markedly abnormal when assessed by a 51Cr radioassay or by morphologic filter techniques. Furthermore, leukocytes showed diminished adherence to nylon wool, delayed bactericidal activity for Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus viridans, and subnormal secretion of the granule-associated enzyme lysozyme in response to A23187, phorbol myristate acetate, or adherence to nylon wool surfaces. In addition, both humoral and cellular immune functions of lymphocytes were abnormal. The abnormalities in this patient's leukocytes may have been related to increased microtubule assembly and elevated cGMP. The possibility of a common defect of mesenchymal cells is intriguing but confirmation must await additional studies in other patients with a similar disease.


The question that Professor Benjamin Davy raises has two aspects. The formal aspect refers to whether the two terms, teleocratic/teleocracy and nomocratic/nomocracy that I have used in my papers, are relevant to their initial meanings employed by Hayek. However, the more essential aspect refers to whether the theory behind the terms can constitute a useful tool for today's social science. Starting with the first aspect, the connection between the Hayek–Kelsen dispute and my interpretation of the theory of nomocracy developed by Moroni are rather indirect. There are four components of this connection:


Temperature dependence of sublattice magnetization of an anisotropic ferrimagnetic is investigated. It is shown that the presence of even weak single-ion anisotropy results in a quantum reduction of the spin, and, consequently, changes the behavior of sublattice magnetization.


The authors applied multi-objective optimization techniques to analyze operation of the Lake Kariba hydropower scheme. The goal was to balance two conflicting objectives: first, maximization of hydropower production; and second, minimization of peak flood releases. A comparison of the test results with historical operating data shows that operating results can be significantly improved through adoption of optimization techniques and improved inflow forecasting. Further analysis can be done using the Interactive River System Simulation Program IRIS to assess the impact of the optimal policy on secondary objectives and verify robustness of developed policy.


In the era of big data, mining the emotional tendency of opinions through natural language processing technology is meaningful for the timely understanding of human behavior data. Nowadays, Generalized Autoregressive Pre-training Language Modeling (XLNet) can not only capture bidirectional contextual knowledge but also learn the word dependency. However, its sentence-level representation didn't take broad features into account. In this paper, we design a novel architecture, called Broad Autoregressive Language Model (BroXLNet), to automatically process sentiment analysis task. BroXLNet integrates the advantage of generalized autoregressive language modeling and broad learning system, which has the ability of extracting deep contextual features and randomly searching high-level contextual representation in broad spaces. We evaluated our algorithm on binary Stanford Sentiment Treebank dataset. Compared with the state-of-the-art methods, e.g., BiLSTM, ELMo, OpenAI GPT, BERT and XLNet, BroXLNet achieved the best result of 94.0% in sentiment analysis task of binary Stanford Sentiment Treebank. The result demonstrated the excellent classifying ability of BroXLNet in sentiment analysis.


This paper is motivated by emerging edge computing systems which consist of sensor nodes that acquire and process information and then transmit status updates to an edge receiver for possible further processing. As power is a scarce resource at the sensor nodes, the system is modeled as a tandem computation-transmission queue with power-efficient computing. Jobs arrive at the computation server with rate $\lambda$ as a Poisson process with no available data buffer. The computation server can be in one of three states: (i) OFF: the server is turned off and no jobs are observed or processed, (ii) ON-Idle: the server is turned on but there is no job in the server, (iii) ON-Busy: the server is turned on and a job is processed in the server. These states cost zero, one and $p_{c} > 1$ units of power, respectively. Under a longterm power constraint, the computation server switches from one state to another in sequence: first a deterministic $T_{o}$ time units in OFF state, then waiting for a job arrival in ON-Idle state and then in ON-Busy state for an independent identically distributed compute time duration. The transmission server has a single unit data buffer to save incoming packets and applies last come first serve with discarding as well as a packet deadline to discard a sitting packet for maintaining information freshness, which is measured by the Age of Information (AoI). Additionally, there is a monotonic functional relation between the mean time spent in ON-Busy state and the mean transmission time. We obtain closed-form expressions for average AoI and average peak AoI. Our numerical results illustrate various regimes of operation for best AoI performances optimized over packet deadlines with relation to power efficiency.


The usual procedure to compute the determinant is the so-called Gaussian elimination. We can view this as the transformation of the matrix into a lower triangular matrix with column operations. These transformations do not change the determinant but in the triangular matrix, the computation of the determinant is more convenient: we must only multiply the diagonal elements to obtain it. (It is also possible to obtain the inverse matrix from this form; we will not deal with this separately.)


The invention relates to a method of regulating the excitation current in an alternator inductor for a motor vehicle, said alternator delivering a rectified output voltage to be regulated, the rectified voltage being a periodic voltage whose each period T is divided into a first period T1 during which the battery voltage is applied to the inductor and a second period T2 during which the battery voltage is not applied to the inductor, comprising: - measuring the rectified voltage alternator sampling during each period T of said voltage, - comparing the measured value of the rectified voltage to a calculated reference value, and deducing from this comparison: - a first digital value corresponding to the difference between the measured value of the rectified voltage and the reference value, - a second digital value, called excitation bou closed key, which is calculated, in each period T, by adding to the closed loop excitation value of the preceding period the first numerical value to which is applied a first correction factor, - a third digital value, called open loop excitation, which is calculated, in each period T, by adding to the closed loop excitation previously calculated value, during the same period T the first numerical value to which is applied a second correction factor, this third numerical value determining the time T1 during which the voltage is applied from the battery to the inductor.


Three species of aquatic beetle, Peltodytes simplex (LeConte) (Haliplidae), Agabus oblongulus Fall (Dytiscidae) (both from southern British Columbia) and Ilybius oblitus Sharp (Dytiscidae) (from southern Ontario) are confirmed as members of the Canadian fauna based on specimens deposited in the Spencer Entomological Museum at the University of British Columbia.


The objective of this work is to study the effect of deposited CO 2 on the solid thermal conductivity of a cryogenic insulation system. Therefore, measurements were performed using a guarded hot plate apparatus at temperatures in the range from 80K to 290K in combination with a bellow acting as the sample containment. The unique experimental setup and sample preparation are described in detail. Furthermore, existing thermal models which are based on a superposition of thermal transfer due to radiation and solid thermal conductivity were modified to account for the thermal effects of deposited gases and the consequently increased solid thermal conductivity for a spherical powder. Measurements showed a significant increase of the solid thermal conductivity depending on the amount of CO 2 that was provided for deposition–evacuation. 2.77Vol-‰CO 2 resulted in an increase of 5.5% in the overall solid thermal conductivity. Twice this amount (5.54Vol-‰CO 2 ) and four times this amount (11.1Vol-‰CO 2 ) resulted in an increase of 8 . 8 % and 14.1% in the overall solid thermal conductivity, respectively. Due to additional temperature sensors, it was possible to measure the effective thermal conductivity in different layers of the insulation material. Thus, a significant change in the innermost layer of 75 % was measured for the solid thermal conductivity comparing the evacuated sample with the CO 2 -loaded (11.1Vol-‰ CO 2 ) sample.


Scarf's algorithm [18] provides fractional core elements for NTU-games. Biró and Fleiner [3] showed that Scarf's algorithm can be extended for capacitated NTU-games. In this setting agents can be involved in more than one coalition at a time, cooperations may be performed with different intensities up to some limits, and the contribution of the agents can also differ in a coalition. The fractional stable solutions for the above model, produced by the extended Scarf algorithm, are called stable allocations. In this paper we apply this solution concept for the Hospitals Residents problem with Couples (HRC). This is one of the most important general stable matching problems due to its relevant applications, also wellknown to be NP-hard. We show that if a stable allocation yielded by the Scarf algorithm turns outto be integral then it provides a stable matching for an instance of HRC, so this method can be used as a heuristic. In an experimental study, we compare this method with other heuristics constructed for HRC that are applied in practice in the American and Scottish resident allocation programs, respectively. Our main finding is that the Scarf algorithm outperforms all the other known heuristics when the proportion of couples is high.


The spin of a projectile results in an amplitude and phase modulation on the received Global Positioning System (GPS) signal when superimposing the antenna signals from a uniform circular array (UCA) with the same amplitude and phase. Since the phase modulation can be considered more significant compared to the amplitude modulation, the influence of the phase modulation on the estimation of the position of the spinning object is investigated in this paper. Different frequencies of rotation are applied to the received signal with the help of a digital phase shifter and the positioning results are presented and discussed.


We report a neutron spin-echo study of the critical dynamics in the $S=\frac{5}{2}$ antiferromagnets ${\mathrm{MnF}}_{2}$ and ${\mathrm{Rb}}_{2}{\mathrm{MnF}}_{4}$ with three-dimensional (3D) and two-dimensional (2D) spin systems, respectively, in zero external field. Both compounds are Heisenberg antiferromagnets with a small uniaxial anisotropy resulting from dipolar spin-spin interactions, which leads to a crossover in the critical dynamics close to the N\'eel temperature, ${T}_{N}$. By taking advantage of the $\ensuremath{\mu}\text{eV}$ energy resolution of the spin-echo spectrometer, we have determined the dynamical critical exponents $z$ for both longitudinal and transverse fluctuations. In ${\mathrm{MnF}}_{2}$, both the characteristic temperature for crossover from 3D Heisenberg to 3D Ising behavior and the exponents $z$ in both regimes are consistent with predictions from the dynamical scaling theory. The amplitude ratio of longitudinal and transverse fluctuations also agrees with predictions. In ${\mathrm{Rb}}_{2}{\mathrm{MnF}}_{4}$, the critical dynamics crosses over from the expected 2D Heisenberg behavior for $T\ensuremath{\gg}{T}_{N}$ to a scaling regime with exponent $z=1.387(4)$, which has not been predicted by theory and may indicate the influence of long-range dipolar interactions.


In the preceding papers, the authors have reported on a quantitative methods' for determination of iodine by which the iodine contents in seaweeds,2) agar" and soils" were determined. The present paper deals with the tea as to its iodine contents. By the discovery of such substances in tea as caffein and vitaminC which have certain physiological significancethe demand for tea seems to have been increased in spite of the fact that various kinds of beverages have been introduced to this country in recent years. As to the iodine contents in tea, a few meager informations are available although the iodine itself has been known to play an important role in our diet and health. Consequently different kinds of tea were taken and the iodine contents in the leaves themselves and in the hotwater extract were determined, and the results are given here.


The island city of Mumbai with an area of 438 sq. kms and supporting a population of over 10 million generates about 2700 million liters per day (mld) of sewage from the seven service areas of the city sewerage network and discharges it into the adjoining west coast and the two creeks in the Arabian Sea. This has resulted in the degradation of coastal water quality, contamination of the adjoining beaches and seafronts. The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai has therefore, undertaken the task of delineating appropriate sewage disposal system to achieve cleaner marine ecosystem through marine outfalls at specific locations. This paper presents the results of the mathematical simulations on the impacts of discharge vis-a-vis the length of the outfall and level of land treatment. The results of the simulation indicate the level of bacterial pollution to be higher near the diffuser locations as compared to nearshore regions. 48 hrs simulation result analysis shows that FC counts near the diffuser location will be in the range of 2000-8000 counts per 100 ml.


Rough set concept is a methodology of information processing for relational databases. It is a unique uncertainty mathematics topic closely connected to fuzzy set theory. When the rough set is combined with neutrosophic set theory, an effective tool for working with indeterminacy arises. In this study, we defined a multi-valued rough neutrosophic set and a multi-valued rough neutrosophic matrix. Using separation measures, we introduced a new approach for a multi-valued neutrosophic with a rough structure. We consider the problem of determining the condition of dengue-affected patients in a specific hospital. Using this method, we create a multi-valued rough neutrosophic decision matrix that clearly displays the relationship between patient conditions and symptoms. We can determine which one has a serious condition by solving this problem and presenting it on the graph.


t(8;21) is the most frequent chromosomal abnormality in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), occurring in 4-12% of adult and 12-30% of pediatric patients. This translocation fuses the N-terminus of AML1 to nearly the entire coding region of ETO, resulting in expression of the fusion protein AML1-ETO. Observations that mice expressing AML1-ETO develop AML only if treated with mutagenic agents have suggested that AML1-ETO requires cooperating disease alleles for leukemogenesis. Consistent with this, t(8;21)+ AML patients harbor multiple genetic abnormalities. Recent exome/genome sequencing studies have expanded the number of known mutations in t(8;21)+ AML patients; however, efforts to distinguish driver from passenger mutations have yielded few cooperative events and the requirements for AML1-ETO leukemogenesis remain largely unknown. To better define the genetic landscape in AML and distinguish driver from passenger mutations, we compared the mutational profiles of two specific AML1-ETO driven mouse models of leukemia to the mutational profiles of human AML patients. We found that the mouse models of AML1-ETO driven AML were phenotypically similar in terms of their extensive latency, myeloid progenitor immunophenotype, and the acquired secondary disease alleles. The first model relies upon the expression of AML1-ETO in transplanted p21 null cells, while the second model relies upon the expression of AML1-ETO9a, a splice variant of AML1-ETO, in transplanted wild type cells. p21 is neither disrupted, nor methylated in t(8;21)+ AML. Because loss of p21 prevents the repair of damaged DNA, leukemogenesis may occur in this model once a cooperating disease allele has been naturally acquired in an AML1-ETO positive hematopoietic progenitor. AML1-ETO9a itself deregulates the expression of several DNA repair genes, suggesting that AML1-ETO9a could similarly facilitate the acquisition of a cooperating disease allele. When we compared the mutational landscape of these murine leukemias to AML patients, we found that the murine leukemias enrich for disease alleles present in human AML (hypergeometric p ≤ 4.26x10 -20 ) and that there is a significant tendency for disease alleles mutated in both species to possess mutations in the same protein domain (hypergeometric p ≤ 4.23x10 -3 ). Furthermore, domains mutated in both species were affected by recurrent mutations (Spearman correlation of domain p-values r = 0.53, p ≤ 2.73x10 -8 ). While the frequency with which various protein classes were affected by mutations was significantly different in MLL-AF9 and AML1-ETO/AML1-ETO9a positive murine AML compared to MLL-fusion and t(8;21)+ positive human AML (p = 0.049), the protein classes targeted in AML1-ETO/AML1-ETO9a murine AML vs. human t(8;21)+ AML were not significantly different (p = 0.327). To identify disease alleles capable of cooperating with AML1-ETO, we determined that of the 424 genes mutated in both species, 38 of those genes were significantly mutated in human AML (Genome MuSiC SMG FDR ≤ 30%). These 38 genes represented 45 mouse orthologues, 38 of which were significantly mutated in AML1-ETO driven murine leukemias (FDR ≤ 10%). These 38 orthologues corresponded to 32 human orthologues, 3 of which were annotated in COSMIC as cancer-related genes: TET2 , PTPN11 , and THRAP3 . Using retroviral transduction and transplantation experiments, we demonstrated that the expression of AML1-ETO in transplanted Tet2 null cells or PTPN11 D61Y cells was sufficient for leukemogenesis. At euthanasia, mice exhibited leukocytosis, anemia, thrombocytopenia, splenomegaly, and an expansion in the myeloid progenitor compartment. Our identification of Tet2 loss as a cooperating allele implicates mutations in epigenetic regulators as potential driving events in t(8;21)+ AML, while the discovery of PTPN11 D61Y solidifies the role of constitutive MAPK signaling in t(8;21)+ AML. This integrative genetic profiling approach allowed us to accurately predict cooperating events in t(8;21)+ AML in a robust and unbiased manner, while also revealing functional convergence in mouse and human AML. Collectively, these findings illustrate the power of integrating murine and human genomic profiling to identify functionally relevant disease alleles in AML. Disclosures Levine: CTI BioPharma: Membership on an entity9s Board of Directors or advisory committees; Loxo Oncology: Membership on an entity9s Board of Directors or advisory committees; Foundation Medicine: Consultancy.


This article describes the design and characterization of an ultra-wideband (UWB) pulse generator suitable for biomedical research. The pulser generates nanosecond-long electromagnetic pulses of adjustable rise time, amplitude, and duration, permitting analysis of possible bioeffects over a range of pulse characteristics. Nanosecond rise-time pulses (2.4 ns) of 3.4 kV are achieved in a four-stage pulser circuit using ZTX415 transistors. This device has been used to assess exposure bioeffects to UWB pulses of the model system E. coli.


Design Rules (DRs) are the biggest design-relevant quality metric for a technology. Even small changes in DRs can have significant impact on manufacturability as well as circuit characteristics including layout area, variability, power, and performance. To systematically evaluate design rules several works have been published. The most recent among them is the Design Rule Evaluator (UCLA_DRE), a tool developed by NanoCad lab at UCLA, for fast and systematic evaluation of design rules and layout styles in terms of major layout characteristics of area, manufacturability, and variability. The framework essentially creates a virtual standard-cell library and performs the evaluation based on the virtual layout using first order models of variability and manufacturability (instead of relying on accurate simulation) and layout topology/congestion-based area estimates (instead of explicit and slow layout generation).However, UCLA_DRE suffers from few major limitations. First, UCLA_DRE currently does not have the capability to evaluate the interaction between overlay design rules and overlay control, which is becoming more critical and more challenging with the move toward multiple-patterning(MP) lithography. Second, UCLA_DRE currently evaluates design rules at the cell level which may lead to misleading conclusions because most designs are routing-limited and, hence, not every change in cell area results in a corresponding change in chip area. Third, delay was not evaluated but it is well-known that delay-change can affect chip-area due to different buffering and gate sizing to meet timing requirements. The first part of this dissertation offers a framework to study interaction between overlay design rules and overly control options in terms of area, performance and yield. The framework can also be used for designing informed, design-aware overlay metrology and control strategies. In this work, the framework was used to explore the design impact of LELE double-patterning rules and poly-line end extension rule defined between poly and active layer for different overlay characteristics (i.e., within-field vs. field-to-field overlay) and different overlay models at the 14nm node. Interesting conclusions can be drawn from the results. For example, one result shows that increasing the minimum mask-overlap length by 1nm would allow the use of a third-order wafer/sixth-order field-level overlay model instead of a sixth-order wafer/sixth-order field-level model with negligible impact on design.In the second part of the dissertation, a new methodology called chipDRE, a framework to evaluate design rules at the chip-level, is described. chipDRE uses a good chips per wafer metric to unify area, performance, variability and functional yield. It uses UCLA_DRE to generate virtual standard-cell library and uses a mix of physical design and semi-empirical models to estimate area change at the chip-level due to both cell delay and cell area change. One interesting result for well to active spacing shows non-monotonic relationship of ``good chips per wafer with the rule value


Operational Excellence seems an elusive goal for Oil and Gas operating companies. Growing mounds of data, equipment reliability issues and overwhelmed operations personnel create risks that may prevent equipment from running as designed, ultimately standing in the way of achieving desired production goals. This paper will address reducing the risk to production from downtime caused by complex graphics, overzealous alarming strategies and lack of live data presentation to subject matter experts in the organization. We will address approaches to deploy affordable subject matter oversight through carrying automation concepts to cloud computing. In addition, we will highlight example projects and our experience.


A detailed theoretical study of electron-phonon interaction in occupied and unoccupied Ysurface states on Cu110 ,A g110, and Pd110 is carried out. We show that in the unoccupied surface state on Cu110 and Ag110 the e-ph coupling parameter is about three times smaller than that in the occupied surface state due to distinct phonon modes that contribute to e-ph scattering. The difference in mechanisms of phonon-mediated scattering for excited holes and electrons results from distinct spatial localization of occupied and unoccupied states. In spite of both Ysurface states on Pd110 are unoccupied they have spatial distribution similar to that on other considered noble metal surfaces that leads to different phonon-mediated scattering in these states too.


We demonstrate that all the Xizang (Tibet) specimens previously identified as Anemone tetrasepala (Ranunculaceae) actually belong to A. elongata , a species distributed in east Himalaya. Anemone tetrasepala is not known to occur in China, but is confined to north-west Himalaya only.


The Raman spectrum (3500–30 cm−1) of liquid 1-chloro-1-methylsilacyclobutane, c-C3H6SiCl(CH3), was recorded and quantitative depolarization values were obtained. Additionally, the infrared (3500–40 cm−1) spectra of the gas and solid were recorded. Both the axial and equatorial (with respect to the methyl group) conformers were identified in the fluid phases. Variable temperature (−55 to −100 °C) studies of the infrared spectra of the sample dissolved in liquid xenon were carried out. From these data, the enthalpy difference was determined as 178 ± 15 cm−1 (2.13 ± 0.18 kJ mol−1), with the axial conformer being the more stable form and the only conformer remaining in the polycrystalline solid. A complete vibrational assignment is proposed for the axial conformer and many of the fundamentals of the equatorial conformer were also identified. The vibrational assignments are supported by normal coordinate calculations utilizing ab initio force constants. Complete equilibrium geometries, conformational stabilities, harmonic force fields, infrared intensities, Raman activities and depolarization ratios were determined for both rotamers by ab initio calculations employing the 6–31G* and 6–311++G** basis sets at the levels of restricted Hartree–Fock (RHF) and/or Moller–Plesset (MP) to second order. The results are discussed and compared with those obtained for some similar molecules. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


On the basis of analysing relations of site factor to yong stands growth of Larix leptalepis by mutiple regression analysis in Xiaolong Mountain forest area, this study screen out main site factors which affect growth greatly: thickness of soil humus ione and avaliable ione slope degree and altitute.Furthmore, by quantitative theory the trial area have been divided into 2 sity type group and 20 site type, and productivity of forest land in different site type have been evaluated af the same time.


Based on the movement conversion model,the synthesis question for given four angle-displacements of rotating links can be converted to the one for given four positions of the coupler. By constructing circle point mapping equations,the one to one relationship between angle parameters and mechanism solutions. The output quality characteristic is determined and the corresponding model to evaluate robustness is established. Feasible robust solution regions can be calculated using this model. Visual graphs given in this paper can reflect robust properties on the feasible robust solution regions and their changing tendencies. The visual optimization problem on the whole solution region for mechanism robust properties can be realized.


HEMOPTYSIS Hemoptysis is a relatively common and distressing symptom for which patients seek urgent attention. In the past, the cause was predominantly tuberculosis and bronchiectasis, but this has changed with the decline in tuberculosis, and bronchial carcinoma now accounts for a large proportion of cases in most studies.28, 63 Investigation aims to establish a cause, at the same time recognizing that none will be found in a significant proportion of cases-so-called "cryptogenic hemoptysis."


Countless human beings disappear each day all over the world. Knowledge countless centuries old, formed generation after generation by the laboring beauty of bodies in all their languages, disappears. In Central America whole peoples are being exterminated by government death squads; Quiche Maya are machinegunned in Guatemala, their lands burned. Even in Mexico mahogany forests that "hold together the Lacondon Maya community as well as the ecological stability of the environment" are bulldozed.1


Aqueous root extract of Salacia lehmbachii (ARESL) has been implicated in preterm usage by herbalists in South Eastern Nigeria. Consequently, the extract, thought used in other ailment like malaria fever, is prohibited in normal pregnancy situation. The present study was aimed at investigating effects of ARESL on activities of uterine muscle strips isolated from non-gravid, oestrogen-primedWistar rats. Uterine muscle strips were prepared and mounted in an organ bath with aerated De-Jalon's solution maintained at 36± 1 C. Dose-response relationships for oxytocin (OT) and acetylcholine (ACh) constituting uterotonic (contractile) agents were studied isometrically in the presence and absence of fixed concentrations of ARESL (0 25×10−2 and 0 5×10−2 mg/ml). Similarly, salbutamol (SBL) and verapamil (VER) controls were investigated in the presence of uterotonic agents and the effects compared with those of the extract. Effects of extract on amplitude and frequency and on maximum achievable response (Emax and o centrati n which inhibited 50% of maximum response (IC50 were also assessed. Data was computed by o e-way analysis of variance followed by Tukey test as post hoc. ARESL at a concentration of 0 5×10−2 mg/ml significantly (P < 0 01) reduced Emax of OT from 1 22±0 20 to 0 30±0 02 g and that of ACh from 1 45± 0 43 to 0 28± 0 11. Frequency of contractions was equally reduced. Hence, ARESL is a nonspecific uterine smooth muscle contractile antagonist with very high affinity for receptors with no efficacy. This, undoubtedly, explains why folkloric medicine uses the extract in situations of threatened abortion.


ABSTRACT This article explores the nature and the desirability of private sector contribution to national strategies of cyber deterrence. The article starts by developing a variation of the concept of cyber deterrence, called RCDC deterrence, which is simultaneously restrictive, comprehensive, dynamic, and complemental. Second, it applies RCDC deterrence to identify and analyze specific areas of cyber deterrence that can benefit the most from private sector contribution. Third, the article cautions about the potential security, legal, and moral issues that could arise from such private contributions. Instead of offering definitive answers on these complex issues, the article ends by suggesting avenues for further research. The ultimate objective is to assist decision-makers in designing policies and regulations aimed at maximizing the benefits of public–private cooperation in cyber deterrence while mitigating its potential downsides.


The Greed and getting rich quickly are the main motivations for individuals to engage in corruption. Corruption violates good practices and has many harmful effects on individuals, society and a country. Thus, this study aims to determine the Philippine youth views on the state of corruption in the Philippines especially from academia and police sectors. This research method used ni this study is a descriptive hybrid method, consisting of quantitative and qualitative methods. The main data for this study was collected through a survey of Filipino young people aged 18 to 30 in the National Capital Region. The questions investigated focused on the leadership attributes, present values and attitudes of the Filipinos when it comes to corruption and wrongdoings, typical Filipino behaviors/reactions on corruptions, Philippine justice system, present issues and problems of the Philippines as well as the main cause of poverty in the Philippines. The survey results obtained show that the present Filipino leadership is accepted in terms of competencies and capabilities of a leader but questionable when it comes to ethical dimensions and rule of law. The Philippines 'youth from both sectors are understood the meaning and impact of corruption and the corruption situation in the Philippines.


In black-and-white printing the page image can be represented within a computer as an array of binary values indicating whether or not pixels should be inked. The Boolean operators ofAND, OR, and EXCLUSIVE-OR are often used when adding new objects to the image array. For color printing the page may be represented as an array of "continuous tone" color values, and the generalization of these logic functions to gray-scale or full-color images is, in general, not defined or understood. When incrementally composing a page image new colors can replace old in an image buffer, or new colors and old can be combined according to some mixing function to form a composite color which is stored. This paper examines the properties of the Boolean operations and suggests fullcolor mixing functions which preserve the desired properties. These functions can be used to combine colored images, giving various transparency effects. The relationships between the mixing functions and physical models of color mixing are also discussed.


We perform a calculation of the cross section for nine reactions induced by $\bar K$ scattering on protons. The reactions studied are $K^-p \to \Lambda \pi^+ \pi^-$, $K^-p \to \Sigma^0 \pi^+ \pi^-$, $K^-p \to \Lambda \pi^0 \eta$, $K^-p \to \Sigma^0 \pi^0 \eta$, $K^-p \to \Sigma^+ \pi^- \eta$, $\bar K^0 p \to \Lambda \pi^+ \eta$, $\bar K^0 p \to \Sigma^0 \pi^+ \eta$, $\bar K^0 p \to \Sigma^+ \pi^+ \pi^-$, $\bar K^0 p \to \Sigma^+ \pi^0 \eta$. We find that in the reactions producing $\pi^+ \pi^-$ a clear peak for the $f_0(980)$ resonance is found, while no trace of $f_0(500)$ appears. Similarly, in the cases of $\pi \eta$ production a strong peak is found for the $a_0(980)$ resonance, with the characteristic strong cusp shape. Cross sections and invariant mass distributions are evaluated which should serve, comparing with future data, to test the dynamics of the chiral unitary approach used for the evaluations and the nature of these resonances.


Seven new species of antipatharian corals are described from the territorial waters of New Zealand and adjacent regions. Differential diagnoses are given and comparisons are made to related nominal species. Described as new are: Antipathes leptocrada; Antipathes craticulata; Asteriopathes octocrada; Phanopathes zealandica; Tetrapathes latispina; Parantipathes dodecasticha; and Parantipathes robusta. http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:DCF9A2BD-63DE-4240-AA4E-0B8BE7E095F1


In accordance with up-to-date IMO requirements it's necessary to create shore organizations that are able to carry out damage stability and residual structural strength calculations for a damaged vessel. The paper is based on simple elastic analysis to calculate the residual strength of the damage vessel under various damage scenarios.Copyright © 2007 by ASME


Semiempirical conformational energy calculations were carried out for the cyclic dipeptide L‐alanyl‐L‐histidine diketopiperazine. The results indicate that electrostatic effects are probably significant in determining the conformation assumed by this molecule. When the imidazole group is in its uncharged state the most stable conformations of the molecule are those with the imidazole ring folded over the diketopiperazine ring (χ1 = 60°). Upon protonation of the imidazole group the folded conformation may be destabilized relative to conformations characterized by χ1 positions near 180°.


Treatment with mesenchyme stem cells (MSCs) plays a significant role in the therapies of many diseases such as diabetics. Vitamin D plays a significant role in the development of insulin and can increase the insulin action sensitivity of peripheral tissues. Moreover, there is limited research concerning the mechanism of the therapeutic action of MSCs with the combination of vitamin D (vit. D). Therefore, we evaluated the effect of MSC intervention in a diabetic animal model. Diabetes was induced by streptozotocin (STZ) injection at a dose of 50 mg/kg in adult male rats The diabetic rats were injected with MSCs derived from bone marrow (2 × 106 per rat), either alone or in combination with vit. D through the tail vein for four weeks. Serum insulin, glucose, C-peptide, glycosylated hemoglobin, and lipid profile levels were determined. Pancreatic oxidative stress, histology, and electron microscopy were evaluated, and the gene expression of cytokines was assessed by real-time polymerase chain reaction PCR. MSC treatment suppressed pancreatic inflammatory cytokine secretion and oxidative stress in diabetic rats, resulting in improved pancreatic histology and cellular structure, and the complication of hyperglycemia was observed. Engrafted MSCs were found inside degraded pancreatic regions and regulated inflammatory cytokines. Our results demonstrated that treatment with MSCs and vit. D in combination prevented pancreatic injury via antioxidant and immune regulation in diabetic rats, contributing to the prevention of pancreatic dysfunction, improvement of lipid metabolism, and regulation of cytokine gene expression compared with each one separately. All these mechanisms also improved the histological structure of the pancreas based on transmission electron microscopy. The combination of MSCs and vit. D appears to have contributed to a greater improvement in the diabetic pancreatic complication of rats than was observed by each one separately. Therefore, this association can be used as antidiabetic therapy.


The application of the C4.5 Algorithm based on Particle Swarm Optimization to classify the level of sales of drugs that are often sold at the Bunda Azka Pharmacy, is a strategic thing to reduce the problems experienced by the pharmacy. Classify the level of sales of drugs sold using the C4.5 method. based on particle swarm optimization, to find out whether the C4.5 method based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) can optimize drug sales in the future. This research method uses a descriptive method, namely by conducting case study research by studying activities in the field, observing and interviewing stakeholders. in the initial step of this research is the determination of the attributes that will be processed into data mining with the help of rapidminer tools, this study the author uses the KDD model as a standardization in the data mining process. at the pharmacy. The data will later be processed using the c4.5 algorithm based on Particle Swarm Optimization to find the accuracy results of the prediction of the data. The data sample used is the number of 65 drug transaction records at the Bunda Azka Pharmacy. In the test results, the accuracy of Particle Swarm Optimization was 78.10%, for class recall drug sales was 72.50% and after using Particle Swarm Optimization increased to 78.33%, while precision had an accuracy of 77.92% and after using Particle Swarm Optimization increased to 80.33%. From the results of testing with Particle Swarm Optimization, there is an increase in accuracy of 7.15% from the research application of the C4.5 Method Based on Particle Swarm Optimization to Predict Drug Sales at Bunda Azka Pharmacy.


In western Kenya, malaria remains one of the major public health problems. Understanding of malaria severity across different transmission intensities is less understood in Kenya, yet, which is very important for implementation of intervention programmes. A retrospective study of all patients who were admitted to Kisumu (lowland area with high transmission) and Kapsabet (highland area, with low transmission) district hospitals due to severe malaria during the period from 1 st January through 31 st December 2006, were assessed. The age of patients who had severe malaria was compared between those from lowland area with high malaria transmission and highland area (Kapsabet) with low transmission. 19, 817 cases were admitted to Kisumu and 21,915 to Kapsabet. 689 and 762 were randomly selected for this study from the two sites respectively. Most cases from Kisumu significantly presented with severe anaemia, pulmonary oedema and cerebral malaria (all P < 0.01). Those from Kapsabet presented with hyper-parasitaemia and hyperpyrexia (all P < 0.01). Jaundice, prostration and hypoglycemia were infrequently reported from the two study groups. Efforts directed at preventing severe malaria conditions at high malaria transmission areas have potential value to reduce impact of this disease, especially if targeted at children <5 years in high transmission areas, but to also include adolescents in low transmission areas.


Background: Propionibacterium acnes is a Gram positive rod inhabiting the human skin that also infects orthopaedic implants and is associated with acne vulgaris. Previously, one lytic bacteriophage, PA6, from P. acnes has been sequenced and partially characterized. We recently isolated several inducible phages from P. acnes classified as Siphoviruses based on morphology and partial genome sequencing. Results: In this study we sequenced the inducible P. acnes phages PAD20 and PAS50, isolated from deep infection and from skin, respectively. The genomes of PAD20 and PAS50 are 29,074 and 29,017 bp, respectively, compared with the 29,739 bp of PA6. The phage genomes have 87.3-88.7% nucleotide sequence identity. The genes are divided into clusters with different levels of similarity between the phages. PAD20 and PAS50 share four genes encoding identical amino acid sequences. Some deletions and insertions in the genomes have occurred, resulting in lack of genes, frame shifts, and possible regulatory differences. No obvious virulence factor gene candidates were found. The phages are inducible, but bacteria can be cured of phages by serial colony isolations and lose their phages during stationary phase, but are still sensitive to new phage infections. Construction of a phylogenetic tree based on more than 459 phage genomes, suggested that P. acnes phages represent a new lineage of Siphoviruses. Conclusions: The investigated P. acnes Siphovirus genomes share a high degree of homology to other P. acnes phages sequenced, but not to genomes of other phages isolated from Propionibacteria. The phage genomes are not integrated in the bacterial genome, but instead, most likely have a pseudolysogenic life cycle. Background Propionibacterium acnes is a Gram positive rod normally found on human skin [1], but has also been isolated from infections of orthopaedic implants [2,3], and has been suggested to be involved in the development of acne vulgaris. Recently, the first genome of a P. acnes strain was sequenced [4] and several putative virulence factors were identified [5]. The sequenced P. acnes genome only contains one cryptic prophage, but it has earlier been shown that some P. acnes strains are carriers of inducible phages [6]. Other groups have also studied Propionibacterium phages both in order to establish a tool to differentiate between serotypes, but also to further characterize phages mainly infecting bacteria important for the dairy industry [7-16]. Recently, Farrar et al, sequenced the first genome of a P. acnes phage, PA6 (GenBank accession no. DQ431235) [17]. The genome consists of 29,739 bp dsDNA with 48 putative coding genes. The phage was determined to be a lytic phage since no integrase or repressor could be detected in the genome. Eighteen of the genes were assigned predicted functions based on their similarities to other known phage genes. Recently, we isolated and characterized inducible phages from P. acnes isolated from both deep infections and from skin of healthy individuals [6]. By comparing the genomes of these different phages, a better understanding of how the phage influences its host and an insight in the great genetic diversity seen among phages, as shown * Correspondence: email@example.com Department of Clinical Sciences, Division of Infection Medicine, BMC-B14, Lund University, SE-221 84 Lund, Sweden Lood and Collin BMC Genomics 2011, 12:198 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/12/198 © 2011 Lood and Collin; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. by other comparative studies on phage genomes can be achieved [18,19]. Phages can enter two principally different life cycles, e. g. a lytic life cycle or a lysogenic cycle. In the lysogenic cycle most phages integrate their genome into the host genome. This is most often regulated by a phage-borne integrase, but there is also a recent report of a filamentous phage, CTXj from Vibrio cholerae, that uses the host recombinases XerC and XerD to integrate into the host genome [20,21]. Furthermore, there are a few phages known to form stable linear or circular plasmids as a part of their integration mechanism [22-24], but most known temperate phages encode their own integrases. Other than those two well-defined phage life cycles, phages are also known to be able to interact with their host in other life cycles, termed as persistent infections, pseudolysogeny, carrier-state, and chronic infections [25,26]. Those phage life cycles, even though common, are less defined compared to the lytic and lysogenic life cycles. Common for all states, except the chronic infection, is that the bacteria carry the phage DNA, but the DNA is not integrated into the bacterial chromosome, but rather exists as a plasmid. The chronic infection is characterized by the release of phages from the bacteria without causing lysis [25]. In this study, we have sequenced the genome of one phage induced from a P. acnes strain isolated from deep infection (PAD20), and the genome of one phage induced from a P. acnes strain isolated from skin (PAS50), and we have compared the two genomes with the reported lytic phage PA6 [17]. The phages have earlier been shown to have dissimilarities in the genes encoding a putative major head protein and an amidase [6], but no other genes have been examined. This offers an opportunity to investigate if phages isolated from P. acnes contribute to the virulence seen in different strains of P. acnes, and to examine the genetic diversity seen among phages. Results and discussion Genomic organization and homology The genomic organization of the three examined phages are very similar, even though some genes differ (see Figure 1). Both phages have a 13 bp ssDNA extension at both ends of the genome, identical to that of phage PA6. These extensions enable the formation of potential concatamers and circularization of the phage genome. The genome of PAD20 is 29,074 bp and has a GC content of 54.1%, compared to the genome of PAS50 that is 29,017 bp and has a GC content of 53.9%. PAD20 has two larger deletions in the genome compared to PA6. The first is a 226 bp deletion resulting in the deletion of the main part of gp22 and thereby in a frame shift giving rise to a combination of the gene products Gp22 and Gp23 (Gp22.23, see additional file 1). The second larger deletion is a 378 bp deletion of the entire gp42 gene. PAS50 has two larger deletions and one insertion. The first deletion in PAS50 is a 207 bp deletion resulting in the deletion of the gp45 gene, and a second deletion of almost 500 bp in a non-coding region, corresponding to bp 27,932-28,419 in PA6. The insert in PAS50 is an 84 bp insertion in gp37 resulting in a 28 amino acid larger exonuclease. To further investigate the genomic organization of the different P. acnes phages, the genomes were screened for putative sigma70-dependent promoters and transcriptional terminators (see Figure 1 and Table 1). Several putative promoters were detected in all phages upstream of gp7, gp11 and gp46, as well as upstream of gp45 and gp30, potentially enabling the phage to transcribe different parts of the genome at different stages of infection. One of the promoters with the highest score was upstream of a hitherto unannotated ORF (3693-3301, gp50). However, Figure 1 Genomic organization of the P. acnes phages. Schematic representation of the genome organization of P. acnes phages PAD20, PA6 and PAS50 and some functional assignments. The arrows indicate the different ORFs and the direction of transcription. The colours of the ORFs indicate the homology of phage PAD20 and PAS50 to PA6. Putative sigma70-promoters and transcriptional terminators are indicated. Lood and Collin BMC Genomics 2011, 12:198 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/12/198 Page 2 of 14


T he replacement of pastoral care with spiritual care in the Mission Statement of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education and the exclusive use of spiritual care in the White Paper on Professional Chaplaincy published in the Spring, 2001 issue of The Journal of Pastoral Care are part a monumental spiritual revolution in this society. It is an axial time. This spiritual revolution is motivated in part by a widespread search for new perspectives on life beyond the limits of a mechanistic or deterministic world view. The renewed interest in spirituality has revitalized the role of mystery and legitimated the longing for deeper meaning It has reawakened the ancient linkage between spiritual and physical health in the practice of medicine and healthcare. Spirit is regarded as an essential need or energy of human nature and therefore cannot be confined to a particular religious dogma or practice. This has made it easier to be spiritual without being religious. Changing the adjective modifying care from pastoral to spiritual signals a fundamental shift in the pastoral care movement as it has been developing over the last decades. The aim of this editorial is to reflect on that change and examine some of its consequences. There are several ways of understanding this shift from pastoral to spiritual care in the healthcare context. 1) In one sense, the change in nomenclature from pastoral to spiritual is the logical extension of trends in pastoral supervision over the last several decades. In his seminal essay in the 20th Anniversary issue of the Journal ofSupervision and Training in Ministry, Robert Fuller suggested that clinical pastoral supervision had contributed to the emergence of the present pattern of personal spirituality in the United States by training ministers who take experience seriously in fashioning their own patterns of faith. According to Fuller, spirituality "from the bottom up" is the special contribution of the clinical approach to ministry. "It has provided a new vocabulary for spiritual interests and concerns that speaks to a great many persons who have permanently lost interest in more authoritarian models of religion." While it may be slightly grandiose to presume that Clinical Pastoral Education had a hand in


A series of blends of the aromatic polybenzimidazole, poly(2,2(m-phenylene)-5,5′-benzimidazole) (PBI), and the aromatic polyimide-sulfone from 3,3′,4,4′-benzophenone tetracarboxylic dianhydride (BTDA) and 3,3′-diaminodiphenylsulfone (3,3′DDS) (PISO) has been prepared by film casting from N,N′-dimethylacetamide (DMAc) solution mixture. The differential scanning calorimetry, dynamic mechanical analysis and FT-IR spectroscopy were adapted to clarify the miscibility of PBI/PISO blends. The blends showed the single but very broad glass transition and this transition range was up to 110°C especially for PBI/PISO 50/50 wt% blend by DSC measurement. The DSC thermograms were spread and shifted gradually to higher temperature with increasing times of run cycle which included annealing at 400 or 420°C without showing the phase separated transition even at last. The dynamic mechanical behavior showed the similar result with that of DSC and the evidence that the blends reacted more vigorously at above 420°C than the pure components due to catalytic activity of benzimidazole. From FT-IR spectra, the gradual linear shift of N-H stretching band maxima as much as about 50 cm−1 was shown. But the phthalimide carbonyl and sulfone stretching band maxima showed little shift.


We carried two experiments of tele-existence. We provide a real-time illusion to humans that they exist in another place. The other place is the real world, although now their new body is a robot. In our experiments, we used virtual-reality to transport the subject to the body of a soccer-playing robot. In this new visions of human-computer interaction, we differentiate the experience between that experimented by adults and that experimented by children. We observed that the experience radically changes the adults' views regarding tele-existence and robotics. On the other hand, children become rapidly transported to the body of the robot. Keywords–Human-robot interaction; mixed-reality; teleexistence; experiments and applications; virtual reality; immersive environments.


The present study aims to investigate the effects of replacing corn oil content (10%) in the standard diet of hypercholesterolemic rats (fed standard diet + 2% cholesterol for 4 weeks) with 50, 75 and 100% levels of flaxseed oil on the body weight gain, organ weight, blood glucose, liver and kidney functions and lipid profile. Data showed that 2% cholesterol administration caused significant increase in glucose, ALT, AST, ALP, urea, uric acid, triglyceride, total lipids, total cholesterol, LDL and VLDL levels in serum of hypercholesterolemic rats. Body weight gain and organ weight also significantly increased as compared to control rats. Consumption flaxseed oil at different replacement level diets by hypercholesterolemic rats resulted in significant decrease in body weight gain, organ weight and lipid parameters except HDL which decrease as compared to hypercholesterolemic rats fed standard diet. Blood glucose level, liver functions and kidney functions were also improved.


In this note, by introducing a new variant of the resonator function, we give an explicit version of the lower bound for log | L ( σ , χ ) | in the strip 1 / 2 < σ < 1, which improves the result of Aistleitner et al. ['On large values of L ( σ , χ )', Q. J. Math. 70 (2019), 831–848].


O'Neill, Adrian Thomas. Development of Closed Cell Metallic Foam Using Casting Techniques. (Under the Direction of Dr. Afsaneh Rabiei.) The research sited in this paper involves the development of a new metal foam composite material using casting techniques. This work included the design of the material and the development of a process to produce the metal foam. The materials used to produce the foam consisted of low carbon steel hollow spheres and an aluminum alloy. The foam is comprised of steel hollow spheres packed into a random dense arrangement, with the interstitial space between spheres infiltrated with a casting aluminum alloy. Using prefabricated hollow spheres assures a uniform pore size and cell wall thickness. Casting a metal into the interstitial space provides a solid media to add structural support to the foam. The goal of this research has been to develop metal foam that demonstrates improvements in product uniformity and mechanical properties over the currently available foams. To accomplish this goal, the study included the identification of the various technologies used to manufacture metal foams, the assessment of the improvements needed to augment the quality of foamed metals, and the design of a new product and processing technique that substantiates these goals. The experimental equipment was designed and procured, while the raw materials were obtained. Then the hollow sphere foam samples were successfully produced. Using these samples a series of characterization studies was done to qualify and quantify the results. These findings were then compared to presently published data to gauge the relative success of the work. The hollow sphere metal foam developed in this study displayed significant improvements in the measures of compressive strength and energy absorption capacity, all the while maintaining the characteristic properties of cellular metals. The improvements were measured against the next best existing technology. The newly developed foam averaged 67 MPa over a region of 10 – 50% strain, with densification beginning at approximately 50% strain. The value for energy absorption is 30 MJ/m at 50% strain. This foam also has a strength to density ratio on level with the best reported results to date. The combination of these properties gives opportunity for use in previously unidentified applications, such as an energy absorption media for buildings subject to seismic motion. This foam can also be designed in such applications as automobile crumple zones, as structural members in air and space craft, and in biomedical prosthesis. Several areas for improvement have been identified for this technology. The bonding strength between sphere and matrix needs improvement, and different material choices and processing changes have been identified in this research to achieve these improvements. The packing density of the spheres can be improved, and a new method of vibrating the sphere arrangement prior to molding may increase the packing density. The porosity of the aluminum matrix can be reduced, and the design of the casting mold and processing conditions can be modified to reduce undesirable porosity. Additional testing methods have been identified to further characterize the foam and reveal insights for further improvement. The iterative process of sampling, characterization, and analysis will continue to improve this product to satisfy the objectives of this research program. DEVELOPMENT OF CLOSED CELL METALLIC FOAM USING CASTING TECHNIQUES by ADRIAN THOMAS O'NEILL A Thesis Submitted To the Graduate Faculty Of North Carolina State University In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirements for the Degree Of Master of Science MECHANICAL & AEROSPACE ENGINEERING Raleigh Fall 2004


A theory is presented for the study of surface spin waves in a two-sublattice, uniaxial antiferromagnet when there is an external magnetic field applied perpendicular to the easy axis of the material to induce a canting of the spins. Our theoretical model uses a microscopic canted Heisenberg magnetic Hamiltonian, treated within the RPA (random phase approximation) approach. Numerical results show, from the stability condition, that the convergence to the infinite-bulk canting angle θ can be over several layers (for MnF2) or almost localized in the surface layer (for FeF2 and CoF2). The bulk mode for the uniaxial case (θ=0) becomes split into two well-defined bulk regions in the spectrum for the canted materials. It is found that, between these branches, there is an acoustic surface magnon branch.


Introduction Hydrogen sulphide (H2S) and hydrogen cyanide (HCN) have been proposed as biomarkers of infection and inflammation, and therefore may be useful in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to diagnose or monitor pulmonary infection. Our aims were to monitor breath H2S and HCN concentrations in intubated, ventilated patients with pulmonary infiltrates on CXR and correlate them with clinical features and serum H2S and HCN concentrations. Methods Adult patients ventilated on controlled modes with new pulmonary infiltrates on CXR were recruited from Christchurch Hospital ICU. Once daily end-tidal breath samples were collected and analysed off-line by selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry (SIFT-MS). Initial breath samples and concurrent arterial blood samples were obtained after intubation. Results Twenty-eight patients were recruited (17 male), median age 61.5 years (range 26–85 years). Median breath H2S concentration of all samples was 0.96 ppb (range 0.22–5.12 ppb, median intra-subject CV 9.97%) and HCN concentration 0.76 ppb (range 0.31–11.5 ppb, median intra-subject CV 8.53%) collected over a median of 3 days (range 1–8 days). In general, there was little variation in breath volatile concentration over time. There was a weak relationship between breath and blood HCN concentrations (rs = 0.39, p = 0.04). Breath concentrations were not significantly higher than inspired concentrations. Inspired and exhaled volatile concentrations were related (H2S rs = 0.83, p < 0.0001; HCN rs = 0.66, p < 0.0001). Breath H2S and HCN concentrations could not be used to differentiate between patients with pneumonia and those with pulmonary infiltrates due to conditions other than pneumonia. Exhaled volatile concentrations could not separate patients with SIRS or sepsis from those without SIRS or sepsis. Conclusions As far as we are aware, this is the first study to explore breath H2S and HCN concentrations in ventilated ICU patients. There was no difference in breath volatile concentrations between patients with pulmonary infiltrates caused by different conditions. Using this breath collection method, there is no role for the use of breath H2S or HCN in the diagnosis or monitoring of pneumonia in critical illness. Abstract P146 Table 1. Causes of pulmonary infiltrates as determined by clinical factors, radiological and microbiological results, and initial breath volatile concentrations for each condition. Cause of pulmonary infiltrates Number of patients (%) Median H2S concentration (range) (ppb) Median HCN concentration (range) (ppb) Pneumonia 12 (43) 1.18 (0.61–3.47) 1.13 (0.50–1.41) Pulmonary oedema 6 (21) 1.32 (0.30–2.57) 1.09 (0.42–3.87) Aspiration lung injury 4 (14) 1.31 (1.09–1.54) 0.85 (0.63–2.73) Atelectasis 3 (11) 0.74 (0.42–2.51) 1.57 (0.47–10.11) ARDS (cause other than pneumonia) 2 (7) 0.76 (0.54–0.98) 0.62 (0.50–0.75) Other 1 (4) 0.22 0.42


1. In combination: compact mobile communication device that allows voice communication using a communication network; ! the aforementioned mobile communication device having a first RFID; ! a subscriber identification module in the above mobile communication device; and! aforesaid subscriber identification module having a second RFID, having an identifier which differs from the above-mentioned first identifier RFID. ! 2. A combination according to claim 1, wherein neither said first RFID, nor said second RFID include not transmit information about the above subscriber identity module. ! 3. A combination according to claim 2, further comprising at least one accessory to the aforementioned mobile communication device, wherein the above-mentioned accessory has a third RFID, is attached to an accessory or its packaging, and wherein the aforementioned third RFID has an identifier that is different from the aforementioned first RFID identifiers and said second RFID. ! 4. A combination according to claim 3, in which the above subscriber identity module with the aforementioned second RFID physically mounted in and is removable from said mobile communication device. ! 5. A combination according to claim 4, further comprising, in place of retail sale first retail RFID reader, a distance reading from the retail checkout apparatus; said first retail RFID reader to read RFID identifiers from retail purchase selected from the group consisting of: (a) mobile communication device, (b) an accessory for a mobile communication device, or (c) and the mobile communications device and accessory. !


About 70% of all diagnosed breast cancers express hormone receptors (estrogen [ER+], progesterone [PR+] or both [HR+]). Despite an overall good prognosis, the clinicopathological and molecular heterogeneity of these tumors account for a diverse natural history of disease, with several patients still developing distant metastatic recurrence at virtually any point during the disease trajectory, regardless of endocrine therapy. Improved risk stratification and treatment individualization accounts for longer disease-free and overall survival, but distant metastatic recurrences still occur and about half of these occur beyond 6 years from the original diagnosis. A better understanding of breast cancer biology and mechanisms of endocrine therapy resistance has resulted in the approval of novel therapeutic strategies for patients with HR+ metastatic breast cancer (MBC), which now often include addition of targeted treatment, such as CDK4/6 or PI3K pathway inhibitors, to first, second or third line endocrine therapy. Improvement in progression-free survival and sometimes even overall survival, as well as a delay in chemotherapy use in the metastatic setting and maintenance of a good quality of life have been important achievements with these targeted therapies. However, more refined clinical and molecular biomarkers are lacking to determine which patients truly need (or not) the (early or at all) addition of these targeted treatments to conventional endocrine therapy, the timing and order of targeted therapy addition and even the timing to introduce chemotherapy. Currently, the amount of ER/PR expression in the tumor, presence of tumor actionable genomic alterations (such as PIK3CA, ESR1, BRCA mutations to name a few), the patient's disease-free interval between original (early) and metastatic breast cancer diagnosis, metastatic burden and sites of metastasis, absence or presence of symptoms or visceral crisis, previous treatments, among others, are some of the main variables that clinicians take into account to customize HR+ MBC treatment. Several research efforts are under way, focusing on important questions addressing the optimal sequence and administration of drugs to circumvent current endocrine therapy with or without CDK4/6 inhibition strategies, such as (a) timing and order of CDK4/6 inhibitor addition to endocrine therapy, (b) if CDK4/6 inhibitors should be continued with a different endocrine therapy partners beyond progression of disease on endocrine therapy and CDK4/6 inhibitors, (c) novel combination of endocrine therapy with or without CDK4/6 inhibitors with targeted treatments or immunotherapy, (d) new endocrine therapy agents such as novel selective ER downregulators (SERDs) and selective ER covalent agonists (SERCAs), (e) serial collection of tumor tissue and blood for profiling at different timepoints during the metastatic setting treatment in an effort to identify new mechanisms of resistance, and (f) novel chemotherapy combinations with targeted treatment or immunotherapy. In conclusion: many therapeutic and diagnostic advances have contributed to better outcomes in HR+ MBC, but recognition of differences between clinicopathological and molecular characteristics of patients and their tumors is key in promoting optimization of treatment choices that would maximize survival, palliation of symptoms and quality of life for patients with HR+ MBC in the years to come. Citation Format: I Mayer. Special topics in metastatic ER+ breast cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2020 San Antonio Breast Cancer Virtual Symposium; 2020 Dec 8-11; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2021;81(4 Suppl):Abstract nr SP092.


A method to design the audio switching power amplifier based on the complemental driving mode is presented.The amplifier adopts universal PWM generator SG3525,its backward stage power driving uses a unique way of MOSFET complementarity,and its output uses two capacitances to build up a half-bridge circuit.The amplifier can work in the range of 24~60V voltage,with the characteristic of the circuit simpleness,steady working state and high cost performance.Thus,it can be widely applied to the industrial annunciator which requires less than 10kHz frequency response.


Abstract This article argues that much recent writing on the development of the ideology of domesticity within the working class and the role in this of struggles for protective legislation suffers from undue neglect of class interests in the construction of family life. As a contribution to a fuller account of the interaction of class and gender concerns, a case study is presented of the analysis of the family, gender and laissez-faire capitalism contained in the writing of Richard Oastler, a leading figure in the British Ten Hours Movement of the 1830s and 1840s.


The purpose of this study was to analyse a potential correlation of arthrofibrosis (AF) and femoral rotational mal-alignment in total knee arthroplasty (TKA). We hypothesized an increased internal mal-rotation of the femoral component leading to unphysiological kinematic motion of the arthroplastic knee joint. These repetitive microtrauma may then induce increased synovial hyperplasia leading to arthrofibrosis. Arthrofibrosis is an ill-defined entity that results in unsatisfactory outcome following TKA. Biological and mechanical factors have been suggested as etiology, but specific causes have not been identified. Methods: From a cohort of 3058 mobile bearing TKA 44 (1.4%) cases were diagnosed with arthrofibrosis, of which 38 (86%) cases underwent clinical examination and CT investigation to determine femoral component rotation taking the transepicondylar (TEA) axis as reference point. A control group with 38 well functioning TKA was compared. Results: Increased internal mal-rotation of the femoral component of 5.0° in the AF group (reference to the TEA) was highly significant (p Conclusion: The correlation of AF to femoral component internal mal-rotation was statistically significant (p This study has been cleared by the Ethical Committee, University of Zurich, Switzerland.


This study aims to determine whether there is an effect of student learning motivation on mathematical communication skills. The respondents in this study were 32 students from MTs Negeri Karimun, Kepulauan Riau. A test of mathematical communication abilities and a student learning motivation questionnaire were used. A quantitative descriptive study was used as the research method in this study. Simple linear regression analysis was utilized to analyze the data, with student learning motivation as the independent variable and mathematical communication abilities as the dependent variable. The results of the analysis demonstrate that student learning motivation has an effect on mathematical communication skills, with a=5%.


Atmospheric plasma is attracting interest for medical applications such as sterilization, treatment of cancer cells and blood coagulation. Application of atmospheric plasma in dermatology has potential as a novel tool for wound healing, skin rejuvenation and treatment of wrinkles. In this study, we investigated the enhancement of percutaneous absorption of dye as alternative agents of transdermal drugs. Hypodermic needles are often the only way to deliver large-molecule drugs into the dermis, although a safe transdermal drug delivery method that does not require needles would be desirable. We therefore explored the feasibility of using atmospheric microplasma irradiation to enhance percutaneous absorption of drugs, as an alternative delivery method to conventional hypodermic needles. Pig skin was used as a biological sample, exposed to atmospheric microplasma, and analyzed by attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. A tape stripping test, a representative method for evaluating skin barrier performance, was also conducted for comparison. Transepidermal water loss (TEWL) was measured and compared with and without atmospheric microplasma irradiation, to quantify water evaporation from the inner body through the skin barrier. The results show that the stratum corneum, the outermost skin layer, could be chemically and physically modified by atmospheric microplasma irradiation. Physical damage to the skin by microplasma irradiation and an atmospheric plasma jet was also assessed by observing the skin surface. The results suggest that atmospheric microplasma has the potential to enhance percutaneous absorption.


For the people of Indonesia, rice is the most important food, and the paddy is the main source of rice. Thus, paddy production is a very strategic issue for the Indonesian government. The largest paddy production in Indonesia is in West Java. The largest paddy production in West Java is Indramayu Regency. The largest district for paddy production is in Gantar District. Development in this area is very high because of the construction of a toll road through the area. The toll road's impact has increased the demand for business land. Because of this high demand, many farmers intend to Sell their land. If this phenomenon of land sales is not controlled, it will threaten the food security in Indonesia. This research aims to analyze the characteristics of the segment of farmers who desire to Sell their land. Knowing the characteristics of these farmers is useful for the government in conducting a regulation program to control land sales. The survey method is used, and the subject of this research is paddy farmers in the Gantar District, Indramayu Regency, Indonesia. Using cluster analysis, our research produces segments of the Selling farmer's characteristics. The results of the research indicate that the activity of the farmer's group is the characteristic that most influences the desire to Sell the land. The farmers who had no desire to Sell their land, most were involved in the farmer's group, but the farmer who desire Sell their land were generally less active. We recommend that governments create programs that enhance and expand the farmer groups to maintain food security


The perfectly matched layer (PML) absorbing boundary condition has been proven to absorb body waves and surface waves very efficiently at non-grazing incidence. However, the traditional PML would generate large spurious reflections at grazing incidence, for example, when the sources are located near the truncating boundary and the receivers are at a large offset. In this paper, a new PML implementation is presented for the boundary truncation in three-dimensional spectral element time domain (SETD) for solving acoustic wave equations. This method utilizes pseudospectral time-domain (PSTD) method to solve first-order auxiliary differential equations (ADEs), which is more straightforward than that in the classical FEM framework.