Summary Multichannel 3D reconstruction and deghosting techniques based on multicomponent streamer measurements of the pressure wavefield and its associated gradients were recently introduced in literature. In particular, the Generalized Matching Pursuit (GMP) technique was applied to multicomponent 3D synthetic data bringing significant improvements to address the aliasing arising from sparse crossline sampling. In this abstract, we present an example of real data acquired by an experimental 3D towed multicomponent cable array and show the performance of GMP applied to the multicomponent measurements. The real data examples illustrate that GMP reconstructs and deghosts the pressure wavefield onto a 2D receiver grid uniformly sampled at 6.25 m in both, the inline and the crossline directions, starting from a very limited number of crossline samples at realistic spacings (i.e., 75 m). We analyze the contribution of each component to the overall crossline reconstruction. We show that the crossline component of particle velocity is the key enabler for GMP to produce a very effective and robust reconstruction of the three-dimensional wavefield backscattered by the subsurface for each recorded seismic shot.


Objective:To investigate the lower extremity arterial diseases and related risk factors of elderly type 2 diabetes mellitus patients.Methods:40 aged patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and 30 normal controls.Their blood pressure、fasting blood glucose、2h postprandial blood glucose、glycosylated hemoglobin、total cholesterol、low-density lipoprotein、triglyeride、urinary albumin/creatinine were measured and ultrasonic examination by Doppler's method of artery of lower extremity.To compare and analyze detection rate of the lower extremity arterial diseases between two groups,and to investigate the risk factors of lower extremity arterial diseases of elderly type 2 diabetes mellitus patients.Results:The detection rate of the lower extremity arterial diseases was 86.7﹪in elderly type 2 diabetes mellitus patients group,and had positive correlation with contractive pressure、fasting blood glucose、2h postprandial blood glucose、glycosylated hemoglobin、total cholesterol、low -density lipoprotein.Conclusions:The detection rate of the lower extremity arterial diseases was high in elderly type 2 diabetes mellitus patients.Comprehensive treatment must be given early to avoid or retard the occurrence and development of lower limb atherosclerosis.


In order to study "three zones" of goaf spontaneous combustion with U+L ventilation mode working face. Numerical simulation is used to simulate the distribution law of "three zones" of goaf spontaneous combustion in case of different distance between crossheading and working face, and different air quantity. Research suggests that the "three-zones" of spontaneous combustion has great influence with different distances and different supplied air volume.


Background . Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a rare disease in adults. Despite the introduction of several novelties in this field in terms of prognostic factors and new therapies, clinical outcomes remain unsatisfactory. of traslocation included tyrosine after 2002: in 14 as part of induction, in 4 as maintenance and in 2 as salvage unrelated (no.=17) or a related other than sibling (no.=2) donor. Cumulative incidences of acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease were 47% and 39%, respectively. Median OS and EFS in patients who received SCT were 60 months and not reached, respectively, whereas in those younger than 60 who did not undergo a SCT median OS and EFS were 16 and 13 months (p=0.024 and 0.026) respectively. Stratifying patients by year of diagnosis, a trend toward improved EFS in those diagnosed after 2008 as compared to those diagnosed before 2003 (2.3 years versus 1.3) was observed, whereas OS remained super-imposable. By multivariate analysis, the prognostic role of leukocytosis at diagnosis was confirmed for both OS and EFS (HR 2.48, IC 95% 1.28-4.80, p=0.007, and HR 3.72, IC 95% 1.93-7.14, p<0.001, respectively). Furthermore, in younger patients, an advantage in those who received an allograft in terms of both OS (HR 0.11 CI 95% 0.03-0.44 p=0.002) and EFS (HR 0.12 CI 95% 0.03-0.47 p=0.002) was seen. Conclusions. SCT played a significant role in improving survival in patients with ALL, though prognosis in patients with leukocytosis or older remained poor. The trend toward an improved outcome seen in more recent years may be due to less toxic transplant procedures and the introduction of "minimal residual disease-guided treatment" and the availability of tyrosin kinase inhibitors. The combination of allografting and tyrosin kinase inhibitors, or novel monoclonal antibodies such as blinatumomab, should be evaluated in prospective control trials.


LIN, CHEN-YEN. Some Recent Developments in Parametric and Nonparametric Regression Models. (Under the direction of Hao Helen Zhang and Howard D. Bondell.) We present several developments in variable selection techniques for parametric and nonparametric regression models in this dissertation. We begin the series of discussions from a traditional linear model. In recent years, analysis of high-dimensional data has become a routine in modern statistics. High-dimensional data brings about new opportunities and also new challenges for many classical procedures. In Chapter 1, we review a classic yet popular variable selection method, forward selection. We propose a perturbed forward selection to alleviate several difficulties that forward selection experiences when predictors are high-dimensional. As another manifestation of the variable selection ensemble approach, the proposed method requires running forward selection on multiple perturbed datasets and aggregating the results to provide a powerful and stable selection path. In Chapters 2 and 3, we shift attention to nonparametric models. In nonparametric regression, variable selection for multivariate regression is a challenging task. The success of penalized regression, especially the COSSO penalty, opens a door for joint estimation and selection. We first study variable selection for nonparametric quantile regression. We present a novel computational algorithm to implement the adaptive COSSO penalty in quantile regression. Moreover, for better parameter tuning, we introduce a bootstrap-type degrees-of-freedom estimate. The promising numerical results serve as another testament of the success of COSSO penalty. To better promote the applicability and to establish the asymptotic properties of COSSO for various regression models, we propose a nonparametric least squares approximation procedure in Chapter 3 that provides a unified framework to do variable selection and function estimation. In addition, the proposed procedure also enjoys lower computational cost, making it a desirable alternative for existing COSSOtype methods. We observe very encouraging numerical results and our future work is to study the asymptotic properties of the proposed least squares approximation procedure. c ⃝ Copyright 2012 by Chen-Yen Lin


On the bases of own observations and analyses of the facts, gathered for forty years and the literal information of the strategy, the revelations of preserving the biological variety оf mountain ecosystems оn the South оf Russia are presented in the work. According to the gathered material and the experience, and also understanding the difficulties of problems in the mountain territories and their peculiarities and originality, a scheme of solving this problem in the Caucasus is presented.


A new approach of using direct-current electrochemical treatment (ECT) in combination with radio frequency hyperthermia (RHT) to treat cancer in mice is presented. Sixty-four mice with sarcoma and Ehrlich tumors were divided into four groups: control (10 mice), ECT (18), RHT (12), and ECT+RHT (18). During treatments, pH and temperature measurements were made at different points in the tumors. Mouse weights and tumor volumes were recorded for up to 35 days. Range of pH before treatment was from 5.7 to.7.8 with a mean of 7.0. The mean pH was 6.7 in the center and 7.1 in the tumor periphery. After ECT the pH was lower than 3.1 around the anode and higher than 13.3 around the cathode. The tumor volumes in the combined ECT and RHT treatment dropped to zero 35 days after the treatment, whereas for the other two treatments and the control group the volumes increased. It can be concluded that using the combined electrochemical and hyperthermia treatment is more effective in treating mouse tumors. This method would be suitable for treating patients with late stage cancer and unable to endure surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy.


Aviation industry consumes about 177 billion liters of kerosene, moving more than 25,000 aircraft and 6 billion passengers. To achieve this, civil aviation generated around 781 million tons of CO2 in 2015, corresponding to 2 % of all anthropogenic emissions of this greenhouse gas, with all the energy required coming from fossil sources. This work aims to synthesize 2-isopropyl-5-methyl-2-hexen-1-ol from fusel oil, a sugarcane industry co-product, for the partial replacement of aviation kerosene. The additive obtained mixed in 3 %, 5 % and 10 % contents in Jet A1 kerosene (QAV-1) exhibited viscosity (1,78 mm s ), flash point (>40 °C) and performance (<-54 °C) the current international standards, in addition to a potential biodegradability superior to fossil kerosene and a calorific value estimated in the mixture compatible with those required by ANP n° 37.


The article is devoted to the evolution of the conceptual framework of cultural studies in Russia from philosophical categories implementation to «categories of culture» and subsequently to the study of «mentalities», «national and ethnic worldviews», «cultural concepts» and the sphere of concepts, cognitive characteristics of knowledge and world perception toward the affinity with cultural anthropology.


A case of low pressure headache after an endoscopic third ventriculostomy treated with epidural blood patch is presented in this report.The patient presented with a severe debilitating headache that interfered with his daily activities. He was evaluated with an MRI cine study that showed free flow through the ventriculostomy, and a lumbar puncture with an opening pressure of 6cmH2O.Initial treatments were narcotics, hydration and caffeine without resolution of symptoms. The patient was then seen by anesthesia and an epidural blood patch was thought to be appropriate, due to the pathophysiology of her current debilitating symptom.An uneventful epidural blood patch was done, with immediate resolution of the present symptom.Epidural blood patch may be useful in the treatment of low pressure headaches of etiologies other than secondary to lumbar or thoracic punctures.Implication Statement: Anesthesiologists are sometimes called upon to perform epidural blood patches for patients who have had a dural tear after a procedure along the spinal column. This is a case in which a lumbar epidural blood patch helped a patient who had a hole put in his third ventricle.


Component Reliability for Electronic SystemsPrinciples of Testing Electronic SystemsFault Diagnosis of Analog Integrated CircuitsDesign of Systems on a Chip: Design and TestIDDQ testing of VLSI circuitsDefect Oriented Testing for CMOS Analog and Digital CircuitsCMOS SRAM Circuit Design and Parametric Test in Nano-Scaled TechnologiesEncyclopedia of Computer Science and TechnologyContactless VLSI Measurement and Testing TechniquesVLSI DesignIstfa '98Test and Design-for-Testability in Mixed-Signal Integrated CircuitsTransactions on HighPerformance Embedded Architectures and Compilers IIIFailure Analysis of Integrated CircuitsTesting of Digital SystemsVLSI Design and TestModels in Hardware TestingEssentials of Electronic Testing for Digital, Memory and Mixed-Signal VLSI CircuitsPower-Constrained Testing of VLSI CircuitsIntroduction to IDDQ TestingProceeding of the Second International Conference on Microelectronics, Computing & Communication Systems (MCCS 2017)IDDQ Testing of VLSI CircuitsCurrent Comparator Design for IDDQ Testing in VLSI CircuitsIntegrated Circuit ManufacturabilityHandbook of Semiconductor Manufacturing TechnologyDelay Fault Testing for VLSI CircuitsMulti-Chip Module Test StrategiesProceedings of ASP-DAC/VLSI Design 20029th International Conference on Robotic, Vision, Signal Processing and Power ApplicationsIntegrated Circuit Quality and ReliabilityThermal Testing of Integrated CircuitsThermal-Aware Testing of Digital VLSI Circuits and SystemsOn-Line Testing for VLSIIddq Testing for CMOS VLSIOn-line Error Detection and Fast Recover Techniques for Dependable Embedded ProcessorsDefect-Oriented Testing for Nano-Metric CMOS VLSI CircuitsAdvances in Electronic TestingVLSI DesignCMOS Logic Circuit DesignIntegrated Circuit Test Engineering


Objective:To determine whether triptolide inhibits proliferation and induces apoptosis of pancreatic cancer cells.Methods:The effects of triptolide on the antiproliferative activity of pancreatic cancer cells BxPC-3 and PANC-1 were determined by MTT assays.Apoptosis of pancreatic cancer cells induced by triptolide were de termined by flow cytometry analysis.Mitochondrial membranere potential and ROS production analysis were detect ed by Rhodamine 123 and DCFH-DA.The effects of triptolide on expression levels of Bcl-2 and Bax were deter mined by Western blotting.Results:Triptolide displayed inhibition activity of cells growth and induction of apopto sis on pancreatic cancer cells.Triptolide induced the loss of mitochondrial membrane potential by regulating the expression levels of Bcl-2 family proteins.Conclusion:The results suggest that triptolide may inhibit proliferation and induce apoptosis of pancreatic cancer cells by inducing the loss of mitochondrial membrane potential.


It is well known that the treatment for tinea of the scalp was a problem without satisfactory solution until the application of roentgentherapy. No known fungicidal agent can reach the depth of the hair follicle or the interior of the hair itself in order to destroy the causative fungus. Therefore, any therapeutic measures must be directed toward the temporary removal of the diseased hair. Hence, x-rays are used in view of the epilating action of this physical agent in certain doses. The discovery of the epilating action of thallium salts was observed and classified as a sign of thallium poisoning by several investigators. In the last few years, this epilating action of thallium has been used in the production of a temporary alopecia in tinea of the scalp. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE Sabouraud 1 was the first to report a case of defluvium capillorum under the accidental use of a


The utility model relates to a lateral loose core injection mould, relating to the technical field of injection moulds. The lateral loose core injection mould comprises a fixed template, a movable template, a centre plate, a centre panel and a lateral loose core casting insert, wherein a forming casting insert is embedded in the movable template, the forming casting insert and the lateral loose core casting insert are encircled together to form a mould sectional cavity, a centre and an ejector rod are clamped between the centre plate and the centre panel, the upper end surface of the centre is arranged below the lateral loose core casting insert, and arranged by being separated with the mould sectional cavity, the upper end part of the ejector rod is movably sleeved at the lower end part of the forming casting insert in a clamping manner, and the extreme distance of the ejector rod sliding relative to the forming casting insert is equal to the distance of the centre axially sliding to the mould sectional cavity. When a mould is closed, the centre is not in contact with the mould sectional cavity so that the generation of print is effectively prevented; and when the mould is detached, the centre and the ejector rod are synchronously acted on a corresponding plastic product and the forming casting insert so that the appearance and the size of the plastic product are effectively ensured due to the balance function of the centre and the forming casting insert. The lateral loose core injection mould disclosed by the utility model has the advantages of balance ejection and high quality of the formed plastic product.


A 500-Mbps digital isolator with the isolation voltage more than 1kV is described, which is the fastest high-voltage isolator ever reported. The high-speed feature is achieved by a newly proposed Counter-Pulse Immune Receiver (CPIR) scheme based on a cross-coupled Schmitt-trigger circuit. The isolator is manufactured in a widely-used high-voltage 0.18-μm CMOS technology and thus can be integrated with smart digital driver circuits for power electronics.


/Department of Biomedical Engineering Introduction Osteoporosis is a disease of bone that leads to an increased risk of fracture. In osteoporosis the bone mineral density is reduced and bone micro-architecture is disrupted. Hip and spinal fractures have considerable consequences for patients' life including reduced walking ability and severe back pain. In order to better predict the risk of fractures, the strength of bone needs to be established. Since these fractures occur in regions of trabecular bone, it is important to account for bone micro-architecture.


Chemical sensing using mid infrared laser absorption spectroscopy (MIR-LAS) in the molecular fingerprint region from 3 to 20 µm, which contains strong ro-vibrational absorption features of a large variety of gaseous species, has been established as a powerful in-situ diagnostic tool for molecular plasmas and for trace gas detection. Quantum cascade lasers (QCL) in particular have become the infrared light sources of choice in the mid infrared. MIR-LAS provide a means of detecting stable and transient molecular species in ground and excited states and of measuring the concentrations and temperatures of reactive species in plasmas and gases. Special attention is devoted to in-situ studies of plasma chemistry and reaction kinetics in gas discharges and on highly sensitive trace gas detection using optical cavities. A link is thereby provided to modelling of plasmas and surface phenomena.


Our knowledge of the initial conditions and early stages of high mass star formation is very limited. We will review recent surveys of regions in the early stages of massive star formation using molecular tracers of high density and dust continuum emission and consider the status of evolutionary schemes. Comparison to the situation for low mass, relatively isolated star formation will be used to illustrate the outstanding issues in massive star formation. The problem of initial conditions is particularly acute because there is a lack of observational evidence for regions capable of forming massive stars BEFORE star formation actually begins. By analogy with the Pre-Protostellar Cores (PPCs) studied for low-mass star formation, one might call such regions Pre-Proto-cluster Cores (PPclCs). We will conclude with some speculation about what such cores might look like and possibilities for their detection.


TiO2/carbon nano-composites were synthesized by simply mixing a TiO2 sol with a semi-cured resorcinol and formaldehyde gel,followed by drying and pyrolysis at 1 000 ℃ in an inert atmosphere.X-ray diffraction analysis result shows that the intensity of rutile TiO2 peak of the composite reaches to a maximum when TiO2 content is 50%.This may be due to the effect of both argon gas and the carbon derived from resorcinol and formaldehyde gel.The transmission electron microscope(TEM) and field emission scanning electron microscope(FESEM) results of the TiO2/carbon nano-composite containing 50% of TiO2 show that carbons exist in the composite in three states.The TiO2/carbon nano-composite will be used as a promising photocatalyst.


University rankings have been highly visible since the early 2000s. Nowadays, they cannot be evaded or escaped. In higher education, global rankings are frequently criticized and complained about strongly by both senior managers and ordinary academics. People even call rankings a monster. With an understanding that global university rankings could cause seriously negative effects, I have argued elsewhere that they are often shallow, distorted, and misleading (Yang, 2008). Here, however, I try to look at rankings from another perspective. I have found that few have fully realized the variegate effects of rankings on different higher education systems and institutions. Even fewer have looked at how different systems and their people have responded to global rankings differently. Are rankings all bad? Is the monster truly so scary? Or is it because we have jumped at shadows? Using China as an example, this paper attempts to illustrate briefly the need for a multiplicity of perspectives for assessing global university rankings. First, a few basic facts about Shanghai ranking Although in my teaching, I do not always strongly encourage my students to rely much on Wikipedia in their academic writing, here let me start this paper with a brief description of the Academic Ranking of World Universities by Wikipedia. I do this firstly because Wikipedia indeed provides some basic convenient information in very plain language. Secondly its view shows how the public, rather than scholars in the specialized field of higher education, see the issue. The very beginning reads as follows: Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), also known as Shanghai Ranking, is an annual publication of university rankings by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiaotong University in 2003, the first global ranking with multifarious indicators, after which a board of international advisories was established to provide suggestions. The publication now comprises the world's overall and subject league tables, alongside independent regional Greater China Ranking and Macedonian HEIs Ranking. ARWU is regarded as one of the three most influential and widely observed university measures, alongside QS World University Rankings and Times Higher Education World University Rankings. It is praised for its objective methodology but draws some condemnation for undermining humanities and quality of instruction. (Retrieved 6/11/2015 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Ranking_of_World_Universities)


The relationship among gender, lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and liver disease is complex. Accordingly, the effect of estrogen on activation of Kupffer cells by endotoxin was studied. All rats given estrogen intraperitoneally 24 h before an injection of a sublethal dose of LPS died. Mortality was prevented totally by pretreatment with gadolinium chloride, a Kupffer cell toxicant. Peak serum tumor necrosis factor-(cid:97) (TNF-(cid:97) ) values as well as TNF-(cid:97) mRNA in the liver after LPS were twice as high in the estrogen treated group as in the untreated controls. Plasma nitrite levels and inducible nitric oxide synthase in the liver were also elevated significantly in estrogen-treated rats 6 h after LPS. Furthermore, Kupffer cells isolated from estrogen-treated rats produced about twice as much TNF-(cid:97) and nitrite as controls did in response to LPS. In addition, Kupffer cells from estrogen-treated rats required 15-fold lower amounts of LPS to increase intracellular Ca


Granite caves and cavities are geomorphological environments associated with underground water flows with a strong turbulent regime linked to seasonality. Though not much studied, they have a great sedimentary and geomorphological interest but sometimes also archaeological because remains of human activity (mainly lithic industry and pottery). Pottery remains appear either exposed or buried and may be characterised mineralogically and dated by thermoluminescence (TL). Water dynamics justifies erosion and fragmentation of ceramic remains which appear broken and spread inside the cavities. This fact hinders their dating due to the small size of the fragments and the disappearance of the original sedimentary context, which does not allow the calculation of part of the received annual radiation dose. In this work, the results from the dating and the estimation of ages of different ceramic fragments of several granite caves of Galicia are presented. The obtained ages go from Medieval (1 ka BP) to Roman or pre-Roman (2 ka BP), Chalcolithic (6 ka BP) and even the beginning of the Neolithic (7 ka BP).


Abstract What is unique about supervising couple therapists? To answer this question I highlight three important therapeutic processes in CT and their accompanying supervisory implications. The first process, the attending to values and beliefs about the meaning of coupling to couples and therapists and its influence on CT, is facilitated by supervisors who help supervisees uncover values and beliefs about coupling. The second process, developing the therapeutic alliance which has a unique complexity in CT, is facilitated by the processing of the therapeutic alliance in supervision and discovering ways of strengthening it. The final process, attending to emotion prevalent in CT, is facilitated by supervisors who assist supervisees in becoming comfortable with the expression of emotion and work with it constructively in CT. After briefly describing each process and why it is viewed as important in CT, I suggest ways supervisors can assist supervisees' becoming more proficient in them. An abbreviated supervision illustration ends each section.


A photosensitizing nanosystem based on PEGylated PLGA nanoparticles doped with luminescent molybdenum-iodide nanoclusters displays advantageous features for photodynamic therapy of ovarian cancer.


Analysis of available benefit-cost (b-c) ratio estimates for transit systems in the U.S. found wide variation among sources. Some differences can be attributed to population size and service area densities (context). Rural and small urban areas generally yielded lower b-c values than urbanized areas. However, differences remained even after context was accounted for, suggesting appropriate transit investments in rural and small urban areas can yield benefits substantially greater than costs.


Background Treatment outcomes in inflammatory arthritis (IA) have improved during the past decades; however, pain management remains a great challenge. There has been a concern of overprescription of opioids during recent years. Objectives The aim of this study was to explore the frequency of opioid users in patients with newly-onset IA in comparison with the general Finnish population and discover the proportion of long-term opioid users. Methods From the nationwide register maintained by the Social Insurance Institution of Finland we collected all incident adult patients with the five most common IAs between 2010–14. For each case, three eligible controls were randomly selected and individually matched according to age, sex, and place of residence. Opioid purchases between 2009–2015 were obtained from the drug prescription register and evaluated one year before and after the index date (decision of special reimbursement for antirheumatic drugs), further dividing the observation time into 3 month periods. Long-term use was defined as opioid purchases at least in three of these periods per year. All opioids from mild to strong were included. Results Data on different diagnosis groups are presented in table 1. The proportion of opioid purchasers among IA patients and their controls are shown in figure 1A-E. Also, odds ratio for long-term opioid use after the index date is shown in figure 1F.Abstract OP0215 – Table 1 Number (N), proportion of females (%), and mean ages at baseline of incident patients with inflammatory arthritides between 2010 and 2014 in Finland. RA+n=6186 RA-n=2970 UAn=2959 SpAn=3577 PsAn=2670 Age, mean (SD) 58 (15) 57 (17) 49 (17) 38 (12) 49 (13) Proportion of females (%) 66.4 67.2 67.4 52.3 48.8Abstract OP0215 – Figure 1 Proportion of opioid purchasers among patients with incident A) seropositive rheumatoid arthritis (RA+), B) seronegative rheumatoid arthritis (RA-), C) unspecified arthritis (UA), D) spondyloarthritis [(SpA), including ankylosing spondylitis and non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis], and E) psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and their controls one year before and after the index date. F) Odds ratio for long-term opioid use among incident RA+, RA-, UA, SpA, and PsA patients versus controls after the index date. Conclusions IA patients are more likely to buy opioids one year before and one year after the diagnosis and presciption of antirheumatic medication than controls from the general population. The opioid purchases peak just before the index date in most IA patients. Long-term opioid use is also more common among patients with newly-onset IA, especially among those with SpA. Disclosure of Interest P. Muilu Grant/research support from: Competitive State Research Financing of the Expert Responsibility Area of Tampere University Hospital, Rheumatology Research Foundation, and Finnish Cultural Foundation., V. Rantalaiho Grant/research support from: Competitive State Research Financing of the Expert Responsibility Area of Tampere University Hospital, and Tampereen Reumayhdistys, H. Kautiainen: None declared, L. Virta: None declared, K. Puolakka: None declared


Construction organization design is an important technical and economic document.The length of bedrock section of auxiliary inclined shaft in Hecaogou mine is 1533.7m.The area of driving section is 21.6m2,belongs to large section super-long shaft.According to concrete geological conditions,Hecaogou mine optimized the construction organization design,used "four-eight cross system" cyclic operation,used high power EBZ318H fully-mechanized coal winning machine to drive,realized rapid construction of inclined shaft,achieved good results that the highest speed was 227m per month.And it ensured good engineering quality,safety and high efficiency,high quality and quick speed construction.The economic and social benefits were significantly.For similar large section super-long shaft construction,this construction organization design accumulated rich experience.


Based on the analysis of the new situation facing China's tourism industry—global financial crisis and reducing ability in creating foreign revenue,the paper proposes adjusting the current national policy of developing three markets from "vigorously developing inbound tourism","actively developing domestic tourism" and "standardly developing outbound tourism" to "giving priority to developing domestic tourism and upgrading inbound tourism". Under the new situation,the discussion on the new policy orientation will be of some referential value for the scientific judgment on the macro-surroundings of national tourism development and the formulation of relevant national policy.


techniques are thecornerstone of design methodologies. Abstractionis the fundamental device by which designers ex-tract the essential features of a complex problem, re-ducing the complexity of its representation andmanipulation and increasing productivity. This pro-cess has been shaped during the past few decadesthrough conceptual representations and languagesthat are progressively more detached from a givensystem's implementation because they neglect detailsthat are relevant only in the context of specific reali-zations. The converse process of refinement fills outthose details with tools that can evaluate design alter-natives through simulations and analysis and, whenpossible, through synthesis and compilation tech-niques.Inmostcases,therefinementstepproceedsbymapping, decomposing, and subsequentlyassemblingthe system from elementary parts, orcomponents, that encapsulate a logicalunit of behavior.The adoption of component-basedmethodologies has paved the way tothe development of the model-basedapproach to design (for example, seeTerrier and Ge ´rard


Are public relations a socially irresponsible profession? Although the image of public relations professionals can still be negative, in theory, they should help their organizations be socially responsible. This paper aims to explore the work of public relations experts concerning corporate social responsibility among those who work for successful retail chains in Croatia. The research paper resides on a survey conducted by the method of in-depth interviews with seven corporate communications managers selected among the 20 best retailers in the fast-moving consumer goods on the Croatian market. The research showed that the surveyed public relations experts are not directly in charge of the strategic planning of their companies socially responsible business programs. However, most respondents confirmed the existence of a communication strategy for CSR activities regarding different stakeholders.  Besides, the results show that the heads of the communications department daily participate at the executive level of socially responsible programs. These results are showing that those corporate communications managers are generally not members of senior management, where decision-making takes place. Finally, the conclusion is that the surveyed public relations experts in their practical work mainly help their companies to be socially responsible.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.


A circular map of the 208-kilobase IncHII plasmid pHH1508a was constructed by using the restriction endonucleases XbaI, XhoI, and NotI. Tn5 insertion mutagenesis showed that transfer genes were distributed widely over the plasmid map. Analysis of the deletion mutant pDT1178 indicated that genes required for conjugative pilus production are located in a 96.0-kilobase region of the plasmid.


Training a generative model through a single image is essential in areas where it is impossible to obtain large datasets. However, the current methods, such as SinGAN and ConSinGAN, are challenging to capture the global information of the image and process complex images. This paper proposes a cascaded channel attention guided single-image GANs model (CCASinGAN). Specifically, channel attention uses only average pooling and maximum pooling to aggregate global features. The global features are easily affected by particular points (e.g., the maximum value may appear at the isolated region, or the outliers may increase the average value), leading to unpredictable performance. To eliminate the influence of these points and improve the quality of the generated image, we propose a cascaded channel attention mechanism, which cascades the input feature maps to the weighted feature maps to increase the robustness of the attention module. We have carried out experiments on different image processing tasks. Compared with the state-of-the-art models, CCASinGAN achieves superior performance, especially when processing images with complex structures.


Point magnetic recording (PMR) has been proposed as a method for writing data on the Patterned Magnetic Media (PMM). In this thesis, two criteria were presented to predict the PMM resolution during the PMR process that was fabricated in the Nanostructures Laboratory of MIT and characterized in the Mechatronics Laboratory of MIT. FEM analysis was performed to determine the magnetic field concentration at the end of the probe during the PMR process. The interaction field between pillars was also estimated using the FEM model. The results from the FEM analysis along with the two criteria were used to determine the resolution of the media. A resolution of 250nm was predicted for Ni arrays with pillar diameter and height of 100nm and 180nm respectively. The two criteria showed that the optimal external field Hext from a coil is 300 Oe and the MFM probe coating(CoCr) thickness is 40nm for these pillar arrays. The FEM analysis was very effective in getting writing field at the magnetic probe during the PMR process. The interaction field model with a commercial magnetostatic field simulation tool indicated that the interaction field can be a serious problem in implementing high density PMM storage device. Thesis Supervisor: Kamal Youcef-Toumi Title: Professor of Mechanical Engineering


Abstract This study reacts to the recent call for a narrativisation of maps' life in post-representational cartography, proposing 'cartographic fictional writing' as a means to move geography's 'creative (re)turn' from a place-centred to a 'carto-centred' perspective, and as an epistemological tool to go on rethinking maps from post-representational perspectives. First, 'carto-fiction' is defined as a self-reflexive (autoethnographic), ethnofictional, creative carto-centred product/practice of research. Second, by including the entire short story entitled 'Unfolding Berlin' and an autoethnographic account on how it emerged, this study strives to both theorise and perform carto-fictional writing as an embodied and trans-subjective mapping experience. My goal is to propose 'carto-fiction' as a prolific tool to let emotional, subjective cartographies emerge and to narrativise maps as mapping practices. The article further strives to focus on the mapping power of creative writing, and carto-fictional writing and reading will be interpreted as mapping performances, in which subjects are bodily and emotionally engaged. The inclusion of original illustrations aims to involve readers in a visual experience and to further stimulate their spatial imagination: each reader is asked to reflect on his/her own mapping experiences to interpret the fictional story and, thus, the paper itself attempts to unfold unpredicted creative cartographic practices.


In 2005 Members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) committed to establishing marine protected areas as a means of ensuring the long-term conservation and sustainable use of marine environments - principles that underpin CCAMLR's core objective. The adoption of a system of seven marine protected areas off the East Antarctic coast would be a significant step towards achieving this goal.


ABSTRACT Sexual aggression (SA) is a recognised global public health problem. Among the theoretical models that have attempted to conceptualise SA, the Confluence Model of Sexual Aggression (CM) stands out. This work aims to review the studies that tested it in samples of adult males from general and college populations and to analyse their results. Following the PRISMA-P protocol, 18 studies published between 1986 and 2022 were identified that tested the CM. Overall, the CM appears to be a robust model to account for characteristics of SA in adult males in the general and university populations. The main postulates of the CM have been empirically supported in most of the studies analysed. Also, the CM is flexible in incorporating contextual variables relevant to SA. Implications of the findings for future research and SA prevention are discussed.


The article describes the main problems of the Russian regional tourism. The article includes concepts touristic destination and cartographic taxonomy. In the article suggestions were made for the formation of "the Health Cluster".


The rapid development of air transportation causes noise pollution to become more serious, resulting in more and more obvious social contradictions. Domestic and overseas, scholars have studied different indicators of airport noise, many scholars point out the feasibility of the Leq applied to the noise evaluation of the airport, and give some data and methods, more and more scholars are concerned about the unity of environmental acoustics. This paper adopts the whole day test method by means of the evaluation of ground traffic noise, the three sensitive points of a general airport are used to measure the noise of the measuring instrument, and the error data that is caused by special circumstances. The pioneering use of the u test method is handled, the calculation of the measurement value and the standard limit of the time period of the noise is calculated, the difference between the noise exceeding value and the standard value in different time period was analyzed. Finally, the value of equivalent sound level Leq as the evaluation index of airport noise is pointed out.


................................................................................................................ 23 The history of cancer ............................................................................................ 25 Melanocytes ........................................................................................................... 27 Development ................................................................................................ 27 Function........................................................................................................ 27 Melanoma .............................................................................................................. 29 Development ................................................................................................ 29 Initiation .............................................................................................. 29 Progression .......................................................................................... 30 Epidemiology ............................................................................................... 31 Staging of the disease ................................................................................... 32 Localized Melanoma (Stage I and II) .................................................. 32 Regional Melanoma (Stage III) ........................................................... 33 Metastatic Melanoma (Stage IV) ......................................................... 34 Treatment modalities in melanoma .................................................................... 35 Targeted therapy ........................................................................................... 35 Immunotherapy ............................................................................................ 36 The tumour immune microenvironment ............................................................ 39 The immune system .............................................................................................. 41 T-cells ........................................................................................................... 42 B-cells .......................................................................................................... 42 Tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) ............................................................. 43 Immune Evasion ........................................................................................... 45 Main Methods ....................................................................................................... 47 Population-based retrospective melanoma cohort ........................................ 47 Microarray – Global GEX and TMA ........................................................... 48 Global Gene Expression (GEX) .......................................................... 48 Tissue Microarrays (TMA) .................................................................. 49 Immunohistochemistry (IHC) ...................................................................... 49 Immunofluorescence (IF) ............................................................................. 50 High-plex proteomic analysis ....................................................................... 51 Data analyses ................................................................................................ 52 Gene expression analysis of Lund cohort ............................................ 52 Analyses of public gene expression datasets ....................................... 52 Gene signatures ................................................................................... 54 Statistical analyses ....................................................................................... 57 Present Investigation ............................................................................................ 59 Paper I .......................................................................................................... 59 Paper II ......................................................................................................... 63 Paper III ........................................................................................................ 66 Paper IV ....................................................................................................... 69 Conclusions and future perspectives ................................................................... 71 References ............................................................................................................. 75


Purpose: To study the effects of the combined use of Xiaochaihu decoction and teprenone on peripheral blood T lymphocytes in chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG) and gastric mucosal expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2).Methods: Patients with CAG who were treated at Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital of Jiaxing from January 2017 to January 2018 were used as subjects. They consisted of observation and control groups (99 patients per group). Both groups were treated with teprenone (50 mg, thrice daily), but patients in the observation group received 200 mL of Xiaochaihu decoction, in addition to teprenone. The treatments were given orally, and lasted for 3 weeks. Comparisons were made between the two groups with respect to the effects of the treatments on peripheral blood T lymphocytes, CAG, and quality of life.Results: Peripheral T lymphocytes, chronic atrophic gastritis and quality of life in patients in the observation group were significantly improved, relative to control group patients. The combined treatment led to a significant decrease in the expression of COX-2. After treatment, there was upregulation in CD3+, CD4+ and CD4+/CD8+ levels in both groups, relative to the corresponding levels prior to drug exposure (p < 0.05). However, the observation group levels of CD3+, CD4+ and CD4+/CD8+ were higher than corresponding control values (t = -14.45, p < 0.001; t = -12.47, p < 0.001; t = -3.49, p < 0.001, respectively). Moreover, results from histopathological studies showed marked improvement in the observation group.Conclusion: A combination treatment of Xiaochaihu decoction and teprenone improves the condition of CAG patients via changes in peripheral blood lymphocytes and COX-2 expression in gastric mucosa.Keywords: Xiaochaihu decoction, Teprenone, Chronic atrophic gastritis, T lymphocytes, Cyclooxygenase-2


This article discusses the Business Intelligence and its role to improve the company's competitive advantage through the utilization of various data, information and knowledge held by the company as a raw material in the decision making process. This article also explains the elements of Business Intelligence applications, Business Intelligence Environment, integrating BI into the enterprise and the challenges faced by organizations in giving effect to Business Intelligence. Keywords: Business Intelligence, business decision


The status and prospect in domestic and oversea area of conductive line fabrication by laser technology is reviewed.Compared with its conditional methods,the basic characteristics and advantages are presented.What's more,the development trend of this technology is predicted and some suggestions are put forward for its future development.


Kunqu Opera is one of the traditional opera in China which is known as representative of Chinese ancient opera owing to its long history , abundant repertoires, good melody and graceful performancs. How will Kun Opera develop and live on the course of traditional culture especially in modem society where people are keen on popular culture? This article will mainly discuss the charming of art in Kun Opera and then the author will reflect on its heredity and renovation.


From Saint Louis University, Missouri. Dr. Voss is from the School of Medicine. Dr. Vidal is from the Department of Dermatology. The authors report no conflict of interest. Correspondence: Claudia I. Vidal, MD, PhD, Department of Dermatology, Anheuser-Busch Institute, 4th Floor, Room 402, 1755 S Grand Blvd, St Louis, MO 63104 (firstname.lastname@example.com). A 48-year-old black man presented with a rash of 7 months' duration that started on the face and spread to the body. He had extreme pruritus, increased stiffness in the hands and joints, and paresthesia. Physical examination revealed an eruption of 2to 4-mm, flesh-colored papules with follicular accentuation on the face, neck, bilateral upper extremities, back, and thighs.


Aiming at the 2020 plan for Xinji mine region that 12 pairs of mine shaft will be constructed,analyzed was the water requirement for production and mine water effluence at that time;by advanced technology adopted for mine water treatment and measures taken to increase the re-use ratio of mine water,the target of 100% utilization of mine water could be realized with effort.


The gonadotropins produced by the adenohy pophysis control the section of ovarian steroids which feed back to regulate the secretion of the adenohypophysis. In some animals this homeo static ability is so highly developed that the re moval of the ovaries results not only in increased gonadotropin secretion but in the eventual conver sion of the adrenal cortex into a secretor of sex steroids which are ordinarily associated with the gonad. Histologic changes in the adrenal which we associate with sex hormone secretion in the mouse (6) have been reported following gonadectomy in the dog (7), guinea pig (28), hamster (18, 25), rat (14, 15), and goat (2@). The induction of these morphologic changes and subsequent sex hormone secretion followingonadectomysuggeststhatthe increase in gonadotropin following castration might be responsible forthe adrenalreorganiza tion.This hypothesishas been supportedby the demonstrationthat injections of both androgen (18,24)and estrogen(24)willpreventpostcastra tional nodular hyperplasia. Hypophysectomy will also prevent nodular hyperplasia (8). Since the pituitary produces a variety of hormones, it is nec essaryalsotoruleout theroleof ACTH and a di rect effect of lack of estrogen or androgen upon the


The αIIbβ3 integrin (GPIIbIIIa, CD61) is the platelet receptor for fibrinogen, fibronectin and vitronectin. A single nucleotide polymorphism (dbSNP Id= rs5918) in the ITGB3 gene defines the Human Platelet Antigen (HPA)-1 system encoding either a Leucine (1a) or Proline (1b) at position 33. HPA-1a immunisation is of clinical relevance in neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia (NAIT), post transfusion purpura (PTP) and platelet refractoriness. Currently, the detection of HPA-1 antibodies is based on a cumbersome sandwich ELISA requiring HPA genotyped platelets as source of antigen. We set out to express soluble calmodulin (CaM) tagged β3 fragments suitable for HPA-1 antibody detection. The design of fragments was informed by domain structural information, analysis of homology between β3 and integrin-like monomeric proteins and the evolutionary β3 domain phylogeny. Combined with computer modelling, this was the basis of the successful expression in Drosophila S2 cells of eight β3 fragments with either Leu33 or Pro33 (ΔSDL, ΔβA, PSI-Hybrid and PSI alone, both alleloforms for each of the four). Murine monoclonal antibodies Y2/51, SZ21 and CRC54 reacted with the β3 fragments as expected with only CRC54 reacting with the PSI fragment. Two of 3 human HPA-1a specific phage antibodies (19–7, 23–15, both derived from a PTP patient) reacted with all 4 Leu33 fragments but CamTran007 derived from a NAIT patient only reacted with the ΔSDL-Leu33 and ΔβA-Leu33 fragments, defining an epitope split. By ELISA, reactivity of both potency (NIBSC-03/152) and sensitivity (NIBSC-93/710) standards were comparable to those seen by MAIPA. Twelve polyclonal samples from NAIT patients (5 with cerebral haemorrhage [CH], 5 with platelet counts 9 /L but no CH and 2 with counts >40x10 9 /L) of potency ranging from 5–193 au/ml were detected by ELISA with Leu33 forms of ΔSDL and ΔβA. In conclusion soluble mini-β3-Leu33 fragments have been successfully expressed and shown to react with all polyclonal anti-HPA-1a samples tested from NAIT patients. The CaM tagged β3 fragments are now being further validated with a repository of 150 HPA-1a antibody samples from a NAIT case series with well defined treatment and clinical outcome histories to establish the relation between HPA-1a antibody potency, epitope reactivity and clinical phenotype.


Abstract A magnetic anomaly in the Tasjon-Ormsjon area of the Caledonian Front, central Sweden, has been studied. Its orientation discordant to Caledonian structures in the sedimentary cover requires a basement source probably related to a basic intrusion. Calculations of depth to the top of the magnetic source in the eastern part of the anomaly coincide well with depth to basement known from drillings. There is good agreement with new data from deep drilling further west in the Tasjon area. This implies that the depth determination of ca. 600 m below sea level in the western area northwest of Lake Tasjon probably indicates the surface of the crystalline basement beneath late Precambrian Risback Group sediments.


For arbitrarily large times T > 0, we prove the uniform-in- ℏ propagation of semiclassical regularity for the solutions to the Hartree–Fock equation with singular interactions of the form [Formula: see text] with [Formula: see text]. As a by-product of this result, we extend to arbitrarily long times the derivation of the Hartree–Fock and the Vlasov equations from the many-body dynamics provided in the work of Chong et al. [ arXiv:2103.10946 (2021)].


The features of dissolution of mixtures 1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazacyclohexane (I) with 1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetraazacyclooctane (II) in DMSO-based solvent were studied. The possibility of obtaining I with low contents of II (less than 1%) and yield of 50% of its content in the starting mixture was shown. By 1HNMR spectroscopy data show the identity of interaction I and II with mixtures of DMSO-acetone.


Michael J. Trebilcock is by all accounts one of his generation's most prolific and important scholars of law and economics. Through more than 200 articles, book chapters, books, edited volumes, and other academic publications, Trebilcock has made lasting contributions to many fields, including contracts, torts, consumer protection, antitrust, international trade, immigration, regulation, and law and development. In recognition of his teaching and research, he has received awards and distinctions from students, universities, governments, and scholarly societies. The symposium for which this essay was prepared is only the latest token of appreciation for Trebilcock's profound and prominent contributions to the intellectual depth and breadth of legal thought. And yet, despite the accolades, the attention, and the richly deserved scholarly fame, there is a comparatively unlit corner of Trebilcock's oeuvre: the part dealing with income-tax law. Most readers of Trebilcock's more discussed work will not be aware that his scholarly career began, inauspiciously as it might seem, nearly five decades ago with a 224-page LLM thesis at the University of Adelaide. Almost unbelievably, this substantial piece of work was dedicated to analysing just a single provision of Australian income-tax law: a general anti-avoidance rule aimed at combating tax avoidance. This essay seizes control of the spotlight that has been trained on Trebilcock's other work and redirects it to his early tax scholarship.


In Kenya, the motorcycle taxi industry has thrived significantly after motorcycles below 150cc were zero-rated by the government in 2007. While several studies have been done on the motorcycle taxi business in Kenya, no conclusive study has examined entrepreneurial orientation. This research gap is what the study aimed to address by examining the transport sector characteristics and the entrepreneurial orientation sustainability of motorcycle taxi businesses in Nairobi County. The specific objective of the study was: to examine the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on the sustainability of motorcycle business in Nairobi County. The descriptive research design was adopted to explain the interaction between the determinant variables and entrepreneurial orientation on the sustainability of the motorcycle business. The study sampled 249 motorcycle taxi operators from a population in Nairobi County using a systematic random sampling technique. Primary data was used and the data was obtained from motorcycle taxi operators using questionnaires. For reliability, a pilot study was conducted. Multiple linear regression analysis was conducted to establish the existing relationships between the variables under study and data presented using tables, graphs, and charts. Findings revealed that entrepreneurial orientation had a significant influence on the sustainability of Motorcycle Taxi Businesses in Nairobi County. Based on the findings, it was concluded that motorcycle taxi businesses in Nairobi County are growing at a faster rate and becoming sustainable majorly due to entrepreneurial orientation. It was recommended that: Motorcycle taxi business owners and operators need to develop strategic orientation, as well as capture specific entrepreneurial aspects of decision-making styles, methods, and practices to improve their business performance and hence sustainability.
KEYWORDS: Entrepreneurial Orientation, Motorcycle Taxi Business, Sustainable Business


For the purpose of time comparison in time synchronization of different situations,a time comparison system based on hardware time stamp is developed.The working principle and design method are analyzed and researched.The accuracy of time comparison is measured in practical application.The results show that the system can realize time comparison and reach an accuracy of tens of nanoseconds.The time comparison technology based on hardware time stamp can be widely used in time synchronization measurement and smooth time adjustment,which helps to improve the accuracy and smoothness of time synchronization.


This paper deal with three plant species which have not been previously recorded from Libya. One genera and three species are added to the flora of Libya. They are collected in trips throughout Libya from 2007 to 2011. These are Verbesina ( Asteraceae ). The species also includeRetamamonosperma( Fabaceae)and Euphorbia punctata ( Euphorbiaceae ).Verbesinaencelioides has ecological and medicinal, value, and it is considered drought tolerant plant, does not require large amounts of water, and in the folk medicine it uses in anti inflammatory action for both gum sores and in hemorrhoid treatment as well as for the treatment of spider bite symptoms. Introduction:The climate of North Africa ispredominantly arid. Coastal plains have a Mediterranean climate, with mild winters, when most of year's precipitation falls, and hot dry summers with little or no precipitation. The terrestrial biosphere is the key of the global climate system. The arid and semi-arid regions of the Mediterranean combine a low rate of rainfall and high rateofevapotranspiration and subject to extreme recurrent drought ( EUWI 2006 ). North Africa is characterized by vast territories of steppe and Saharaland .The vegetation in North Africa very arid and semi-arid desert types of forests, dry bushland and grassland ( Boulos, 1999). Libya is located in North Africa; it lies between 9  ْ and 25  ْ longitude to the East and between 18  ْ and 33  ْ latitude to the North, divided into three geographic regions, Tripolitania (western provinces), Cyrenaica (Eastern provinces), and Fezzan region (Southern provinces), of which more than 90% are desert (Al-Idrissi, et al., 1996). The climate is typical of the Mediterranean, characterized by the cool raing winter season and a hot dry summer. The climate over most of the country is that of the hot arid Sahara, but it is moderated a long the coastal littoral by the Mediterranean Sea. The annual rainfall is extremely low, the highest rainfall occurs in the western region.An average yearly rainfall of less than 100 mm covers 93% of the country's land surface (Abdelgawad, et al., 1979). New plant records for the Flora of Libya ................................................. Sharashy 106----------------Journal of Sebha University-(Pure and Applied Sciences)-Vol.15 No.2 (2016) -------Materials and Methods:The field trips were conducted different parts of Libya, the plant specimens included in this paper were collected from Marzuq farms( Fezzan ) E – 3 in January 2011 and Al-Rofaya village,c. 10 km south of QasirKayar, WadiCandal,Al-Jabal AlGharbi, and Misrata( Tripolitania ), A3 and A 4 in 19 April 2007 and AlFadel Abu-Omar c. 40 km west of Darnah, Al-Jabal Al-Akhdar, ( Cyrenaica) A-8 in 27 April 2007, during the study of the Weeds for agricultural crops and Flora of Libya.Figure ( 1 ). Figure ( 1 ): Location map of specimens. Modified from Ali et al., ( 1976 – 1986 ) The collected specimens were then treated flowing the general herbarium techniques " Pressing and drying, Poisoning, Mounting and Identification", for identification, Flora of Libya, Jafri and El-Gadi, 1983, vol., 107;Jafri and El-Gadi, 1980, vol., 86 and Flora of Egypt, ( Tackholm,1974; Boulos,1999, vol.,1;Boulos, 2000, vol., 2 and Boulos, 2002, vol., 3 ) are used. New plant records for the Flora of Libya ................................................. Sharashy 107----------------Journal of Sebha University-(Pure and Applied Sciences)-Vol.15 No.2 (2016) -------Result and Discussion


Photographic-identification (photo-ID) of bottlenose dolphins using individually distinctive features on the dorsal fin is a well-established and useful tool for tracking individuals; however, this method can be labor-intensive, especially when dealing with large catalogs and/or infrequently surveyed populations. Computer vision algorithms have been developed that can find a fin in an image, characterize the features of the fin, and compare the fin to a catalog of known individuals to generate a ranking of potential matches based on dorsal fin similarity. We examined if and how researchers use computer vision systems in their photo-ID process and developed an experiment to evaluate the performance of the most commonly used, recently developed, systems to date using a long-term photo-ID database of known individuals curated by the Chicago Zoological Society's Sarasota Dolphin Research Program. Survey results obtained for the "Rise of the machines – Application of automated systems for matching dolphin dorsal fins: current status and future directions" workshop held at the 2019 World Marine Mammal Conference indicated that most researchers still rely on manual methods for comparing unknown dorsal fin images to reference catalogs of known individuals. Experimental evaluation of the finFindR R application, as well as the CurvRank, CurvRank v2, and finFindR implementations in Flukebook suggest that high match rates can be achieved with these systems, with the highest match rates found when only good to excellent quality images of fins with average to high distinctiveness are included in the matching process: for the finFindR R application and the CurvRank and CurvRank v2 algorithms within Flukebook more than 98.92% of correct matches were in the top 50-ranked positions, and more than 91.94% of correct matches were returned in the first ranked position. Our results offer the first comprehensive examination into the performance and accuracy of computer vision algorithms designed to assist with the photo-ID process of bottlenose dolphins and can be used to build trust by researchers hesitant to use these systems. Based on our findings and discussions from the "Rise of the Machines" workshop we provide recommendations for best practices for using computer vision systems for dorsal fin photo-ID.


This paper presents an application that aids in the early detection and diagnosis of breast cancer in women, efficiently and accurately. Furthermore, the application eliminates the need for direct contact between patient and doctor by providing a virtual platform in the form of a GUI wherein the patient can upload scanned copies of test results as prescribed by an oncologist. The digitization of the registration process is done via face recognition using Haar Cascade. The application in this paper provides a platform for the doctors to- write a new prescription, view appointments, access reports, view the history of every patient; for patients to- book an appointment, view their prescriptions, access reports and review previous appointments; for pharmacists to view the prescription of a particular patient. The link between patients, doctors and pharmacists is highlighted in the proposed application. The latest object detection algorithm YOLOv3 is used for early detection of breast cancer after the image is annotated. After the training and testing, the model gives an accuracy between (75- 80)%.


Currently, measures of on-going behaviour used in welfare assessment are commonly limited to durations and frequencies; however, these provide only a partial description of behaviour. Extracting additional information from behavioural sequences could benefit animal welfare assessment. Fractal analysis is an emerging behavioural analysis methodology that could extract such information. It calculates the autocorrelation structure of complex processes, providing a measure of the randomness (complexity) of a time series. Previous applications of the method to animal behaviour have identified changes in behaviour putatively related to health and well-being. The thesis examined whether, when applied to behavioural sequences, fractal measures could have diagnostic value in assessments of stress in farm animals. The fractal analysis methodology of Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA) was applied to continuous focal observations of hens and instantaneous scan-sample observations of growing pigs. In experiment one, the complexity of vigilance behaviour increased in young hens; both during the acute stress of open field exposure or following a five-minute period of restraint. The total duration of vigilance was increased in the open field but not following restraint. The DFA measures therefore revealed an alteration in behavioural organisation under stress not identified during standard analysis. In experiment two, a chronic intermittent stressor regime was applied to adult hens. This stressor regime caused alterations in food intake, body weight and egg production, which suggested the birds were transiently stressed. However, the behaviour of the treatment group did not differ from controls at any time point, either when using a standard analysis or a DFA. In the third experiment, a stressor regime involving repeated social defeats and additional mild stressors was applied to growing pigs. Following this regime the treatment group had higher levels of average 24hr cortisol than controls. The DFA did identify behavioural differences between treatment and controls groups; however, it is unclear if these were directly related to the stressor treatment. The data sets generated in the experiments were used to further investigate the DFA method. Analyses showed that alterations in the duration of observation and the frequency of behavioural sampling can affect the end result. Although the analysis has some limitations it allowed novel dimensions of behavioural organization not identified during standard analysis to be measured. These


Libraries and other information agencies invest millions of collection development dollars in electronic resources. One of the enduring quests in LIS is to develop models and tools that will assist with the task of the determining which materials will be popular and which will (literally or figuratively) collect dust. By virtue of the nature of libraries as institution that depend upon an outside entity for funding, librarians are also charged with demonstrating the cost-effectivenes of their services and resources as well as their stewardship of those resources. Standards agencies' efforts at contributing to the understanding of the behavior of users of electronic journals have been significant, and researchers and vendors have initiated and spearheaded projects and products that seek to create metrics that present a broader picture of use. This report presents a review of the state of the art of electronic resources usage measurement, highlighting the importance of presenting clear and meaningful measurement of electronic resources use in LIS research, assessment, and standards creation. The authors explore the nature of current standards, tools, and initiatives for measuring and reporting electronic resources usage.


Thank you very much for reading african political systems. Maybe you have knowledge that, people have look numerous times for their favorite readings like this african political systems, but end up in infectious downloads. Rather than enjoying a good book with a cup of tea in the afternoon, instead they juggled with some harmful virus inside their laptop. african political systems is available in our book collection an online access to it is set as public so you can get it instantly. Our book servers saves in multiple locations, allowing you to get the most less latency time to download any of our books like this one. Merely said, the african political systems is universally compatible with any devices to read.


This paper introduces the traditional technology and several new methods of separation and purification of dimethyldichlorosilane,which includes not only physical separation,such as selective adsorption,extractive distillation,but also chemical separation,such as acylation, alcoholysis,selective crystallization and disproportionation method.Meanwhile,a comprehensive comparison of the advantages and disadvantages is made among all the methods.Also the future industrial development tendency on the separation of dimethyldichlorosilane ispreviewed.


CD38 targeting antibodies are at different phases of clinical development, with daratumumab already approved as monotherapy and in combination with standards of care in multiple myeloma (MM). Anti-CD38 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) induce tumor cell depletion in part by Fc-dependent effector mechanisms such as antibody dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC), antibody dependent cellular phagocytosis (ADCP), and complement dependent cytotoxicity (CDC). However, not all MM patients achieve minimal residual disease (MRD)-negativity and similar clinical response. In addition, some patients on daratumumab develop resistance due to reduced cell surface CD38 and high levels of complement inhibitors (CD55 and CD59). We have leveraged Fc multimerization technology (Ortiz et al Sci Transl Med. 2016; 8: 365) to generate an optimized platform (SIF; selective immunomodulator of Fc receptors) that utilizes the valency effect of Fc multimerization to enhance binding to the Fcγ receptors and complement. We combined the Fab-region of CD38 targeting mAb to SIF platform to generate an anti-CD38 SIFbody to enhance immune and complement mediated cytotoxicity against tumor cells. In several human tumor cell line-based cytotoxic assays using primary human effector cells (NK cells and macrophages) and complement, the anti-CD38 SIFbody demonstrates up to 10-fold increase in efficacy and ≥16-fold increase in potency compared to daratumumab and the surrogate therapeutic anti-CD38 mAb (TAK-079). In isolated whole human blood incubated with tumor cells, the anti-CD38 SIFbody demonstrated 40-100 fold increase in potency and 2-3 fold increase in efficacy. In bone marrow cells isolated from MM patients with >80% plasma cells anti-CD38 SIFbody showed better potency and a 3-5 fold increased efficacy (with 100% plasma cell elimination) than daratumumab, suggesting the SIFbody may be more suitable molecule for achieving greater MRD-negativity rates in MM patients. Daratumumab fails to induce CDC against tumor cell lines with low CD38 and high CD55 and CD59, however the SIFbody achieves 100% efficacy in such settings, suggesting this molecule may be effective in patients who are developing resistance to treatment. In single dose pharmacodynamic and tolerability studies in cynomolgus monkeys SIFbody demonstrated up to 5-fold increase in B cell depletion from peripheral blood compared to TAK-079 across all dose ranges (0.3, 1, & 3 mg/kg) tested without any adverse events. Therefore, by leveraging our Fc multimerization technology we have generated a differentiated potential best-in-class anti-CD38 therapeutic. Citation Format: Amit Choudhury, Daniel F. Ortiz, Shannon Argueta, Kevin Garofalo, Jonathan C. Lansing, Utsav Jetley, Danice Wilkins, Carlos Bosques, Edward Cochran, Naveen Bhatnagar, Jay Duffner, Abhinav Gupta, Stan Lee, Karunya Srinivasan, Viraj Parge, Radouane Zouaoui, Jason Wang, Anthony M. Manning. Discovery of a potential best-in-class anti-CD38 therapeutic utilizing Fc multimerization [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 561.


R\'enyi entropy of order \alpha is a general measure of entropy. In this paper we derive estimations for the R\'enyi entropy of the mixture of sources in terms of the entropy of the single sources. These relations allow to compute the R\'enyi entropy dimension of arbitrary order of a mixture of measures.
The key for obtaining these results is our new definition of the weighted R\'enyi entropy. It is shown that weighted entropy is equal to the classical R\'enyi entropy.


The inhibition efficiency of polar organic inhibitors is correlated with the hard and soft acids and bases principle. It has been reported that an inhibitor acting as a soft base was readily chemisorbed on various transition and non-transition metals, resulting in a high efficiency of corrosion inhibition. Effect of the polar organic compounds was studied on anodic polarization curves of Ni electrode in a 3M HClO4 solution. The compounds used as the inhibitors were those of which polar atoms belong to elements of 4B, 5B, 6B, and 7B groups in the periodic table. Similar relationship between the inhibition efficiency and the HSAB principle, as shown in the previous papers, was also obtained from the results in the active region of polarization curves. The passivation potential shifted toward a noble potential and the critical current density increased with the concentration of the inhibitor and with its softness as the base. The passive current density was enhanced by the addition of the inhibitors of which polar atoms were of the 6B and 7B groups, while lowered by the addition of those of the 5B group. From the discussion of the relationship between the chemical adsorption and the HASB principle, it was concluded that the inhibitors of the 7B and 6B group elements were adsorbed on the metallic Ni surface. However, the inhibitors of the 5B group elements were adsorbed on the passive film of the Ni electrode and reinforced the passive film. No significant difference was observed in the curves of the transpassive region for the electrodes uninhibited and inhibited with the inhibitors.


An acceptable method for measuring phasic coronary velocity and reactive hyperemia in humans has not been available. We have developed a doppler probe which can be coupled to surface coronary vessel* at the time of cardiac surgery with a small suction cup. Phasic coronary velocity can be measured with a signal to noise ratio that exceeds 20:1. Animal studies have shown that the probe does not alter myocardial perfusion or cause tissue damage. In addition, changes in mean coronary velocity are closely related (r = 0.97) to changes in coronary flow over a wide range (15–400 ml/min). The characteristics of reactive hyperemia in the coronary circulation of dogs determined with the doppler system are similar to those obtained simultaneously with an electromagnetic flow meter. Transient occlusions of branch coronary vessels in patients with normal coronary arteries are not associated with significant changes in heart rate, left atrial, or mean arterial pressure. The characteristics of reactive hyperemia in normal vessels of 13 patients were as follows: although reactive hyperemia responses were demonstrable following 1 to 2-aecond coronary occlusions, maximal responses usually occurred with 20-second coronary occlusions; following 20 seconds of coronary occlusion, the ratio of peak to resting velocity was 5.8 ± 0.6 (mean ± SE); the ratio of repayment to debt area was 3.1 ± 0.2, and the duration of the reactive hyperemia response was 20.8 ± 0.3 seconds. These studies provide the first quantitative measurements of coronary reactive hyperemia in humans.


This is a double‐blind study involving 158 outpatients diagnosed ac‐cording to the DSM‐III as suffering from major depressive disorder. Both active drugs produced significantly more improvement than placebo on both physician and patient ratings, and lofepramine produced slightly less sedation and anticholinergic effects when compared with imipramine.


It is timely that the Fraser of Allander Commentary turns its analytical attention to Glasgow, Scotland's largest city and the centre of Scotland's only true metropolitan economy. As the Scottish Government and the UK Government's Technology Strategy Board (TSB) recognise, cities and city-regions are increasingly the drivers of economic recovery and growth. This is also increasingly true for many of the world's largest and most dynamic companies – Siemens, GE, Mitsubishi, CISCO, IBM, ARUP etc. – who recognise that cities are driving demand for new smart infrastructure and technologies. That Glasgow has been chosen by the TSB (from over 50 UK cities) to be the UK exemplar to test, develop and deploy SMART city technologies, is testament to the fact that Glasgow is well-positioned – institutionally, academically and economically – to take advantage of an upturn in global demand. Not only is there increasing demand for smart solutions to urban living we can and must use this to attract new researchled and high value work to develop and extend the city's export base. Such a development is a world away from the deep structural economic changes that buffeted this great city and its citizens from the early 1980's. This sea change in the city's economic experience is evidence, I would argue, that Glasgow is well into its 'second wave' of post-1980's economic development (the first was the McKinsey / Glasgow Action focus on financial services, software and tourism). This 'second wave' recognises and builds on the first while refocusing on Glasgow's – and its wider city region's historic role and contemporary reality as Scotland's engineering and technological heartland, and as a base for newer industries in the life sciences, creative media and low carbon / renewable technologies.


UITED NIONS Intra-African migration is a catalyst for economic growth and structural transformation. It contributes to gross domestic product, employment, trade, poverty reduction and inclusive growth. The Economic Development in Africa Report 2018: Migration for Structural Transformation examines how well-managed migration can help to address Africa's development challenges. The Report identifies key actions that can be taken at national, regional and continental levels to overcome barriers to intra-African mobility. Safe and orderly migration, besides contributing to economic growth, can provide the impetus for structural transformation in Africa, and unlock the potential of migration to contribute to the achievement of Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and Africa's Agenda 2063.


Greenacre's hypothesis of a relationship between difficult birth and later behavior was studied. Five measures of delivery difficulty were correlated with measures of infant activity under three conditions of stimulation. Subjects were 30 human newborns observed when 3 and 4 days old. Significant individual differences in activity were found. From the matrix of correlations relating indexes of delivery difficulty to measures of infant activity, it appeared that length of labor showed a significant negative correlation with change in activity due to gentle rubbing of the forehead and to removal of a bottle nipple from the infant's mouth. These findings were interpreted as representing the effects of general infantile fatigue after long labor.


Study Design. Quasistatic flexion and extension loads were applied in vitro to lower cervical spines. The flexion‐extension motion produced was checked for physiologic relevance. Objectives. To examine the changes in the volume of the cervical spinal canal in flexion‐extension motion. Summary of Background Data. Many papers have been published concerning the cervical canal volume as inferred from standard lateral radiographs. This study compares the inferred (radiographic) volumes and their changes to the physical changes within the spinal canal. Methods. The lower cervical spines (C2‐C7) from 10 cadavers were subject to stepwise flexion and extension in a purpose‐built rig. Before this testing, the spinal cord was removed from the canal space of each specimen and replaced by a thin latex tube stoppered and secured at the opening of the canal (at C2) so that the volume of liquid displaced from the tube could be measured. This was done at each loading stage by means of a graduated glass column, and a radiograph of the spine was also taken to allow angular and displacement readings to be taken from C2 to C7. Results. The average recorded change in volume of the spinal canal with flexion‐extension motion was 1.9 ml, and showed a significant linear correlation with the dynamic canal width (r = 0.868, P < 0.05) and also with the total angle of flexion or extension (r = 0.979, P < 0.005). The volume of liquid displaced from the canal in lateral bending was much lower than that in flexion‐extension motion, and only amounted to about 0.2 ml. The angular ranges of motion produced at each level were compared to previous results obtained in vivo, and no significant differences between the angular displacements found in vivo and in vitro under this experimental arrangement were seen. Conclusions. The loading regime described in this study causes angular displacements similar to those in vivo, and on this basis is a physiologically relevant loading pattern. The change in the volume of the spinal canal between C2 and C7 shows linear relationships with the angle of flexion and the dynamic canal width.


Hydrological studies have been done in the Lake Tana basin to determine the groundwater recharge rate based on different methods, groundwater inflow to and outflow from the Tana Lake, and to understand the groundwater and surface waters interaction. Recharge rates of 195.6, 284.0 and 285.4 mm/year have been estimated based on base flow analysis, chloride mass balance (CMB) and soil water balance (SWB) methods, respectively. Base flow separation method shows mean shallow aquifer recharge that feeds the streams. The recharge estimates from CMB and SWB are nearly similar and the average of the two (284.7 mm/year) can be taken as the mean basin recharge rate. The difference between the basin recharge and the base flow (89.1 mm/year or 31.3% of the recharge) contributes to deep aquifers recharge.Tana Lake balance study has also showed leakage underflow of 954.8 hm 3 /year, which mixes with groundwater mainly in the Beles basin and to some extent in Tis Abay area. Groundwater inflow directly to the lake is found to be negligible. Keywords: groundwater recharge, water balance, base flow, groundwater and surface waters interaction, Lake Tana, Blue Nile River, Ethiopia


The article based on the blasting excavation project of one tunnel,monitor the blasting excavation vibrations of the tunnel. The prediction model of blasting vibration,the characteristics of blasting vibration signals and the safety criterion of blasting vibration are studied based on the monitoring results. The results show that the energy of blasting vibration mostly focused around the master frequency. There are multiple dominant frequencies in vibration signals. These dominant frequencies are very important to judge the safety of construction.


The utility model discloses an electromechanical interlocked device for an emergency door of a construction lifter (a material support), comprising an electromagnetic mechanical lock (12), a position detection block (14) and an inductor (15), wherein, the electromagnetic mechanical lock (12) is arranged on the emergency door (11) of a lifter, the position detection block (14) is arranged on the hanging cage (13) of a construction lifter, and the inductor (15) is arranged on the fixed position of the storey or the machine frame. The position detection block (14) and the detection output signal of the inductor (15) are connected with the control device of the electromagnetic mechanical lock (12). The utility model detects the position of the hanging cage through the position detection block, achieving the goal that only the emergency door of the storey where the hanging cage is parked is opened and the emergency doors of other storeys can not be opened. The indicating light of the opening door signal is controlled by the control device. The indicating light is brightened, and the operation of opening the door can be carried out. With reasonable design, convenience and practicality, the utility model can effectively ensure that the emergency door of the gateway of the storey where the construction lifter is positioned can be correctly closed, and the constructor can not fall off from the emergency door of the storey.


The present invention discloses a transmitting uplink signaling information. The cellular communication system (100) of a user equipment UE (101) transmits the scheduling assistance data to a base station scheduler (209) comprising scheduling an uplink packet data (105). Scheduling assistance data and the uplink packet data from the UE (101) related to the transmission. UE (101) comprises a channel controller (213), channel controller (213) operable in a first physical resource scheduling assistance data in the uplink air interface transmission from UE (101) to the base station (105). Based on the first physical resource is not scheduled by the base station (209) management. In particular, the scheduling assistance data may be transmitted in a multiplexed with other transport channels on a first physical resource of the transmission channel. In particular, the scheduling assistance data to support signaling transmission channel having high reliability and can be terminated at the base station (105).


The similarities between the atmospheres of Earth, Venus, and Mars are discussed. The following species are highlighted: NOx, HOx, and COx. The concentrations of the species were examined for all three planets.


Abstract The circular dichroism spectrum of bovine growth hormone in the wave length region 250 to 300 nm shows five peaks at 290.5, 284.5, 270, 264, and 258 nm. The longest wave length maximum at 290.5 is assigned to the 1 tryptophanyl residue. The two bands centered at 264 and 258 agree in wave length maxima with the circular dichroism bands of phenylalanyl model compounds. The two remaining peaks, although of opposite sign, are assigned in major part to tyrosyl residues. pH changes in aqueous solution have selective effects on the tryptophanyl and tyrosyl bands, whereas urea modifies them similarly. The phenylalanyl bands survive both extremes of pH and concentrated urea solutions. About half the peptide groups in bovine growth hormone participate in helical structures. In contrast to the important effects that acid and alkali have on the optical activity of the tryptophanyl and tyrosyl chromophores, the peptide dichroic activity is only slightly influenced. Most of the helical residues are, however, randomized in concentrated urea solution.


The rapid development of information technology makes information spread and open which can be accessed from anywhere and at any time. The development of information technology must also be balanced with the ability to search and identify information properly and correctly, which is then known as information literacy. But this ability is not yet fully owned by information users, especially students. This makes the ability of information literacy is an urgent matter, especially on scientific information. Departing from the low level of scientific information literacy, students need to receive scientific information literacy training, especially in the early years of lectures. This research uses research and development (R&D) methods. Literacy class participants used as informants in this study were determined randomly, which came from the first year students of each study program in the academic year 2019/2020. In the initial stage of this study a measurement of the level of knowledge and literacy ability of students of trainees (classes) was carried out using a pretest. In the next stage class material was carried out as well as practice in order to obtain results in the form of applied skills that could be directly applicable. The material includes general knowledge about scientific information, effective search methods and strategies, searching of electronic journal portal both paid and open access, as well as using and evaluating information including citations. At the final stage of this study a posttest was conducted to see the extent of the effectiveness of this training model and class participants' understanding of scientific information literacy after attending literacy classes. The results of this program show an increase in students' information literacy skills.


Occlusive coronary artery disease is now the main complication limiting long-term survival after heart transplantation'-3 and also the most common indication for retransplantation.' The reported angiographic prevalence ranges from 2% to 28% one year after transplantation,45 increasing to 40-70% by five years.' Most of these patients, however, have only minor coronary stenoses or minimal luminal irregularities.89 There are as yet few data available about the rate of progression and clinical significance of these minor changes. In this issue (pages 260-5) Mullins et al report a three year survival of60-80% after first diagnosis of coronary disease, which depends on the number of vessels involved.8 When the disease is more advanced survival rates are poor. Keogh et al 0 report actuarial three year survival rates of 6% and 22% for advanced (>,40% stenoses) triple and single vessel disease respectively. The clinical presentation ofocclusive coronary disease in transplant recipients is very different from that in other patients. The importance of relatively minor coronary occlusive disease can be substantially increased by a tendency to increased platelet aggregation'' and blood hypercoagulability caused by high serum concentrations of fibrinogen and factors VIIC and VIIIC.12 Although a few transplant patients probably do experience angina"' most will have silent ischaemia because of autonomic denervation after surgery. As with conventional coronary disease, advanced disease in the transplanted heart is associated with frequent multifocal and complex ventricular activity and sudden death.'4 Progressive heart failure caused by recurrent infarction or progressive ischaemia can develop. Acute myocardial infarction in transplant recipients is usually painless although they may report dyspnoea, palpitation or sudden weakness.'5 The electrocardiographic changes may be slight because of the diffuse and atypical pattern of infarction.' Because there is no effective treatment for established coronary occlusive disease in transplant recipients prevention is an important priority. Existing studies have been retrospective and have used widely differing diagnostic criteria. They have produced few data that are directly applicable to the management of patients being given transplants today. Effective future research will require the best methods of diagnosis and assessment of transplant related coronary disease. Existing studies have relied heavily on conventional coronary arteriography which has very serious limitations. It consistently underdiagnoses coronary disease in transplant recipients and underestimates its severity.69 16 Quantitative angiography has improved sensitivity particularly in detecting smooth concentric vessel narrowing.'6 Intracoronary ultrasound also enables more accurate assessment of smooth concentric stenoses but the size of the probe restricts its use to large epicardial vessels.'7 The widespread involvement of small vessels in transplant related coronary occlusive disease'8 probably limits the usefulness of these methods of assessment that are solely anatomical. Functional assessment by non-invasive techniques has proved disappointing with too low a sensitivity for routine use.'9 Intracoronary Doppler measurement of blood flow can be readily combined with conventional angiography and this approach may provide a more comprehensive evaluation of the occlusive disease.20 Although there are few good data on which to base recommendations about patient management it seems prudent to treat hypertension vigorously, to advise patients to eat a diet low in saturated fat, and to avoid cigarette smoking and excessive weight gain. Despite these measures many recipients will continue to have "atherogenic" lipid profiles,2' and this raises the question of drug treatment for hyperlipidaemia. Unfortunately, when the very effective hydroxymethylglutaryl co-enzyme A reductase inhibitors are used in combination with cyclosporin they can occasionally cause rhabdomyolysis and renal failure and therefore may be too hazardous to be recommended for widespread use.22 The effectiveness of aspirin in other patients may encourage its use in established coronary disease but it is probably not widely appreciated that its effectiveness is seriously limited by changes in platelet aggregation in transplant patients." Some centres have advocated steroid-free maintenance immunosuppression" to reduce coronary disease. It may be particularly effective in children24 and is also desirable for their optimum growth. In adults, however, its effectiveness is unproven, and given the suspected immunological nature ofthe process this approach may be deleterious. The preliminary results of a randomised trial of diltiazem in the prevention of graft coronary disease from the Stanford group" are encouraging but further data are needed before it can be recommended for routine practice. In animal models low molecular weight heparin, which reduces smooth muscle cell proliferation, has been shown to reduce the severity of occlusive disease.26 What are now required are large scale, multicentre, randomised, prospective trials of management strategies with clearly defined end points. Advanced assessment techniques such as those discussed would be preferable. Intensive drug treatment of hyperlipidaemia, steroid-free maintenance immunosuppression, and the prophylactic use of calcium antagonists or low molecular weight heparin would be suitable for this type of study. The role of cardiac autograft rejection also needs to be investigated further particularly with reference to the question of maintenance steroid therapy. Because the United Kingdom has a relatively small number of centres, each performing substantial numbers of transplants, we are in an ideal administrative position to undertake such studies. CHRISTOPHER D SCOTT JOHN H DARK Freeman Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne


Background: X-Linked Hyper-IgM Syndrome (X-HIGM) is a rare genetic primary immunodeficiency disease caused by mutations of the CD40 ligand gene (CD40LG). It is characterized by normal or elevated levels of IgM and markedly decreased serum IgG, IgA, and IgE levels. Patients with this syndrome are often prone to infections. Environmental and genetic (especially genetic mutation) factors may play an important role in etiology, development, and pathogenesis of X-HIGM. Methods: DNA from a male child diagnosed as having X-HIGM and DNA from his healthy mother were used for whole-exome (next-generation) sequencing and targeted gene sequencing. The results were analyzed using Exome Aggregation Consortium data and the Genome Aggregation Database and were further validated using Sanger sequencing. Results: Next-generation sequencing results indicated that the CD40LG gene in the child had a p.R203I variant. In addition, his mother was a carrier, suggesting that the child's p.R203I homozygous mutation was inherited from his mother. The functional prediction scores from SIFT, MetaSVM, and FATHMM software indicated that this genetic variant may be harmful. Conclusions: Single variations in many exons of the CD40LG gene can lead to X-HIGM. Although the pathogenicity of the variant identified in the present study has not been previously reported, prediction software found that it would be harmful. Thus, CD40LG may be related to this genetic disease. Despite these limitations, our findings provided insight into X-HIGM pathogenesis and suggested a potential target for therapeutic drug development.