One strain in legal philosophy, tracing its roots to Bentham, suggests the possibility of distinguishing between two sorts of legal rules: conduct rules, which are addressed to the general public and are designed to guide its behavior, and decision rules, which are directed to the officials who apply conduct rules. In this Article, Professor Dan-Cohen employs the distinction to create an imaginary world in which only officials know the content of the decision rules and only the general public knows the content of the conduct rules a condition he terms "acoustic separation." Through "selective transmission" of legal rules, he contends, our legal system approximates this imaginary world. Professor Dan-Cohen then demonstrates that by relying on acoustic separation society accommodates competing values at stake in criminal law. Finally, Professor Dan-Cohen raises the issue of the legitimacy of selective transmission. He concludes that it is compatible with the requirements of the rule of law, but argues that this compatibility -far from establishing the legitimacy of selective transmission only highlights some inescapable moral dilemmas that inhere in the law as much as in other spheres of public life.


SUMMARY A flatoxins (AFs) are among the most serious food contaminants that induce economic losses in life stock and fish industry. Sixty Oreochromis niloticus fish were divided into 6 equal groups. They were treated for 3 weeks according to their respective treatment as follows: group 1, untreated control; group 2, fed AFs-contaminated diet (3mg/kg feed); group 3, fed basal diet supplemented with EB (5mg/kg feed); group 4, fed AFs-contaminated diet supplemented with EB (AFs + EB); group 5, fed basal diet supplemented with EM (5mg/kg feed) and group 6, fed AFs-contaminated diet supplemented with EM (AFs + EM). At the end of the experimental period, all fish were sacrificed and dissected. Gills, skin, kidneys, Liver, spleen, brain and intestine specimens from all fish within different groups were collected for histopathological assay. Besides, liver specimens were collected for electron microscopical examination. Samples of musculature and livers were also taken for the determination of AFs residues. Gross pathological examination in fish treated with AFs-contaminated diet revealed that the liver was enlarged, pale, and friable with grayish patches. The kidneys were swollen, dark red in colour and friable. The spleen was congested. The gills were dark red in colour and gill cavity was filled with excessive mucous secretion. Histopathologically, severe degenerative and necrobiotic changes were seen in most organs of AFs-treated fish. Such changes were milder in (AFs + EM) treated group but increased in severity in (AFs + EB) treated group. Ultastructural changes in liver were recorded and discussed in detail. The results of AFM1 residues revealed that, AFM1 is only detected in the liver and musculatures of AFs treated group. Whereas, AFM1 was not detected in the fish treated with (AFs + EB) or those in the group treated with (AFs + EM). It was concluded that, EM could effectively alleviate lesions of AFs and prevent presence of AFs residue in the fish tissue being safer for human consumption.


Precast concrete walls become increasingly utilized due to the rapid needs of inexpensive fabricated house especially as traditional construction cost continues to climb, and also, particularly at damaged area due to natural disasters when the requirement of a lot of fast-constructed and cost-efficient houses are paramount. However, the performance of precast walls under lateral load such as earthquake or strong wind is still not comprehensively understood due to various types of reinforcements and connections. Additionally, the massive and solid wall elements also enlarge the building total weight and hence increase the impact of earthquake significantly. Therefore, the precast polystyrene-reinforced concrete walls which offer light weight and easy installment became the focus of this investigation. The laboratory test on two reinforced concrete wall specimens using EPS (expanded polystyrene) panel and wire mesh reinforcement has been conducted. Quasi-static load in the form of displacement controlled cyclic tests were undertaken until reaching peak load. At each discrete loading step, lateral load-deflection behaviour, crack propagation, and collapse mechanism were measured which then were compared with theoretical analysis. The findings showed that precast polystyrene-reinforced concrete walls gave considerable seismic performance for the low-to-moderate seismic region reaching up to 1% drift at 20% drop of peak load. However, it might not be sufficient for high seismic regions, at which double-panel wall type can be more suitable.


Disclosed are an impeller and a method for manufacturing the same. The present invention comprises: a hub having a first hollow formed therein; a blade integrally formed with the hub; and a disc coupled to the hub and the blade.


Objectives
To explore the effect of case analysis method in clinical nursing practice teaching of cardiology diseases.

Methods
48 nursing undergraduates in cardiology department from July 2015 to May 2017 were selected into experimental group and 50 nursing undergraduates from July 2013 to June 2015 in cardiology department were retrospectively divided into control group. The control group adopted small lectures to explain the nursing assessment, diagnosis and nursing measures to the students. In experimental group, case analysis method was applied into nursing practice teaching, which concluded guiding group students to choose common kinds of typical cases firstly, collecting the patient's information, reviewing nursing assessment, diagnosis and intervention of the selected disease, and finally comparing cases with theoretical knowledge. After that, group students should apply case analysis method to clinical nursing practice under the guidance of teachers. Finally, academic performance, overall nursing assessment, and acceptance of the case analysis method in the above two groups were compared.

Results
The results of experimental group in academic performance [(81.70±3.22) vs. (75.63±3.01)] and in overall nursing examination [(91.93±3.07) vs. (84.27±3.08)] were significantly superior to control group. Meanwhile, the experimental group students showed higher acceptance of case analysis method.

Conclusion
Case analysis method can help nursing undergraduates to combine theoretical knowledge and clinical practice better, make deeper understanding of theoretical knowledge, apply it in clinical practice neatly, and improve students' ability of critical thinking.

Key words:
Case analysis; Nursing undergraduates; Clinical nursing practice teaching


The cause of quenching crack of5CrMnMo hot forging die was analyzed.Improvement of the heat treatment process was conducted and discussed.Quenching crack did not occur any more due to the new process and the die life was greatly extended.


The interface stress distributions in composite cylinders of steel (solid cylinder) and epoxy (hollow cylinder) under push-off loads are analyzed using axisymmetrical theory of elasticity as a three-body contact problem. In the numerical calculations, the effects of Young's modulus and the diameter of solid cylinder on the interface stress distribution are examined. In addition, the effects of the diameter of supported hollow cylinder and the stress distribution due to the applied push-off loads are also examined. It is found that the normal stress at the interfaces increases as Young's modulus of solid cylinder decreases, the diameter of solid cylinder and the diameter of supported hollow cylinder increase. It is also found that the shear stress at the interfaces increases as the diameter of supported hollow cylinder increases, Young's modulus and the diameter of solid cylinder decrease. Singular stresses occur at the edges of the interfaces. A valid method for estimating the singularity is proposed and the discussion is made. Using the interfaces stresses obtained from the numerical analysis and analogous tests, the push-off strength of composite cylinders is estimated. The experiments to measure composite cylinders strength are carried out. It is seen that a rupture initiates at the lower edge of the interface area when the push-off loads are applied to the upper end of solid cylinder. For verification of the present analysis of the interface stress distributions, finite-element method (FEM) is also carried out. The numerical results of the interface stress distributions and the strength are in fairly good agreement with the experimental results and the FEM results. The axisymmetrical theory of elasticity is more rational compared to the shear lag theory in examining the stress singularity and considering the normal stress and shear stress at the interfaces at the same time. Finally, as an example, it is observed that the weight of composite cylinders is lighter by 48.1% than that of the structure with the same of steel material for obtaining the same strength.


A review is presented on the testing and mechanical properties of continuous fibre reinforced composites modified with nanotubes or nanofibres either dispersed in the resin or grown on the microfibres. The nano-level cross-links are shown to be able to (1) increase the fibre/matrix interfacial strength, (2) reduce the inter-fibre crack growth, and (3) improve the inter-ply delamination resistance. A positive influence on the thermal expansion is also detected. However, for unfavourable material constitutions, the strength properties can stay almost the same or even significantly deteriorate.


Video frame interpolation is an increasingly important research task with several key industrial applications in the video coding, broadcast and production sectors. Recently, transformers have been introduced to the field resulting in substantial performance gains. However, this comes at a cost of greatly increased memory usage, training and inference time. In this paper, a novel method integrating a transformer encoder and convolutional features is proposed. This network reduces the memory burden by close to 50% and runs up to four times faster during inference time compared to existing transformer-based interpolation methods. A dual-encoder architecture is introduced which combines the strength of convolutions in modelling local correlations with those of the transformer for long-range dependencies. Quantitative evaluations are conducted on various benchmarks with complex motion to showcase the robustness of the proposed method, achieving competitive performance compared to state-of-the-art interpolation networks.


The real parts of permittivity and permeability of most naturally occurring materials are larger than unity. That is the main reason why transversal d


Flexible thermoelectric generators (f-TEGs), fabricated by the screen printing technique, have been introduced as a semi-permanent power source for wearable and flexible electronic systems. However, the output power density of the f-TEG module is still limited due to the low ZT of the screen-printed thermoelectric (TE) film. We herein report a post ionized defect engineering process that effectively controls ionized defects and improves the ZT value of a screen-printed ternary TE film. It was found that post annealing in a forming gas ambient (4% H2+96% Ar) can reduce the nanoand micro-bismuth oxide particles in screen-printed n-type BiTeSe films, resulting in a bismuth rich condition and creation of bismuth antisite defects. We achieved a maximum ZT of 0.90 with the screen-printed n-type BiTeSe thick film at room temperature, which is almost comparable to that of the bulk Bi2Te2.7Se0.3 and is a 2-fold increase over the same screen-printed film without the hydrogen ambient annealing. To demonstrate the applicability of this approach, a f-TEG device with 72 TE pairs (p-type Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3, forming gas annealed n-type Bi2Te2.7Se0.3) was fabricated by the screen printing technique. The device generated a high output power of 6.32 mW cm at ΔT=25.6 °C. These results demonstrate the feasibility of high performance and large-scale f-TEG fabrication using ionized-defect engineering.


Studies have been conducted about the induction of lipid peroxidation (free-radical) of rats liver microsomes by non-enzymatic (ascorbate-dependent) and enzymatic (NADP·H-dependent) mechanisms with acetylcholine in the incubation medium. The obtained data indicate that the presence of acetylcholine in the incubation medium reduces the ability of microsomal lipid oxidation. After the heat treatment of liver microsomes, the presence of acetylcholine in the incubation medium also reduces the ability of the microsomal lipid oxidation induced by enzymatic (NADP·H-dependent) mechanism. The decrease of protein activity of endoplasmatic reticulum of hepatocytes by the heat treatment of liver microsomes dramatically reduces the ability of lipid oxidation by enzymatic (NADP·H-dependent) mechanisms.


of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours Effect of Supplementation and Grazing Residual on Dairy Cow Production


The concepts and capabilities that supported ground-tended Space Station Freedom (SSF) utilization and operations are described. On-board computer control support capabilities are required, and potential approaches for computer sequencing are discussed. An integrated process which links the planning processes with the implementation and execution of the operations is required to perform continuous, long-term utilization of SSF. Payload designs that make accommodations for ground-tended operation can be supported by the operations infrastructure. The payload operations integration center and Space Station Control Center are to support continuous operations of payloads that are designed to be operated from the ground. An overall process of ground-tended payload operations which links the weekly planning and continuous ground-tended execution functions is defined.


Disclosed are an application installation package acquisition method, an information broadcast method, a mobile device and a base station. The application installation package acquisition method comprises: a mobile device receiving a broadcast frame sent by a base station, the broadcast frame containing application identifier information and network access information; the mobile device accessing a network according to the network access information contained in the broadcast frame; and the mobile device acquiring an installation package of an application identified by the application identifier information from the base station by means of the network. The present invention can save data traffic of a user, reduce a waiting time of the user, and improve the user experience.


The problem of spiritual, moral and professional upbringing of cadets of the Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs – future officers of law enforcement bodies are viewed in the article. The article is devoted to the problem of mastering by cadets such higher-priority values as: Motherland, Earth, Knowledge, Human-Being inside the trinity of educational space. It can be used by the teachers of the institutes as theoretical and practical material for improving education potential of the entire pedagogical process.


Se is a naturally occurring non-metallic trace element which is essential to human and
other animal health in small doses (0.04 μg/g) but is harmful in excess (> 4 μg/g). China
possesses one of the best epidemiological databases in the world on Se related diseases
which has been used in conjunction with geochemical data to demonstrate a significant
geological control on human Se exposure. Se deficiency in soils and crops has been
linked to an endemic cardiomyopathy (Keshan Disease (KD)), osteoarthropathic
disorders (Kashin-Beck Disease) and oesophageal cancer whereas selenium toxicity
causes hair loss and nail deformation. However, the precise geographic areas at risk, the
geochemical factors controlling environmental Se levels and human Se status are poorly
defined and appropriate remediation strategies have yet to be established.


The quantum mechanical measurement problem does not arise in the quantum real number approach to quantum measurements of the first kind. The attributes of individual microscopic systems in the experimental ensemble always have qr-number values so the individual systems can be followed throughout the process. The interaction with an apparatus connects the qr-number value of the quantity to be measured with the qr-number value of an attribute of the apparatus that can be locally approximated by a classical number and subsequently amplified to a recordable output.


Abstract Background Medical and regulatory communities are increasingly interested in the utility of real-world evidence (RWE) for answering questions pertaining to drug safety and effectiveness, but concerns about validity remain. A principled approach to conducting RWE studies may alleviate concerns and increase confidence in findings. This study sought to predict the findings from the PRONOUNCE trial using a principled approach to generating RWE. Methods This propensity score–matched observational cohort study used 3 claims databases to compare the occurrence of major adverse cardiovascular events among initiators of degarelix vs leuprolide. Patients were included if they had a history of prostate cancer and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Patients were excluded if they did not have continuous database enrollment in the year before treatment initiation, were exposed to androgen deprivation therapy or experienced an acute cardiovascular event within 30 days before treatment initiation, or had a history or risk factors of QT prolongation. Results There were 12 448 leuprolide and 1969 degarelix study-eligible patients before matching, with 1887 in each arm after propensity score matching. The results for major adverse cardiovascular events comparing degarelix with leuprolide in the observational analysis (hazard ratio = 1.35, 95% confidence interval = 0.94 to 1.93) was consistent with the subsequently released PRONOUNCE result (hazard ratio = 1.28, 95% confidence interval  = 0.59 to 2.79). Conclusions This study successfully predicted the result of a comparative cardiovascular safety trial in the oncology setting. Although the findings are encouraging, limitations of measuring cancer stage and tumor progression are representative of challenges in attempting to generalize whether claims-based RWE can be used as actionable evidence.


Differential evolution is a simple algorithm for global optimization. Basically it consists of three operations: mutation, crossover and selection. Despite many research papers dealing with the first two operations, hardly any attention has been paid to selection nor is there a place for this operation in the algorithm basic naming scheme. In the paper we show that employing certain selection strategies combined with some random perturbation of population vectors notably improves performance in high-dimensional problems. Further analysis of results shows that the improvement is statistically significant. The application of the approach on a real-world case of a simple operating amplifier circuit exhibits a similar behaviour and improvement as observed with the Quartic noisy test function. Due to the nature of the circuit objective function this was expected.


According to Bulgarian-Soviet program "Biostab" we studied characteristics of different phenol compounds (ionol derivatives). The aim of the present study is to determine antiradical and antioxidant activity of a number of ionol derivatives in pure chemical systems and in different membrane fractions of a natural origin.


An approach is developed to accelerate the computation of successive projection method (SPM) for the fast synthesis of phased array antennas to radiate contoured radiation. The approach, instead of using the radiation of each antenna element as field basis function to span the field pattern, construct a new set of field basis function that exhibits narrow beam spot. Since in practical applications the area under synthesis is relatively small, the proposed approach has advantages of using less basis functions. It is found that only a small number of basis functions are sufficient to synthesize the radiation pattern, and make the present approach very fast.


The mechanism of permeabilization with sonoporation is not understood but the recurrent hypothesis assumes the formation of pores in the cell membrane. The aim of our study is to comfort this assumption by investigating whether ultrasound (US) and microbubbles could also facilitate outward transport of molecules across the plasma membrane through these probable pore formations. Stably transfected Hela‐GFP cells were used and insonified with a 1 MHz unfocused transducer in presence of BR14 microbubbles (Bracco Research, Geneva) at different acoustic parameters. The percentage of Hela‐GFP cells and the mean cell fluorescence intensity (FI) were measured by flow cytometry to evaluate the GFP release. While US alone did not affect the cells, the addition of BR14 microbubbles induced a significant decrease of FI and the percentage of Hela‐GFP cells. A reduction of more than 50% of FI and GFP + cells was achieved between 400‐600 kPa and 40‐75 % of duty cycle during 2 minutes insonation. However a progressive re...


The article presents the results of research on the analysis of the influence of complex mineral fertilizers of different composition and structure-forming material perlite on the quality indicators of seeded lawns grown on urbanized sod-podzolic soils under the conditions of the Ecological Station of the Russian State Agrarian University named after K.A. Timiryazev. The influence of complex mineral fertilizers of different composition and perlite on the resistance of the sown lawns to unfavorable agro-ecological conditions has been analyzed. Materials and methods. The fine-grained field experiment was carried out on the territory of the ecological stationary of the K.A. Timiryazev Russian Academy of Agriculture in Moscow during 2019-2020 together with the strategic partner: the company LLC "EuroChem Trading RUS" on the urbanized agrodeposol soil of medium loamy granulometric composition with buried humus horizon. The multifactorial study was carried out on seeded lawn grasses grown with the use of various types of complex fertilizers, as well as structure-forming component - perlite. Keywords: LAWNS, URBAN SOILS, MINERAL FERTILIZERS, LANDSCAPING, GRASS BIOMASS, PERLITE


In this paper, we consider the well-posedness and asymptotic behaviors of solutions of the fractional complex Ginzburg–Landau equation with the initial and periodic boundary conditions in two spatial dimensions. We explore the existence and uniqueness of global smooth solution by means of the Galerkin method and establish the existence of the global attractor. The estimates of the upper bounds of Hausdorff and fractal dimensions for the global attractor are presented.


The invention discloses an enzyme preparation for a deoxidizing, polishing and dyeing one-bath method and application of the enzyme preparation, and belongs to the technical field of enzyme preparations. The enzyme preparation for the deoxidizing, polishing and dyeing one-bath method comprises the following components in percentage by mass: 5 to 10 percent of catalase, 30 to 50 percent of cellulase, 5 to 10 percent of sorbitol, 0.1 to 0.3 percent of potassium sorbate, and the balance of deionized water. The enzyme preparation for the deoxidizing, polishing and dyeing one-bath method can be applied to dyeing and finishing of cotton fabrics, and fulfills the aim of integrating three procedures of removing residual hydrogen peroxide, polishing and dyeing. Compared with the conventional enzyme preparation, the enzyme preparation for the deoxidizing, polishing and dyeing one-bath method has the advantages of shortening the processing time by over 90 minutes, obviously improving the production efficiency and fulfilling the aims of remarkably reducing water consumption, reducing energy consumption, reducing sewage discharge and reducing cost.


In research institute for nuclear medicine (Tehran University of Medical Sciences) 50 patients with follicular thyroid carcinoma were evaluted retrospectively. The purpose of the study was assesment of the response of iodine-131 therapy. The best result were achieved when the patient treated with iodine-131 for the first time, in the 4th decade of life, with total thyroidectomy and no metastasis. The most common site of distant metastasis was in the lung. The results of this research emphases, nessecity of total thyroidectomy before iodine therapy, and administration of the sufficient dose of 1-131 for the first time. Also there was a fairly good correlation between the results of the treated and nontreated patients with thyroglobulin levels.


The Steiner minimal tree problem in graphs(GSTP) is a well-known NP-hard problem.Its applications can be found in many areas,such as telecommunication network design,VLSI design,etc.A competitive decision algorithm was developed to solve the GSTP.The mathematical properties of GSTP were analysed,which can be used to scale down the size of original problem and accelerate the algorithm.To assess the efficiency of the proposed competitive decision algorithm,it was applied to a set of benchmark problems in the OR-Library.In terms of computation times,our algorithm clearly outperforms other heuristics for the Steiner problem in graphs,while obtaining better or comparable solutions.


ABSTRACT A 1987 study, which involved 26 male and 805 female early childhood workers from 85 center-based programs in 20 states, was conducted to develop a social-ecological perspective on professional orientation and job satisfaction and on structural components of early childhood programs. Professional orientation is characterized by a person's emphasis on growth/change, knowledge-based skill, decision-making autonomy, reference-group orientation, goal achievement, and loyalty to clients/professional associates. Central to this social-ecological perspective is th "goodness of fit" between the person's needs and the setting's demands. The sample included 242 classroom assistants, 473 teachers or head teachers, and 116 administrators or supervisors. A five-page questionnaire was developed to measure the structural components of program size, legal structure, and type as well as the professional orientation of the centers and each person. Results confirm that persons are clearly influenced by the prolessional orientation of their work environment. However, further analysis is needed to understand the interaction effects of different combinations of the structural components if the results would be similar when controlling for the persons' role. (TJH)


In high-dimensional gene expression data analysis, the accuracy and reliability of cancer classification and selection of important genes play a very crucial role. To identify these important genes and predict future outcomes (tumor vs. non-tumor), various methods have been proposed in the literature. But only few of them take into account correlation patterns and grouping effects among the genes. In this article, we propose a rank-based modification of the popular penalized logistic regression procedure based on a combination of ℓ 1 and ℓ 2 penalties capable of handling possible correlation among genes in different groups. While the ℓ 1 penalty maintains sparsity, the ℓ 2 penalty induces smoothness based on the information from the Laplacian matrix, which represents the correlation pattern among genes. We combined logistic regression with the BH-FDR (Benjamini and Hochberg false discovery rate) screening procedure and a newly developed rank-based selection method to come up with an optimal model retaining the important genes. Through simulation studies and real-world application to high-dimensional colon cancer gene expression data, we demonstrated that the proposed rank-based method outperforms such currently popular methods as lasso, adaptive lasso and elastic net when applied both to gene selection and classification.


Leaf senescence is an important event in the plant life cycle. Ethylene and ascorbic acid (AsA) both regulate the leaf senescence process. The role of endogenous AsA in ethylene-induced leaf senescence was explored in two independent endogenous AsA changing Arabidopsis thaliana mutants. The line vtc2-1 with a single base change in VTC was AsA-deficient mutant; the GLDH-overexpressing line (GLDHOE) driven by the CaMV 35S promoter was AsA-overaccumulating mutant. After spraying 600 μM ethephon for 6 d, vtc2-1 showed the most serious leaf chlorosis, reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation, chlorophyll breakdown, Rubisco degradation, and had the highest expression level of senescence-associated genes (SAGs), such as SAG12, SAG13, SAG20, and SAG21 among the three lines. In contrast, GLDHOE maintained the highest photosynthetic pigments contents, Rubisco content, antioxidant capacity, and the lowest expression of SAG2, SAG20, and SAG21 among the three lines. Taken together, we conclude that endogenous AsA can delay ethylene-induced senescence by scavenging ROS and inhibiting SAGs expression.


Many papers have ever been reported about cyclic monomers (mostly 6-membered ring compounds) formed from unsaturated fatty acids or their triglycerides during thermal treatment or by catalytic cyclization. But, existance of 5-membered ring compounds in such cyclic monomers has not been proved chemically. Therefore qualitative and quantitative condition of the color reaction of cyclopentadiene in a mixture of 1, 3-cyclohexadiene, benzene, cyclohexene, cyclohexane, cyclopentene and cyclopentane, was examined using sulfuric acid and ethyl alcohol in reference to our previous papers. On the other hand, purified ethyl linoleate, ethyl linolenate and photo-isomerized Lung oil were respectively heated to cyclize with sodium hydroxide and ethylene glycol under the condition of 295°C, 15min. in a stainless autoclave, then acidified, esterified and purified by silica gel column, yThe cyclized ethyl linoleate, ethyl linolenate and photo-isomerized tong oil fatty acid ethyl ester were separated by urea adduct and column chromatography obtained ethyl linoleate cyclic monomer (11CM), ethyl linolenate cyclic monomer (1nCM) and photo-isomerized tung oil fatty acid ethyl ester cyclic monomer (βCM) were analyzed by GLC, IR, TLC and the above mentioned color reaction. It was concluded that cyclopentadiene compounds were formed from ethyl linolenate, but not from ethyl linoleate and eleostearic acid, since 1nCM, βCM and 11CM contained 4.1%, 0.08% and 0% of cyclopentadiene compounds respectively.


Abstract Introduction: Office-based laryngeal injection for the treatment of a variety of voice disorders is an established practice. Various methods of delivery to the vocal folds are in practice. Aim: We present a simple and repeatable method of injecting botulinum toxin into the larynx. Method: Botulinum toxin A (Botox®) was delivered into the larynx using a channelled fibre-optic laryngoscope under local anaesthetic, in an office setting. Results: Seven patients received regular botulinum toxin injections, via our preferred method. The treatment intervals and dosage regime varied depending on patient requirements. The procedure was carried out in an office setting, with minimal discomfort and inconvenience to the patient. Conclusion: We present a method of botulinum toxin delivery to the larynx which is simple, easily repeatable and simply learnt by the otolaryngologist familiar with fibre-optic laryngoscope usage. This method is also comfortable and convenient for the patient.


The benefits of endovascular stroke treatment for large vessel occlusion (LVO) stroke are time sensitive, so clinicians have sought to further refine


Service oriented architecture (SOA) is nowadays one of the dominant styles in developing new information systems. These information systems often have complex models, which can contain mistakes, or are described by informally. In order to minimize mistakes and to create formal models, patterns as components of software development could be used - according to Model driven development (MDD) principles. Design patterns in SOA have been identified by T. Erl [1]. However, they are represented in form which is suitable for humans, but not for computers. In context of machine processing formal representation of patterns would be advantageous. In this paper we present our approach to partial formal representation of SOA design patterns using production rules. This partial formal representation is useful in searching for mistakes (antipatterns) in models and will enable creating formal models (with patterns) from informal documents.


We read with interest the article by Saka− moto et al. [1] on closure of large mucosal defects after endoscopic mucosal resec− tion (EMR) and endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) for the prevention of complications. Because closure of large mucosal defects is quite difficult with conventional clips, they designed a new closure device, a "loop clip", which con− sists of a metal clip attached to a loop of nylon string. After a loop clip was con− nected to the mid edges of a large muco− sal defect, conventional clips were placed to achieve complete closure in three lesions. With a figure−of−8−shaped ring (8−ring) and clips [2], and with an endo− loop and clips [3], other endoscopic clo− sure techniques for post−EMR large mu− cosal defects were also described. We be− lieve that these techniques have some drawbacks, and furthermore, we doubt whether the prophylactic closure could effectively prevent delayed bleeding. EMR and ESD are indicated for the treat− ment of large sessile or flat colorectal polyps. Although large polyps have a greater malignant potential, and are tra− ditionally treated surgically, EMR and ESD are preferable to surgery because the techniques have potential to cure and are less invasive [4, 5]. On the basis of the size and location of the polyps, EMR can be performed en bloc or piecemeal. Al− though piecemeal resection is related to a higher recurrence rate compared with en bloc resection, the piecemeal tech− nique is used most frequently in large polyps [4, 6]. Recently, ESD by experi− enced hands enabled en bloc resection, regardless of tumor size, with a higher rate of radical cure but also complications compared with EMR [6]. We believe that closure techniques would cover not only large mucosal defects but residual polyp tissue, resulting in a delay of adequate treatment for the recurrence [4]. The risk of post−EMR bleeding and per− foration is reported to increase with the size of the polyps resected [2]. Although Sakamoto et al. [1] recommended pro− phylactic clipping closure of the mucosal defects after EMR and ESD for the preven− tion of bleeding and perforation, the clip− ping technique has not decreased the oc− currence of delayed bleeding in a pro− spective randomized controlled study [7]. Most perforations are small enough to close with immediate clipping [8], and their preliminary results of the loop clip− assisted complete closure of mucosal de− fects would be useful for perforations too large to close with a simple closure, as they suggested. If their excellent tech− nique cannot reduce the complication rate, we believe that the closure tech− nique might be only more time−consum− ing than EMR and ESD without closure.


Ba ckground: Previous studies have reported an increased risk of obesity associated with Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection. However, most of these studies have included only sparse information on obesity indexes such as the body mass index (BMI). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the differences among several obesity indexes and the presence of H. pylori serum immunoglobulin G (IgG) by measuring visceral and subcutaneous fat using computed tomography. Me thods: Data were collected from patients who underwent examination for abdominal obesity and H. pylori IgG antibodies at Jeju National University Hospital health center between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2013. Patients were examined under the condition of an empty stomach. The BMI, waist, waist/height ratio, and body composition were measured. The visceral fat area (VFA) and subcutaneous fat area (SFA) were measured using computed tomography, the visceral fat/subcutaneous fat area ratio (VSR) was calculated, and the differences between patients with and without H. pylori IgG antibodies were compared. Re sults: The study included 477 participants (274 men and 203 women). There were 162 male (59.1%) and 112 female (55.2%) subjects who had H. pylori IgG antibodies; no gender differences were observed. The BMI, waist measurement, and VSR were significantly increased among male participants; the waist/height ratio, VFA, and SFA did not show any gender differences. After comparing the BMI, waist measurement, waist/height ratio, percent of body fat, VFA, SFA, and VSR, the saltiness of the meal, and smoking history with the presence or absence of H. pylori IgG antibodies, there were no significant differences between the male and female groups. Co nclusion: There were no significant differences in obesity indicators (BMI, waist circumference, waist/height ratio, percentage of body fat, VFA, SFA, and VSR) associated with the presence or absence of H. pylori IgG antibodies.


Aspirations have been part of American educational rhetoric for over 300 years. People here sought learning to give them courage, to help their children adhere to the old ways, to pave a road to collective and personal betterment. The prepositional phrases are important: aspirations for others and aspirations for oneself. The established order aspired to a new generation that valued the same things as it did. Youth were to be schooled to honor conventional ways and means of living, or at least what the political and religious authorities felt the desired ways should be. Typically, the existing order feared disorder (the 17th century called it "barbarism"), the worship of false gods and what they (until recently) simply called vice, and they designed schools to counteract youth's drift toward these tendencies. Equally typically that youth paid little heed to all this, usually by avoiding formal schools altogether. Individual aspiration-the dreams from within-rarely have been a formal goal for education. Kids needn't aspire. We old folks know better than they do. We will then tell them what is the true and what is the beautiful. Dreamers are to be feared. Indeed, "stop that dreaming" is a familiar phrase in classrooms. Dreaming is not paying attention. Russell Quaglia and Casey Cobb (1996), on the other hand, take the individual's side. "Aspirations can be defined," they write, "as a student's ability to identify and set goals for the future, while being inspired in the present to work toward these goals" (p. 130). Have a dream. Work toward it. There is respect here. The student, and her ability to sort out where she might be headed, is to be honored. There is realism here as well. The power of a school to lure any adolescent into its definition of "future" is limited, save in a crass instrumental sense. Schools can influence, can arrange things for the pursuit of what it believes to be worthy aspirations (say, to become a veterinarian), and create roadblocks for what it believes to be counterproductive (making a lot of money selling illegal drugs). Pounding the youngster precisely into its definition of what is worthy of aspiration is exceedingly difficult: we humans are stubborn, even the younger ones among us. The task is even more difficult for policymakers. "Mandates alone have very little


We report the progress in the development of an operand routing network (ORN) for an SFQ reconfigurable data-paths processor (SFQ-RDP). The SFQ-RDP is implemented as a two-dimensional array of floating-point units (FPU), outputs of which can be connected to the inputs of one or more FPUs in the next row via ORN. We have considered two architectures of the ORN: one is based on NDRO switches and the other - on crossbar switches. The comparison shows that the crossbar-based ORN has better performance due to the regular pipelined structure. We have designed a crossbar switch with a multicasting function and a 1-to-2 ORN prototype for 2.5 kA/cm2 process. The circuits have been experimentally tested at the frequencies up to 36 GHz.


Under investigation is the (2+1)-dimensional KMN equation, which is a new extension of the well-known nonlinear Schrodinger equation. Firstly, we investigate the modulational instability (MI) of th...


The authors have derived the interrelationship between radius, rotational velocity, and effective temperature for Sirius B. They find that (1) the radii, 0.76 to 0.81 in hundredths of solar radii, predicted by Teff between 26,000K and 28,000K and a mass of 1.05 Msun; places Sirius B somewhat above the Hamada-Salpeter mass-radius relation, by about 1 or 2 σ, (2) the rotational velocity of Sirius B is predicted to lie between 0 and 600 km s-1 (using 2 σ limits) and that only radii which place a white dwarf above the mass-radius line are allowed, and (3) in order to further limit the rotational velocity and the radius of Sirius B, better determinations of Teff and magnitude are needed.


Acknowledgement The project team wishes to acknowledge the help of the children, parents, families, practitioners and managers who contributed to the evaluation. Particular thanks are due to Gillian Ma'har, Parenting Lead Over 8's for Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, and commissioner of this evaluation.


Digital watermark is a newly proposed means to protect copyright of digital products, and many schemes have been proposed. A fractal-based watermark scheme is one of them. In order to improve the robustness and image quality, some aspects of the method are modified in this paper. Tests have been performed and very promising results have been obtained.


Family turns to be the building block of the existence of human society, which starts form the marriage. According to the accepted law in Sri Lanka the permitted age limit for marriages starts from 18 years. Nevertheless, a tendency is visible specifically in rural areas in Sri Lanka for motherhoods in low ages. Without legally registered marriages some males and females in low age categories seemed to be living together as husbands and wives. There is a notable propensity of the emergence of social problems due to the said relationships. The key objective of this research is to identify effective causes affecting the tendency of illegal marriages in schooling age. And mainly focused to identify the intervention measures so as to prevent the underage marriage and to provide a framework for utilizing rural youth females through social work as a human resource in rural social development. The selected locations for this research were the two GN divisions namely; Kotakethena and Dimbulwala in Rathnapura district under Kahawatta police division. The selected study sample is represented by 36 females below 18 years of age and those had been attended mothers' clinics in a period of 5 years from 2012 up to 2017. Research method applied for data collection was on questionnaires, discussions, case studies, group discussions and observations. Research outcomes disclosed that a considerable number of those commenced early living together with loved parties secretly evading from parents knowledge was mainly due to the interrupted education resulted by poor economic conditions. Besides, indirect behavior of mothers or the habit of drunkenness of fathers or else being eldest child in the family were other causes affected.


Valley's boosters sometimes claim that the region is the imperial Rome or Victorian London of high technology, ground zero of a new era in history and economics. Steven Johnson, author of the new book Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software, would argue that it's more like an ant colony. He means it in a good way: ants are geniuses at what Johnson calls "emergent" behavior, a phenomenon in which simple activities undertaken by individuals generate complex behavior in populations. Silicon Valley is a tangled bank of high-tech companies, venture capitalists, and a thousand kinds of specialists who swarm around a problem or product, break away, and re-form around something else. Specialization and collaboration are a part of life. People regularly change jobs, and engineers at competing firms sometimes work together on knotty problems; the result is a rich cross-fertilization of technical


This article reports preliminary findings from a study of the perceptions of secondary school teachers, about their training in the field of mathematics and its possible link with the joint methodological and the attitude of the students towards the subject in the Huetar educational Atlantic regionduring the year 1996.We conducted a case study with the five teacherswho completed their training in the Regular Plan of the University of Costa Rica, at the regional headquarters of Limon. This plan was initiated in 1992 with a duration of three years and was awarded the degree of faculty.


Implant surgeon should take advantage of advances in instrumentation and grafting biomaterials to augment the deficient ridges. Biotechnology has greatly improved our ability to predict and reconstruct osseous defects. In addition to present specific bone grafting techniques used to restore hard tissue volume defects at the sites, the volume of augmentation defines the procedure. Significant amounts of autogenous bone can be procured from symphysis or ramus region of the mandible. The cortical grafts of this area provide predictable increase in bone volume with a short healing time and yield a highly dense osseous architecture for implant placement. This review discusses the use of autogenous block grafts and bovine bone allograft for predictable bone augmentation in atrophic ridges.


Objective To evaluate the relationship between retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL)thickness measured by optical coherence tomography (OCT) and the refractive error and age using partial correlation analysis. Methods A total of 106 right eyes of healthy subjects, comprising 33 eyes with high myopia ( spherical equivalent [SE] < - 6. 0 D) , 60 eyes with moderate myopia ( - 6. 0 D ≤ SE < - 3.0 D) and 13 eyes with low myopia and emmetropia ( -3.0 D≤SE <0. 5 D) were analyzed in this cross-sectional study. Mean clock hour, quadrant and total average RNFL thicknesses were measured by OCT and compared among the three groups respectively. Associations among RNFL measurements and spherical equivalent and age were evaluated by partial correlation analysis. Results The mean RNFL thickness measurement in high myopia(95.74 ± 13.46) μm was significantly lower than that in moderate myopia group ( 101.43 ± 11.53 ) μm, low myopia group and emmetropia group ( 108. 06 ± 8.42) μm ( P < 0. 05 ). Positive correlations were found between RNFL measurements at 1, 5, 6 and 12 o'clock, superior and inferior quadrant, and total average RNFL and SE ( r = 0. 36,0. 33,0. 43,0. 29,0. 28,0. 39, P < 0. 01, r = 0. 22,P <0. 05), while negative correlations were found between RNFL measurements at 8, 9 and 10 o'clock and temporal quadrant and SE ( r = -0.21, P <0.05, r = -0.36, P <0.01; r = -0.24, P <0.05; r = -0. 30, P <0. 01 ). RNFL measurements at 2, 3, 4 and 6 o'clock and nasal and inferior quadrant varied with age ( r = -0.20,-0.20,-0.20,P <0.05,r =0.31,P <0.01). Conclusions RNFL measurements varied with the refractive error and age. Analysis of RNFL thickness in the evaluation of glaucoma should always be interpreted with reference to the refractive status and age. In the same time, the location of the RNFL should be noted.

Key words:
Nerve fibers/PH;  Refractive errors/PP;  Age factors;  Tomography, optical coherence


Erythropoietin (EP) injected subcutaneously (SC) 2 or 3 times a week, respectively, or intravenously (IV) 3 times a week, increased the hemoglobin and the hematocrit of all the patients so treated. The total units of EP used was less when it was administered SC. EP once or twice a week, respectively, administered SC also increased the hemoglobin and hematocrit in each case, and the total amount of EP used was also less.


This paper introduces a mobile system for the characterization of solar cells and panels, presented from the early stage of a research idea to the final stage of a scientific device. The main advantage of the system lies in the fact that measurements can be performed in situ - in the very place where the solar panels are mounted. The methods implemented to determine the parameters of the solar cells and panels are also presented. 2010 PACS:84.60.Jt


The Kinetic Battery Model is an elaborated model to mimic the behavior of electro-chemical batteries. It assumes two "wells" inside a battery. One pretends to hold the available, the other the bound energy. Once the available energy well is empty or charged, energy has to be delivered from/to the bound energy well (Manwell and McGowan (1993). This model was extended by Manwell and McGowan (1994) to calculate the voltage. Determining the needed parameter is a complicated process, as it must be done for each battery by measuring at least two discharging curves and with a parameter fitting. A different model to simulate the battery behavior is the Peukert Model. There, the discharging behavior of a battery is based on a factor which is dependent on two discharging times and its corresponding capacity Peukert (1897). This data is normally available through manufacturers data sheets. This paper suggests a method to use Peukert's law to determine the needed parameters from available data sheets and use them to enhance the existing Kinetic Battery Model in adequate accuracy. Results show, that the average deviation of the simulated voltage over the curves given by the data sheets, is 0.25 Volts on average. This can be concluded to be of adequate accuracy for most building simulation applications. Further, the variable load reduces the solar coverage rate of a building simulation example by around 6% points.


Activating transcription factor 3 (ATF-3) expression has been associated with several signaling pathways implicated in cellular stress response in many cell types and is usually regarded as a neuronal damage marker in dorsal root ganglia (DRG). We investigated ATF-3 expression in primary afferents in the monoarthritic (MA) model of chronic inflammatory joint pain. Immunohistochemistry revealed that ATF-3 is highly induced mainly in small and medium neurons, especially at 2 and 4 days of MA in L 5 DRGs. Colocalization with calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) and isolectin B4 (IB4) demonstrated that ATF-3-immunoreactive cells are mainly peptidergic. The lack of significant differences in ATF-3 and pAkt colocalization indicated that ATF-3 is probably not involved in a pAkt-mediated survival pathway. Anti-inflammatory (ketoprofen) administration failed to reverse ATF-3 induction in MA rats, but significantly increased CGRP expression. These data suggest that ATF-3 expression is definitely involved in MA, actually marking injured neurons. Some degree of neuronal damage seems to occur right Received: April 7, 2011 Accepted after revision: June 16, 2011 Published online: September 6, 2011 Fani Lourença Moreira Neto Departamento de Biologia Experimental Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade do Porto Alameda Prof. Hernâni Monteiro, PT–4200-319 Porto (Portugal) Tel. +351 22 551 3654, E-Mail fanineto @ med.up.pt © 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel 1424–862X/11/0194–0210$38.00/0 Accessible online at: www.karger.com/nsg D o w n lo a d e d b y : 1 9 8 .1 4 3 .4 5 .6 5 3 /1 7 /2 0 1 6 1 :1 8 :4 3 A M


The city Baoding is one of the cradles for the movement of the work-study program for studying in France, which has made great contribution to the movement. The large school for the students preparing for the work-study program for studying in France was built in the village called Bu li in Baoding city. Besides the high school called Yu de in Baoding city had one famous class for the students preparing for the work-study program for studying in France, which is proud for its excellent teaching in china. The two school has educated a number of students for work-study program for study in France, carrying forward the movement.


Beta blockers are widely used in the treatment of multiple conditions during pregnancy, such as hypertension, hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, mitral stenosis and fetal tachycardia. These drugs, most commonly used propranolol, are also used in maternal hyperthyroidism to abort the beta-adrenergic activity. Overall, approximately 5–10% fetuses exposed to beta blockers have risk of neonatal hypoglycemia. A mother who was on SUMMARY: propranolol treatment gave birth to a full term,growth restricted female neonate. It was noticed that the baby had repeated episodes of hypoglycemia on breastfeeding, which required high glucose infusion rates. Subsequent to ruling out the common causes of hypoglycemia, the same was attributed to maternal propranolol intake. Hence, breastfeeding was withheld and commercial formula top feeds were provided to the baby. Following this change, hypoglycemia was gradually corrected and the baby maintained a euglycemic state. Thus, we report this case of neonatal hypoglycemia secondary to an exposure to maternal beta blocker.


Since Prof. Jǒrg SCHLAICH from the University of Stuttgart in Germany built the first solar chimney power plant (SCPP) prototype in the early 1980s, research on SCPP technology has aroused worldwide attention from experiment, to theory and then feasibility studies for large-scale commercial application. However, except for the fewer than 60-pages piece on the prototype of a SCPP in Manzaneres, Spain, published in 1995 by Prof. Jǒrg SCHLAICH, a complete introduction to the basic principles of SCPP, covering the key technology and cutting-edge progress has been lacking. The publication of the book Solar Chimney Power Generating Technology by Prof. Ting-zhen MING seems to perfectly fill the gap. Prof. MING's book has nine chapters with 229 pages in total. It is divided into four parts: (1) a brief review of SCPP technology including the principles, experiments, theoretical research, and the future development; (2) the basic operational theory of SCPP technology mainly including the thermodynamic principle of the system and the mechanism of the driving force; (3) the flow and heat transfer performance, turbine design and coupled simulation method, the energy storage characteristics of the SCPP system with the energy storage layer, and the interaction mechanism of SCPP and the ambient air flow, accompanied by a miniature indoor SCPP prototype test; (4) a look at the theoretical research frontier of solar chimney power generating systems. For those readers who have a background in solar energy, heat transfer, and thermodynamics, this book is very easy to read and understand. The main features and innovations of the book lie in three aspects: 1. The thermodynamics cycle theory, the helioaero-gravity effect, structure optimization, the energy storage mechanism, turbine operating and coupling characteristics, and the coupling mechanism between the SCPP and the ambient air flow are analyzed. It covers all the issues of concern to readers, and therefore provides a solid theoretical basis and application guidance for the design and commercial application of large scale SCPP technology. 2. It provides the readers with theoretical SCPP technology research and analysis methods. These methods include the conjugate mathematical model including the fluid flow and heat transfer theories in the collector, chimney, and energy storage layer, the coupling simulation method between the non-rotating collector and the chimney-rotating turbine zone, the porous medium model analysis method of the soil thermal storage layer, and the coupling analysis methods between the solar chimney power generating system and the environment of the air flow inside and outside the system. These analytical methods can provide a good reference for the theoretical analysis of integrated application systems in other fields. 3. Although the last chapter of this book is very short, it concisely provides the readers with the latest cutting-edge theoretical research directions and topics of SCPP technology. If we can completely solve these and other future research problems, this field will form a complete theoretical system. Note that there are very few studies on real experiments on prototypes in this book. If in the future the author can provide more experimental results of the latest experimental power station-solar chimney power generating system in Inner Mongolia, China, it will be very useful for the scientific community. Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE A (Applied Physics & Engineering) ISSN 1673-565X (Print); ISSN 1862-1775 (Online) www.zju.edu.cn/jzus; www.springerlink.com E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


An accurate evaluation of the wind potential is needed to assess the economic reliability of an offshore wind project and to site wind farms, which need high-spatial-resolution wind fields with high repetitiveness. A measurement campaign is highly expensive, and the in situ data obtained are insufficient: the data time series are too short, and only defined at a single location. Moreover, the wind-flow models usually used, are unable to accurately extrapolate the data from the mast over the entire area of interest. Fortunately, wind fields at sea can be measured by active spaceborne sensors, such as synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and scatterometer sensors. This paper aims at evaluating the adequacy of wind data from space to the data requirements of the offshore wind industry. The different types of data available from space are described. The temporal sampling of the satellite data is evaluated compared to user needs. The adequacy of this set of information for Weibull-distribution estimation is demonstrated. A study area has been selected to illustrate the approach, namely the French Gulf of Lion area.


Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a leading cause of severe respiratory disease in infants. Little is known about the cell-intrinsic innate immune responses of RSV infected epithelial cells or responding immune cells. We studied two clinical-isolates from the RSV-B subgroup: NH1125 that induces high cytokine responses (measured by CCL5 and IL-6); and NH1067, which induces low cytokine responses. We used RNA sequencing technologies to profile the transcriptome of non-immune and immune-lineage cells following infection with these two strains. The innate immune response of A549, a human epithelial cell line, was distinct from that of monocyte-derived macrophages and dendritic cells at 2, 4, 8, and 24 hours following infection. These responses were compared at a high multiplicity of infection (MOI=5) for a homogeneous response and low MOI (MOI=0.3), which more closely resembles in vivo conditions, to determine the extent of communication between infected and un-infected cells. Our analyses revealed 6 classes of genes marking the early- and late-stage cellular responses. Pathway analyses identified miRNA let-7f, EIF2 signaling and mitochondrial dysfunction signaling as early activated pathways and pattern-recognition receptor and Interferon pathway at later time points. A cross-comparison also reveals that RSV gene expression and viral replication is greater in A549 cells than macrophages, consistent with a more potent cell-intrinsic innate defense in myeloid lineage cells.


Experiments were performed on 25 rats. Putative serotonergic antagonist, Cyproheptadine(Cyp), was applied microiontophoretically on the nucleus parafascicularis of the thalamus (Pf) andthe effect of Cyp on Pf nociceptive neuronal discharge was observed. The result suggested that Cypcan increase the spontaneous and evoked discharge rates of Pf nociceptive neuron, and that Cypmay antagonize the inhibitory effect of endogenous serotonin on the spontaneous and evokeddischarges of Pf nociceptive neurons.


Statelessness has grave implications for the lives of millions of children across the globe. Without a nationality, children cannot have their rights effectively protected, despite the international protections enshrined in the Stateless Conventions. Whilst the UN launched a Global Action campaign to eradicate statelessness, many children seeking refuge in the EU are classified as having 'undetermined' nationality. These children grow up in limbo, completely unprotected. The aim of this dissertation is to critically evaluate the existing safeguards aimed at preventing childhood statelessness, while assessing EU Member States compliance with them, both in law and in practice. The main argument advanced in this dissertation is that the discretion afforded to Member States in this field allows for double-standards for the type and extent of protection granted to children. Consequently, it is advanced that the only way to effectively address this issue is by adopting a holistic child based-rights approach at the EU level and an independent monitoring system that helps harmonise the practice of Member State and ultimately ensure a child's right to nationality, especially when otherwise stateless.


This study examines the effect of country-level governance quality, moderated by culture, on firm performance. The sample included data from 2,511 publicly-traded companies from nine countries from 2009 to 2018, totaling 15,981 firm-year observations. The data to estimate firm performance were collected from the Refinitiv database, while metrics for country governance and cultural dimensions were obtained from the World Bank and Hofstede Insights, respectively. Multiple linear regression models were used to analyze the relationship between country-level governance indicators and firm performance, including the moderating role of culture. The main results showed that governance indicators have a positive and statistically significant relationship with the performance of the analyzed firms. In most of the estimated models, culture has shown to have a positive moderating effect on the relationship between country governance and performance. This research provides evidence that the governance environment in which firms operate influences their performance, suggesting that managers' knowledge about the specific organizational environment of regions or countries is vital in the corporate decision-making process.


o Students who opt to withdraw from a combined degree program may choose to apply the graduate credits earned as part of their combined degree program toward their undergraduate degree. o Students who withdraw from the Combined Degree Program will not have the opportunity to return to that program once the withdrawal request form has been processed. o Be sure you completely understand the implications of Withdrawing from the Combined Degree Program BEFORE submitting this request.


The great fault-line of US politics has opened up again, exposing us (meaning everyone from citizens to people who have never visited the country and never will) to the horror and pain of a nation forged from dispossession, invasion, and slavery...


In the present study, palm oil has been tested to study its capability as a lubricant to replace commercial mineral oil. To enrich the performance, nanoparticles additives were added. Previous studies proved that by adding the small size of additives into lubricating oil can lessen the friction and improve anti-wear properties. In this research, the size of the nanoparticle used was below 20nm. Four ball tester following ASTM D4072-94 was conducted to determine the optimum concentration of palm oil bio-lubricant with Nano-clay additive ranged from 0.02% to 0.08%wt. The results discovered that 0.04wt% of Nano-clay additive added into palm oil was the optimum concentration of the lubricant with the coefficient of friction 0.081, which recorded 16% reduction as compared to mineral oil (20W-40) – the reference lubricant. It also shows good anti-wear ability which the wear scar diameter was improved by 32%. The oil was then tested in journal bearing to characterize the hydrodynamic lubrication properties. The properties that have been observed were the coefficient of friction, pressure profile and temperature profile. The results showed that modified palm oil with Nano-clay provided better performance with low coefficient of friction (reduced more than 50% as compared to mineral oil) and also temperature profile (reduced up to 20% compared to mineral oil). As for the pressure profile, even slightly higher pressure recorded for palm oil due to lower viscosity, yet the pressure was improved with the presence of Nano-clay additive. In overall, it had been proven that palm oil with Nano-clay additive shows massive potential as an alternative lubricant to the same range with the current industrial mineral oil.


The twin-turbine helicopter captain was engaged in a maintenance test flight (tracking main rotor blades) at night under a 400-foot (122-meter) overcast. Because the flight would be in the traffic pattern and very brief, the 50-year-old captain apparently deemed the weather acceptable. Then the unexpected happened: The pilot and a mechanic, who was in the left seat, found themselves in inadvertent instrument meteorological conditions (IMC).


We present a forecast study on the cross-correlation between cosmic shear tomography from the Chinese Survey Space Telescope (CSST) and CMB lensing from Ali CMB Polarization Telescope (AliCPT-1) in Tibet. The correlated galaxy and CMB lensing signals were generated from Gaussian realizations based on inputted auto- and cross-spectra. To account for the error budget, we considered the CMB lensing reconstruction noise based on the AliCPT-1 lensing reconstruction pipeline; shape noise of the galaxy lensing measurement; CSST photo-z error; photo-z bias; intrinsic alignment effect, and multiplicative bias. The AliCPT-1 CMB lensing mock data were generated according to two experimental stages, namely the '4 modules*yr' and '48 modules*yr' cases. We estimate the cross-spectra in 4 tomographic bins according to the CSST photo-z distribution in the range of z ∈ [0, 4). After reconstructing the pseudo-cross-spectra from the realizations, we calculate the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). By combining the 4 photo-z bins, the total cross-correlation SNR≈15 (AliCPT-1 '4 modules*yr') and SNR≈22 (AliCPT-1 '48 modules*yr'). Finally, we study the cosmological application of this cross-correlation signal. Excluding intrinsic alignment (IA) in the template fitting would lead to roughly a 0.6σ increment in σ8 due to the negative IA contribution to the galaxy lensing data. For AliCPT-1 first and second stages, the cross-correlation of CSST cosmic shear with CMB lensing gives errors on the clustering amplitude $\sigma _{\sigma _8}=^{+0.043}_{-0.038}$ or $\sigma _{S_8}=\pm 0.031$ and $\sigma _{\sigma _8}=^{+0.030}_{-0.027}$ or $\sigma _{S_8}=\pm 0.018$, respectively.


Designing complex systems that satisfy a target reliability is difficult because of complex assembly structures and logical connections, numerous components and associated failure modes, limited reliability data or prediction models, and multi-disciplinary nature. To overcome these difficulties and to design complex systems in a systematic way, this research aims to develop a knowledge model of system design for reliability, called Reliability Object Model. This knowledge model contains a) a new failure analysis structure, b) reliability metrics that represent random failures and wearout failures, c) algorithms that allocate, predict, and assess reliability using the failure analysis structure, d) rules for design changes. The use of Reliability Object Model is demonstrated by prototype reliability tools and simplified electronic systems.Copyright © 2005 by ASME


The work of the Wharton Energy Assessment project involves the following items: the selection of a set of objectives for an energy assessment procedure; the presentation of the rudiments of an energy assessment procedure designed to satisfy low-cost objectives; and the discussion of issues which address the incorporation of the procedure into a national assessment study.


By means of macroscopic inspection,chemical composition analysis,mechanical property testing,metallographic examination and so on,the cracking resason of bottom tube of heating furnace for steel rolling was analyzed.The results showed that the cracking reason was due to widmanstatten structure and coarse grain produced by inappropricate heat treatment for raw materials,the toughness and elongation of steel were reduced,under the effect of stress,the cracking occurred in the steel tube at last.


We study compactifications of Einstein gravity on product spaces in vacuum and their acceleration phases. Scalar potentials for the dimensionally reduced effective theory are found to be of exponential form and exact solutions are obtained for a class of product spaces. The inflation in our solutions is not sufficient for the early universe. We comment on the possibility of obtaining sufficient inflation by compactification in general.


A loop back connector and methods for testing lines in a fiber optic network are disclosed. The loop back connector includes a ferrule having an interface side constructed for optical connection to a multifiber optical cable. The loop back connector also includes first and second optical loop back paths, each having first and second terminal ends positioned at the interface side. The terminal ends of each loop back path are adapted to be aligned to fibers in the multifiber optical cable. The method includes injecting a signal on a first optical path at a first location, looping back the signal at a second location onto a second optical path, and receiving the signal on the second optical path at the first location.


Physical therapy is an adjunct measure for treating osteo-articular disorders, with the objective of minimizing pain and limiting the progression of the disorder, thus improving functional capacity and quality of life of the patient. The aim of this short review is to describe the common techniques used for aquatic physical therapy and to comment a pilot study, comparing this technique to land-based physical therapy on musculoskeletal dysfunction of sickle cell disease patients. The results suggest that physical therapy is efficient, irrespective of the technique; however, aquatic therapy showed a trend towards an improvement in muscle strength. This preliminary report encourages further studies with a larger patient sample and longer periods of therapy.


In order to study the microscopic mechanism of martensitic nucleation and growth proeesses, molecular dynamics simulation of thermally induced martensitic transformation in stoichiometric NiAl alloy with B2 structure has been perfomied via the embedded atom method interatomic potential of NiAl alloy. The phase stability analysis of NiAl at 0 K and constant volume shows that an ordered bct structure with a ratio of lattice parameters of about 1.31 is stable while B2 structure is just metastable. The results of the simulations clearly show that only at some special sites caused by different vibrational properties of Ni and Al atoms the themially induced martensites can nucleate heterogeneously, and this has been further proved by simulations of two other systems with different initial configures. By calculating mean square displacements of Ni and Al atoms in NiAl, the reason of heterogeneous nucleation has been explained. Austenite transformed finally to fct L1_0 martensites, and during the martensite growth processes many transformation twins have formed in martensite.Correspondent: SHA Xianwei, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110015


The higher education sector in Tunisia must overcome obstacles preventing it from assuming the role assigned it by a society and an economy in rapid transformation. This report identifies some of these obstacles and makes recommendations. The problems are grouped in four categories: 1) weak internal efficiency; 2) a structure that misallocates resources, delegating little and disdaining the outside world or private initiative; 3) instruction characterized by weak statutory time requirements, inappropriate recruitment and promotion criteria, the devaluation of the teaching profession, and the absence of educational training and evaluation; and 4) financing that's almost exclusively public, burdened by the costs of important but inefficient transfers. Several options are offered: 1) a transparent modular organization that eliminates rigid orientation, promotes flexibility, and reduces weaknesses); 2) decentralized decisionmaking in the university network, introducing the criteria of outcomes in resources allocation, and greater autonomy in financial administration occuring in a legal environment that facilitates the creation of private institutions; 3) assigning a higher status to the teaching profession, introducing more incentives, and establishing education training and evaluation services; and 4) applying measures to finance systemic expansion, combine cost recovery in social services and education, streamline personnel administration, and increase private participation.


CD19 CAR T cell therapy has entered the spotlight for the treatment of B cell lymphoma, however, relapse with CD19 negative disease is common in many subtypes of lymphoma. CD19 CAR T cells were recently shown to strip CD19 from the surface of B cell lymphoma cell lines in a process called "trogocytosis," however, the clinical relevance of this phenomenon remains poorly defined. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of CD19 trogocytosis on CAR T cell escape in B cell lymphoma and the importance of CAR T cell affinity to trogocytosis mediated tumor escape. We cocultured CD19 CAR T cells with primary CLL, ALL, mantle cell lymphoma and diffuse large B cell lymphoma patient material and identified rapid loss of CD19 from the surface of the malignant cells in all subtypes. CD19 was also observed to be transferred from the lymphoma cell to CD19 CAR T cells, resulting in CAR T cell autoreactivity termed "fratricide." We then utilized a recently developed low affinity CD19 CAR to assess the importance of CAR affinity in CD19 loss by trogocytosis. Coculture of low affinity CD19 CAR T cells revealed significantly reduced loss of CD19 by trogocytosis from several ALL cell lines and primary samples when compared to high affinity CD19 CAR T cells. Finally, in vivo analysis of CAR affinity revealed increased CAR T cell efficacy and persistence by low affinity CD19 CAR T cells when compared to high affinity CD19 CAR T cells in an established ALL mouse model. Taken together, these data demonstrate that loss of CD19 by CAR T cell mediated trogocytosis occurs in many B cell malignancies and can be ameliorated by modulation of CAR affinity, providing a possible avenue for more effective CAR T cell therapies in the clinic.


In 2002, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) defined health services research as "research [that] examines how people get access to health care, how much care costs, and what happens to patients as a result of this care. The main goals of health services research are to identify the most effective ways to organize, manage, finance, and deliver high quality care; reduce medical errors; and improve patient safety" (http://www.academyhealth.org). AcademyHealth's (AH) definition is parallel but focuses more explicitly on the factors studied. Thus AH defines health services research as "the multidisciplinary field of scientific investigation that studies how social factors, financing systems, organizational structures and processes, health technologies, and personal behaviors affect access to health care, the quality and cost of health care, and ultimately our health and well-being. Its research domains are individuals, families, organizations, institutions, communities, and populations" (http://www.academyhealth.org). Explicit in both definitions is the notion that health services researchers should strive to identify and estimate the causal effects on outcomes of interest of alternative organizational structures, management approaches, financing systems, provider practices, and personal choices regarding lifestyle and behavior. Without a focus on causal effects, it would be impossible to identify the most effective ways to achieve the outcomes we seek through clinical, management, or policy interventions.

Yet most health services researchers know from first-hand experience that identifying and estimating causal effects using observational data is extremely difficult, and that convincing others and even ourselves that we have successfully done so can be challenging. Most health services researchers—and certainly any who have worked in multidisciplinary teams—also know that even having conversations with research colleagues about causality can be trying, and that different disciplines have different perspectives on these questions. In general, social scientists—and especially economists and sociologists—are more open than statisticians and physician health services researchers to the possibility that causal effects can be identified and estimated using observational data. These attitudinal differences arise early, as they are based on the training that students and fellows in different disciplines receive.

In this issue of Health Services Research (HSR), we are pleased to publish a special section that includes an original article and two commentaries addressing why approaches to questions of causality in health services research are discipline-specific, often with little overlap or agreement. The article, written by Bryan Dowd, Ph.D., and titled "Separated at Birth: Statisticians, Social Scientists and Causality in Health Services Research," traces the historical roots of these discipline-based differences and some recent attempts to remedy the situation. In tracing the history, the article also highlights and underscores the assumptions that underlie efforts to estimate causal effects using observational data. The two excellent commentaries, by Judea Pearl, Ph.D., and James O'Malley, Ph.D., provide additional insights into both the history of the separation between social scientists and statisticians and the challenges inherent in causal inference.

This special section of HSR, with its thoughtful discussion of the meaning of causality in the context of health services research and its implications for high-quality empirical work, is the first of an occasional series in HSR that will address cutting-edge methods in health services research and aim to help researchers improve the way they apply these methods in their research. We will describe and explain the intent and focus of this series in more detail in a future editorial, but for now we are pleased to present this inaugural special section on causality by three distinguished investigators:

Bryan Dowd, Ph.D., is Mayo Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Dowd's research interests include Medicare policy, markets for health insurance and health care services, analysis of nonexperimental data, and application of econometric methods to health service research problems. He is the principal investigator for the Division's CMS Master Research and Demonstration contract and cochairs the Program in Human Rights and Health at the University of Minnesota. He currently serves as chair of the Methods Council of AH. His Ph.D. in public policy analysis is from the University of Pennsylvania.

Judea Pearl, Ph.D., is professor of computer science and statistics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Dr. Pearl directs the Cognitive Systems Laboratory at UCLA and conducts research in artificial intelligence, causal inference, and philosophy of science. He has authored three books: Heuristics (1984), Probabilistic Reasoning (1988), and Causality (2000). A member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Founding Fellow the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, he received the London School of Economics Lakatos Award for 2001, the ACM Alan Newell Award for 2004, the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Computer and Cognitive Science from the Franklin Institute in 2008, and the David Rumelhart Prize from the Cognitive Science Society last year. He is a graduate of the Technion, Israel.

James O'Malley, Ph.D., is associate professor of statistics in the Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School. Dr. O'Malley's methodological interests encompass Bayesian statistics, statistical inference for social networks, multivariate hierarchical models, and causal inference for both randomized and observational studies. His applied research interests include the relationship between health and social networks and the evaluation and estimation of quality of care. He was chair of the Health Policy Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association in 2008, and is cochair of the 2011 International Conference on Health Policy Statistics. He received his Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.


Abstract An attempt is made to weave a pattern, necessarily basic because of space limitation, from the tangled but colourful skein of historical threads of the British X-ray Equipment Industry.


Boundary Element Method(BEM) can be used successfully to the theoretical analysis of loaded stress of rigidly fixed bridge. Using BEM the numbers of dimension of the problem to be solved can be reduced by one. Compared with the Finite Element Method (FEM), BEM has the important features: less data to be input, simple data preparation, less CPU time, high efficiency, high accurate evaluation of stress etc. Besides more dense elements can be placed at selected points to be studied in order to reflect better the concentration of stress. The practice has shown that BEM is a valuable method for biomechanics analysis in prosthodontics.


This paper studies two risk management strategies related to spot market to mitigate demand uncertainty: operational hedging and financial hedging. Consider a supplier selling an intermediate good to two manufacturers, who use it to produce a final product and compete with each other in the final product market. The manufacturer can reduce the supply and demand mismatch risk by operational hedging through sourcing in the spot market, or reduce the profit variability by financial hedging. We find that the supplier charges a lower contract price when selling to operational hedger(s), which hurts the supplier. However, the operational hedger may not benefit from the lower contract price when competing with a financial hedger. By opting out of spot trading and making a commitment to the final production output, the financial hedger benefits from competing with an operational hedger, who is forced to reduce his procurement quantity and final output to avoid intense competition when the former commits a large output. Furthermore, the profit variation of the financial hedger is reduced by a larger percentage when competing with an operational hedger. As a result, both firms may incline to adopt financial hedging instead of operational hedging, leading to a situation of the Prisoner's Dilemma.


Volume density is an important component of object feature information, which can be used to quickly determine whether the inside of object changes or not. At present, the most commonly used method of detecting volume density is based on image reconstruction. First, using cone-beam projection data, we can acquire volume reconstruction, then we can obtain the volume density through the integration of object density function. This method is complicated and time consuming. It is difficult to achieve the real-time dynamical monitoring of volume density. This paper proposes a fast monitoring method of volume density based on cone-beam projections without image reconstruction. Experimental results show that this method has high real-time performance and accuracy to meet the actual needs of the dynamical monitoring, and thus can be used in applications of industrial detection.


signals such as TGFb, Wnt, and Hh family members (Bate, 1993; Lawrence et al., 1995; Wu et al., 1995; Azpiazu et al., 1996; Bate and Baylies, 1996; Tajbakhsh and Mary K. Baylies,* Michael Bate,† and Mar Ruiz Gomez† *Molecular Biology Program Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Cossu, 1997). Myogenic lineages arise from these segmental units, and genes coding for components of the Sloan Kettering Division Graduate School of Medical Sciences myogenic pathways have been remarkably conserved in many instances. However, there appear to be differCornell University 1275 York Avenue ences in the way in which these elements are deployed in flies and vertebrates. These differences may reflect New York, New York 10021 †Department of Zoology a real divergence in the development of the musculature in two widely separated groups of animals, or alternaUniversity of Cambridge Downing Street tively, and perhaps more interestingly, they may represent variations in a common program that is, as yet, Cambridge CB2 3EJ England incompletely understood.


For a measurable strictly stationary continuous time stochastic process , an analogue of a classical generalized strong law of large numbers of Feller is obtained. Specifically, it is shown that if where b-1is the inverse of the positive continuous function btsatisfying almost certainly.Illustrative examples are provided and some open questions are outlined


Top-k queries have been extensively studied in various snapshot databases and data streams for applications where the state of an object is static with respect to time. We observe that decision-makers are often interested in a set of objects that exhibit a certain degree of consistent performance over time. In this paper, we introduce a new class of queries called dke-topband that is able to retrieve objects that are within top k at every time point over a specified time interval. Topband queries can be processed using standard SQL and existing top-k methods. However, the SQL method requires the nested loops to compute the top-k result, while the top-k approach leads to large intermediate results and wasted computations. We design a rank-based approach to address these shortcomings. Experiment results on both synthetic and real world datasets indicate that the proposed approach is efficient and scalable, and has direct applications in real world scenarios.


Filter performance characteristics of interest include collection efficiency as a function of particle size and flow rate at a given pressure drop or pressure drop at a given flow rate. Failure to take inhomogeneity into account in predicting flow rate or pressure drop through filters or in using flow rate or pressure drop to infer cake thickness or pore size can lead to substantial errors, as the formulas and calculations in this report indicated. 1 figure. (DP)


Over the past decade, evidence has emerged suggesting a broader role for cytochrome c (Cyt c) in programmed cell death. Recently, we demonstrated the ability of Cyt c to inhibit the nucleosome assembly activity of histone chaperones SET/template‐activating factor Iβ and NAP1‐related protein during DNA damage in humans and plants respectively. Here, we hypothesise a dual concentration‐dependent function for nuclear Cyt c in response to DNA damage. We propose that low levels of highly cytotoxic DNA lesions – such as double‐strand breaks – induce nuclear translocation of Cyt c, leading to the attenuation of nucleosome assembly and, thereby, increasing the time available for DNA repair. If DNA damage persists or is exacerbated, the nuclear Cyt c concentration would exceed a given threshold, causing the haem protein to block DNA remodelling altogether.


"Zuozhuan" uses historical narratives to elaborate the Classic, Chunqiu. It does not always depend on materials from Chunqiu, but often uses earlier, later, even differential materials and follows the writing rules of "the way to write" and "the reason to write" to elaborate the Classic through the history. Zuozhuan's narrative follows two modes: the symbolic narrative and the causal narrative. The causal narrative emphasizes motivations of historical figures' behavior and implies the inevitable links between human behavior and its consequences in events. This method of writing makes three significant achievements. First, it explains happenings as the outcome of one's behavior instead of the mysterious prophecies of religion. Second, it sets the judgment of good and evil in history on account of human behavior. Third, it avoids biased or abstract arguments by comprehensive collations of the causalities of one's behavior. The mode of writing brings forth a world of ethics in "Zuozhuan", in which behavior of virtue becomes the evidence to justify human success. This study takes war narratives in "Zuozhuan" as research examples and examines historical figures' behavior in terms of the operation of causality. The cases manifests that immoral behavior results in war and defeat while self-cultivation leads to victory and peace. Clearly, Zuozhuan's war narratives imply the significance of moral causalities. The art of war narratives in "Zuozhuan" evidently lies in the emphasis on morality as the crucial factor in history.


Broad-band tunability of erbium-doped silica fiber ring lasers in the 1.48-1.62 /spl mu/m wavelength band is demonstrated through modeling and experiment. Tunability over the erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) C- and L-bands is achieved with a simple laser design using a single gain medium working in deep saturation. A comprehensive numerical model based on an iterative solution of propagation rate equations and spectrally resolved Giles parameters was used to analyze the impact of various laser variables. The dependence of laser output power on total cavity loss, erbium-doped fiber length, pump power, and lasing wavelength has been investigated. The calculated laser characteristics have been found in good quantitative agreement with the experimentally obtained data. Experimental results concerning wavelength tunability, output power, and lasing wavelength repeatability/stability and spectral purity are also presented.


We present an analytical approach for the calculation of direct source-to-drain tunneling (DSDT) probability of electrons in gate-all-around (GAA) silicon nanosheet (SiNS) MOSFETs. The used method is based on the wavelet transform and leads to a quasi-compact model (QCM) for the DSDT current of ultrashort-channel devices. Among them, we introduce a four-piece parabolic approximation method for the conduction band edge and present analytical expressions for the tunneling distances of electrons with different energy levels. The development of a QCM is achieved by limiting the number of interpolation points for the tunneling current density to seven specific electron energies, distributed around the energy level that makes the largest contribution to the tunneling current. A further simplification is achieved by the Gaussian approximation of the tunneling current density in transverse direction so that only the center and surface potentials (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\Phi _ {\text {C}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\Phi _ {\text {S}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) at the barrier are of interest for the modeling. For comparison, all those approximations are also implemented in the Wentzel–Kramer–Brillouin (WKB) approximation. Furthermore, the approach is verified by nonequilibrium Green's function (NEGF) simulation.


Anuran mating choruses may consist of hundreds of sympatric and conspecific males calling in addition to other biotic and abiotic noise, representing a complex auditory scene whose characteristics change with distance. Detecting and localizing individual males in the chorus poses a challenge to the female, especially at long ranges. We carried out a series of recordings and behavioral experiments that are aimed at determining the distance at which female treefrogs (Hyla versicolor) use the chorus as an acoustic cue for their orienting responses. We analyzed natural choruses recorded at distances of 1–100 m and used these to create stimuli for phonotaxis experiments evaluating how the chorus attracts and provides cues for localization by females. In addition, we performed phonotaxis tests in the field near natural choruses to compare the frog's behavior under laboratory and field conditions. We found that females utilize acoustic cues for orientation toward choruses at a distance up to 50 m, but additional...


Ktistakis discusses work from Melia and colleagues that implicates ER localized ATG2 in the supply of lipids to forming autophagosomes.


Hematopoietic system is maintained by the differentiation and proliferation of hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs) and their commitment to the mature blood cells should be tightly controlled by gene regulatory networks (GRNs) governed by transcription factors (TFs). To keep the homeostasis, GRNs should respond to the environmental changes, such as infection. However, the precise mechanism of such a system remains to be elucidated. TFs Bach1 and Bach2 belong to the basic region-leucine zipper family and recognize Maf-recognition elements containing AP-1 site (Oyake et al., 1996). We have previously shown that Bach1 -/- Bach2 -/- (DKO; double knockout) mice show erythropoiesis disorders with increased myelopoiesis from common myeloid progenitors (CMPs), which is an erythro-myeloid bifurcation point (ASH2015; Abstract ID# 81562) (Akashi et al., 2000). Since this phenotype is similar to that of LPS treated mice (O9Connell et al., 2008), we hypothesized that Bach factors work as sensors for infection. First, to evaluate the cell-intrinsic function of Bach factors, WT or DKO bone marrow cells were depleted of mature differentiated cells and transplanted to lethally irradiated WT mice. After 8 weeks, DKO donor cells showed greater myelopoiesis and lesser lymphogenesis compared to WT, suggesting Bach factors are necessary to suppress myelopoiesis to the appropriate level in regenerating hematopoiesis. To reveals the function of Bach factors in HSPCs from other aspect, LSKs (Lin - Sca1 + c-kit + ) were infected with retroviruses expressing Bach1-IRES-eGFP or Bach2-IRES-eGFP and transplanted to lethally irradiated WT mice. Cells derived from transgene induced LSKs were monitored by GFP fluorescence. After 2 weeks, Bach1 overexpressing LSKs did not show any difference in erythropoiesis and myelopoiesis. This might be explained by the high Bach1 expression levels in HSPCs according to the previous report (Lara-Astiaso et al., 2014). On the other hand, Bach2 overexpressing LSKs showed increased erythropoiesis and decreased myelopoiesis, suggesting that Bach2 regulates the erythro-myeloid lineage specification as expected by the observations of DKO mice. To assess the function of Bach factors under infection, we used M1 murine myeloid leukemia cells that differentiate to macrophage-like cells by LPS stimulation. LPS stimulation reduced expressions of Bach1 , Bach2 and erythroid gene Gata1 , and induced those of myeloid genes such as Cebpb and Csf1r in a dose-dependent manner. To determine if down-regulation of Bach factors is necessary for myeloid differentiation, Bach1 or Bach2 were transgenically overexpressed in M1 cells. Both of the M1 cells overexpressing Bach1 or Bach2 showed lower expression levels of myeloid marker CD11b compared to control under LPS stimulation. Thus, reductions of the expression of Bach factors in response to LPS were necessary for appropriate myeloid differentiation. To identify the direct target genes of Bach factors, Bach1 or Bach2 ChIP-seq data of M1 cells (Ebina-Shibuya et al., 2016) were merged with results of expression profile of WT and DKO CMPs. Several myeloid or inflammatory genes such as Cebpb , Fcgr1 and Tlr4 were identified as putative repressed target genes and several erythroid or lymphoid genes such as Klf1 , Rag1 and Rag2 were identified as putative activated target genes. In addition, when Bach1 or Bach2 ChIP-seq data were merged by that of C/EBPb, which also possesses AP-1 site as its target motif, obtained from ENCODE database (ENCSR000AIB), we found that there were several co-localized regions of Bach and C/EBPb near the myeloid genes such as Cebpa , Il6 and Fcgr1 . These observations suggest that Bach factors repress myeloid genes by competitively working with C/EBPb at same genomic regions. This is particularly interesting in the light of the latest findings showing the Bach2 function on AP-1 site in lymphoid cells (Sidwell et al., 2016). These results reveal a novel mechanism by which how the differentiation of erythro-myeloid bifurcation is controlled by responding to environmental changes. Bach factors regulate erythro-myeloid competitive differentiation by promoting and repressing erythroid and myeloid differentiation, respectively. We suggest that infection promote myelopoiesis at the expense of erythropoiesis by reducing the expression of Bach factors. Therefore, Bach factors may function as sensors for environmental changes. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


PEEVIOUS REPORTS on the urinary recovery of estrogen administered to the rat are contradictory. Zondek (1934) obtained in 72 hours only 0.6‰ of the activity of estrone administered orally or parenterally to adult female rats in doses of 2000 and 5000 i.u. After injecting similar quantities of estrone Dingemanse and Laqueur (1937) obtained urinary recoveries up to 2‰ with slightly larger amounts in the feces. Dorfman (1937), on the other hand, has reported estrogenicactivity in the urine of injected immature rats equal to 10‰ of the injected estrone. Evidence that rat livers, when perfused in vitro with estrogen, are quite potent in effecting estrogen conversion (1943) led us to re-examine the question of the urinary excretion of exogenous estrogen in normal animals and in animals lacking considerable amounts of liver tissue. In order to obviate any possible effect of endogenous ovarian activity we employed adult male rats (of the Sherman strain.