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4,507,700 | Estramustine versus conventional estrogenic hormones in the initial treatment of highly or moderately differentiated prostatic carcinoma. A randomized study. In a prospective randomized multicenter trial patients with highly or moderately differentiated prostatic carcinoma, previously untreated, were allotted either to oral Estramustine phosphate or to intramuscular polyestradiol phosphate plus oral ethinyl estradiol. As regards frequency and duration of tumour remission there was no statistical difference between the two groups. Nor did they differ significantly with respect to adverse reactions. This is an interim report and will be followed later on by a final evaluation. | 44277101 |
4,507,701 | Qualitative and Quantitative Ethnobotanical Survey in Al Baha Province, Southwestern Saudi Arabia The documentation of ethnobotanical knowledge is useful for biocultural conservation, preserving the diversity of plants, and drug development. The present study was carried out to compile and document the knowledge and uses of plants in Al Baha Province, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). A total of 81 knowledgeable informants of different sexes, ages, and status levels were randomly selected and interviewed. The majority of the informants (63%) were > 60 years old. The collected data were qualitatively and quantitatively described using different quantitative indices [family importance value (FIV), use value (UV), and informant consensus factor (ICF)]. The fidelity level (FL), rank order priority (ROP), and relative popularity level (RPL) were determined for the plants (42 species) mentioned by at least three informants. A total of 97 plants belonging to 91 genera and 44 families were reported. The most commonly used parts were fruits (30.7%) and leaves (25.4%), whereas the most frequently used modes of preparation were maceration (24.7%) and direct application (23.3%). Most of the cited plants (49.5%) were traditionally used for gastrointestinal tract (GIT) disorders, whereas a few plants (6.2%) were used for the treatment of reproductive disorders. The most ethnobotanically important families were Lamiaceae (FIV = 0.35) and Apiaceae (FIV = 0.33). The highest UV was represented by Zingiber officinale (0.086) followed by Commiphora myrrha and Trigonella foenum-graecum (0.074). The level of agreement among the interviewees was remarkably high (ICF = 0.65–0.93) for plants that had the ability to cure infectious diseases. | 252965851 |
4,507,702 | A low level of agreement (ICF = 0.33–0.48) was observed among the informants towards plants that were used to treat gastrointestinal tract, reproductive, hematological, and central nervous system disorders. There was a total and absolute disagreement (ICF = 0) among the informants regarding the plants that were used to treat renal, endocrine system, oncological/immunological, rheumatic, orthopedic, ear, nose, and throat (ENT), and inflammatory disorders. Six of the plants which were cited by three informants or more had a high healing efficacy (FL = 100) and forty species attained ROP values of 50 or above. Out of the 42 plants, 20 species were grouped as popular (RPL = 1), and the remaining plants (22 species) were unpopular (RPL < 1). Curcuma longa, which showed the highest ROP value (100), was used to enhance immunity. In conclusion, various plant species in Al Baha province were used by the local communities for the treatment of different health problems. The documentation of these plants could serve as a basis for further scientific research and conservation studies. | 252965851 |
4,507,703 | Interactions Between Electrical Activity and Cortical Microcirculation Revealed by Imaging Spectroscopy: Implications for Functional Brain Mapping Modern neuroimaging techniques use signals originating from microcirculation to map brain function. In this study, activity-dependent changes in oxyhemoglobin, deoxyhemoglobin, and light scattering were characterized by an imaging spectroscopy approach that offers high spatial, temporal, and spectral resolution. Sensory stimulation of cortical columns initiates tissue hypoxia and vascular responses that occur within the first 3 seconds and are highly localized to individual cortical columns. However, the later phase of the vascular response is less localized, spreading over distances of 3 to 5 millimeters. | 1642421 |
4,507,704 | Distilling Information from a Flood: A Possibility for the Use of Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review in Machine Learning Research The current flood of information in all areas of machine learning research, from computer vision to reinforcement learning, has made it difficult to make aggregate scientific inferences. It can be challenging to distill a myriad of similar papers into a set of useful principles, to determine which new methodologies to use for a particular application, and to be confident that one has compared against all relevant related work when developing new ideas. However, such a rapidly growing body of research literature is a problem that other fields have already faced - in particular, medicine and epidemiology. In those fields, systematic reviews and meta-analyses have been used exactly for dealing with these issues and it is not uncommon for entire journals to be dedicated to such analyses. Here, we suggest the field of machine learning might similarly benefit from meta-analysis and systematic review, and we encourage further discussion and development along this direction. | 54446221 |
4,507,705 | Using Fuzzy Diagnoses for Risk Adjustment Risk adjusted capitation payments attempt to pay health plans fairly for their enrollees and eliminate the incentive for health plans to attract only profitable enrollees. Diagnoses are widely used for risk adjustment, and recent theoretical papers have derived Optimal Risk Adjustment formulas that focus on plan-level rather than individual level prediction. This paper examines the selection incentives of imperfect risk adjustment when plans differ in how diagnoses are reported, so that diagnoses are uneven signals of health status. A new optimal risk adjustment formula is developed that corrects for “fuzzy” diagnoses, and shown to be similar to the formula derived by Glazer and McGuire in being relatively robust to large amounts of signal noise. Dedication: I would like to dedicate this paper to my colleague and friend Robert W Rosenthal, who died unexpectedly and will be greatly missed. I would like to thank Ana Lorena Prieto and seminar participants at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology for helpful comments on the paper. Research support for this paper is provided by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality grant number R01-HS10620-01A. | 18194321 |
4,507,706 | [Recirculation syndrome in hemodialysis patients]. OBJECTIVE To study the causes of recirculation syndrome and optimize surgical correction. MATERIAL AND METHODS There were 2329 procedures of formation and restoration of permanent vascular access in 2109 patients for the period from 1998 to 2018. Recirculation syndrome occurred in 66 (3.1%) patients. Instrumental diagnosis of the causes of recirculation syndrome included Doppler ultrasound of permanent vascular access (100%) and angiography in accordance with indications. All patients were divided into 4 groups. The first group included 39 (59.1%) patients with native arteriovenous fistula. The second group included 12 (18.2%) patients with high arteriovenous fistula (between the brachial artery and the cephalic vein). The third group included 10 (15.1%) patients with major vein transposition. Synthetic prosthesis to create an arteriovenous fistula was used in the fourth group (n=5, 7.6%). RESULTS In the first group, recirculation syndrome was caused by the presence of a large branch in close proximity to the arteriovenous anastomosis, its combination with significant stenosis of the anastomosis, hypoplasia of the outflow pathways of the fistulous vein. In the second group, the reasons were subclavian vein stenosis and dilated tributaries of the saphenous veins. In the third group, the main cause of recirculation syndrome was major vein stenosis in the upper third of the shoulder. In the fourth group, recirculation syndrome was caused by stenosis of the prosthetic-venous anastomosis. CONCLUSION Recirculation syndrome in hemodialysis patients is usually caused by malfunction of permanent vascular access. Ultrasound or angiography may be successfully used to diagnose dysfunction. Effective treatment of this problem | 207954721 |
4,507,707 | implies surgical or endovascular correction of permanent vascular access. | 207954721 |
4,507,708 | ARTISTIC HERITAGE: FROM KNOWLEDGE TO VALORISATION Commission "Archaeology & Conservation 2/3" ABSTRACT: After stressing the importance of knowledge and listing the different phases regarding the preservation and valorisation of artistic heritage, the authors have analysed the inherent problems of preserving the integrity and identity of a particular object of cultural heritage, also from a legislative point of view (from national law n. 1089 of 1939 to the recent New Code for Cultural Heritage and Environment of 2004). | 14165921 |
4,507,709 | Precipitation and Dissolution Kinetics of GP Zones and Metastable Phase in Al-3wt.%Cu Alloy The kinetic parameters such as activation energy E and the growth morphology parameters n and m were determined by a non-isothermal method. The microstructure variations of the precipitation and dissolution of GP zone and metastable phase θ′ in Al-3wt.% Cu were analyzed by optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The kinetics of GP zone and metastable phase θ′ in Al-3wt.% Cu was investigated using differential thermal analysis between room temperature and 430 ◦C at heating rates of 20, 25 and 30 ◦Cmin−1. The activation energies of GP zone precipitation, formation of θ′/θ and dissolution of θ′ were 26, 105 and 77 kJmol−1, respectively. The growth morphology parameters n (Avrami parameter which indicates the crystallization mode) and m (a numerical factor which depends on the dimensionality of crystal growth) are both about 1.5. | 105107471 |
4,507,710 | The Multidimensional Wisdom of Crowds Distributing labeling tasks among hundreds or thousands of annotators is an increasingly important method for annotating large datasets. We present a method for estimating the underlying value (e.g. the class) of each image from (noisy) annotations provided by multiple annotators. Our method is based on a model of the image formation and annotation process. Each image has different characteristics that are represented in an abstract Euclidean space. Each annotator is modeled as a multidimensional entity with variables representing competence, expertise and bias. This allows the model to discover and represent groups of annotators that have different sets of skills and knowledge, as well as groups of images that differ qualitatively. We find that our model predicts ground truth labels on both synthetic and real data more accurately than state of the art methods. Experiments also show that our model, starting from a set of binary labels, may discover rich information, such as different "schools of thought" amongst the annotators, and can group together images belonging to separate categories. | 16484321 |
4,507,711 | Restoring the Promise of Brown: Using State Constitutional Law to Challenge School Segregation Despite over six decades of litigation, both state and federal court strategies have largely failed to address inequalities and segregation in America’s schools. More than sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education, our schools are still deeply unequal, and school segregation has generally been increasing over the past several decades. In both academic and social outcomes, students in these segregated schools lag far behind their peers. This article examines the viability of using state constitutional law to address school segregation. For more than forty years, state courts have played a major role and have had varied success in addressing issues of educational inequality under school finance and educational adequacy theories. A handful of cases have used state constitutional law to challenge school segregation, including a brand new case, Cruz-Guzman v. State of Minnesota, which restarts the discussion on how best to restore the original promise of Brown.Federal courts long ago departed sharply from the initial promise of the Brown decision and have spent the last few decades undermining desegregation. While hailed as one of the Supreme Court’s greatest accomplishments, the iconic Brown decision has been largely dismantled. Yet the goals of Brown remain a priority. This article discusses how state constitutional claims can bring new life to the promise of Brown and address school segregation. Educational adequacy cases targeting school segregation in some respects are a combination of the best of federal and state courts. Such potential cases represent the next logical | 157337321 |
4,507,712 | step in addressing inequality in our schools, combining the many advantages of state court litigation with the original promise of Brown. | 157337321 |
4,507,713 | Management of Pulmonary Hydatid Cyst With Pleural Complications: A Case Series Introduction: The aim of this observational, retrospective study was to review and describe clinical presentations and management of patients with pulmonary hydatid cysts (PHC) and pleural complications. Methods: Complete case records from the previous 2 years were reviewed, including operative steps and follow-up of patients with PHC and pleural complications. Only four cases that presented with pleural complications were found out of 14 cases of surgically managed PHC. Results: The most common symptoms in all patients were chest pain and fever. In all cases, the lower lobes of the lung were involved. Lung resection surgery was not required in any case. There was no postoperative respiratory failure or immediate or late mortality in any of these patients. The mean follow-up was 10 months for all these cases, with no pulmonary recurrence or complications. Conclusion: Pulmonary parenchymal sparing surgical interventions are deemed to be the safest curative treatment for complicated PHC. Spontaneous pyopneumothorax can also be caused by complicated PHC. | 233950571 |
4,507,714 | Textural Filtering For SAR Image Processing Texture is an important feature which can be used in the interpretation of remotely sensed imagery. This paper presents exam- ples of the application of a new approach to the textural filtering and enhancing of digital images. Satisfactory results are obtained in pro- cessing images from both natural textures and airborne SAR scenes. Textural filtering of SAR images can be useful in improving the dis- crimination between lithologic units with different surface-roughness characteristics. One application example is discussed in which textural features show different discrimination performances before and after textural filtering. I. INTRODUCTION A digital image is usually characterized by two main aspects: Tone and texture. The image tone consists of background grey- level variations of the pixels throughout the entire image. The im- age texture represents the intrinsic spatial variability of neighbor- ing pixel values for each pixel within the image. It follows that methods of image analysis can be broadly divided into two cate- gories: The spectral one and the textural one. In spectral analysis the interest is in studying broad variations of the grey levels of the pixels (image tone) in mono-, or multispectral bands. The aim of textural analysis is to characterize spatially the grey-level relation- ships between the pixels of a neighborhood. Tone and texture are usually not independent in an image, so that when processing it we observe that one influences the other. The image tone characteris- tics can be separated from the texture, and these two features can be processed independently. This situation | 62232371 |
4,507,715 | promises to be very use- ful in enhancing the texture perception on the one hand, and in improving the result of conventional texture analysis on the other. Digital filtering techniques are widely used in image processing and interpretation ( 11-(3). Based on the traditional concept of Fourier analysis, the three basic classical filters are the low-pass, the high-pass, and the band-pass. They are widely used in remote sensing for noise suppression, edge detection, smoothing, and en- hancement. However, these filters are unable to separate the tone and texture because in an image the two features affect each other. A new method of texture analysis has been recently proposed by He and Wang (4), (5), where a texture image can be described by the characteristics of its texture spectrum. The purpose of this pa- per is to design a textural filter in the texture spectrum domain to remove the regional intensity background variation, termed the tex- tural noise. The performance of the new textural filter on several of Brodatz's natural images (8) is discussed. In airborne SAR terms, the new filter has been shown to enhance the textural perception and improve the discrimination between different rock units. | 62232371 |
4,507,716 | Numerical Simulation of GMAW Process from the Heat Source to the Weld Pool Formation Gas metal arc welding (GMAW) process is an indispensable technology in various industrial fields. The phenomena during the welding process such as the temperature history of the base metal strongly affect to the properties and performance of the weld joint. It is very important to predict and control the phenomena in the process, however, the phenomena is very complicated and not completely understood. In this study, numerical models of the heat source and the weld pool formation in GMAW process are constructed to visualize the phenomena and predict the welding results of the GMAW process. The heat source model includes the arc plasma and metal transfer phenomena. The temperature, velocity, pressure, and electromagnetic field in the arc plasma and the molten metal are calculated. Influence of the metal vapor from the surface of high-temperature metal is also considered. Input parameters of the heat source model are the welding condition such as the current and the shielding gas used in the experiment. The properties of the heat source such as the heat input distribution, arc pressure distribution and the temperature of the droplet are calculated by the heat source model. These properties are input to the weld pool model. The weld pool model calculates the flow and temperature fields in the weld pool and can predict the penetration shape and the temperature history in the weld joint. These models are applied to pulsed-MAG welding process, the numerical result of the penetration shape shows | 139853321 |
4,507,717 | good agreement with experimental results. | 139853321 |
4,507,718 | A Clinico-Pathological Correlation of Childhood Primary Nephrotic Syndrome in Jakarta Three hundred and sixty-four out of 547 children with primary nephrotic syndrome (PNS) treated at the Department of Child Health, Medical School, University of Indonesia between January 1970 and December 1979, were biopsied. The clinical, laboratory, and pathological characteristics of these patients were evaluated and compared with those reported by the International Study of Kidney Disease in Children (ISKOC, 1978) comprising children of Western countries with PNS. Results of this study showed that the spectrum of the histopathological changes in the 2 study populations was slightly different. Clinical and laboratory characteristics of certain types of PNS also showed some differences compared with those of ISKDC report. Patients with non-minimal changes nephrotic syndrome (NMCNS) were more frequently found in this study, and they were older than those of ISKDC report, i.e., more children < 6 years of age were affected with this disease in Jakarta. Similarly, this study showed that patients with minimal changes nephrotic syndrome (MCNS) were older than those of ISKDC report; the peak age of Western patients was less than 6 years. Patients with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) and membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis (MPGN) reported by ISKDC were more severe than those of this study as far as clinical and laboratory characteristics were concerned. The causes of these clinical and histopathological discrepancies between the two studies need to be further elucidated. | 86612871 |
4,507,719 | Prognosis, diagnosis, or who knows? Time to learn what gene tests mean. THE MUCH-HERALDED genetics revolution in medicine, though still largely limited to academe, is lurching relentlessly toward the primary care physician's door. Tests for genes associated with common disorders like colon cancer and atherosclerosis are already on the market. Tests for genes linked to breast cancer, obesity, and a host of others are sure to follow. A directory being compiled at Children's Hospital in Seattle, Wash, called Helix (soon to be on the Internet and available now by calling [206] 528-2689) shows that 192 laboratories are now testing for genes proved or suspected to be associated with 256 different diseases, says Roberta (Bonnie) Pagon, MD, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Yet most observers say that few physicians, let alone lay citizens, are ready for all the ramifications of a science that has gone way beyond the simplicity of Gregor Mendel's sweet pea experiments. "There | 12133321 |
4,507,720 | Neuronal contact predicts connectivity in the C. elegans brain Axons must project to particular brain regions, contact adjacent neurons, and choose appropriate synaptic targets to form a nervous system. Multiple mechanisms have been proposed to explain synaptic partnership choice. In a ‘lock-and-key’ mechanism, first proposed by Sperry’s chemoaffinity model1, a neuron selectively chooses a synaptic partner among several different, adjacent target cells, based on a specific molecular recognition code2. Alternatively, Peters’ rule posits that neurons indiscriminately form connections with other neuron types in their proximity; hence, neighborhood choice, dictated by initial neuronal process outgrowth and position, is the sole predictor of connectivity3,4. However, whether Peters’ rule plays an important role in synaptic wiring remains unresolved5. To assess the nanoscale relationship between neuronal adjacency and connectivity, we evaluate the expansive set of C. elegans connectomes. We find that synaptic connectivity can be accurately modeled as a path-length-dependent process of neuronal adjacency and brain strata, offering strong support for Peters’ rule as an organizational principle of C. elegans brain wiring. | 253524871 |
4,507,721 | Physiographic and entomologic risk factors of malaria in Assam, India. Fever surveys were conducted in several districts of the Indian state of Assam to ascertain the prevalence of malaria in relation to vector abundance, entomologic inoculation rates (EIRs), and geographic location of human settlements. Anopheles minimus were incriminated, but their relative abundance and biting rates varied among districts, and no significant correlation was observed between these two indicators (r = 0.43, P = 0.34). Plasmodium falciparum was the predominant parasite species except in two districts where P. vivax was the majority parasite. The EIRs per person/night were 0.46-0.71 in P. falciparum-predominant areas and 0.12 in the district where P. vivax predominated. The correlation of percentage of fever cases positive for malaria infection in each district with the corresponding EIR was not significant (r = 0.6, P = 0.21). Malaria cases were detected in all months of the year but peaked during May-June, which corresponded to the months of heavy rainfall. These were also the months with highest incidence of infection with P. falciparum. Malaria cases were observed in all age groups of both sexes, and there was clustering of cases in villages near the vector-breeding habitat (perennial seepage streams), and foothill villages. However, malaria incidences were consistently lower in villages within 5 km of the nearest health care facility, which were in town areas. The data presented are indicative of low-to-moderate levels of malaria transmission by An. minimus, and would be of value for developing future intervention strategies. | 36451921 |
4,507,722 | Block grants and the resurgence of federalism. In an address, this past summer, to the National Convention of State Legislatures, President Reagan captured to essence of the block grant proposal in a sentence. "Our task," the President said, "is to restore the constitutional symmetry between the Central Government and the States and to re-establish the freedom and variety of federalism." Consolidating the current profusion of complex and often overlapping Federal health grants into four State-administered packages will greatly reduce administrative costs and allow us to make wise use of scarce health dollars in a time of economic trial. At the same time, these changes will give States the managerial and policy flexibility that they need, but have lacked, to respond to their own most pressing needs. Of perhaps most importance in the long run, this system of grants will return a just portion of responsibility for the preservation and improvement of our health care system to the States, their communities, and the people. It is precisely this kind of equilibrium, this symmetry, that the President had in mind and that, for too many years, the Federal-State-Private partnership in health has been without. The restoration of this equilibrium, it should be noted by all, is underway. | 36964871 |
4,507,723 | Bioeffects elicited by acoustic cavitation Ultrasound has been developed as both a diagnostic tool and a potent promoter of beneficial bioeffects for the treatment of cardiovascular disease and cancer. Ultrasound exposure can induce the release, delivery and enhanced efficacy of lytics, antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs or bioactive gases from echogenic liposomes. Other carriers for cancer therapeutics and small interfering ribonucleic acid (siRNA) and genes have also been developed. By encapsulating drugs and bubbles into micron-sized and nano-sized lipid-shelled particles, the therapeutic can be shielded from degradation within the vasculature until delivery is triggered by ultrasound exposure. The endothelial barrier between the bloodstream and vascular tissue presents a significant challenge to drug delivery. Most research on drug delivery from the blood vessel lumen into the tissue bed has been focused on blood-brain barrier disruption. Microbubbles oscillate when exposed to ultrasound and create stresses directly on nearby tissue or induce fluid effects that effect drug penetration into vascular tissue, lyse thrombi or direct drugs to optimal locations for delivery. Insonification accelerates clot breakdown in combination with a lytic and an ultrasound contrast agent, which nucleates sustained bubble activity. Mechanisms for ultrasound enhancement of clot dissolution, bactericide, and drug delivery, with a special emphasis on acoustic cavitation, radiation force and biological responses, will be reviewed. | 209918021 |
4,507,724 | AGE-RELATED CHARACTERISTICS OF COVID-19 COURSES IN INPATIENS OF EMDICAL SETTINGS IN POLTAVA REGION The investigation of factors that may affect the severity of coronavirus infection and mortality has been one of the main areas of medical research. At the present stage, among the possible risk factors of severe COVID-19 course there is the influence of age as a predictor of disease progression in inpatient. Objective: to determine the clinical and laboratory characteristics of the course of coronavirus disease COVID-19 depending on the age of hospitalized patients in Poltava region. Materials and methods: a retrospective cohort follow-up study was conducted involving 150 patients with a laboratory-confirmed diagnosis of "Acute respiratory disease COVID-19" at the Poltava Regional Clinical Infectious Diseases Hospital. Patients were divided into 2 age groups: 60 to 95 years and 18 to 59 years Statistical processing was carried out using SPSS Statistics 25.0 software. Results and conclusions: the study has found that the clinical and laboratory characteristics of the course of coronavirus disease COVID-19 are typical except for some features: hospitalized patients over 60 years were significantly more likely to have severe (p = 0.037) and critical (p = 0.063) course of the disease, require oxygen support (p = 0.001), in particular using low oxygen flows (p = 0.027). Leukocytosis was diagnosed 3.4 times more often in patients older than 60 years (p = 0.032), while leukopenia (p = 0.022) and thrombocytopenia were 2.2 times more often in people younger than 60 years. 0.0041). Severe disease was significantly more common in hospitalized women under 60 | 248317721 |
4,507,725 | years of age than in men of the same age (p = 0.046). | 248317721 |
4,507,726 | Conceptual Knowledge Management: The Case of Biomedical Information Ontologies are commonly used resources: we are witnessing to the constant grow, in number and heterogeneity, of communities working with large volumes of data. Researchers, practitioners, developers and end users deal with a huge amount of data from different perspective, topics, cultures, languages. For people involved in governing both data and processes this remains a difficult task. End users and practitioners are usually interested in merging, data generated from connected objects in customizable ways. Even if a lot of algorithms and tools have been created to achieve such goal in a full automatic manner, human contribution is nonetheless still important. On the way to reach the aforementioned results, researchers concentrated their effort in making easier both representation and visualization of data, thus simplifying user interaction with the system. The main aspect to deal with is how to represent an ontology alignment providing a good overview of the alignment and whatever is recognized to be an important detail for the user, both at the same time. Indeed, the overall view makes easier for the users to be aware of the level of interconnection between ontologies, while details allow them to evaluate the alignments and, possibly, give feedback on each of them. These two levels of information’s combined requirements suggests that a static visualization of the alignment is not effective. To enhance human involvement and judgment, interactivity becomes a key issue. These tasks become much more complex when considering very large ontologies like biomedical ones. We have developed a framework | 45201721 |
4,507,727 | for supporting easy ontology matching processes (GENOMA) that provides a user friendly graphical interface (OntoChord) to visualize structured information and reason over them. Framework’s technical details will be outlined. Furthermore, examples of user sessions and testing evaluations over biomedical ontologies will be considered. | 45201721 |
4,507,728 | Blood pressure monitoring in hemiplegic patients. We are frequently asked which arm should be used to measure blood pressure in patients with hemiplegia. We have observed that blood pressure measurements from the hemiplegic arms of poststroke patients do not correlate well with measurements from the nonhemiplegic arm. The following two cases illustrate that finding. Patient 1 is a 69-yr-old male who suffered a stroke 2 yr prior to sustaining a femoral neck fracture. Residuals from the stroke included mild dementia and right hemiparesis with spasticity. The blood pressure in the hemiparetic arm was 114/68 mm Hg, whereas the blood pressure in the nonparetic arm was 157/73 mm Hg. The radial pulse was also weaker in the paretic arm than the nonparetic arm. Patient 2 is a 75-yr-old male who presented for colon resection. He had suffered a stroke with residual right hemiparesis 2 yr prior to the current surgery. Blood pressure was 100/60 mm Hg in the paretic arm and 150/74 mm Hg in the nonparetic arm. Yagi et al. (1) measured blood pressure, both noninvasively and invasively, in 47 patients after stroke. They found that blood pressure was significantly higher in the paretic arm than in the nonparetic arm. Panayiotou et al. (2) measured blood pressure in 15 patients with acute hemiparesis and flaccidity and found the systolic and diastolic blood pressures to be higher in the paretic arm in 8 of 15 patients and lower in 7 of the 15 patients. Dewar et al. (3) measured blood pressure in 103 hemiplegic patients and found | 30293271 |
4,507,729 | blood pressure in the paretic arm to be higher if it was spastic and lower if it was flaccid. They concluded that muscle tone influences extremity blood pressure. A number of investigators, including Broe and Ofner (4), have described vasomotor changes affecting the upper extremities in patients after a stroke. These changes may affect the paretic arm, the nonparetic arm, or both. We measured blood pressure in 14 patients with hemiplegia. Nine patients had spasticity on the affected side and five had flaccidity. All five of the patients with flaccid arms had lower blood pressure in the flaccid arm compared with the normal arm. Five of the nine patients with spasticity had higher blood pressure in the paretic arm, four had lower blood pressure in the paretic arm, and one patient had equal blood pressures. Two patients in whom we invasively measured blood pressure in the paretic arm demonstrated blood pressure that was not different from the blood pressure measured noninvasively in the unaffected arm. A large number of chronic changes such as clubbing, retardation of nail growth, edema, osteoporosis, fractures, arthritis, shoulder dislocation, frozen shoulder, periarticular calcification, muscle wasting, temperature differences, and deep vein thrombosis can occur in paretic extremities after a stroke. Interestingly, some pathologic changes such as rheumatoid arthritis and gouty tophi do not affect paretic limbs after a stroke (5). Because of the large and inconsistent differences in blood pressure in the arms of patients with hemiparesis, we suggest that measuring blood pressure in the nonparetic arm of poststroke patients will provide | 30293271 |
4,507,730 | a more reliable monitor of blood pressure during anesthesia. | 30293271 |
4,507,731 | Interstate Water Allocation in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia: New Issues, New Methods, New Models (review) ply because there are no sources—to give the reader a sense of the man as a human being, a sense of his interior life. Young seems to have had many friends but few intimates; even his family letters are not deeply personal. Holland tells Young’s story in clear if pedestrian prose, but the complexity of that story and that lack of a sense of Young’s inner life make it unlikely that the book would be a very gripping read for the non-specialist. Still, for the student of black educational history, this is an enlightening account of an interesting and genuinely heroic life. | 177058871 |
4,507,732 | Development and application of an instrument for the measurement of directional emittance of blackbody cavities. A measurement technique for determining the directional spectral emittance of blackbody cavities was developed and subsequently applied to several specific cavity geometries. The emittance was deduced from cavity reflectance measurements performed with a laser energy source (10.6 micro) and an integrating hemi-ellipsoid. It was demonstrated that this technique is capable of providing highly precise emittance values with a resolution of five significant figures for high emittance cavities. The emittances of four specific cavity configurations were measured. One of these, an elongated off-axis cone with an entrance lip, gave emittances greater than 0.99999 when coated with nominally specularly reflecting or nominally diffusely reflecting black paints. The emittances of this cavity were on the order of 0.95 in the absence of a coating, the actual emittances of the cavity surfaces being approximately 0.05. Three other cavities with length-to-diameter ratios of three were also studied. These include a cylinder, cone, and off-axis cone having internal surfaces which were coated with black paints. Although the measured emittances were not so high as those for the 12.45-L/D off-axis cone, the level of blackness that was determined is sufficient for most engineering applications. | 22410371 |
4,507,733 | Well-Ordered Nanoporous Copper Fabricated by Dealloying Cu-Mn and its Characterizations A nanoporous copper (NPC) sample with well-ordered porosity of 20 nm was fabricated by an electrochemical dealloying single-phase Cu0.4Mn0.6 with an external potential of-0.5 V (MSE). The electrochemical mechanism of the dealloying process on the Cu-Mn surface was studied by a liner sweep voltammetry experiment, and an optimized applied voltage for the Cu-Mn system was recommended. The properties of the monolithic NPC, including morphology, chemical composition, surface area and wettability were systematically characterized. The specific surface area around 11.86 m2/g of the as-dealloyed NPC was measured by BET-nitrogen method. The micro/nanoscale bi-continuous 3D porous structures of NPC not only increase the surface area, but also improve the wettability of NPC surface since the increase in surface roughness. | 100095371 |
4,507,734 | Using a hydro-reference ontology to provide improved computer-interpretable semantics for the groundwater markup language (GWML2) ABSTRACT Comprehensive water data management requires semantically integrating various data models and ontologies that represent hydrologic knowledge. But integration is hampered by nuances in the use of water-related vocabulary (e.g. terms such as water body, aquifer, reservoir, well, etc.) across water representations and by the reliance on a mix of formal and informal specifications of how these terms are interpreted in each representation. Reconciliation of only partially formal encodings of the semantics of water representations requires manual inspection using tools from ontological analysis. This paper investigates as to what extent a domain reference ontology that is fully formalized in first-order logic can guide the ontological analysis. In particular, it is studied as to what extent the Hydro Foundational Ontology (HyFO), which encodes the semantics of a small set of unifying water concepts and associated relations in first-order logic, can serve as a reference ontology for the water domain to steer the ontological analysis of individual water representations, and to formalize their semantics more fully. This is specifically tested on the Groundwater Markup Language (GWML2). The result is GWML2-FOL, a concise logical description of GWML2’s key terms as a logical extension of HyFO. GWML2-FOL is structured into three layers of terms (mostly classes) of increasing specificity. The top layer consists of terms shareable across the earth and physical sciences, an intermediate layer includes HyFO’s hydro terms that span surface and subsurface water storage, and the bottom layer encapsulates groundwater specific GWML2 terms. | 14058721 |
4,507,735 | The analysis and stratification uncover semantic ambiguities in GWML2 and suggest terminological and semantic clarifications and modifications in preparation for integrating GWML2 with other semantic water representations. The analysis also identifies two necessary additions to the HyFO: the concept of a hydro rock body as a hybrid of water and solid matter, which generalizes key groundwater terms such as aquifers or wells, and the concept of dependent hydrologic features such as springs, water tables, or divides. More broadly, differences between domain ontologies and a domain-reference ontology and their respective complementary roles in semantic-enabled geosciences are outlined. | 14058721 |
4,507,736 | The debt crisis and Greece's changing political discourse The debt crisis in Greece since 2010 has triggered seismic changes in the political attitudes of the society and, above all, the political identity and discourse of the country. The extremely unpopular austerity policies caused a severe internal polarization which quickly translated into anti-German mass hysteria, vitriolic anti-EU rhetoric and sharp anti-austerity populism. This paper will endeavour to identify the origins, course and outcome of this dramatic shift in the political attitudes and identity in Greece and analyse them with the benefit of hindsight – almost six years after the eruption of the crisis. | 158024771 |
4,507,737 | Mechanochemical Activation in Synthesis of LaTi0.5Mg0.5O3 Perovskite-Type Oxides Perovskite-type oxide of LaTi0.5Mg0.5O3 composition was synthesized from constituent oxide precursors by mechanochemical activation method in a high power planetary ball-mill, followed by thermal treatment of the product in air. The phase composition after mechanochemical activation of the binary and ternary mixtures was studied by XRPD, while the surface state of the constituent elements was characterized by XPS. The phase composition and surface properties of binary and ternary mixtures obtained by mechanochemical treatment show an affinity of the constituent oxides for the formation of perovskite-type compounds. Using thermally stable phase LaTi0.5Mg0.5O3 (perovskite-type) obtained by the applied procedure, a total oxidation of metane at 750 800 °C was achieved. | 100710621 |
4,507,738 | Determination of Equilibrium Constants for Weakly Bound Charge‐transfer Complexes Abstract— The evaluation of the equilibrium constants for charge‐transfer complex formation has been of interest for five decades. During this time, absorption spectroscopy using Benesi‐Hildebrand, or related methods, has been used to obtain the equilibrium constants. These methods require relatively high concentrations of donor or acceptor to be present in solution when weakly bound complexes are studied, conditions that lead to the formation of higher order complexes and inconsistent determinations of these constants. A new method is presented that allows weakly bound charge‐transfer complexes to be studied under low concentration conditions and the equilibrium constants to be determined accurately for the first time. Using this method, the equilibrium constant for the formation of 1, 2, 4, 5‐tetracyanobenzene/pentamethylbenzene charge‐transfer complex was found to be KCT= 6.8 ± 0.3 M−1 with an extinction coefficient at 400 nm of εCT= 150 ± 30cm−1M−1. | 98440621 |
4,507,739 | The Effect of Local Search on the Constrained Portfolio Selection Problem The portfolio selection problem is a prominent example for multi-objective optimization in financial engineering. While for some problem instances of the portfolio selection problem there are efficient optimization algorithms, other problem instances can only be addressed by means of meta-heuristics like evolutionary algorithms. These more complicated problem instances include portfolio selection with multiple quadratic objectives or with non-linear constraints, like cardinality constraints. Evolutionary algorithms allow hybridization with local search heuristics, resulting in so called memetic algorithms. Such memetic approaches to the portfolio selection problem seem to be an interesting alternative. Unfortunately, the interaction between the evolutionary global search and the local search heuristic is complicated and difficult to understand. In this paper we evaluate the hybridization of a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm and a quadratic programming local search on multiple instances of the constrained and unconstrained portfolio selection problem using a problem specific representation. This multi-objective memetic algorithm proves to be a two-edged approach: On the one hand it improves the convergence rate for some problem instances. While on other hand problem instances the local search causes a neutral search space and eventually premature convergence. This paper investigates this behavior more closely, offers a plausible explanation and also outlines a possible remedy. | 22301571 |
4,507,740 | Emergence of TCF7L2 as a Most Promising Gene in Predisposition of Diabetes Type II Abstract The genetics of the complex disorder like Diabetes Type II, which is clinically diagnosed as disease of insulin resistance and impaired insulin secretion leading to impaired glucose homeostasis in body, remains a nightmare for geneticists. But the recent progress in identification of a most promising marker in predisposition of diabetes Type II, namely, TCF7L2 with its large effect size and its global presence in various ethnically and geographically different populations offers some hope as the robust genetic approach like genome-wide association studies seem to corroborate the evidence in favour of association of this gene with predisposition to the disease. This paper presents a comprehensive review of studies on the association of this gene with type II diabetes. | 55211521 |
4,507,741 | Sparks Are Flying: The Growing Tension Between Energy Storage and Fire Safety Stakeholders This paper explores how overly zealous and protective battery energy storage codes could ultimately work against the goals of consumers by demonstrating the complex relationship between energy needs, potential hazards, and regulation. To ground this discussion, this paper first gives an overview of what energy storage is, what the key hazards are regarding storage, and why it is vital component of renewable energy generation. The nuanced relationship between the needs of consumers and motivation of regulators is illustrated by examining how energy storage could have mitigated some of Hurricane Sandy’s impact on New York City and also how N.Y.C.’s 2018 outdoor energy storage guidelines effectively limit the access to energy storage. Finally, this paper provides several recommendations regarding how to develop battery energy storage regulations that better protect consumers while still enabling consumers to benefit from energy storage. | 237527521 |
4,507,742 | Preparation and Photocatalytic Performance of MoS2/ZnS/ZnO‐T Heterojunction Photocatalyst for Dye Degradation in Water In this study, a ternary heterojunction which consists of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), zinc sulfide (ZnS), and tetrapod‐like zinc oxide (ZnO‐T) nanostructures is prepared through a facile hydrothermal method. Benefiting from the generation of 1T phase MoS2 and ZnS with high photoelectrochemical properties, the material exhibits outstanding charge separation and transfer performances while degrading methylene blue. According to the results of the photodegradation experiment, the MoS2/ZnS/ZnO‐T composite displays not only excellent photocatalytic reduction activity but also remarkable adsorption performance. The photocatalytic activity is improved twice higher, and the first‐order rate constant is 4.22 times than pure ZnO‐T. Moreover, the good recyclability after 3 continuous cycles implies excellent stability for practical applications. This study develops a high‐efficient photocatalyst for contaminated water treatment. | 248113171 |
4,507,743 | Holy Motherhood: Gender, Dynasty and Visual Culture in the Later Middle Ages. By Elizabeth L'Estrange religious groups, the latter was much more responsive to such submissions and much more aware of the difficulties of framing a law that is fair to all sections of the population, without being either counter-productive or unenforceable. The most valuable aspects of the book are, first, the broad historical sweep, pinpointing the major changes over time, and, second, the treatment of the contemporary situation. My main reservation is that, in spite of the strengths in the treatment of earlier and more recent periods, discussion of the period from about the 1890s to the 1980s is thin. This seems to arise from the fact that the author is at home dealing with either blasphemers or those who were bitterly offended by their blasphemies, but he finds it harder to deal with the growing number of believers who tolerated (or in some cases even enjoyed) these alleged blasphemies. As far as the latter is concerned, my memory is that many of those who most appreciated Monty Python’s Life of Brian were Christians. But equally significant was the fact that even those Christians who found the film offensive generally accepted the right of others to lampoon their faith. There is a danger here of overstating the influence of Mary Whitehouse, and of such bodies as Christian Voice, while neglecting the question of why such voices have come to be unrepresentative. These reservations apart, this book is a valuable contribution both to history and to | 164069471 |
4,507,744 | contemporary debate. | 164069471 |
4,507,745 | CD4+ and CD8+ regulatory T cells characterization in the rat using a unique transgenic Foxp3-EGFP model Background CD4+ and CD8+ regulatory T cells (Treg) in diverse species include different subsets from different origins. In all species, CD8+ Treg have been poorly characterized. CD4+ and CD8+ Treg in rats have only partially been characterized and there is no rat model in which FOXP3+ Treg are genetically tagged. Results We generated a rat transgenic line using the CRISPR/Cas9 system in which EGFP was inserted in frame on the 3’ end of the Foxp3 gene using a 2A self-cleaving peptide. EGFP was exclusively expressed by CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in similar proportion as observed with anti-FOXP3 antibodies. CD4+EGFP+ Treg were 5-10 times more frequent than CD8+EGFP+ Treg. CD4+ and CD8+ EGFP+ Treg expressed both the CD25highCD127lowCD45RClow/- markers. The suppressive activity of CD4+ and CD8+ Treg was largely confined to EGFP+ cells. RNAseq analyses showed similarities but also differences among CD4+ and CD8+ EGFP+ cells and provided the first description of the natural FOXP3+ CD8+ Treg transcriptome. In vitro culture of CD4+ and CD8+ EGFP- cells with TGFbeta and IL-2 resulted in the induction of EGFP+ Treg. Preferential expansion of CD4+ and CD8+ EGFP+ Treg could be detected upon in vivo administration of a low dose of IL-2. Conclusions This new and unique Foxp3-EGFP rat line constitutes a useful model to identify and isolate viable natural and induced CD4+ and CD8+ Treg. Additionally, it allows to identify new molecules expressed in CD8+ Treg that may allow to better define | 245059271 |
4,507,746 | their phenotype and function not only in rats but also in other species. | 245059271 |
4,507,747 | Regulatory Role for Growth Hormone in Statural Growth: IGF-Dependent and IGF-Independent Effects on Growth Plate Chondrogenesis and Longitudinal Bone Growth. It was initially thought that the growth-promoting effects of GH were exclusively mediated by liver-derived Insulin-like Growth Factor-I (IGF-I). Subsequent studies demonstrated that GH promotes IGF-I synthesis and activity in other organs and in the growth plate. GH has also IGF-I-independent growth-promoting effects. In Igf1 null mice, high circulating GH levels may be responsible for normal chondrocyte proliferation. Furthermore, tibial growth is reduced more in Ghr null mice than in Igf1 null mice, while the body of mice lacking both Ghr and Igf1 is smaller than that of mice lacking Igf1 or Ghr. The increased IGF-II expression in the growth plate in Igf1 null mice suggests that the IGF-I-independent effects of GH may be mediated by IGF-II. The effects of Igf1 receptor (Igf1r) gene deletion in chondrocytes indicate that GH may promote growth directly at the growth plate even when the local effects of IGF-I and IGF-II are abrogated. | 53108721 |
4,507,748 | The Football Industry and the Capitalist Political Economy: A Square Peg in a Round Hole? The modern football industry has the appearance of a capitalist success story, in as much as it has succumbed to commercialization and is awash with capital. However, to what extent does this appearance hold? Examining the football industry from the vantage point of Marxism, which views surplus value extraction as the measure of the essence of capitalist enterprise, this article argues that football may be increasingly commercialized but it is not fully capitalist. The industry cannot sustain surplus value extraction, but instead acts parasitically on outlying industries for external sources of revenues it cannot then control to develop a strategy towards surplus extraction within football. The industry is at best quasi-capitalist and a good example of the speculative nature of the current phase of capitalism. The reasons for the strategic failure to become fully capitalist rests mainly with lack of control over elite player power, but also with the industry's pact with other sources of revenues, as well as the nature of the relationship between fan and club—all of which are identified and deveoped in the article which follows. | 153998621 |
4,507,749 | Transformative binding and release of gold guests from a self-assembled Cu8L4 tube. The highly specific binding, transformation and protection of chemical compounds are functions associated with biomolecular systems inner phases, pockets of space that are wellisolated from the external environment. A growing number of abiological host molecules have been developed to emulate these functions. Container molecules have been developed that can encapsulate xenon and sulfur hexafluoride with the specificity that hemoglobin and myoglobin exhibit when binding and transporting dioxygen within the body. The ability of enzymes to transform substrates by binding to the transition state of a reaction has inspired the use of container molecules to catalyze reactions and the protection of the highly reactive active sites of nitrogenases from atmospheric oxidation, has been mimicked, allowing sensitive compounds to be stabilized within synthetic hosts. Whereas nature makes use of narrow tubular channels for purposes ranging from carbon monoxide reduction to ion transport, most synthetic capsules have compact binding cavities. 12] In order to investigate the specific binding and transformation of linear substrates within rigid tubular hosts, we designed and synthesized tetramine subcomponent A (Figure 1). Based on modeling studies and our prior experience with copper(I)-templated subcomponent selfassembly, we predicted A to have the correct geometry to assemble into a Cu8L4 8+ host with a narrow central channel. Indeed, A, 6-methyl-2-formylpyridine and tetrakis(acetonitrile)copper(I) tetrafluoroborate reacted in the ratios shown in Figure 1 to form the deep red-purple product 1 in acetonitrile. Electrospray ionization mass spectra (ESI-MS) and elemental analysis of 1 were consistent with the formula [Cu8L4](BF4)8, | 28481371 |
4,507,750 | but H and C NMR spectra indicated the presence of two distinct product structures. Vapor diffusion of diethyl ether into an acetonitrile solution of 1 led to the isolation of opaque crystals having two different crystalline aspects. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction experiments revealed that two isomeric structures had crystallized separately, allowing the structures of both to be determined (Figure 2). In both isomers, four self-assembled ligands, each formed from one residue of A and four 2-formyl6-methylpyridine residues, are observed to wrap around eight Cu template ions to create tube-like complexes with approximate D2d and D4 point symmetries, in which the copper(I) ions form an elongated cuboidal structures. The ligands adopt different conformations in these two diastereomers of 1, as shown in Figure 1. In 1-D2d, the long faces of the cuboid form isosceles trapezoids, with the shorter faces forming rectangles. The parallel ligands of 1-D2d thus come together in such a way as to eliminate internal void volume, as shown in Figure 2c and d. In 1-D4, the cuboid approximates a right square prism in which one of the square faces is twisted by 408 with respect to the other. This ligand arrangement results in a narrow tubular channel having a radius of ca. 2.1 and a volume of 193 . In the crystal structure two acetonitrile molecules were found encapsulated in this channel (Figure 2a and b). The 1-D2d and 1-D4 diastereomers in the solid state were also observed in solution by H and C NMR spectroscopy. The different symmetries of these isomers led to different | 28481371 |
4,507,751 | NMR peak multiplicities. Kinetic studies (described in the Supporting Information) revealed activation enthalpies and entropies of 148 5 kJmol 1 and 134 15 J K 1 mol 1 respectively for the isomerization from 1-D4 to 1-D2d, and 85 7 kJmol 1 and 62 21 J K 1 mol 1 for the reverse transformation (from 1-D2d to 1-D4). The rate constants for both transformations were identical at 323 K, marking 1-D4 as the dominant species in solution below this temperature, and 1D2d above. As the interior of 1-D4 was observed to accommodate two acetonitrile molecules in the crystal, we reasoned that other linear guests might also bind within this host. No new peaks were observed in the H NMR spectrum, however, following the addition to an acetonitrile solution of 1 (1.8 mm) of either: 1) the potassium salts of Ag(CN)2 , Cu(CN)2 , CN , OCN , SCN , SeCN , N3 , H2F , or F (1 equiv in each case), 2) CuCN, Ni(CN)2, Hg(CN)2, CS2, 1,4-dichlorobut-2-yne, succinonitrile, butyronitrile, C6F6, or but-2-yne (5 equiv), or 3) N2O, C2H4, or C2H2, (by bubbling the gas through the acetonitrile solution for 5 min at 25 8C), suggesting that no guest binding occurred. Despite these other guests failure to bind, the addition of KAu(CN)2 to an acetonitrile solution of 1 produced a new host–guest complex 2, as identified by NMR spectroscopy (Figure S40, Supporting Information) and ESI-MS. Mass spectra indicated that the dicyanoaurate adduct of 1 was not a simple 1:1 complex, however, but rather that the guest species | 28481371 |
4,507,752 | was the complex anion Cu(Au(CN)2)2 , leading to the formulation of 2 as [Cu(Au(CN)2)2 1-D4] (Figure 3). The [*] W. Meng, Dr. J. K. Clegg, Dr. J. R. Nitschke University of Cambridge, Department of Chemistry Lensfield Road, Cambridge, CB2 1EW (UK) E-mail: [email protected] Homepage: http://www-jrn.ch.cam.ac.uk/ | 28481371 |
4,507,753 | Statistical analysis of suitability of the activity based costing method in agricultural enterprises Purpose. The paper focuses on comparing two cost calculation method describing the principle, utilisation, advantages and disadvantages of the traditional mark-up on cost pricing (overhead method) against Activity Based Costing (ABC), a new, unconventional method of cost calculation. The aim is to prove that the ABC method allocates costs differently to individual products, in a different proportion thereto, unlike the mark-up method. The ABC method is considered by us more accurate because it views differently how costs originate. Methodology / approach. Statistical data testing was carried out, using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk W tests, followed by a paired t-test, and completed with the Wilcoxon signed-ranks test. The data was evaluated for eight selected products, whose overhead value was calculated from both marking-up and ABC, out of a selected set of primary agricultural enterprises in Slovakia. Finally, the results were assessed with an unproven statistically significant difference between the calculation methods found. Results. This paper emphasises a different view of costing with the ABC method which, unlike conventional methods, offers multidimensionality and variation of cost tracking based on real and relevant data. A statistically significant difference between the methods was demonstrated for three pairs of variables (out of a total eight pairs). Statistically significant differences were found for cattle, wheat and sugar beets. Although statistical testing has not shown any significant difference between the methods, ABC is still considered a more accurate costing method for allocating overhead. The argument here follows from the very | 240629121 |
4,507,754 | principle and method of ABC allocation of overheads. Unlike traditional methods, ABC offers multidimensional and diverse cost tracking based on real and relevant data. The direct allocation of costs (using an equal budget base) to products and services does not necessarily capture actual cost flows. Because overheads are higher on farms, misleading data can be provided. Practical experience in agriculture seems to imply that the ABC method is the most cost-effective tool for cost control and encourages its further use in budgeting, planning, modelling and decision-making. Originality / scientific novelty. The paper focuses on cost calculations made in agricultural holdings, often a neglected topic in agricultural management. In particular, high overhead costs in agriculture deserve more attention. Their exact allocation to products is important. The paper also focuses on assessing the suitability of calculation methods in agricultural holdings and on pointing out the need for accurate cost allocation. Practical value / implications. The main results and ideas here can be beneficial for managing agricultural holdings. Where the proportion of overheads is higher, management may be provided with misleading data. Practical experience shows the ABC method to be currently the most cost-effective tool for controlling costs and provides opportunities for its use in budgeting, planning, modelling and decision-making on product range structure, alongside other options. | 240629121 |
4,507,755 | Energy Affordability in the UK: Corrected Energy Expenditure Shares 1992-2014 The retail energy market in the UK is highly politicised and since the turn of the millennium successive governments have pursued significant policies designed to ease the affordability of energy for certain groups. One of these policies, namely Winter Fuel Payments, represents both a significant increase in resources targeted at affordability support and a shift in emphasis from those on low incomes towards the elderly. This paper tracks the proportion of household expenditure devoted to energy between 1992 and 2014, implementing a major new correction to energy expenditure for households with prepayment meters, who tend to be low income households. First, the time series is used to argue that the political salience of distributional concerns in the retail energy market should not come as a surprise. Second, we find that while households with a head aged over 80 have elevated energy expenditure shares (similar to households at the bottom of the income distribution), pensioners aged 65-70 have energy expenditure shares comparable to households at the middle of the income distribution. Third, mapping major policy developments against the time series shows the most generous and ambitious affordability support schemes were introduced when energy was nearing its most affordable over a 35-year period, suggesting political considerations influenced both the recipients of support and the timing of interventions. | 55516971 |
4,507,756 | [Cortico-renal oxygen pressures in acute venous renal obstruction]. In a pilot study experiments on animals were done to follow oxygen pressure fields on the kidney surface during different degrees of cavorenal obstruction. Acute, complete blockade of one hour duration at the side of the suprarenal vena cava (group I), of the supra- and infra-renal vena cava (group II), of the left renal vein close to the vena cava (group III) and of the left renal vein close to the kidney (group IV) show gradually increasing disturbances of corticorenal oxygen supply and its postobstructive recovery. How far these changes correlate with the intra-renal circulation has to be clarified by simultaneous measurements. | 21221071 |
4,507,757 | Canal transportation and centering ability of root canals prepared using rotary and reciprocating systems with and without PathFiles in cone-beam computed tomography-based three-dimensional molar prototypes Background: It is important to use instruments that cause minimal changes in the canal path for root canal preparation. There is inadequate literature comparing rotary and reciprocating systems and hand files. No study used three-dimensional printed models to compare rotary, reciprocating, and hand files. Aims: We aimed to assess the canal transportation and centering ability of WaveOne Gold, ProTaper Gold, and NiTi Flex K-file systems with and without glide path preparation. Material and Methods: Forty-nine resin models were randomly divided into Group I A – WaveOne Gold with WaveOne Gold Glider and Group I B – WaveOne Gold without glide path; Group II A – ProTaper Gold with ProGlider and Group II B – ProTaper Gold without glide path; and Group III A – NiTi Flex K-files with no. 10 stainless steel K-file and Group III B – NiTi Flex K-files without glide path. Pre- and postinstrumentation cross-sectional images at levels 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 mm were compared. Results: WaveOne Gold caused the least canal transportation and improved centering ability (P < 0.05). NiTi Flex K-files transported the canal more than others in the apical levels (3, 5 mm). Glide path creation reduced canal transportation and improved canal-centering ability. Conclusions: WaveOne Gold system has better centering ability and lesser canal transportation than ProTaper Gold and NiTi Flex K-file. Glide path creation reduced canal transportation and improved canal-centering ability. | 245089221 |
4,507,758 | Witnesses of War: Children's Lives Under the Nazis power, preparation, expertise, and resources within the Axis grouping. Yet, greater multilateral coordination might have alleviated those problems, and the Germans consistently avoided it. They neither prepared nor seemed to desire coordinated coalitional warfare, and even their own interservice coordination eluded them. While the reasons lay partly in the pre-Nazi institutional culture of the German armed forces, ideology also played a role. To be sure, neither lopsided alliances, nor military overextension, nor haphazard planning are afflictions exclusive to right-wing ideological coalitions. But there was a crucial difference between the Nazis’ racial war of territorial aggrandizement, with its ideologically driven recklessness and jackal-like opportunities and simultaneous risks for allies that came late to the party, and their opponents’ war of national and international viability. While DiNardo’s examples vividly illustrate all of these points, it would have been worthwhile had he more explicitly sorted out the issue that is everywhere between the lines here—namely, the extent to which the internal nature of the Nazi regime (and its “fascist” partners) systematically exacerbated the underlying problem of coalitional lopsidedness. Greater dialogue with the body of literature on the Nazis’ general patterns of institutional polycracy might have added an intriguing dimension here. A table of abbreviations and legends that explain the symbols on the maps would also have been helpful. But these comments should not obscure DiNardo’s achievement. What DiNardo demonstrates is the importance of taking seriously the notion of the Axis as a military coalition, albeit a dysfunctional one. By examining not | 143833271 |
4,507,759 | only the traditional area of strategic and battlefield dispensations but also some aspects of the educative and administrative culture of the military, DiNardo engagingly illuminates an often overlooked element in the military history of World War II. In the process, he offers an opportunity to contemplate the timeless problem of how to assess the factors that influence a great power’s effectiveness when it conducts coalitional warfare. | 143833271 |
4,507,760 | A method for monitoring hydrological conditions beneath herbaceous wetlands using multi-temporal ALOS PALSAR coherence data Reed marshes, the world’s most widespread type of wetland vegetation, are undergoing major changes as a result of climate changes and human activities. The presence or absence of water in reed marshes has a significant impact on the whole ecosystem and remains a key indicator to identify the effective area of a wetland and help estimate the degree of degeneration. Past studies have demonstrated the use of interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) to map water-level changes for flooded reeds. However, the identification of the different hydrological states of reed marshes is often poorly understood. The analysis given in this paper shows that L-band interferometric coherence is very sensitive to the water surface conditions beneath reed marshes and so it can be used as classifier. A method based on a statistical analysis of the coherence distributions for wet and dry reeds using InSAR pairs was, therefore, investigated in this study. The experimental results were validated by in-situ data and showed very good agreement. This is the first time that information about the water cover under herbaceous wetlands has been derived using interferometric coherence values. This method can also effectively and easily be applied to monitor the hydrological conditions beneath other herbaceous wetlands. | 42367221 |
4,507,761 | Magnetic and electronic properties of the Cu-substituted Weyl semimetal candidate ZrCo2Sn. We report that the partial substitution of Cu for Co has a significant impact on the magnetic properties of the Heusler-phase Weyl fermion candidate ZrCo2Sn. Polycrystalline samples of ZrCo2-x Cu x Sn (x = 0.0-1.0) exhibited a linearly decreasing ferromagnetic transition temperature and similarly decreasing saturated magnetic moment on increasing Cu substitution x. Materials with Cu contents near x = 1 and several other quaternary materials synthesized at the same x (ZrCoT'Sn (T' = Rh, Pd, Ni)) display what appears to be non-ferromagnetic magnetization behavior with spin glass characteristics. Electronic structure calculations suggest that the half-metallic nature of unsubstituted ZrCo2Sn is disrupted significantly by the Cu substitutions, leading to the breakdown of the magnetization versus electron count guidelines usually followed by Heusler phases, and a more typical metallic non-spin-polarized electronic structure at high x. | 206082721 |
4,507,762 | An assessment of artefacts in localized and non‐localized 31P MRS studies of phosphate metabolites and pH in rat tumours UA hepatomas, GH3 prolactinomas and N‐methyl‐N‐nitrosourea‐induced mammary tumours, which were subcutaneously grown in rats, have been studied by 31P MRS using non‐localized pulse‐acquire, image selected in vivo spectroscopy (ISIS) and one‐dimensional chemical shift imaging (1‐D CSI) techniques. Comparisons have been made with measurements from acid extracts of these tumour types and surrounding tissues (i.e., muscle and skin). Since muscle containing high concentrations of phosphocreatine (PCr) is often found adjacent to the tumour, we have compared the ratio of the PCr to γ‐NTP peaks in the spectra with the same ratio calculated from the acid extract data, and have used deviations between the two sets of data to assess the discrimination of the MRS localization technique to signals from the tissue surrounding the tumour. Extract data showed an average NTP content of 1.25 μmol/g wet wt for all three tumour types. PCr (at 0.42 μmol/g wet wt), was significant only in the GH3 prolactinoma whereas it was negligible in the other tumour types (<0.1 μmol/g wet wt). There was good agreement between the ISIS PCr/γ‐NTP ratio and the extract data for all tumours. However, the 1‐D CSI data showed an unexpectedly large contamination of the tumour spectrum with PCr signals from the skin which was shown by subsequent phantom experiments to be due to the curved geometry of tumour and skin rather than Fourier bleed. In pH measurements by MRS it was found that biological variability was greater | 25731721 |
4,507,763 | than the effects of artefacts (due to either the chemical shift artefact in the ISIS technique or partial volume effects) in the localization technique. An average pH of 7.2 was observed for all tumours. By initially comparing data from different localization schemes with that from chemical extracts potential sources of error have been highlighted and show that phantom studies alone are not sufficient to fully assess the accuracy of localized MRS data. | 25731721 |
4,507,764 | Prolonged coagulopathy related to coumarin rodenticide in a young patient: superwarfarin poisoning. Superwarfarins (brodifacoum, difenacoum, bromodialone and chlorphacinone) are anticoagulant rodenticides that were developed in 1970s to overcome resistance to warfarin in rats. A 26-year-old previously healthy man was admitted to the emergency department with epigastric pain, severe upper and lower gastrointestinal haemorrhage, gingival bleeding and melena. The patient stated that he had been healthy with no prior hospital admissions and no personal or family history of bleeding diathesis. The patient, who later admitted attempted suicide, stated that he had taken 400 g rodenticide including brodifacoum orally for five days prior to admission to hospital. He had oral mucosal bleeding, numerous bruises over the arms, legs and abdomen, and an abdominal tenderness, together with melena. Laboratory tests revealed a haemoglobin level of 12.3 g/dl, leucocyte count of 9.1 × 10(9) /l, haematocrit of 28% and platelet count of 280 × 10(9) /l. The prothrombin time (PT) was > 200 s (normal range 10.5-15.2 s) and the activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) was 91 s (normal range 20-45 s). The INR (International normalised ratio) was reported to be > 17 (normal range 0.8-1.2). The thrombin time and plasma fibrinogen levels were in the normal range. The results showed the presence of brodifacoum at a concentration of 61 ng/ml, detected by reversed-phase liquid chromatography. | 34116021 |
4,507,765 | [Graphic illustrations in old medical literature]. From around 1500 and up to the end of the 19th century, when photographs were introduced and gradually took over, graphic artwork was widely used in medical literature. Graphic techniques allowed for interpretations by the artist in collaboration with the medical scientist. They provide important glimpses into the history of art, into cultural and medical history, and into the history of science. Based primarily on the collections of the Oslo University Library, this article presents some of the high points in this tradition. | 42679821 |
4,507,766 | An Iterative Algorithm for Sizing Stand-Alone Photovoltaic System This paper presents a methodology for sizing Stand-Alone Photovoltaic (SAPV) system. An iterative-based sizing algorithm, known as ISA, was developed for determining the optimal PV module, battery, charge controller and inverter such that the expected Performance Ratio (PR) of the system could be maximized. The ISA basically evaluates all possible combinations of SAPV system components derived from the respective database of each component. Two sizing scenarios were evaluated based on the types of charge controller that has been used, i.e. the standard charge controller and maximum power point tracker (MPPT)-based charge controller. Results showed that the optimal sizing solution was discovered within 14 to 19 hours based on an evaluation of 46,080 possible combinations of components. | 112185771 |
4,507,767 | A generalization of the impulse and virial theorems with an application to bubble oscillations In the first part of the paper it is shown that the impulse and virial theorems of inviscid incompressible fluid mechanics are special cases of a more general theorem from which an infinity of relations can be obtained. Depending on the problem, only a finite number of these relations may be independent. An application of these results is in the approximate study of the hydrodynamic interaction of bodies. As an example, in the second part of the paper, the case of two freely translating, nonlinearly pulsating bubbles is considered. It is found that in certain parameter ranges the force between the bubbles has a sign opposite to what would be expected on the basis of the linear theory of Bjerknes forces. | 124466771 |
4,507,768 | Graphene quantum dots derived from carbon fibers. Graphene quantum dots (GQDs), which are edge-bound nanometer-size graphene pieces, have fascinating optical and electronic properties. These have been synthesized either by nanolithography or from starting materials such as graphene oxide (GO) by the chemical breakdown of their extended planar structure, both of which are multistep tedious processes. Here, we report that during the acid treatment and chemical exfoliation of traditional pitch-based carbon fibers, that are both cheap and commercially available, the stacked graphitic submicrometer domains of the fibers are easily broken down, leading to the creation of GQDs with different size distribution in scalable amounts. The as-produced GQDs, in the size range of 1-4 nm, show two-dimensional morphology, most of which present zigzag edge structure, and are 1-3 atomic layers thick. The photoluminescence of the GQDs can be tailored through varying the size of the GQDs by changing process parameters. Due to the luminescence stability, nanosecond lifetime, biocompatibility, low toxicity, and high water solubility, these GQDs are demonstrated to be excellent probes for high contrast bioimaging and biosensing applications. | 856621 |
4,507,769 | Pacing in sinus node disease to prevent atrial fibrillation Cardiac pacing is the only effective treatment for patients with symptomatic sinus node disease (SND). The majority of patients with SND have several risk factors associated with development of atrial fibrillation (AF) at the time of pacemaker implantation and are therefore considered a high-risk population. Patients with SND can be treated with any kind of commercially available pacemaker pacing in the atrium, the ventricle or both. Pacing in SND can therefore alter atrial and ventricular conduction and atrioventricular coupling. These mechanisms can prevent or contribute to initiation and maintenance of AF during pacing. Different pacemaker modalities and algorithms have been tested to reduce AF in patients with SND in recent decades. To prevent AF in this population, it seems to be important to mimic the optimal electromechanical function of the heart, especially to preserve an optimal atrioventricular coupling. | 31157221 |
4,507,770 | Identifying Heart Failure Patients at High Risk for Near-Term Cardiovascular Events With Serial Health Status Assessments Background— Identification of heart failure outpatients at increased risk for clinical deterioration remains a critical challenge, with few tools currently available to assist clinicians. We tested whether serial health status assessments with the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ) can identify patients at increased risk for mortality and hospitalization. Methods and Results— We evaluated 1358 patients with heart failure after an acute myocardial infarction in the Eplerenone's Neurohormonal Efficacy and Survival Study, a multicenter randomized trial that included serial KCCQ assessments. Cox proportional-hazards models were used to examine whether changes in KCCQ scores during successive outpatient visits were independently associated with all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality or hospitalization. Change in KCCQ (&Dgr;KCCQ) was linearly associated with all-cause mortality (hazard ratio [HR], for each 5-point decrease in &Dgr;KCCQ, 1.11; 95% CI, 1.04 to 1.19) and the combined outcome of cardiovascular mortality or hospitalization (HR for each 5-point decrease in &Dgr;KCCQ, 1.12; 95% CI 1.07 to 1.18). In Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, all-cause mortality among patients with &Dgr;KCCQ of ≤−10, >−10 to <10, and >10 points was 26%, 16%, and 13%, respectively (P=0.008). After multivariable adjustment, the linear relationship between &Dgr;KCCQ and both all-cause mortality and combined cardiovascular death and hospitalization persisted (HR, 1.09; 95% CI, 1.00 to 1.18; and HR, 1.11; 95% CI, 1.05 to 1.17 for each 5-point decrease in &Dgr;KCCQ, respectively). Conclusions— In heart failure outpatients, serial health status assessments with the KCCQ can identify high-risk patients and may prove useful | 11080121 |
4,507,771 | in directing the frequency of follow-up and the intensity of treatment. | 11080121 |
4,507,772 | Training of goal directed arm movements with motion interactive video games in children with cerebral palsy – A kinematic evaluation Abstract Objective: The main aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of goal-directed arm movements in 15 children with cerebral palsy (CP) following four weeks of home-based training with motion interactive video games. A further aim was to investigate the applicability and characteristics of kinematic parameters in a virtual context in comparison to a physical context. Method: Kinematics and kinetics were captured while the children performed arm movements directed towards both virtual and physical targets. Results: The children’s movement precision improved, their centre of pressure paths decreased, as did the variability in maximal shoulder angles when reaching for virtual objects. Transfer to a situation with physical targets was mainly indicated by increased movement smoothness. Conclusion: Training with motion interactive games seems to improve arm motor control in children with CP. The results highlight the importance of considering both the context and the task itself when investigating kinematic parameters. | 20460221 |
4,507,773 | [Splints in occupational therapy of the hand in an Austrian central hospital--current status]. Ergotherapeutic splinting is essential in the treatment of diseases, injuries and innate deformities of the hand. However due to its high material and staff costs, a definitely diagnosed indication is a prequisite for prescription. A retrospective study was performed using the Krankenhausinformationssystem (KIS) to establish the total number of hand splints prescribed by the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation of the General Hospital of Vienna from 1/1992 until 8/1998, as well as referring doctors/departments and diagnoses leading to referral were recorded and descriptively evaluated. The total number of patients was 1972. 1236 (63%) of the cases were referred by surgical departments/branches, 410 (20%) by internal departments, 151 (8%) by the neurological department and 175 (9%) by other departments. The diagnosis leading to referral were rheumatoid arthropathies (542 = 26%), peripheral nerve lesions (458 = 22%), tendon lesions (201 = 10%), Dupuytren' contractures after surgery (184 = 8%), degenerative joint diseases (82 = 4%), conditions after fractures (55 = 2.5%), patients after amputations (50 = 2.3%), disorders of the central nervous system (53 = 2.5%), focus removals (40 = 2%) and tendovagintis (35 = 1.7%). The remaining 19% were referred due to surgical repositionings, soft tissue injuries, local infections and various other diagnoses. The majority of ergotherapeutic splintings was prescribed due to forms of rheumatic or rheumatoid diseases, peripheral nerve lesions as well as hand surgery. In this study documenting the clinical practice of a medical center was primarily aimed at providing the | 25424971 |
4,507,774 | basis for further discussion of both factual and economic aspects of future developments in splinting. | 25424971 |
4,507,775 | The Ethics of Legal Process Outsourcing This paper examines the ethical requirements to legal process outsourcing with a specific focus on the ethical requirements of a Virginia lawyer wishing to outsource to India. The paper examines the duties of competence, confidentiality, conflict of interest, and others, in order to determine to what extent a lawyer could comply with his or her ethical requirements while much of the legal process entitled to ethical protection proceeds thousands of miles away. | 168133921 |
4,507,776 | Effect of Alpha and Beta Adrenergic Blockade on Epinephrine Induced Pulmonary Insufficiency Recent studies demonstrated that epinephrine causes significant pulmonary A-V shunting. This study reports the effect of alpha and beta adrenergic blockade on this shunting. Sixty-three anesthetized mongrel dogs were ventilated with a mechanical respirator. Measurements of (1) the pulmonary shunt, (2) cardiac output, (3) mean pulmonary artery, pulmonary capillary wedge and systemic pressures, and (4) pulmonary and systemic vascular resistances were obtained at 5, 15 and 30 minute intervals during the first hour and hourly for 5 hours. Fifteen dogs received no treatment. All others received epinephrine hydrochloride, 2 μg/kg/min for 5 hours. Ten received epinephrine only. Ten were pretreated with propranolol hydrochloride, 250 μg/kg, 12 with phenoxybenzamine, 1 mg/kg, and 16 with phenoxybenzamine and propranolol. Propranolol significantly decreased the epinephrine induced pulmonary shunt at all times and was the most effective drug. Phenoxybenzamine decreased the early shunting, but less than propranolol, and did not decrease the late shunting. Blockade with propranolol and phenoxy-benzamine was less effective than propranolol alone. Based on the observed hemodynamic changes it was suggested that beta blockade is effective in reducing epinephrine induced pulmonary insufficiency by favorably altering the flow and distribution of pulmonary blood flow which in turn decreases epinephrine induced ventilation-perfusion inequalities and capillary hypertension both of which result in shunting. Conversely phenoxy-benzamine has an unfavorable effect on the pulmonary flow. These studies support previous work in animals and man which showed that beta adrenergic stimulation is important in the pathogenesis of pulmonary insufficiency. Because the amounts | 11593171 |
4,507,777 | of epinephrine used produce blood levels observed in critical illness, these studies add support to a relationship between the increased catecholamine stimulation of critical illness and the associated and often unexplained pulmonary insufficiency | 11593171 |
4,507,778 | Robust Expectation-Maximization Algorithm for Multiple Wideband Acoustic Source Localization in the Presence of Nonuniform Noise Variances Wideband source localization using acoustic sensor networks has been drawing a lot of research interest recently. The maximum-likelihood is the predominant objective which leads to a variety of source localization approaches. However, the robust and efficient optimization algorithms are still being pursuit by researchers since different aspects about the effectiveness of such algorithms have to be addressed on different circumstances. In this paper, we would like to combat the source localization based on the realistic assumption where the sources are corrupted by the noises with nonuniform variances. We focus on the two popular source localization methods for solving this problem, namely the SC-ML (stepwise-concentrated maximum-likelihood) and AC-ML (approximately-concentrated maximum likelihood) algorithms. We explore the respective limitations of these two methods and design a new expectation maximization (EM) algorithm. Furthermore, we provide the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) for all these three methods. Through Monte Carlo simulations, we demonstrate that our proposed EM algorithm outperforms the SC-ML and AC-ML methods in terms of the localization accuracy, and the root-mean-square (RMS) error of our EM algorithm is closer to the derived CRLB than both SC-ML and AC-ML methods. | 15717271 |
4,507,779 | Confirmation and Christian Fellowship: Martin Bucer on Commitment to the Church During the last years of his ministry in Strasbourg, the Protestant reformer Martin Bucer and his fellow pastors introduced a new procedure for the exercise of church discipline, the voluntary enrollment of their parishioners in “Christian fellowships.” The parish structures created in Strasbourg have been regarded as forerunners of Pietist conventicles ever since the late seventeenth century, when Philip Jakob Spener justified his own Pietist assemblies by publishing a memorandum in which Bucer had defended the “Christian fellowships.” In the twentieth century, Gustav Anrich brought the attempt to establish “Christian fellowships” to the attention of scholars in his publication of an abridged version of Bucer's initial proposal. Anrich's student, Werner Bellardi, wrote the standard study of the movement's origin, development, and eventual disappearance on the basis of documents preserved in the Strasbourg archives. In their discussions of the movement, both Anrich and Bellardi were led astray by their assumption that Bucer originally intended to form conventicles of believers within the city's official church. In fact, those enrolled in “Christian fellowships” did not begin meeting together until the autumn of 1547, almost a year after Bucer first proposed the enrollment procedure. | 162355471 |
4,507,780 | Who Knows What? Maintaining Multiple Perspectives During Reading Recent findings (Keysar, 1994; Weingartner & Klin, 2005) have shown that readers are not always accurate at taking a story character's perspective. When readers evaluated a character's understanding of a written message, they mistakenly took into account information that was inaccessible to that character. The results from the three experiments reported here demonstrate that this “illusory transparency of intention” is not dependent on the message readers' communicative role: Even when the message was composed for one character but read by another, readers assumed that the message was understood as it was intended. The results are discussed in the context of two theoretical accounts for these perspective-taking errors: the “knowledge projection hypothesis,” which appeals to readers’ expectations about cooperative behavior during communication, and “construal,” which attributes the illusory transparency of intention to a general cognitive bias that occurs during the perception of ambiguous stimuli. | 144632121 |
4,507,781 | Testing for Heteroscedasticity in Multiple-Input-Single-Output (MISO) System Regression Model In this study of an input/output system, often using the regression model to forecast and analysis. In the classical regression analysis, usually assumes that the system has the observation value of homogeneity of variance, it can make the routine statistical inference. If the variance of the system of observations is non homogeneous, then the regression analysis will be difficult to accurately. In practice, the system of observation value is difficult to determine its homogeneity of variance. Therefore, to predict when the regression model, the homogeneity of variance testis very necessary. The main work in this paper is the likelihood ratio test statistic and Score test statistic comparison of multi input single output system model, and comparing the likelihood ratio test statistic and Score test statistic modified orthogonalization parameters obtained. This paper use Monte-Carlo method to simulate the effect of several kinds of Statistics. Simulation results show that: the effect of several test statistics have good test effect. | 244530771 |
4,507,782 | Regulation of RAR[32 mRNA Expression: Evidence for an Inhibitory Peptide Encoded in the 5'-untranslated Region Regulation of mRNA translation and stability plays an important role in the control of gene expression during embryonic development. We have recently shown that the tissue-specific expression of the RAR[32 gene in mouse embryos is regulated at the translational level by short upstream open reading frames (uORFs) In the 5'-untranslated region (Zimmer, A., A.M. Zimmer, and K. Reynolds. 1994. J. Cell Biol. 127:1111-1119). To gain insight into the molecular mechanism, we have performed a systematic mutational analysis of the uORFs. Two series of constructs were tested: in one series, each uORF was individually inactivated by introducing a point mutation in its start codon; in the second series, all but one ORF were inactivated. Our results indicate that individual uORFs may have different functions, uORF4 seems to inhibit translation of the major ORF in heart and brain, while uORFs 2 and 5 appear to be important for efficient translation in all tissues. To determine whether the polypeptide encoded by uORF4 or the act of translating it, is the significant event, we introduced point mutations to create silent mutations or amino acid substitutions in uORF4. Our results indicate that the uORF4 amino acid coding sequence is important for the inhibitory effect on translation of the downstream major 0 R F . T hE scanning model for translational initiation predicts that the translational initiation site is dictated by the location and sequence context of the initiation codon (Kozak, 1989a). The 40S preinitiation complex binds | 250421871 |
4,507,783 | to the 5' cap-proximal region of the mRNA and migrates downstream until it encounters an AUG in a favorable context. At this point, the 60S ribosomal subunit binds to the complex and protein synthesis commences. Most eukaryotic mRNAs have a short 5'-untranslated region (UTR) 1 without stable secondary structures and no upstream AUGs. These features enable the preinitiation complex to efficiently scan the 5'-region for the translation start site. Complex 5'-UTRs with upstream AUGs and/or the ability to form stable secondary structures are found only in a small minority of transcripts (Kozak, 1989a). Strinkingly, most of these genes, which include homeobox genes, proto-oncogenes, transcription factors, and signal transduction components are thought to play an important role in the regulation of embryonic development. It has been proposed that expression of many of these genes is regulated at the translational level (Kozak, 1989a). Please address all correspondence to A. Zimmer, Unit of Developmental Biology, Laboratory of Cell Biology, National Institutes of Mental Health, Building 36/3A17, Bethesda, MD 20892-4090. Tel.: (301) 496-7377. Fax: (301) 402-1748. E-mail: [email protected]. 1. Abbreviat ions used in this paper: lacZ, [3-galactosidase gene; RA, retinoic acid; RARI32, retinoic acid receptor-J32; uORF, open reading frame: UTR, untranslated region. The retinoic acid receptor-~2 (RARI32) mRNA has a complex 5'-UTR. RAR[32 is a retinoic acid (RA)-dependent transcription factor that belongs to the superfamily of steroid/thyroid hormone receptors (Evans, 1988). RA plays an important role as a signaling molecule during embryoic development and homeostasis. It is a very potent teratogen and can induce a large variety of severe congenital | 250421871 |
4,507,784 | defects, depending on the dose and time of exposure. Administration during early gastrulation, for example, results in craniofacial and heart defects (Kochhar, 1967) as well as skeletal abnormalities (Kessel and Gruss, 1991; Kessel, 1992). The family of RAR genes consists of three members designated as RARc~, RARI3, and RARe/. Several different transcripts are generated by each of these genes through differential splicing and promoter usage. The transcripts have different 5'-UTRs and encode for proteins with distinct NH2 termini. All isoforms share a common DNA-binding and COOH-terminal domain. Expression of the RARI32 isoform is strongly induced upon RA treatment through an RA responsive element. The expression pattern in gastrulating embryos is consistent with a potential role in teratogenesis (Zimmer and Zimmer, 1992). We have previously shown that expression of the RARI32 mRNA is regulated by a translational mechanism. The 5'-UTR of the RAR[32 mRNA, but not of the other isoforms, contains five short upstream open reading frames (uORFs) which precede the major ORF (Reynolds © The Rockefeller University Press, 0021-9525/96/08/827/9 $2.00 The Journal of Cell Biology, Volume 134, Number 4, August 1996 827-835 827 on April 30, 2019 jcb.rupress.org Downloaded from http://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.134.4.827 Published Online: 15 August, 1996 | Supp Info: | 250421871 |
4,507,785 | Comparison of the chemopreventive efficacies of garlic powders with different alliin contents against aflatoxin B1 carcinogenicity in rats. Garlic (Allium sativum) is well known for its beneficial effects on health and particularly for its chemopreventive potential against cancer. The present study was designed to compare the chemopreventive efficacies of several garlic powders with various levels of alliin, a precursor of active sulfur compounds. For this purpose we used the medium-term hepatocarcinogenesis protocol (resistant hepatocyte model), which allows the detection of preneoplasic foci expressing the placental form of glutathione S-transferase (GST-P) as an end-point. Rats were fed diets containing three garlic powders (5% of the diet) with various alliin contents for 3 weeks. Garlic powders were obtained from bulbs grown on soils with different levels of sulfur fertilization. During the period of garlic feeding hepatocarcinogenesis was initiated by administration of 10 i.p. injections of 0.025 mg/kg body weight aflatoxin B1 (AFB1). The rats were later submitted to 2-acetylaminofluorene treatment and partial hepatectomy, and GST-P foci were detected and quantified. Consumption of diets containing garlic powders decreased the appearance and size of hepatic GST-P foci. A strong reduction was observed in rats fed garlic containing the highest level of alliin. In addition, increased alliin content of the garlic powder was associated with a proportional decrease in the number and area of preneoplastic foci. Elsewhere, garlic powder ingestion increased hepatic ethoxyresorufin deethylase, glutathione S-transferase and UDP glucuronosyl transferase activities while no modification of nifedipine oxidase activity was found. We also observed an increase in the levels of GST A5 | 18709871 |
4,507,786 | and AFB1 aldehyde reductase. It is suggested that garlic partly exerts its anticarcinogenic effects through increasing enzymes involved in AFB1 detoxification. This study highlights the possibility of controlling the cultivation conditions to improve the chemopreventive efficacy of garlic. | 18709871 |
4,507,787 | LIPID PEROXIDATION AND ANTIOXIDANT RESPONSES OF MICROCOLEUS VAGINATUS WITH THE AID OF ATTAPULGITE-BASED NANOCOPMPOSITE TO WIND STRESS. Wind erosion is one of reasons which is formed desertification in arid and semiarid areas, many measures are used to achieve the sustainable land management. Microcoleus vaginatus can influence and offer limited protection to soils from wind erosion through its impact on controlling threshold friction velocity. Therefore, the aim of study is to explore the effectiveness and anti-wind erosion ability of Microcoleus vaginatus with the aid of attapulgite-based nanocomposite, and to find a method which can act as bioindicators for investigating wind erosion in arid and semiarid areas in the future, with the hope of offering a method to prevent desertification and provide a valuable measure for the sustainable development of the environment. In this study, the effects of wind stress on reactive oxygen species (ROS), malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD), glutathione (GSH) and the surface character of the soil were analyzed. The results showed that increased ROS and MDA, decreased GSH, changed SOD, POD and CAT, and enhanced soil structure in Microcoleus vaginatus with the aid of attapulgite-based nanocomposite were influenced by 3m·s-1 and 5m·s-1 wind erosion. Further analysis demonstrated that increased SOD, POD and CAT and decreased GSH eliminated ROS and MDA through the antioxidant defense response of Microcoleus vaginatus with the aid of attapulgite-based nanocomposite. Overall results revealed that Microcoleus vaginatus with the aid of attapulgite-based nanocomposite had an important physiological adaptation for the elimination of ROS and lipid peroxidation induced by | 250337821 |
4,507,788 | wind stress and could play a function in alleviating wind erosion. | 250337821 |
4,507,789 | Recent advances in point-of-care testing for natriuretic peptides: potential impact on heart failure diagnosis and management ABSTRACT Heart failure is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The presenting symptoms of heart failure are often nonspecific. The diagnosis of heart failure has traditionally relied heavily upon clinical exam findings, which are often subjective and have low sensitivity. Efficient and rapid diagnosis of heart failure in the emergency room setting can reduce health care costs, hospital admission and ER visits, and improve patient care. Natriuretic peptides are objective biomarkers that can help with diagnosis, prognosis and management of heart failure. The most extensively studied and clinically utilized natriuretic peptides include brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) and N-terminal proBNP (NT-proBNP). Point-of-care testing in the emergency room setting can result in faster triage times. Point-of-care testing can also be utilized in the outpatient setting for real-time management of patients with heart failure. | 3360971 |
4,507,790 | Measurement Properties of a Test Battery to Assess Postural Orientation During Functional Tasks in Patients Undergoing Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury Rehabilitation STUDY DESIGN: Cross‐sectional study. BACKGROUND: Visual rating of postural orientation during functional tasks may be a valuable tool to track rehabilitation progress following anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. A valid test battery assessing postural orientation as a separate construct is lacking. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate measurement properties of a test battery to assess postural orientation in patients with ACL injury. METHODS: The content validity of functional tasks was assessed by expert focus group discussions. Fifty‐one patients (45% women) with ACL injury performed 9 functional tasks of varying difficulty. Interpretability, internal consistency, interrater reliability, and measurement error were assessed for segment‐specific postural orientation errors (POEs), within‐task POEs, and total POE score. Postural orientation errors were scored on video on an ordinal scale from 0 (no POEs) to 3 (major POEs). RESULTS: Stair ascent, deep squat, and crossover hop for distance were excluded in focus group discussions. Postural orientation errors in some tasks were excluded due to floor effects. The mini‐squat and drop jump were excluded due to poor internal consistency (&agr;≤.184). Interrater reliability values for segment‐specific POEs and within‐task POEs yielded fair to almost perfect agreement (&kgr; = 0.429–0.875) and almost perfect agreement for total POE score (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.842), without systematic differences between raters. The smallest detectable changes were 0.7 and 5 points for groups and individuals, respectively. CONCLUSION: The final test battery (single‐leg mini‐squat, stair descent, forward lunge, single‐leg hop for distance) of | 3503121 |
4,507,791 | 4 POEs (foot pronation, medial knee‐to‐foot position, hip joint POEs, and trunk segment POEs) demonstrated good measurement properties in people with ACL injury. | 3503121 |
4,507,792 | Multi-supplier power grid framework based on multicommodity routing Future power grid architectures need to efficiently incorporate new small-scale renewable energy suppliers in addition to large-scale power plants. We introduce a multi-producer multi-consumer congestion model of a power supply network, where production and transmission costs depend on the congestion in corresponding nodes and arcs of the network graph. The consumer goal is to meet their energy demand by purchasing energy from multiple suppliers while minimizing costs. We formulate the cost minimization problems for energy consumers with the assumption of constant-per-unit profit for energy producers. By adding a fictitious node to the graph with arcs toward the supplier nodes, we can formulate a networking game with a single source and multiple destinations. We apply multicommodity atomic routing methods and results to this system model in order to investigate the existence, the uniqueness and the efficiency of Nash equilibria for certain classes of cost functions. The efficiency is established in a simple example of this framework with a star-shaped network topology. Finally, we discuss possible extensions of the model. | 1867671 |
4,507,793 | Probabilistic Models of Yield, Price, and Revenue Risks for Fed Cattle Production Cattle feeding enterprises operate amid variability originating in prices and production. This research explicitly models yield risks related to cattle feeding by relating the mean and variance of yield performance factors to observable conditioning variables. The results demonstrate that pen characteristics, such as entry weight, gender, placement season, and location influence the mean and variability of yield factors, defined as dry matter feed conversion, average daily gain, mortality, and animal health costs. Ex ante profit distributions, conditional on cattle placement characteristics, are derived through simulation methods to evaluate the effects of price or yield shocks on the distributional characteristics of expected profits. | 27106621 |
4,507,794 | Improve of the ATDD in Cognitive Radio Wireless Network The radio spectrum is limited, but in urban and rural areas some bands of radio spectrum are idle in most of the time. Some bands of radio spectrum are occupied occasionally. On the other hand, some bands are excessively used. This paper propsed an adaptive time division Duplex (ATDD) technology to effectively improve the transmission delay in the large range ,such as the rural network in 802.22 network. | 10723571 |
4,507,795 | The modern features of optimal therapy of cervical neoplasia on the background of bacterial vaginosis Research objective: to evaluate the effectiveness of vaginal decametoxinum in preparation for cervix excision (conization) in women with HSIL (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) II) against the background of infection with high-risk human papilloma virus (HPV) in bacterial vaginosis (BV) and effectiveness of vaginal gel with decametoxinum and hyaluronic acid to improve repair in the postoperative period.Materials and methods. 60 women with HSIL (CIN II) were examined against the background of high-risk oncogenic HPV infection and BV, who underwent loop cervix excision (conization). The main group (n = 30) on the eve of surgery was prescribed BV therapy with decametoxinum solution and oral metronidazole for up to 7 days, after cervical excision used vaginal gel with decametoxinum and hyaluronic acid for 14 days. The control group (30 patients) used oral metronidazole for 7 days for the BV treatment.Visual cervix inspection was performed by colposcopy. Vaginal biocenosis was assessed by PCR. Elimination of oncogenic HPV strains was assessed by PCR.Results. Decametoxinum in the combination therapy of HSIL (CIN II) caused faster and complete epithelialization of the wound surface than standard therapy (relative risk (RR) 0.27, 95% CI 0.10 – 0.71, p = 0.008). 3 months after decametoxinum use was determined by a significant increase in cases of vaginal microbiota normalization (RR 0.30, 95% CI 0.09 – 0.98, p = 0.047), an increase in the lactobacilli number in vaginal secretions (RR 0.31, 95% CI 0.11 – 0.84, p = 0.02). There was a statistically | 239980171 |
4,507,796 | significant effect of decametoxinum on the oncogenic HPV elimination (RR 0.22, 95% CI 0.05 – 0.94, p = 0.04) after 6 months of combination therapy. No side effects of decametoxinum were noted either during therapy or at a later date.Conclusions. Vaginal use of decametoxinum before and after loop cervix excision in women with HSIL (CIN II) on the background of high-risk HPV and BV showed acceleration of cervical reparative processes, pronounced antimicrobial effect, elimination of oncogenic HPV and safety. | 239980171 |
4,507,797 | Magnesium hydroxide nanoplates: a pH-responsive platform for hydrophobic anticancer drug delivery. The cost of conventional chemotherapeutic drugs is substantially high, and biomedical researchers are constantly hunting for cheap and effective chemotherapeutic alternatives. Recently, curcumin has emerged as a cost effective anticancer remedy, however, the low bioavailability of curcumin has been a major impediment to its successful utilization for disease management. In this work, we developed a highly biocompatible magnesium hydroxide as an intelligent nanocarrier for delivering curcumin into cancer cells. Curcumin was loaded onto magnesium hydroxide nanoplates via a complexation strategy. Furthermore, these drug conjugated nanoparticles not only achieve efficient loading of a highly hydrophobic drug, but also exhibit pH responsive release in extracellular or intracellular acid environments, validated by in vitro drug release, confocal microscopy and MTT assay. These biocompatible nanoplates can be promising candidates for the further development of smart drug delivery nanodevices. | 96286571 |
4,507,798 | A clinico-social study of functional disabilities among elderly in Palam Village of Delhi Introduction: Aging, an integral part of living, typically is accompanied by gradual but progressive physiological changes and an increased prevalence of acute and chronic illness and is further compounded by impairment of special sensory functions like vision and hearing and difficulties in performing their routine daily activities seriously affecting the economic, social and psychological aspect of life of older people with disabilities. Objective: To estimate the magnitude of functional disability and its association with various socio-demographic variables among the elderly persons in Palam village of Delhi. Material and Methods: People aged more than 60 years of both sexes and willing to participate were included in this community based cross-sectional study. Barthel ADL index was used for assessment of activities of daily living disability, Snellen's distance vision chart for visual acuity assessment and whisper test was used for hearing assessment. The participants were categorized as functionally disabled if either ADL disability or better eye presenting vision <6/60 or bilateral hearing impairment or a combination of either these were present. Results: The prevalence of functional disability was found to be 23.1% in the study population and was more unmarried/widow/widower group, among illiterates, lower socio-economic class and financially dependent group. Conclusion: Research and studies on elderly in India especially in field of functional disability are less and community dwelling elderly has been neglected at large. Hence it would be useful to estimate the burden of functional disabilities among elderly so that adequate and timely preventive and | 187256371 |
4,507,799 | rehabilitative measures can be taken. | 187256371 |
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